Posted on 03/19/2008 4:08:36 PM PDT by joan
WASHINGTON (AFP) — President George W. Bush authorized Wednesday supplying Kosovo with weapons, signaling the establishment of government-to-government relations after recognizing its independence, the White House said.
In a memo to the State Department made public by the White House, Bush said: "I hereby find that the furnishing of defense articles and defense services to Kosovo will strengthen the security of the United States and promote world peace."
A senior official said the authorization followed US recognition of Kosovo's independence and was part of the normal process of establishing relations with a new government.
In a comment apparently meant to allay concerns from Serbia and its ally Russia, the official stressed the military restrictions imposed on Kosovo under a plan by former UN special envoy for Kosovo Martti Ahtisaari.
Under the Ahtisaari plan, which is the basis for Kosovo's supervised independence, Kosovo is allowed a lightly armed 2,500-person security force under NATO oversight and training.
Kosovo, an Albanian-dominated Serbian province under UN administration since 1999, unilaterally declared its independence on February 17. The United States recognized it on March 18, despite strong opposition from Serbia and Russia.
The US official, who asked not to be identified, said the US weapons deliveries were preparing the ground for the future, adding that the United States had struck similar relations with other countries in the region.
Furthermore, the official said, provisions of defense equipment and services would be considered on a case-by-case basis.
The official said that providing military equipment to Kosovo would improve security relations and engagement with Kosovo, promote security and stability throughout the Balkans, improve Kosovo's capacity to take part in peacekeeping activities, to detect, deter and defeat terrorists, and to deal with humanitarian emergencies.
No,
he was a Muslim from Bosnia. Please look at for explanation:
http://thetension.blogspot.com/2007/05/update-2-six-arrested-in-terror-plot_09.html
The Serbs are fighting against the terrorism, and they are being called “nationalists”. PLEASE open your minds, propaganda did a lot of damage to the Serbs in the past decade. The truth is VERY different.
Serbian people are living in barb wired areas, they can not move freely, a day after the independence a Serbian family that I know was threatened, they come in the night and scream in front of the windows, that they will be killed if they do not leave Kosovo. Serbian people are fed by Church soup kitchens, because they do not have freedom of movement, no jobs, no POWER for the whole winter, no wood to get warm.
In March of 2004, 150 (from 13.the century )Christian churches were burned, Serbs killed, graves destroyed
This is all happening in the middle of Europe. With NATO watching this.
Where is the justice for the Serbs? Serbs were on the side of USA in both world wars and now they are forced to go to Russia, who wants to help and understands the problem.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,340369,00.html
BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbia’s war crimes prosecutor is looking into reports that dozens of Serbs captured by rebels during the war in Kosovo were killed so their organs could be trafficked, the prosecutor’s office said Friday.
The Serbian prosecutor’s office said it received “informal statements” from investigators at the U.N. tribunal in The Hague, Netherlands, that dozens of Serbs imprisoned by Kosovo Albanian rebels were taken to neighboring Albania in 1999 and killed so their organs could be harvested and sold to international traffickers.
Bruno Vekaric, the Serbian prosecutor’s spokesman, said later on B92 radio that Serbian war crimes investigators have also received their own information about alleged organ trafficking, but not enough for a court case. Vekaric said Serb investigators also received reports suggesting there might be mass graves in Albania containing the bodies of the Serb victims.
Serbian media reported that the issue was brought into the open in a book written by former U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte that is to be published in Italy on April 3.
According to Serbia’s Beta news agency, which carried parts of the book in Serbian, Del Ponte said her investigators had been informed that some 300 Serbs were killed for organ trafficking.
The Beta report quoted Del Ponte as saying in the book that her investigators were told the imprisoned Serbs were first taken to prison camps in northern Albania where the younger ones were picked out, and their organs were later sold abroad.
Del Ponte was not available for comment. The Yugoslav tribunal’s office in The Hague was closed Friday afternoon. Olga Kavran, a spokeswoman for the tribunal’s prosecutors, said she could not immediately confirm whether the prosecutor’s office was aware of such claims.
Beta reported that Del Ponte says in her book that tribunal investigators looking into alleged war crimes by the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army were not able to complete a case on the organ trafficking claims and bring it to trial.
Hundreds of Serbs and ethnic Albanians are still missing from Kosovo’s 1998-99 war, which erupted when ethnic Albanian separatists launched a rebellion against Serbian rule.
The brutality of Serbia’s response to the rebellion triggered NATO attacks against Serbia in 1999, which forced Belgrade to end the crackdown and withdraw its troops.
Kosovo has been run by the U.N. and NATO since 1999. It declared independence from Serbia last month.
This makes me want to puke my guts out. You know in my lifetime we very well may have to fight these Kosovo Muslim terrorists and then will be shot by our own weapons. It makes me sick, utterly sick. Doesn’t Bush have a clue about VERY RECENT HISTORY and know that the KLA was TRAINED BY AQ and BIN LADEN! WTF
Absoultely nuts.
To recognise a nation without U.N.’s recognition is one thing. To supply arms to a nation that yet to have a stable administration and diplomacy is another.
I do hope that Mr. Bush’s policy won’t backfire him and the U.S.A. in the future. Politically and militarilly, arm supply is a dangerous and sentitive “diplomacy”. Perhaps Mr. Bush himselfs should remind that how U.S. once supported Iraq and later, turn against them.
You really think Russia wants to help because the understand the problem? Everything Russian’s done up until this point seems to indicate they see radical Islam as a tool for defeating the West. Why is it different here? I’m not ask rhetorical questions either. I don’t know much about what’s going on there but it seems Russia is trying to become the Big Brother of Eastern Europe and is using this to say, “turn your eyes away from the west little Balkans, turn your eyes to us.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.