MACEDONIA: Albanian Smugglers or Guerrillas?

August 7, 2002; Smugglers or guerrillas? The Macedonian government reported its security forces intercepted eight armed men attempting to infiltrate from Albania in an area between the towns of Gostivar and Kicevo . A firefight erupted and the men fled back into Albania. The Macedonian police said several weapons were captured..

Most of these folk are criminals it's sad to say. What country in Europe has the greatest number of stolen automobiles--Albania. It has the lowest standard of living of any country in Europe and half the folks drive around in Mercedes Benzes. And why, they work in the rest of Europe and when done steal the bosses car. Not that the boss really objects, he just gets his insurance company to pay for it. It's kind of a bonus he pays the fellow. We had no business intervening in Kosovo. Sure we heard about all the human rights offenses that the Serbs committed. But when it comes down to it, how many actually came to light. I'm thinking maybe two or three and even there casualties didn't exceed 10 people in any of the cases. This wasn't Bosnia. Ethnic cleansing in this case was they deported them out of the country. Can you blame the Serbs for that. Now, since NATO's intervention you've had a great migration of Serbs out of Kosovo, Serbs killed with impunity on the part of Albanians, Serbian religious sites and national monuments destroyed, and problems with the Albanian minority in Macedonia. And not just the Albanian minority, but outsider Albanians. Duh, so much for multiculturalism. Maybe, the best thing the West could do with respect to the problem in the Balkans is: get rid of the remaining Serbs in Kosovo, relocate the Albanians in Macedonia into Kosovo, and let Albania annex Kosovo. Then announce that any Albanian crossing into Macedonia, Serbia or Montenegro will be shot on sight--no questions asked. We've screwed it up well enough, we might as well finish it.

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