Can you NAME the Owners/Publishers of the world's 5 biggsst Main Steam Media outlets? Walt
--- In Politics_CurrentEvents_Group@yahoogroups.com, "feetballfreak67" <feetballfreak67@...> wrote:
>
> The media would have US believe troop casualties are down since GW Bush left office but our troops are still dying with minimal media coverage the last 2 years. They got their guy in the white house with daily coverage of any & all middle east troop injuries but now even casualties are ignored by the big networks to have US believe things are better. Sad but true
>
> http://www.icasualties.org/OEF/Fatalities.aspx
>
> --- In Politics_CurrentEvents_Group@yahoogroups.com, Bruce Majors majors.bruce@ wrote:
> >
> > The Democrats' Model War
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> > January 2007 --The 2006 U.S. elections, which put the Democrats in charge of
> > the House and Senate, were widely described in media as a referendum on the
> > Iraq war. Intense media scrutiny had resulted in critical reports on pre-war
> > intelligence, the decision-making process that preceded the war, the postwar
> > plan, and an unfolding civil war.
> >
> > Books with titles such as *Fiasco*,* Imperial Hubris*, and *Colossus*described
> > an America in denial of imperial ambitions that were destined to fail. Their
> > authors and others ascribed to the U.S. such motives as arrogance and a
> > willful refusal to learn from history. They characterized American foreign
> > policy as an effort to impose democracy at gunpoint upon cultures either
> > lacking democracy’s fundamental precursors or just plain unwilling to abide
> > by them. Prior to the election, Americans also heard multiple media reports
> > of the worst unintended consequence of the war: the multiplying of the ranks
> > of terrorists.
> >
> > By election day, national polls indicated 60 percent of voters believed that
> > the war had not improved the long-term security of the U.S., and 55 percent
> > thought that the U.S. should pull some or all of its troops from Iraq. The
> > Democrats worked to further the discontent and clearly profited by it.
> >
> > However, if the election was a vote of no confidence in the administration’s
> > conduct of the war in Iraq, it left unanswered the question of what the
> > Democrats would view as an appropriate use of American military force in the
> > world. It’s a question most Democrats have preferred to dodge, but they have
> > given us some disquieting clues.
> > What would Democrats view as an appropriate use of American military force?
> >
> > Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, the front-runner in national polls for the
> > 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, has said openly what many Democrats
> > think: Democrats go to war for the right reasons and prosecute war more
> > successfully. Prior to the 2000 presidential election, Senator Clinton cited
> > the American military campaigns in Bosnia and Kosovo as models of foreign
> > engagements that she favored on moral and strategic grounds.
> >
> > “I am a strong proponent of a national defense that is smart,†she told CNN
> > in August 2004. “What we need to be focused on is which president is more
> > likely to make decisions that will achieve our objectives with putting the
> > least amount of lives at risk,†she said, adding, “You know, we were
> > successful in Kosovoâ€"and we didn’t lose a single American military person.â€
> >
> > That view has been echoed by many other Democrats and some Republicans, too.
> > Praising the Kosovo operations, former president Bill Clinton has even
> > suggested that, under a Democrat administration, more such operations may be
> > on the way.
> >
> > So, what are these “objectives†that Senator Clinton alluded to? What would
> > future war-fighting look like according to the Clinton doctrine? One has
> > only to look at Kosovo to see the blueprint and organizing principle behind
> > what could become the long-term future of U.S. foreign policy under the
> > Democrats.
> > A Disputed Land
> >
> > Approximately the size of Connecticut, Kosovo is a province within the
> > Republic of Serbia, an Eastern European country that controls one of the
> > major land routes from Western Europe to Turkey and the Near East. Like the
> > rest of what used to be Yugoslavia, Kosovo had a rich mix of ethnic groups
> > and different nationalities. Ethnic Albanians, who are predominantly Muslim,
> > make up the majority of a population of around two million. The presence of
> > many Albanian Muslims and the Ottoman Turks over the centuries has left a
> > countryside dotted with mosques. Meanwhile, the predominantly Orthodox
> > Christian Serbs form the largest minority group. For them, Kosovoâ€"home of
> > the Patriarchate of Peć, the equivalent of the Vatican for Orthodox
> > Christianityâ€"is the center of their religious and national identity, both
> > their Jerusalem and their Alamo. Other minorities present include the
> > Montenegrins, Turks, Croats, Ashkali, Roma (Gypsies), and Muslim Slavs.
> >
> > In previous centuries, the Serbs had been the most populous group in Kosovo,
> > but over the years were driven out in large numbers. One reason was brutal
> > treatment during World War II, when Nazi and Italian troops invaded
> > Yugoslavia. Kosovo Albanians sided with the Axis Powers, helped raise an SS
> > *Skanderbeg *division, and began a systematic slaughter and ethnic cleansing
> > of Serbs, Jews, and other minorities. The fact that Albanians in the 1980s
> > had the highest birth rate in Europe also contributed to the fateful
> > demographic shift.
> > Yugoslavia , Post-Tito
> >
> > In the aftermath of World War II, Yugoslavia became a socialist successor
> > state to the monarchic Kingdom of Yugoslavia, formed after World War I.
> > Under Marshal Tito, Yugoslavia’s many ethnic, national, and religious groups
> > were held in check with an iron hand and cynical machinations, which
> > included playing one ethnic group against another. So it’s not surprising
> > that in the power vacuum created when Tito died on May 4, 1980, thousands of
> > students poured into the streets of Kosovo’s capital, Pristina, demanding
> > that Kosovo be made an independent republic. News outlets and analysts
> > reported that some Albanians wanted republic status so that they could
> > secede and become part of neighboring Albania, then the most orthodox
> > Communist country in the region.
> >
> > As this movement spread, a ruthless crackdown from Belgrade followed. In
> > 1981, Albanian riots broke out and were put down violently by Yugoslav
> > forces. Kosovo came under virtual military rule, with curfews and other
> > emergency measures provoking more resentment. The discontent was compounded
> > by a country-wide financial crisis. Despite large-scale national investment
> > in Kosovo, and the fact that the province received the lion’s share of all
> > federal aid in the country, unemployment ran at 40 percent.
> >
> > A mass exodus of Serbs was underway by 1986, when Reuters quoted a Western
> > diplomat saying that Kosovo was a “powder keg†and officials were
> > “struggling to keep the lid on.†“For the Serbs who have remained,
> > frustrated Albanian youth have kept up a steady harassment ranging from the
> > painting of hostile slogans on Serb homes and vandalism of Serb graveyards
> > to beatings and rapes,†the *Washington Post* reported. The following year,
> > the *New York Times*concluded that:
> >
> > Ethnic Albanians already control almost every phase of life in the
> > autonomous province of Kosovo, including the police, the judiciary, civil
> > service, schools and factories. Non-Albanian visitors almost immediately
> > feel the independenceâ€"and suspicionâ€"of the ethnic Albanian authorities.
> >
> > An official inquiry found that local security and justice bodies had let
> > Albanian offenses against Serbs go unchecked, including rape, assault,
> > arson, intimidation, and property offenses. The finding led to a purge of
> > the Kosovo judiciary and police. But 1987 saw a return of the worst violence
> > since the riots initially broke out.
> > Enter Milošević and the KLA
> >
> > The rise of Slobodan Milošević, the Communist Party boss who became first
> > President of Serbia (1989-1997) and then President of Yugoslavia
> > (1997-2000), evolved in part from his promises to protect Serbs. He courted
> > voters with the “policy of the hard hand.†Under Milosevic, Serbia cut back
> > aid to Kosovo, revoked the province’s autonomy, continued meting out harsh
> > sentences to protestors and struck down ethnic quotas for jobs in the
> > province â€"all of which fueled enormous resentment.
> >
> > The 1990s saw the Balkans flare up in a series of civil wars over the rise
> > of Milosevic, various forms of nationalism, and secessionist moves by
> > Slovenia, Macedonia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Later in the decade,
> > Kosovo would become the final battleground before the breakup of the former
> > Yugoslavia, as Milošević (now Yugoslavia’s president) and the newly
> > formed *Ushtria
> > Çlirimtare e Kosovës* (Kosovo Liberation Army or KLA), an armed paramilitary
> > group, battled ruthlessly for supremacy.
> > The Albanian mafia reportedly backed secessionist groups in Kosovo.
> >
> > As early as February 1995, *Jane’s Intelligence Review *reported the rise of
> > a “Balkan Medellinâ€â€"namely, the Albanian mafia, believed to control 70
> > percent of the illegal heroin market in Germany and Switzerland. Closely
> > allied with the Sicilian mafia, the Albanian mafia was dominated in the
> > southern Balkans by Kosvar Albanians, and was reported to be involved in
> > gun-running and the financing of the KLA along with other secessionist
> > groups in Kosovo and neighboring Macedonia.
> >
> > The group viewed violence as the only effective path to secession and proper
> > rights for the province’s Albanian majority. Despite an eclectic composition
> > that included university students, Marxist-Leninists, and Maoists, in
> > addition to tribal clansmen, the KLA embraced all the ideological hallmarks
> > of a backwards tribalism: ethnic purification, racism, collective guilt, and
> > mob justice.
> >
> > The group made its violent debut in February 1996 by bombing several camps
> > housing Serbian refugees from the wars in Croatia and Bosnia. Soon, it
> > claimed responsibility for deadly ambushes of policemen, kidnappings of
> > Serbs, and murders of Albanians accused of being traitors. The KLA used hand
> > grenades, bombs, and machine guns in its bloody attacks against police,
> > private citizens, and universities, and human rights workers documented KLA
> > rapes of civilian women. By May 1998, the group controlled about a quarter
> > of Kosovo*.*
> >
> > Initially, the Clinton administration opposed the KLA. In 1998, U.S.
> > Ambassador Robert Gelbard stated, “We condemn very strongly terrorist
> > actions in Kosovo. The UÇK [KLA] is, without any questions, a terrorist
> > group.†On March 4, 1998, State Department spokesman James Rubin said the
> > U.S. had “called on the leaders of the Kosovar-Albanians to condemn
> > terrorist action by the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army.â€
> >
> > United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1160 (March 31, 1998) and 1199
> > (September 23, 1998) also denounced “acts of terrorism by the Kosovo
> > Liberation Army,†as well as “external support†for terrorism, including
> > “financing, arms, and training.†Even-handedly, they also condemned
> > “excessive and indiscriminate use of force by Serbian security forces and
> > the Yugoslav Army.â€
> > The KLA sought to escalate the conflict in order to draw the West in.
> >
> > A ceasefire was negotiated between the Serbian government and the KLA in
> > late 1998. But simultaneously, the KLA sought to escalate the conflict to
> > the point where they believed the West would feel compelled to intervene
> > against Milošević’s pro-Serb regime on behalf of ethnic Albanians. According
> > to former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, 80 percent of the ceasefire
> > violations in the months preceding the NATO bombing campaign were by the
> > KLA. Their battles with Milošević’s forces were characterized by grim
> > atrocities on both sides; but increasingly cruel retaliation by Milošević’s
> > thuggish forces soon received the lion’s share of international attention,
> > as past Serbian victims became perpetrators of new atrocities against their
> > former Albanian victimizers.
> >
> > Throughout the last half of 1998, Milošević led an especially brutal
> > offensive against the KLA. Human Rights Watch representatives reported that
> > the special forces of the Serbian police, the Yugoslav Army, and
> > anti-terrorist forces were responsible for summary executions and
> > indiscriminate attacks on civilians, including ax murders and the slitting
> > of throats. Milošević’s forces also engaged in systematic destruction of
> > civilian property, contaminating wells, burning crops and homes (sometimes
> > with people inside), and shooting livestock. Widespread physical abuse of
> > prisoners and arbitrary detentions were also cited. Father Sava Janjicâ€"a
> > famous blogging “cybermonk†of Decani monastery, who offered refuge from
> > marauding forces to Albanians and Serbs alikeâ€"denounced MiloÅ¡ević as the
> > “cancer of Europe.â€
> >
> > The escalating ethnic bloodshed evoked outrage from the Clinton
> > administration and other international leaders. Eastern European and NATO
> > countries expressed concern over the mounting economic and public-order
> > crises caused by tens of thousands of fleeing refugees, and some forecast a
> > potential unfolding of World War III. Even many conservatives thought that
> > the U.S. should take up the defense of the Albanian Muslims against the
> > ruthless onslaught of Milošević’s Christian Serbs, though contrarians argued
> > that intervention itself could touch off a wider war.
> > From Terrorists to Freedom Fighters
> >
> > However understandable the worries about Milošević, what did *not *make
> > sense was the Clinton administration’s sudden about-face concerning the KLA.
> > Abruptly, his administration placed this official “terrorist†group on the
> > fast track to public rehabilitation.
> >
> > In the person of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, the administration
> > offered incentives to the KLA intended to show that Washington was a “friend
> > of Kosovo.†Reported the *New York Times*: “Officers in the Kosovo
> > Liberation Army were sent to the United States for training in transforming
> > themselves from a guerrilla group into a police force or a political entity,
> > much like the African National Congress did in South Africa.â€
> > "Portraying the Serbs as evil and everybody else as good was... dishonest."
> > -U.N. Force Commander Lt. General Satish Numbiar
> >
> > During the ongoing carnage, Milošević was portrayed exclusively as
> > *the*villain,
> > while a contrasting romantic view of the KLA was promoted. By April 1999,
> > U.S. Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-CT) would even claim that “the United
> > States of America and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same human
> > values and principles,†adding: “Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human
> > rights and American values†(*Washington Post*, April 28, 1999). That same
> > month, he and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) proposed legislation *to arm* the
> > KLA, in direct contravention of the Helsinki Accords and previous UN
> > Security Council Resolutions.
> >
> > In February and March 1999, the Clinton administration had sought a
> > permanent peace agreement in negotiations at Rambouillet, France that
> > included representatives of the KLA. But while Yugoslavia agreed to most of
> > the demands, Milošević balked at allowing NATO troops access to Serbia.
> > An Altruistic Crusade
> >
> > Just as President Clinton had previously exhorted NATO to fight for Muslims
> > seeking to form an independent state in Bosnia, he would now call for NATO
> > intervention to defend Albanians seeking to secede from Serbia. Between
> > March and May 1999, NATO bombed Serbia to compel its forces to retreat from
> > Kosovo, where they had been fighting the KLA. Hillary Clinton revealed to an
> > interviewer later that summer that “I urged him [her husband] to bomb. You
> > cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major
> > holocaust of our time. What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of
> > life?†The use of the words “*our* way of life†to describe civil warfare
> > between competing gangs in faraway Eastern Europe apparently went
> > unchallenged.
> >
> > The NATO campaign was supposed to be about stopping “ethnic cleansing†of
> > Albanians by Serbs. President Clinton cited, as his rationale, “deliberate,
> > systematic efforts at . . . genocide.†He estimated publicly that 100,000
> > ethnic Albanians had been killed. Before the bombing, NATO spokesman Jamie
> > Shea also said that evidence of mass graves had been found. “God knows what
> > we’re going to find when Kosovo is open again and the international war
> > crimes tribunal is let in.†David Scheffer, then the U.S.
> > ambassador-at-large for war crimes, declared that as many as “225,000 ethnic
> > Albanian men aged between 14 and 59†may have been killed. The estimate
> > later ballooned to 600,000.
> > Fear and altruistic sentiments and are poor substitutes for facts.
> >
> > In seeking the public’s support for war, Clinton also invoked dramatic
> > memories from World War II. “[We are acting] so that future generations of
> > Americans do not have to cross the Atlantic to fight another terrible war…,â€
> > he said. “Our stand in Kosovo is a strategic imperative.†On May 14, 1999,
> > first lady Hillary Clinton visited refugee camps in neighboring Macedonia
> > and told media that the stories she had heard “echoed images of the Nazi
> > era, as depicted in films like *Schindler’s List* or *Sophie’s Choice*.†The
> > war, she said, was about our commitment to “human rights.â€
> >
> > Most of the press uncritically absorbed these notions in stories and
> > headlines that echoed the Third Reich theme, like “Flight from Genocide†and
> > “Echoes of the Holocaust.†The specter of mass butchery and the evocation of
> > painful memories of the Nazi death camps stirred feelings of compassion in
> > the American people.
> >
> > But fear and altruistic sentiments and are poor substitutes for facts and
> > rational self-interest, and constitute dangerous grounds for going to war.
> > “Propaganda Warâ€
> >
> > There was no direct or obvious benefit to the U.S. in bombing Milošević’s
> > forces in Kosovoâ€"simply because there was no *good *side to support in the
> > conflict. By all informed accounts, the violence in the Balkans in the 1990s
> > was a three-sided civil war, with brutality and atrocities committed
> > mutually by the Croats, Bosniaks, and Serbs. Moreover, prescient analysts
> > warned that while there was plenty of bloodshed in the unrest, there was no
> > clear evidence of “genocide†in Kosovo, and that military intervention could
> > have grave and unintended consequences for the region.
> >
> > In fact, within weeks of the bombing campaign, pre-war “genocide†claims of
> > hundreds of thousands of victims were scaled downward dramatically. A
> > subsequent five-month UN investigation found only 2,108 bodies. Similarly,
> > James Bissett, former Canadian Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Albania, and
> > Bulgaria, later testified: “In the case of Kosovo, it appears that about
> > 2,000 people were killed prior to the NATO bombing. When one considers that
> > a civil war had been going on in Kosovo since 1993, that is not a remarkable
> > figure, certainly not when compared with a lot of other hot spots in the
> > rest of the world.†Recent reports reviewed by this author indicate that in
> > 1999, slightly more than 4,000 Albanians were killed and approximately 1,700
> > non-Albanians were killed. Some 2,500 are still missing, according to data
> > from the Commission for Abducted and Missing Persons.
> >
> > Terrible, of course, but a far cry from the slaughter of hundreds of
> > thousands.
> > "[W]e did not find oneâ€"not oneâ€"mass grave."
> > -Investigator Emilio Perez Pujol
> >
> > Spanish forensic investigator Emilio Perez Pujol headed a large team of
> > pathologists and police specialists. The search for mass graves, he
> > explained to the *Sunday Times*, was “a semantic pirouette by the war
> > propaganda machines, because we did not find oneâ€"not oneâ€"mass grave…†Pujol
> > told the *El Pais* newspaper, “We had been working with two parallel
> > problems. One was the propaganda war. This allowed them to lie, to fake
> > photographs for the press, to publish pictures of mass graves, or whatever
> > they had to influence world opinion in favor or against Milošević or in
> > favor of the NATO bombings....â€
> >
> > “There never was a genocide in Kosovo,†he concluded. “It was dishonest and
> > wrong for western leaders to adopt the term in the beginning to give moral
> > authority to the operation.â€
> >
> > Shortly after the bombing began, Lt. General Satish Numbiar, a UN Force
> > Commander, wrote:
> >
> > Portraying the Serbs as evil and everybody else as good was not only
> > counter-productive but also dishonest. According to my experience all sides
> > were guilty but only the Serbs would admit they were no angels while the
> > others would insist that they were. With 28,000 forces under me and with
> > constant contacts with UNHCR [the UN Refugee Agency] and the International
> > Red Cross officials, we did not witness any genocide beyond killings and
> > massacres on all sides that are typical of such conflict conditions. I
> > believe none of my successors and their forces saw anything on the scale
> > claimed by media.
> >
> > U.S.-Sponsored Ethnic Cleansing
> >
> > When the bombing campaign ended, there were no NATO Kosovo Force troops on
> > the ground to preserve order. Infuriated Serbs launched reprisals against
> > Albanians, in an apparent effort to push all the remaining Albanians out of
> > Kosovo. Then came the inevitable backlash: a retaliatory campaign of ethnic
> > cleansing against Serbs and other minorities, carried out by those on whose
> > behalf the U.S. was fighting: the ethnic Albanians.
> >
> > In the name of “stopping the genocide,†NATO and the UN actually sparked and
> > presided over one of the worst episodes of ethnic cleansing in modern
> > history. Jiri Dienstbier, the UN special representative on human rights in
> > the former Yugoslavia, put it this way: “[T]he spring ethnic cleansing of
> > ethnic Albanians accompanied by murders, torture, looting and burning of
> > houses has been replaced by the fall ethnic cleansing of Serbs, Romas,
> > Bosniaks and other non-Albanians accompanied by the same atrocities.â€
> > Dienstbier reported that the province was left “without a legal system,
> > ruled by illegal structures of the Kosovo Liberation Army and very often by
> > competing mafias.â€
> >
> > In August 1999, Human Rights Watch estimated that more than 164,000 Serbs,
> > Roma (or Gypsies), Ashkali, Croats, Muslim Slavs, and other minorities had
> > been driven out of Kosovo during the wave of violence. That number later
> > grew to an estimated 220,000 who fled Kosovo in fear for their lives.
> > According to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),
> > UNMIK (United Nations Interim Mission in Kosovo), KFOR (NATO’s Kosovo
> > Force), and various human rights groups, entire villages were burned down
> > and cities emptied of minorities. Thousands of buildings owned or related to
> > minorities, including homes, churches, seminaries, and cemeteries, were
> > burned, blown up, or otherwise vandalized. Knifings, bombings, abductions,
> > murder, threats, and intimidation have been used to cleanse the province of
> > any remaining minorities.
> >
> > Reports by the OSCEâ€"self-described as the world’s largest regional security
> > agencyâ€"documented how minority groups became the targets of
> >
> > executions, abductions, torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment,
> > arbitrary arrests…house burnings, blockades restricting freedom,
> > discriminatory treatment in schools, hospitals, humanitarian aid
> > distribution and other public services…and forced evictions from housing.
> > [T]here are serious indications that the perpetrators of [these] human
> > rights violations are either members of the former KLA, people passing
> > themselves off as members of the former KLA or members of other armed
> > Albanian groups.
> >
> > Eventually, KLA members were absorbed into the “Kosovo Protection Corpsâ€
> > (KPC), put on the UN payroll, and tasked with providing emergency response
> > and rebuilding. “We believe the Kosovo Protection Corps will make a useful
> > contribution to the restoration of peace and security for all the
> > communities of Kosovo and its progress toward democracy,†declared Secretary
> > of State Madeleine Albright.
> >
> > However, the UN later reported that KPC members had acted as *de facto* police
> > officers, torturing or killing local citizens, illegally detaining others,
> > extorting “liberation taxes†from businesses, and threatening UN police who
> > attempted to intervene.
> >
> > Today, the property rights of minorities have disappeared as ethnic
> > Albanians help themselves to what’s left of the former owners’ cars, homes,
> > furnishings, and businesses. According to UNMIK’s Housing and Property
> > Department, over 700,000 housing units in Kosovo have been illegally
> > occupied, along with an unknown number of businesses.
> >
> > In many areas, only those incapable of fleeingâ€"the elderly, the poor, or
> > the handicappedâ€"remain, living in ghettoes circled by barbed wire and manned
> > by NATO KFOR checkpoints. Many eke out an existence on the edge of survival,
> > like those who now live in shipping containers donated by Russia. Moderate
> > Albanians have been targeted as well, including those who had been content
> > with Serbia’s rule or who enjoy socializing with Serbs. Political rivals
> > have been assassinated and, in at least one case, dismembered. Many Serbs
> > cannot move about without armed escorts.
> > Terrorists, Islamists, Gun-Runners
> >
> > Meanwhile, European media investigations and statements from law
> > enforcement officials describe how Kosovo has become an open market for
> > terrorists looking for weapons and explosives, a key global player in heroin
> > trafficking, and the world’s most notorious center for sex-slave
> > trafficking.
> >
> > Into this vacuum of lawlessness have come radical Wahhabi Muslim groups from
> > Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. These groups flooded into the
> > area after the bombing and invasion, offering financial aid to Albanians,
> > sometimes on strict conditions: “They had to wear the head scarf and bow to
> > Mecca five times a day, or allow the Wahhabis to build a mosque,†former
> > OSCE official Thomas Gambill recounts. The burly ex-Marine also showed this
> > author security records logging complaints by Albanian school teachers who
> > said they were being kicked out of their classrooms for hours at a time, so
> > that Wahhabis could teach the Koran to their students.
> >
> > Gambill’s warnings about the KLA creating new, illegal paramilitary groups
> > were frequently rebuffed. Supposedly disarmed, the KLA merely formed other
> > groups with different names, such as the Albanian National Army. A 2003 NATO
> > map viewed by this author marked the locations of some two dozen illegal
> > paramilitary camps in Kosovo.
> >
> > In September 2005, a team of investigative reporters from Dutch television
> > station VPRO produced a documentary showing a robust gun-running operation
> > from a Brooklyn supporter of the KLA. They asked the gun-runner, Florin
> > Krasniqi, about NATO’s claims of having disarmed the KLA. “It’s NATO
> > propaganda,†Krasniqi replied. “NATO can collect a few arms. But most
> > Albanians in Kosovo are very well armed. Just in case NATO pulls out, or we
> > don’t get our independence peacefully, then we’ll use those weapons.â€
> > "With money you can do amazing things...Senators and congressmen are looking
> > for donations..."
> >
> > -Florin Krasniqi
> >
> > The KLA did not forget where its political support originated, either. In
> > the documentary, Krasniqi is shown attending a John Kerry fundraiser in New
> > York with other KLA members and writing checks to the Kerry campaign. The
> > film also shows Krasniqi introducing his group to retired General Wesley
> > Clark, who led the NATO campaign before becoming a Democratic presidential
> > candidate. “Mr. Clark,†he says, “This is your group, your KLA.†Clark
> > responds approvingly: “They fought against tremendous odds.â€
> >
> > “With money you can do amazing things in this country,†Krasniqi adds.
> > “Senators and congressmen are looking for donations. If you fund them and
> > raise the money they need for their campaign, they pay you back.â€
> >
> > Indeed. And it wasn’t just Democrats that raked in Albanian donations.
> > Former Republican Senator Robert Dole, an early supporter, received $1.2
> > million from Albanian lobbies for his 1988 presidential campaign. Albanians
> > even showed their gratitude by naming streets in Kosovo after Dole and Bill
> > Clinton.
> > Sham Negotiations?
> >
> > Kosovo has been a protectorate of the United Nations ever since the war,
> > pending a negotiated resolution of its “final status.†At the bargaining
> > table, the province demands independence from Serbia, while Serbia offers a
> > compromise: “more than autonomy and less than independence.â€
> >
> > Early on, the UN had repeatedly insisted that Kosovo meet certain standards
> > before negotiations over its final status were settled. But after seven
> > years of UN administration and billions of dollars in foreign aid, Kosovo
> > and its international administrators have been unable to consistently meet
> > even the most basic standards set forth in UN Security Council resolutions
> > 1199, 1160, and 1244. Those resolutions demanded the demilitarization of
> > paramilitary groups, an end to “acts of terrorism,†the protection of basic
> > human rights, and safe return of all refugees.
> >
> > In October 2005, some six years after Kosovo became a UN protectorate,
> > Norwegian Ambassador to NATO Kai Eide published a review of how Kosovo was
> > meeting UN-set standards. “With regard to the foundation of a multi-ethnic
> > society,†Eide wrote, “the situation is grim.†The report called the
> > continued existence of minority “camps†inside Kosovo “a disgrace for the
> > governing structures and for the international community.†The report also
> > noted that the refugee return process had come to a halt.
> >
> > The report also cited “widespread illegal occupation of property.â€
> > Prosecution of serious crimes was said to be hindered by hindered by “family
> > or clan solidarity and by the intimidation of witnesses as well as of law
> > enforcement and judicial officials.†Failure to prosecute crimes targeting
> > minorities was said to result in a climate of “impunity.â€
> >
> > The failure of the UN to insist that Kosovo meet minimal civilized standards
> > has convinced some critics that the negotiations are a sham, that Kosovo’s
> > final status has already been decided by the “Contact Group,†which
> > represents major Western powers.
> >
> > An email this author received on February 28 from a military official
> > stationed in Kosovo claimed the Contact Group had planned the future
> > stepping down of Kosovo Prime Minister Barjam Kosumi and his replacement by
> > former KLA commander Agim Ceku. "Agim Ceku will take over prime minister
> > role...Contact Group does not find Kosumi appropriate for status talks and
> > as a leader ...Lufti Haziri will be his deputy, Lufti will mentor Ceku,
> > because Lufti knows how to play politics. Truly amazing ...the butcher of
> > the Serbs in Croatia." The last phrase was a reference to the fact Ceku was
> > wanted by Serbia for alleged war crimes in Croatia. (Ceku vigorously denies
> > the charges.) The day after the email was received, Kosumi resigned and was
> > soon replaced by hardliner Ceku who rejects compromise and insists on
> > independence.
> >
> > Sometime in late January, UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari will make a
> > recommendation on the “final status†of Kosovoâ€"namely, whether it should
> > remain part of Serbia or be granted independence. The Contact Group will
> > make its recommendation on Kosovo’s future after reviewing the report. If
> > Kosovo gains independence, some analysts and political leaders warn of
> > potential destabilization in other troubled parts of the world, as various
> > secessionist movements become emboldened to demand their own independence.
> > This would only exacerbate the process of geopolitical disintegration that
> > philosopher Ayn Rand <http://www.atlassociety.org/tni/ayn_rand>aptly
> > labeled “global Balkanization.â€
> > Fair Warning
> >
> > The disastrous political-cultural outcome of the NATO campaign in Serbia
> > already affords us sobering lessons about the irrationality of conducting
> > military actions on the basis of manipulated evidence, in the absence of
> > contextual understanding of local history, andâ€"most importantlyâ€"for motives
> > other than clear national self-interest. The Kosovo incursion was instead
> > prosecuted as a “war of belief,†argues Gregory Copley, a respected
> > geopolitical analyst and president of the International Strategic Studies
> > Association. Rational criteria for deciding whether to make war were
> > jettisoned as the Clinton administration opted instead for “an approach to
> > war and strategic affairs which is based solely around unsubstantiated
> > beliefs.â€
> >
> > The motivational root of those “unsubstantiated beliefs†is the philosophy
> > that extols as “moral†and “idealistic†any*selfless* act or policyâ€"i.e.,
> > any course of action in which the actor has nothing personal to gain.
> >
> > Observe that while most liberals (and many conservatives) recoil from any *
> > self-interested* projection of American military might abroad, they fall all
> > over themselves to demonstrate “pure, selfless motives†by launching
> > military actions like those in Kosovo, where America had no vital interests
> > at risk, but precious lives and treasure to sacrifice.
> >
> > For such people, the hideous real-world consequences of their altruistic
> > crusades pale in the face of their “idealistic†motives*. *For them, in
> > truth, “good intentions†are the *only* realityâ€"with “good†being defined as
> > “selfless.†The logic of the selflessness ethos is inescapable: We should
> > engage in warfare only when we have nothing to gain from it.
> >
> > The moral self-deception continues to this day. Even as the brutal ethnic
> > cleansing of Kosovo’s minorities by racists and fascists goes on, the
> > Clintonsâ€"former president and presidential aspirant alikeâ€"continue to tout
> > the military adventure in the Balkans as a victory for “democratic valuesâ€
> > of humanitarianism and multicultural tolerance. Their selfless war, they
> > insist, stands as an idealistic model of how a future Democratic
> > administration should and would employ American military power abroad.
> >
> > Consider that fair warning.
> >
>
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