Free Republic

PRISTINA, Kosovo, Nov. 29, 2007 – Versus, the U.S. cable television home of the National Hockey League, has partnered with some troops deployed to Kosovo to give an early Christmas present to the peacekeepers there and their families at home. At 7 p.m. EST on Dec. 11 , everyone watching the Pittsburgh Penguins battle the Philadelphia Flyers on Versus will get to see some pictures of the American soldiers, airmen and sailors who are serving at Camps Film City and Bondsteel, Kosovo. At the same time their pictures are being shown on television in the United States, the troops will...

At a most inopportune time, the Balkans are back. On Dec. 10, the U.S.-E.U.-Russian negotiating team tasked with getting the Serbs and Albanians to agree on Kosovo's future status will report to the United Nations that it has failed. A few weeks later Kosovo's government will proclaim that Kosovo is an independent nation -- a long overdue event. The United States and most of the European Union (led by Britain, France and Germany) will recognize Kosovo quickly. Russia and its allies will not. Kosovo's eight-year run as the biggest-ever U.N. project will end with great tension and a threat of...

With no deal in sight, there are fears Kosovo may declare independence unilaterally, triggering a chain reaction of potentially violent secessions across the Balkans — and beyond. "There is a risk that the situation will destabilize" and unleash independence declarations in the ethnic Serb half of Bosnia and the ethnic Albanian-dominated north of Macedonia, said Alex Anderson, Kosovo project director for the International Crisis Group, a non-governmental group dedicated to preventing conflict.

In the book Hiding Genocide in Kosovo, the author (a worker with the international mission in Kosovo) meets some American soldiers: One interesting point to note is that when I visited the village [of Cernica] after the Kosovo-wide pogrom of March 2004, I went to the church and found that it was protected by US KFOR. There were three pleasant young soldiers from California and one from Florida. They seemed a little lost perched as they were on a hilltop beside a newly restored church that they had to defend. Three California surfers and a Miami beach veteran who really...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29, 2007 – The situation in Kosovo is “stable, but potentially fragile,” the commander of U.S. forces there said. Army Brig. Gen. Douglas B. Earhart, commander of the American contingent in Kosovo, displays a painting done by the two schoolchildren accompanying him. Earhart's unit will complete its tour of duty in Kosovo Nov. 2. Courtesy photo   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Army Brig. Gen. Douglas B. Earhart, commander of the American contingent in the NATO-led Kosovo Force, said he is proud of the job that his 1,500-member force has done and believes the province is...

Video montage of the Religion of Peace making a difference in the lives of children. warning: strong images of dead children killed by Islamic militants in Beslan. Never forget what not just America, but the whole world is fighting against http://shock.military.com/Shock/videos.do?displayContent=152637&page=1

29 10 2007 Tirana _ Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha has called on Egypt to persuade the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, OIC, member-states to recognize en bloc a possible declaration of independence by Kosovo. While presenting Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit with an overview of the situation in UN-administered Kosovo, Berisha asked his host to use Egypt’s considerable influence with the other Arab states. “After December 10, Kosovo must declare independence in coordination with the USA and the EU. It can’t be a part of Serbia because historically it has not been a part of Serbia,” Berisha said...

OUTLAWED militias are emerging from the shadows in the Balkans as Kosovo hurtles towards an independence deadline on December 10 that is likely to trigger a confrontation with Serbia. Deep frustration with the West’s stalled bid to grant the province full autonomy in the face of Serbian and Russian opposition threatens to embroil the region in another round of bloodletting. The Albanian National Army (ANA), a guerrilla group branded as “terrorists” by the United Nations in 2003, has already resurfaced, brandishing sophisticated sniper rifles and Kalashnikovs and pledging to “protect” Kosovo’s vulnerable northern fringe from Serbian aggression. Kosovo’s Serbian minority,...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6969100.stm

With Hillary Clinton surging in the polls and Democrats knifing Bush's foreign policy and praising Bill Clinton's, it's time for a reality check on a supposed triumph: Team Clinton oversimplified a complex situation in Bosnia and ended up aiding and abetting Muslim extremists. That's the conclusion of John Schindler, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College and a former National Security Agency analyst. In his new book, "Unholy Terror: Bosnia, al-Qa'ida, and the Rise of Global Jihad," Schindler reappraises the 1992-1995 Bosnian war and America's decision to come to the defense of Muslims in their conflict with Serbs. (...)...

October 27, 2007 SERBIANNA US Ambassador to Bosnia, Charles English, has issued a threat to the democratically elected President of Serb entity in Bosnia insisting that the elected Serb lawmakers must accept laws international administrator is making otherwise American response on Bosnian Serbs will be "swift and powerful". "Conflict with the High Representative is the conflict with USA. The safety and stability of Bosnia Herzegovina is in the interest of United States and we are prepared to defend it," said English in an interview to Bosnian news agencies. US Ambassador to Bosnia, Charles English, left, talking to Serb President Milorad...

September 2001, George W. Bush admonished the world, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." But how will the world know where to stand when America itself is with the terrorists? Such is the America that operates in the Balkans.[...] Today, this chaotic situation has moved from the unfortunate to the scandalous, with the CIA, MI6, BND [German intelligence], and others eager to build 'special relationships' with Islamic extremists bent on killing Christians, attacking Western targets, and creating a fundamentalist caliphate [...] Deliso details the bizarre arrangement by which we've allied ourselves with "nominally Muslim" Albanian...

Pristina, 16 Oct. (AKI) - Members of the international police in Kosovo arrested on Tuesday an ethnic Albanian suspected of killing 15 Serbs in Serbia’s breakaway ethnic Albanian majority province, local media reported. Local radio said police surrounded the village of Veliki Alas, south of province’s capital Pristina, with tens of armored vehicles early in the morning and arrested Melzum Bitici. Kosovo police spokesman Veton Elsani confirmed that an ethnic Albanian, suspected of war crimes, was arrested but gave no details. Bitici is suspected of gunning down 14 Serbs in the village of Staro Gracko on July 23, 1999, while...

Whoever doesn’t take the current Clinton candidacy seriously is a fool. It’s quite probable that she’ll end up inheriting the Iraq War and all its collateral issues which I’m sure doesn’t sweeten the pot, but she’s determined to become President anyway. I admire her for that. I know I wouldn’t want to inherit someone else’s baggage. And certainly not that kind of baggage. Candidate Hillary Clinton sure has a lot to say about the Iraq War and how the current administration has conducted itself. Maybe I missed it, but she has not had nearly enough to say about another issue,...

CLINTON KOSOVO POLICY WILL HAUNT CANDIDATE CLINTON Whoever doesn’t take the current Clinton candidacy seriously is a fool. It’s quite probable that she’ll end up inheriting the Iraq War and all its collateral issues which I’m sure doesn’t sweeten the pot, but she’s determined to become President anyway. I admire her for that. I know I wouldn’t want to inherit someone else’s baggage. And certainly not that kind of baggage. Candidate Hillary Clinton sure has a lot to say about the Iraq War and how the current administration has conducted itself. Maybe I missed it, but she has not had...

"More disturbing were the unit's lurid killings of Christian prisoners of war. A vivid example was provided by a German woman who married an Islamist radical who turned out to be part of the al-Qa'ida network in Europe--bin Laden stayed at their house when the couple was living in Saudi Arabia. "In 1994, her husband took the family to Bosnia to assist el-Mujahid operations. She found herself the only Western European woman in the village, where she lived in veiled existence under the rule of shar'ia, as was the custom wherever the mujahidin went. She observed the massacre of two...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 10, 2007 – With elections nearing and the question of independence uncertain, the next few months will be a “telling time” for people in the breakaway Serbian province of Kosovo, NATO’s top military officer said at a Pentagon news conference today. Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe and commander of U.S. European Command, conducts a news conference at the Pentagon, Oct. 10, 2007. Photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Molly A. Burgess, USN  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Army Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, NATO’s supreme allied commander for Europe, said the...

(Austrian police say he's a Bosnia native, had Islamic literature) VIENNA, Austria - Austrian authorities said they arrested a man on Monday after he tried to enter the U.S. Embassy in Vienna carrying a backpack with explosives. The man tried to flee after his backpack triggered metal detectors at the embassy entrance. He was arrested nearby and was being questioned.

VIENNA, Austria — A man who tried to enter the U.S. Embassy in Vienna with a backpack that contained hand grenades, nails and Islamic literature was arrested Monday, Austrian authorities said. The suspect was taken into police custody around after he was seen dropping the bag and fleeing on foot, Vienna police spokeswoman Michaela Raz said. No one was injured, but police sealed off the neighborhood as a precaution and shut down or rerouted nearby bus and tramway lines. The suspect was described only as a 42-year-old Bosnia native who now lives in the province of Lower Austria. Police said...

Retired Croatian colonel Marko Jagetic says that 70 bodies of Serb civilians were collected after the campaign Medacki Dzep. Retired Croatian Army medical corps colonel Marko Jagetic testified at the trial of generals Rahim Ademi and Mirko Norac. He said that, after the campaign Medacki Dzep, more than 70 corpses of Serb civilians were collected in nearby villages and that many of them had marks that indicated torture and massacre. - Almost all the executed [people] were civilians and no weapons or documents were found on any of them – said Jagetic, who was the army doctor in charge of...