Posted on 03/14/2008 4:48:04 PM PDT by Bokababe
Today there seems to be little if any national memory of history to influence the foreign policy of the American super-power – merely what appears to be the most expedient at the moment, whether it conforms to international law and a United Nations organization established to act as a moderating force among nations, or not.
How else to view Washington’s latest project to foist a second Albanian state on the international community: Kosovo, which has been torn out of Serbian territory rich in historic meaning and tradition to a Slav Orthodox Christian people who consider it to be the very heart of their ancient patrimony?
Consider for a moment this small nation, that in World War I, was attacked by Austria, Germany, and then Bulgaria, that fought with the Allies against the Central Powers bravely and brilliantly against overwhelming odds; that at the end of that conflict had lost 1,264,000 people out of a population of 4,529,000 – a quarter of its total.
Then, again in World War II, the Serbians stood with the Allies and formed the backbone of Tito’s Partisan guerrillas. Dozens of German, Italian and Bulgarian divisions were tied down fighting Tito’s forces throughout the war. Including genocide against the Serbians in Bosnia by the Croat Ustashe – and similar depredations by the Albanians in Kosovo who had been formed into a SS unit by the Germans – Yugoslavia lost 1,700,000 people.
During that conflict, Mihailovich and Tito both had collaborated with the British Special Operations Executive and the American Office of Strategic Services. Additionally, 512 downed Americans and 84 British and Canadian airmen were sheltered and rescued mainly by Serbian villagers at the grave risk of their own lives.
After Tito broke with Stalin in 1948, Yugoslavia remained Communist; but it insisted on its independence along its road of post-war reconstruction toward achieving socialism. At various times it accepted material support, including even some military assistance, along with financial aid through international loans from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. It was one of the first charter members of the United Nations.
The US had even tolerated Yugoslavia’s leading role in the Non-Aligned Movement knowing that, if it had to, Belgrade would fight the Soviet Union and its satellites.
In NATO circles, a commonly-accepted scenario for the start of World War III had the Soviet Union attempting to overthrow Tito. Much of the Yugoslav National Army’s own planning revolved around that threat possibility. Even as late as 1980, when Tito died, some thought that Moscow might attempt to force the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia into conformity with the Bloc.
It’s true that at the end of World War II Tito suppressed remnants of fascist Albanian groups in Kosovo in months of fighting. He subsequently built up a loyal Albanian Communist party structure that had considerable leeway – rewarding it with provincial autonomy.
In 1974, Kosovo’s autonomy was widened even more by the SFRY’s new constitution – and Albanian leaders began the long process of discriminating openly against its Serb population. Many Serbs moved out as more and more Albanians moved in. By 1981, a year after Tito’s death, students began to protest against conditions at their university and the lack of job opportunity.
When Milosevic attempted to re-integrate Kosovo into Serbia in the late 1980s, the province was financially bankrupt. Its Albanian leadership disadvantaged the Serbs while failing its own people. Oppositionists led by Ibrahim Rugova declared themselves to be a “Republic” of virtual “independence.”
No Americans had even heard of Kosovo except for Senator Robert Dole and a few congressmen who began to rant against Milosevic; fueled, some say, by Albanian “contributions” to their US political campaigns.
Kosovar separatism was indeed repressed!!!
By 1997, armed Albanians were conducting pinprick attacks against Serb police and militia outposts. A year later, the Kosovo Liberation Army was in open revolt and had seized control of almost half of the province. Milosevic, in turn, fended off western criticism and began to roll up the KLA. NATO, ordered by US President Clinton and UK Prime Minister Blair, in effect intervened on behalf of the KLA; and, in a devastating bombing campaign, forced Milosevic to pull his Yugoslav forces out of the province.
What has followed has been years of NATO-UN Mission in Kosovo bureaucratically- administered failure – during which hundreds of Serbs were murdered and some 200,000 left the province for good. For this, and the threat to take up arms again, the Albanians have been rewarded with independence. The UN, the EU, and NATO have been intimidated by the threat of renewed conflict.
So what kind of state might we expect from a poverty-stricken entity known to be a center of narcotics trafficking?
Popular ex-Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj is now on trial at The Hague for war crimes committed during the 1998-99 conflict.
The present Prime Minister, Hisham Thaci (a favorite of ex- US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright) has been accused of having ordered the murder of several KLA rivals during that same conflict. He now presides over a country with a 50 percent unemployment rate and rampant corruption.
The US, opportunistically, has called for a donor’s conference to help fund the country’s near empty budget and is turning “supervision” of Kosovo over to the EU It has need for its troops elsewhere.
Many say that an independent Kosovo will set an unfortunate precedent and feed separatist movements around the globe.
The Bosnian Serbs are already saying that they should be permitted to join Serbia. Armenians also point to Kosovo and claim that their ethnically Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan – Nagorno-Karabakh - should be given international recognition. Even Russia, which must feel that Washington has tossed a delayed action cluster bomb into its backyard, might be tempted to support the breakaway tendencies of ethnic-Russians in Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, a NATO aspirant and the transit site of a strategic petroleum pipeline out of the Caspian Basin.
However, the fact that Russia recently fought a barely-resolved war to keep Chechnya may stay its hand.
Moscow has not been reluctant to back Serbia on Kosovo and says it will deny it UN membership. Russia also reminded us that it is back in the Balkans by recently signing agreements for Gazprom to purchase Serbia’s NIS Petroleum and Srbijagas natural gas monopolies and to bring its South Stream natural gas pipeline through that country en route to Western Europe. Senior US officials continue to criticize Gazprom’s rapid expansion and have made it clear they consider South Stream to be an unwelcome competitor to the EU’s planned Nabucco pipeline.
Future historians may very well conclude that an important ingredient to the many “Wars of Yugoslavian Succession” was for control of energy avenues from the Caspian out to the west.
The many sacrifices made by Serbians on the battlefields of the past have been forgotten.
Wes Johnson is the author of Balkan Inferno: Betrayal, War, and Intervention 1990-2005.
I know what you mean, Bokababe, but actually it’s not a waste of time. I appreciate the challenge and he seems like an articulate person. If too many things go “unanswered”, then only one side remains on the record and there’s nothing out there to counteract it. Lot’s of “Tito was G_d” stuff out there. Not nearly enough “No, he wasn’t” stuff out there. Thus, propaganda and lies become “history” and are taken at face value. Diocletian is not the only one who uses the same tactics to smear Mihailovich and the Chetniks. It’s all too predictable.
The communists (Both Yugoslav and British) and Croats, Bosnian Moslems and Albanians have, unfortunately, had GREAT success in waging their smear campaign - so much so that many history books spew the same nonsense. I guess it’s their way of diverting focus away from their war crimes and dubious affiliations and collaborations.
They’ve worked so hard at it that they have actually succeeded in many ways, but that success is fading. Truth has this funny way of always coming out, whether you like it or not. It’s up to those who know the truth to be diligent and to stay determined to make sure that it does.
Just as the truth will come out one day about the “wars” in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and the whole Kosovo issue.
It often takes a long time, long after the players are dead.
Actually, the Wiki reference on Mihailovic above is pretty good re debunking the propaganda. Surprising since Wiki usually sucks!
Why not just answer a simple question first: provide proof that Djujic's Chetniks of Dalmatia, Lika, and Western Bosnia fought either the Italians or the Germans even once.
Well somebody had better tell
a) Fatos Klosi, former head of SHIK, who spoke of Bin Laden being in Northern Albania to help organise the Al Qaeda/Mujahideen forces
b) Mossad
c) Numerous Western reporters who eye witnessed trailers full of Mujahideen
d) Macedonian army who had to deal with Mujahideen a year or so later when their country was invaded. If the KLA wouldn't deal with them, where oh where did they come from?
e) Holbrooke, who admitted of ties between AL Qaeda and KLA
f) Bodansky, surely the authority on Islamist extremism who wrote extensively of Mujahideen in Kosovo
g) Embedded German reporter/Major Franz Josef Hutsch whose testimony in the ICTY spoke of around 100 elite Mujahideen in local HQs who'd target spot for NATO
h) Pakistani President Musharraf who wrote of 100's of Mujahideen being recruited by NATO
i) Abu Hamza who confirmed almost word for word what Musharraf had said. He was used by the British for the recruiting
j) Numerous Serb sources which you of course won't accept
k) Numerous Russian sources
l) Blah di blah di blah di blah
Quite frankly,Diocletian, I'm surprised you keep on bowling such lame half volleys.
None of this matters. Croatia will be Croatiastan with speakers blasting prayer 5 times a day in Zagreb.
And how wonderfully we paid them back for their sacrifice.
All your examples show the Mujahideen dealing with NATO......the KLA didn’t want them. It was the USA along with the Saudis that moved the Mujahideen into Kosovo...not the KLA.
I don’t hate Serbs. I have Serbian family and friends. Explain to me something: what position are you advocating: that Croatia should once again be ruled by Serbs?
No, that Croatia will be ruled by Muslims.
Sorry, not happening.
Just wait. Then Germany and the Vatican won’t save you.
It’s interesting that for so many years in the 1990s, the Western media and policy makers focused so heavily on alleged “Serb atrocities against Muslims”. Meanwhile, the Croats were dealing with the “Muslim” problem in the former Yugoslavia in their own special way, and for anyone who is familiar with Croatian methods in war, they understand what I mean here by “special”.
Diocletian doesn’t believe that Croatia will ever be ruled by Muslims. There was a time when Serbs didn’t believe that their sacred christian Kosovo would be ruled by Muslims either.
It would be interesting to see the Croatian reaction if Dubrovnik were to become “90%” Muslim (read: Serbia’s Kosovo) and consequently declare “independence” from Croatia.
Ah yes, another poster with a “prediction”. LMAO
Kosovo wouldn’t have ever been taken from Serbia had the Serbs not opened themselves up to being attacked because of their greed. Had Slobo not riled up the Serbs of Croatia and split Bosnia between Croatia and Serbia, you’d have half of Bosnia, all of Montenegro and Kosovo within a Serbian state.
Correction - 2/3rds of Bosnia.
And Hoolbroke admitted to KLA/Al Qaeda links too.
As did Bodansky.
Please try to bowl something with a little line and length.
In my opinion I think Yugoslavia was a mistake and Croatia should have been left alone. They were too busy thinking they were German to buy into a Slavic union. Serbs were always looking for Russian help that never came. Russians couldn't care less about Serbs.
Greed came from all sides because with the fall of Communism it was a big land grab. Croatia played a better political game than the Serbs and were able to make gains with the help of her old WWII friends.
Croatians don’t think they’re German....we’re just adverse to Pan-Slavism thx to the Yugoslav experience and because Pan-Slavism tends to champion Serbian interests over Croatian ones.
The Mujahideen found much more fertile ground in Bosnia to spread their brand of Islam when compared to Kosovo where the Albanians had and still have no interest in Wahhabism (but take Saudi cash anyway). But the Albanians couldn't say no to their American and Saudi allies who insisted that the Mujahideen be allowed to operate in Kosovo beside the KLA.
Mouth, gift horse, and all that.
We also agree that the US was in bed with the Mujahideen too, in Kosovo. And in Bosnia too.
So, let's agree to agree.
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