By George Bogdanich
Amidst the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the recent decision by a U.S.-led group of major powers to grant independence to Albanian separatists in Kosovo is receiving little public attention. Still, it is a troubling development that rewards terrorism and ethnic cleansing by remnants of the Kosovo Liberation Army.
Washington’s push for Kosovo independence, reluctantly accepted by European leaders, not only shreds the original U.S. justification for military intervention in Kosovo, it also provides a compelling road map for other violent separatists, including those in the Basque region of Spain and the roiling republics of the former Soviet Union.
Having bombed its way into Kosovo in 1999, a US - led NATO force, acting under a U.N. mandate, failed to provide minimal protection to the non-Albanian minority, some 250,000 of whom were driven out of the province by armed KLA separatists.
Not only were Serb civilians targeted, but also Romany gypsies and Bosniaks. The small Jewish enclave in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, fled to Belgrade.
Of 40,000 Serbs who resided in Pristina when NATO arrived, only 200 remain today, mostly as members of U.N. organizations living in secure facilities.
While Albanian extremists destroyed more than 140 Orthodox Christian churches and historic monasteries in Kosovo, U.S.-led NATO soldiers remained close to the new state-of-the-art Camp Bondsteel, which is the size of a small city. Maintaining this base (constructed by a subsidiary of Halliburton) is clearly a higher U.S. priority than Balkan stability.
Rather than crack down on KLA extremists, Washington hopes to protect its investment in Bondsteel by granting them de facto control of Kosovo, while the United States focuses on the narrow goal of protecting the long-planned trans-Balkan oil pipeline. The pipeline would bring Caspian Sea oil west through nearby Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania.
Stability in the Balkans, however, cannot be taken for granted when double standards prevail in almost every aspect of U.S. policy. Senior U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, hold meetings in the State Department with former KLA leader and current Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku, an ethnic Albanian whom some link to massacres against Serbian civilians in Croatia.
Ceku’s close working relationship with the U.S. military likely helped him avoid indictment by the U.N. war crimes tribunal and enabled him to receive a U.N. paycheck when he was chosen to lead the dreadfully misnamed Kosovo Protection Corps. This group terrorized the non-Albanian civilians in Kosovo while assisting terrorist operations in Macedonia and southern Serbia. The government Ceku now controls protects a very large drug smuggling network, which supplies 40 percent of the heroin sold in Europe and the United States, according to the British Guardian newspaper.
The justifications for military intervention in Kosovo were fraudulent. The Serbs, though hardly blameless, were officially accused by the Clinton administration of being most responsible for the violence that broke out after a Kosovo cease-fire was negotiated in 1998. The BBC documentary “Moral Combat,” however, confirms that NATO leaders chose to keep secret the minutes of a meeting at their headquarters that determined the KLA was “the main initiator of the violence” in a “deliberate campaign of provocation.” Disclosure of this truth would have harmed support for military intervention.
Instead of an evenhanded approach to the status of Kosovo, the Bush administration helped install as mediator former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari, an enthusiastic supporter of the NATO intervention, who has been quoted saying, in effect, that Serbs as a nation are guilty.
Despite some rumblings from Russian and Spanish officials concerned that an independent Kosovo will serve as a dangerous precedent for their domestic terrorists, the United States may yet prevail in gaining independence for a violent and corrupt government in Kosovo. This outcome will be anything but a triumph of diplomacy. More likely, it will help sow the seeds for the next Balkan conflict.
Bogdanich is a documentary filmmaker, writer and political consultant in New York City. His most recent film was the 2002 documentary, “Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War.”
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[…] The fate of Jews and Serbs, which has intersected in the past, is doing so again. The jihadist effort to expunge Jews from Palestine mirrors the Moslem goal of incorporating Kosovo into a “greater Moslem Albania” while expelling Christian Serbs. And why is Etzioni lying to Political Mavens readers? His entire piece is based on false assumptions, false facts, flawed analyses and false conclusions. He even starts a sentence with “Even before the beginning of Milosevic’s 1998 campaign to kill or expel large numbers of Albanians from Kosovo…” Stop right there. How many times do I have to write, link and explain that even The Hague–ever so reluctantly–disproved these charges? For god’s sake, Daniel Pearl found these were myths as early as freaking 1999! Or–I’m sorry–is an Israeli not familiar with what jihadi-nationalist PR is capable of doing to facts? Or how Muslims can orchestrate civilian-Muslim deaths? And are we still going to believe, post-9/11, that the “suffering Albanians” of Kosovo were such? They had the run of the show there–government, schools, hospitals, jobs–EVERYTHING–in their Albanian language and reserved for Albanians, while Serbs and other non-Albanians were second-class citizens. This is how we run into problems: the more we give, the more they take. They keep pushing, to see how much they can get, and when they hit that inevitable brick wall with the West, they pick up their weapons, as is happening in Kosovo. In Kosovo, when the Albanian supremecy got out of control, Milosevic started instituting affirmative action policies for Serbs. Then the crackdown on terrorism came. You got a problem with a crackdown on terrorism, Etzioni? On murdered policemen and officials, including moderate “collaborationist” Albanian ones? Ask yourself how a population goes from being a minority to being 90% of the province by 1999 (increasing to a 95% majority after the NATO bombing). Who’s pushing whom out? Meanwhile, when our NATO bombs started falling on Kosovo, guess where a whole bunch of Albanians ran. Serbia. This cute little quote from one of my sources goes to the heart of the matter: I still remember walking around Belgrade in 1992 wondering what all of the wrapped up Moslem women were doing enjoying leisurely walks in the city with their 3,000 children when the Serbs were supposed to have cleansed them all. Belgrade stayed multi-ethnic, Sarajevo became Moslem, Zagreb became (Croatian) Roman Catholic, [Kosovo became Albanian], and the Serbs got tagged as the rascists. Gotta love it. Why do people always, always have double standards for Serbs? You do realize, Etzioni, that a big chunk of the world maintains double standards for Israelis too, right? The “lessons” of KOSOVO?!, Mr. Etzioni? How about the lessons of Salt Lake City, where Americans were shown what they can expect when they help Muslims get what they want but isn’t theirs for the taking? How about the lessons of 9/11, on which day at least two veterans of the Bosnian jihad were among the 19 hijackers? But if you’re talking about a lesson from Kosovo, how about the lesson of the al Qaeda recruitment office in Afghanistan, a 2001 raid of which yielded an application from a Kosovo Albanian boasting of his experience fighting both Serbian and American military, and recomending suicide operations “against parks like Disney.” How about those lessons, Mr. Etzioni? Ah, but the Balkans have a confounding effect on intellects. Readers, if you want to see your favorite, most respected thinker, writer, analyst or politician–conservative or otherwise–turn into either a blithering idiot or a mute, ask him about Kosovo. Here’s another gem from the Etzioni piece: Far from destabilizing the region, the 2006 secession of Montenegro from Serbia was affected peacefully, legitimately and in accord with the wishes of the majority of the Montenegrin population. If Kosovo were to follow a similar path, there is no reason to expect that it would destabilize the Balkans any more than Montenegro has. Oh as long as everyone agrees they want to become micro states, ripe for the Islamic plucking, then it must be a good idea. Just look how much more stable Montenegro’s independence has made the region. Here you go, here are some recent headlines: “Police Foil Terror Acts in Montenegro” “Montenegro Accuses Ethnic Albanians of Plotting Insurgency–Montenegrin authorities indicted 18 ethnic Albanians, including five living in the United States.” […]
Pingback by Political Mavens » WOAH…Stay out of Kosovo, Mr. Etzioni. (Readers, see below: “The Lessons of Kosovo”) — April 5, 2007 #
I know that last comment was from julia The Little jewish sweetheart . She sure straighted out Etzioni in her political mavens articals . But she is almost standing alone .
When the serbs got Julia ,They got maybe enough too change the world . She’s just as hard to beat as milosevic was .
Comment by eric — April 9, 2007 #
[…] Un. be. lie. va. ble. […]
Pingback by Political Mavens » Lantos: JIHADISTS WILL LOVE US! — April 22, 2007 #
Wow!! Did we really need a quote from Kupcake of the CFR?? Where on the entire planet do muslims live in harmony with non-muslims? Independence or no independence for Kosovo, there will ALWAYS be bloodshed as long as any non-islamics are present to slaughter OR until all islamics are driven out.
Actually I think Etzioni, who by the way is a moron, has made an extremely convincing case for the justification of ethnic cleansing of ALL islamics from continental Europe, Britian and the Western hemisphere.
The civilized world makes a terrible mistake allowing “airheads”like Etzioni or Kupcake of the CFR to dictate policy vis a vis islam or anything else for that matter.
Islam has a 1400 year track record of its inability to live peacefully within the world community. Islam is NOT a religion. It IS a demonic cult. The civilized world should no more “host” islam than should you or I should “host” a malignant cancer
Comment by Bob — April 23, 2007 #
Just want to say to Julia…GREAT post!! You’re an outstanding investigative journalist. Keep up the good work…but watch your back. The so-called “world community” that so desparately wants the destruction of Serbia, Orthodox Christianity AND Orthodox Judaism are a pack of cut throats…they are desperate people. We need you.
Comment by joesixpack — April 24, 2007 #
Disgusting. Seems like the US is fighting Al Qaeda’s war for them! It’s truly shameful that the Russians (in this case) are on the right side while America helps the savages. Then again, the US has done the same before in Afghanistan.
Un-f*cking-believeable.
Comment by dudeinwales — May 24, 2007 #