Feb 18 2008
Kosovo Independence and the Al Qaeda Connection
Today President Bush recognized Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia. Sounds nice, right? Well it is just another example of the total disconnect between this administration and reality. While Bush embraces the new democracy in Kosovo he completely ignores very old and reliable intelligence. Three of the last four prime ministers of Kosovo have been members of the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army). The KLA has close ties with Al Qaeda and has been long associated with Osama bin Laden. Duh!
It is difficult to understand why the US under President George W. Bush has seemingly gone out of its way following the 9/11 Islamist/Al Qaeda attacks–the worst-ever attacks on US soil –to alienate post-Soviet-era Russia. Three out of the last four prime ministers elected in Kosovo were senior members of the Al Qaeda-connected Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Hashim Thaci, was the leader of the KLA.
The KLA has been credibly linked to Al Qaeda leader Osama Binladen. In 1998, Fatos Klosi, the head of SHIK (Albania’s intelligence service), told London’s Sunday Times newspaper that Binladen had visited Albania to send units to fight in Kosovo. In 1999, the Washington Times reported that it had obtained intelligence documents that showed a “link” between Binladen and the KLA–including a common staging area in Tropoje, Albania, a center for Islamic terrorists.
The KLA’s terrorist character was no secret. In 1998, Robert Gelbard, the US special envoy for Kosovo, told AFP that “the KLA is, without any questions, a terrorist group.” (Source: China Confidential)
Hashim Traci, the present Prime Minister, has a rather colored past. He has long been a member of the KLA. The same organization with known ties to Al Qaeda and bin Laden. His action brings a Muslim state to Europe and has Russia and other facing Islamofascist extremest radicals wondering if this will become a trend. Who is next, Georgia? Albania? This could destabilize the entire area and introduce terrorist organizations into the breadbasket of Europe.
Thaci has vowed to make the independence declaration “in close co-ordination” with those countries likely to recognise it – the United States and several EU members.
Serbia – supported by Russia – remains implacably opposed to independence for Kosovo, and has threatened unspecified sanctions against anyone who “infringes international law”, as Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica prefers to put it.
Hashim Thaci was formerly political leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the guerrilla group that fought against Serb forces in the late 1990s. (Source: BBC)
So who exactly is the KLA? According to Wikipedia they are a dangerous organization.
There have been widespread reports of war crimes committed by the KLA both during and after the conflict. These have been directed against both Serbs, other ethnic minorities (principally Roma) and against ethnic Albanians accused of collaborating with the Serb authorities. According to a 2001 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW):
The KLA was responsible for serious abuses… including abductions and murders of Serbs and ethnic Albanians considered collaborators with the state.
It is also believed that the KLA has played a key role in the ethnic cleansing, kidnappings and murder of Serbs and other ethnic minorities after the end of the war. HRW writes:
Elements of the KLA are also responsible for post-conflict attacks on Serbs, Roma, and other non-Albanians, as well as ethnic Albanian political rivals… widespread and systematic burning and looting of homes belonging to Serbs, Roma, and other minorities and the destruction of Orthodox churches and monasteries… combined with harassment and intimidation designed to force people from their homes and communities… elements of the KLA are clearly responsible for many of these crimes.
The KLA is also accused of intentionally provoking attacks by Yugoslav security forces against civilian targets by, for example, staging attacks from villages, knowing that the response would create bad publicity for the government forces in the international media:
The KLA… engaged in military tactics in 1998 and 1999 that put civilians at risk. KLA units sometimes staged an ambush or attacked police or army outposts from a village and then retreated, exposing villagers to revenge attacks. Large massacres sometimes ensued, helping publicize the KLA’s cause and internationalize the conflict. (Source: Wikipedia)
Another source describes them as an organized criminal organization. Nothing surprises me anymore. This administration doesn’t seem to get it. You sleep with gangster and thugs and you’re going to be lumped together with them.
Despite its links to organized crime and Al Qaeda, the KLA rebel army had been skillfully heralded by the Western media in the months preceding the 1999 NATO bombings as broadly representative of the interests of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. Its leader Hashim Thaci had been “designated” (by US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright) as chief negotiator at the Rambouillet peace talks.
The fact of the matter is that the Atlantic Alliance had been supporting a terrorist organization. The KLA was not supporting the rights of ethnic Albanians. Quite the opposite.
The activities of this terrorist organization on the ground, in Kosovo, provided NATO and the US with the pretext to intervene on humanitarian grounds, claiming that the Serb authorities had committed human rights violations against ethnic Albanians, when in fact the NATO sponsored KLA was involved in terrorist acts on behalf of NATO, which triggered a response from the Serb police and military. (Source: Global Research)
So what can we say? Happy Independence Day Kosovo! Now lets see what develops.
Frog, The Bard said it best when he wrote “Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive.”
That is the hallmark of this administration:deception, double-dealing and fomenting dissent.
Kosovo is the only place in the world where they like us and then only because Bush has announced he is pouring in his trademark millions of dollars borrowed from China.
I am not a biker but support your work on behalf of vets killed in action and support ing their grieving familes, I was married to a 21 year vet, consider myself a patriot and am definitely disgrunled.
Bikers, Veterans, and Disgruntled Patriots, eh? Well! I’m all of the above!
This whole Kosovo scenario has been nothing but a big cluster fuck from the beginning, and if I had a nickel for all the countries (including The United States!), that have supported Al Qaeda at many given points in the last fifty years, I would have a shit load of nickels! Of course Bush is backing Kosovo! It gives him another chance to snap at those dirty-bad-nasty Russians that Uncle Ronnie had so much trouble with!
In my opinion, the best thing to do is let these people do whatever they do to each other, and stay the fuck out of it! If they want to go snake-shit crazy and blast the fuck out of each other, then who the Hell are we to tell them they can’t! We really don’t get along so well with either of these countries, so if they weaken each other, it helps us! Let ‘em fight! After the dust settles, we’ll deal with the winner!
Way back in the heady days of “The Cold War” Russia decided it was going to go into a little country called Afghanistan, and hoover up all the oil. Well guess what! Didn’t get done! In fact the whole thing came crashing down around around the USSR’s ears! Just like India came crashing down around England’s ears, and Algiers, and Vietnam came crashing down around Frances ears! Why? Simple! Fight a war you can’t win, with money you don’t have, there can be only one way it ends!
The scary thing about this whole sad scenario is that nobody seems to read their history anymore, or The Worlds governments are all completely, and incurably insane!
Read about the Alexandrian Empire, The Roman Empire, The Bizantium Empire, The Ottoman Empire, or any other Empire in the history of The World, and how they ended. You will find three undeniable facts:
(1) When empires outgrow their infrastructure, and the whole sad thing falls!
(2) A highly mobile, and dedicated guerilla force, will ALWAYS defeat an army of foreign occupiers.
(3) People are always at their strongest when they have nothing left to to lose.
I hope and pray Bush has the good sense to stay the fuck out of Kosovo! But I don’t have a lot of faith in Bush’s good sense!
Thanks for the response Stoney 13. Your views reflect mine exactly. I was reading today where the officers on the line are worried because our armed forces are spread so thin. Multiple combat tours and dramatic injuries that would have killed soldiers of our generation compound the problem.
I was talking to a young veteran this past weekend at a biker event. He is a 24 year old Marine with three tours in Iraq under his belt. His last tour was cut short by an IED and now he is left with Traumatic Brain Injury and 100% disabled. His life has been ruined.
I think your third point, about highly mobile and dedicated guerilla forces pretty much covers exactly why we can’t win. That and the fact that we are broke and have serious problems right here at home. Problems that we should be funding instead of a senseless conflict in a country that never attacked us.
I don’t think we can count on Bush’s good sense. His judgement has been flawed since day one. I forget who said it, but it pretty much sums up Bush, “attacking Iraq after 911 is like Roosevelt attacking Mexico after Pearl Harbor.” The only people benefiting from this whole fiasco are the contractors and China.