There is no reason to think that this would not have continued and grown worse. The refugees were bound to abandon the country in ever-increasing numbers with no likelihood of return and the permanent destabilisation of neighbouring states. A Kosovo left in the hands of Miloševic would have continued in a state of bitter conflict unless it became one in which over a number of months the majority of Albanians were ethnically cleansed. The growing flow of Albanian refugees all across Europe would have been as big a problem as that of Bosnians had been a few years earlier. Chomsky repeatedly claims that the bombing ‘failed' in that it greatly escalated the refugee flow; but its failure in that regard was only temporary. It in fact ensured the rapid return of the refugees, undoubtedly to miserable conditions but not to worse conditions than they had experienced in the months before the bombing, and essentially to a situation which would improve rather than indefinitely deteriorate.” tercüme ingilizce tercüme elektrik emlak çeviri tercüman link ekle kiral?k ev

director of the Brookings Institution, who was the lead American negotiator and director of a joint National Security Council-Pentagon-State Department task force on diplomacy during the bombing. Talbott wrote the foreword to a recent book on the war by his director of communications, John Norris. In it, Talbott writes that thanks to Norris's book, anyone interested in the war in Kosovo “will know...how events looked and felt at the time to those of us who were involved” in the war. That sounds fairly authoritative. Presenting the position of the Clinton administration, Norris writes that “it was Yugoslavia's resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform – not the plight of Kosovar Albanians – that best explains NATO's war.” That had been surmised, but is now confirmed from a very high level. tercüme ingilizce tercüme elektrik emlak çeviri tercüman link ekle kiral?k ev

How does Kosovo before the bombing compare with it after? Before there were some 2,000 deaths. This is a very rough figure, including deaths of Serbs and Albanians, military and civilian, with Albanian civilians being the main victims. After the bombing, we don't know the total death toll, but it is surely far higher.
canadian pharmacy

It's true, why not analyze the topic from all the available angles ?

although people here denies or at least question that an actual genocide was taking place in kosovo, none here question the democratic right of kosovar to be independant.. you wrote: then Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic's genocidal war, and that is more than long enough. you should correct your text because the word genocidal here is highly debated or you risk to loose all credibility with the bloggers.

Kosova Cannot Wait

By: Shirley Cloyes and Joe DioGuardi

Suggestions that a vote on the U.N. resolution on Kosovo's independence will be postponed are deeply troubling. There are two million Kosovar Albanians who demand delivery on the West's promise of freedom and self-determination. They have patiently waited on that promise since June 1999, when NATO air strikes ended then Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic's genocidal war, and that is more than long enough.

The international community should recognize the independence of Kosovo now, if for no other reason than its promise to the Kosovar Albanian.

There is, however, another reason that is equally compelling: Recognition is the only way to bring lasting peace and stability to the Balkans.

For seven years, Kosovo's political, social, and economic progress has been held hostage by a lack of final status. Kosovar Albanians, who are predominantly pro-Western and democratic, are also largely entrepreneurial and hardworking. Yet, they are trapped in a welfare state. Kosovo's unemployment rate is nearly 70 percent, in a population in which 70 percent are also under the age of 30. Privatization and access to World Bank funds, which would bring jobs and investments to Kosovo, are repeatedly stalled by lack of final status and the international community's concern for Serbia.

Albanians, who make up 92 percent of Kosovo's population, along with the minority communities of Serbs, Turks, Roma, and Ashkalli, grow desperate as assistance from international donors and the Albanian diaspora dwindles. As winter sets in, severe daily hardships and power shortages will make for a volatile environment.

Kosovo's Serbs, fewer than five percent of Kosovo's population, need the matter settled once and for all, too. Their lives are stolen daily by Belgrade, which blocks all their attempts r to be full partners in the new Kosovo. Their inability to integrate into Kosovo's political and economic life prolongs the suffering of Serbia's citizens, as well, for as long as Belgrade can use Kosovo's Serbs as pawns, it can hide behind a failed nationalism to avoid dealing with an economy in collapse.

The notion presented by both U.S. and European officials in recent weeks, that delaying Kosovo's final status will somehow prevent the parties of indicted war criminals Milosevic and Vojislav Seselj from gaining a majority in December, is naïve. The Radicals and the Socialists already hold 40 percent of the seats in Serbia's parliament and regional polls show them gaining even more in December. They are making these gains because their message is clear: They will never "sell Kosovo."

In other words, whether the U.N. votes on the resolution to grant Kosovo independence before or after the December vote is irrelevant; Serbia is already acting as if that decision has been taken. That being the case, take the decision now. Delaying the resolution any longer will only make it that much harder for Kosovar Albanians to heal the wounds of Serbian occupation and war.

Indeed, delaying the decision actually could have a negative effect in Serbia. It would be a suggestion to the Serbs that resisting Kosovo's independence is not paying off, thereby further boosting the cause of the Radicals and the Socialists. Granting Kosovo independence now, on the other hand, might have the opposite effect: It could help diminish their march towards an absolute parliamentary majority by demonstrating to the Serbs that no one in the outside world cares much for what the Radicals and Socialists want.

On October 19, Martin Ahtisaari, the U.N. Envoy mediating the final status talks, announced "2006 is still my target date," dismissing suggestions by EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and others that status resolution might be delayed until Serbia holds elections. Ahtisaari is not the only decision-maker, however, and despite what happens, debate about postponement has already caused considerable damage. Belgrade has been encouraged to believe it has power over final status decision-making, and Kosovar Albanians, whose dissatisfaction with their government is on the rise, are beginning to seriously question their historic and vigorous faith in the West, especially the United States. If the erosion of confidence continues, things will go from bad to worse.

For the United States, especially, now is the time for a foreign policy success, not another foreign policy failure. Granting Kosovo its independence now, with the U.S. leading that charge, can be that success.

Bring it to a vote.

 

"And don't forget that ten years ago thousands of Bosnian Muslims
were murdered by the Serb militias who were in a UN protected “safe haven” with hundreds of UN soldiers assigned to defend them.  Yet the UN stood by while the entire adult and teenage male
population was systematically butchered." 

Sir, this claim is dead WRONG. The only "systematic butchering" that really took place in Srebrenica while the UN peacekeepers apathetically "stood by" (and which the UN top brass at New York's headquarters turned a blind eye and deaf ear to)  was the hideously brutal slaughter of over 3,800 Serbian CIVILIANS - mainly elderly men, women and young children from early 1992 to July 1995 - by Alija Izetbegovic's SDA party Bosnian Islamist fundamentalist Nazi faction warlord, Mr. Naser Oric (recently freed by the NATO owned ICTY "war crimes tribunal" after serving only 2 and a half years!!).This brutal slaughter, whilst NOT specifically denied by NATO, the NATO owned ICTY or the Bush Administration,is NEVER referred to as "genocide".  

See my below comment post on the UK "Scotsman" newspaper concerning this vile NATO obscenity and affront to humanity (available at: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=973262006):

************************************************************ 

Dear John, you write that: 

"Naser Oric is just as guilty as Gen. Ratko Mladic even if he didn't kill as many."

How is General Ratko Mladic "guilty" exactly? What evidence do you have that he ordered or participated in the alleged killing of "...some 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Europe's worst atrocity since the Second World War."

After 11 years the NATO owned ICTY at The Hague has failed to produce a shred of evidence to support the charge that Mladic and/or Karadzic ordered the execution of 8,000 of the late Alija Izetbegovic's troops. For example, the overwhelming majority of bodies examined have NOT been identified as Bosnian muslims (see http://www.srebrenica-report.com and http://emperors-clothes.com/sreb/branco-1.htm).

Even the Izetbegovic SDA Bosnian Islamists admit that 5,000 of their troops made it safely to the town of Tuzla through Izetbegovic's SDA held "Bosniak" Islamist lines - troops who were later on re-incorporated into Izetbegovic's "Bosniak" army. Add to this the approximately 3,000 of Izetbegovic's troops who according to the Red Cross also left the area WITHOUT their families being informed, and you discover how they came up with the figure of 8,000 supposedly executed.

See:
http://emperor.vwh.net/articles/pumphrey/Srebrenica.html

http://www.srebrenica-report.com/defense.htm

http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/refutat.htm

This alleged moral equivalence between Mladic and Oric is WRONG. Mladic's guilt for the alleged execution of 8,000 of Izetbegovic's troops has not been PROVEN with any documented evidence by NATO - all we have is ASSERTIONS made by the NATO-owned ICTY. Simultaneously we have the documented massacres of 3,870 Serbian civilians by Oric from 1992 to 1995 - which has been confirmed by UN officials and blue helmet "peacekeepers" on the ground at the time -such as French UN general Phillipe Morillon in testimony under oath at the late Milosevic's "trial" by NATO's ICTY.

Oric's massacres of 3,800+ Serbian civilians have NOT been specifically denied by NATO, NATO's ICTY or the UN itself, but have simply been whitewashed and COVERED UP.

Oric was a cold blooded killer who BOASTED to reporters of the Washington Post and Toronto Star about how he murdered Serbian CIVILIANS - elderly men, women and children - mostly by cracking skulls with iron bars & sledgehammers, as well as beheading & dismemberment with axes,knives, daggers and machetes. See

http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/oric.htm

http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/fulltext.htm

http://emperors-clothes.com/analysis/gorazde.htm
http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/texts2.htm

http://slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg030904.htm 

All of this has been rigorously documented in official United Nations documents A/48/177, S/25835 and A/47/813, S/24991 describing the hideous murders and rapes of Serbian civilians in and around Srebrenica and other nearby Bosnian towns and villages - available at:

http://emperors-clothes.com/sreb/mem.htm

http://www.srebrenica-report.com/docs/UN-1993-1.pdf

The UN document A/47/813, S/24991 on rape by Bosnian Muslim & Croat forces in Bosnia in 1992 can be read at: http://www.srpska-mreza.com/Bosnia/rapes/raped-serbs.html

*********************************************************

As far as who was most guilty at the UN headquarters in New York for failing to prevent the Rwandan genocide, the evidence is quite clear that it was then US ambassador to the UN, the Clinton Administration's Madeleine Albright. See one of my posts from my blog.

Here is an excerpt below: 

************************************************************* 

Last year, in April 2004, on the 10th anniversary of the [genuine] Rwanda genocide, on an Australian current affairs program [the ABC 7:30 Report], they had a former "UN war crimes prosecutor" who made the following comment:

"Fortunately, in Kosovo, even though a lot of peopledid lose their lives, NATO was not as slow as whathappened, for example, in Rwanda and Bosnia."

This comment implies that what happened in Rwanda was a result of the US Clinton Administration and NATO being "slow" to act, and that while this contributed to the genocide in Rwanda, at least in the case ofKosovo this "slowness" on the part of the US Clinton Administration and NATO was miraculously avoided.Nothing could be further from the truth - in both instances.

The US government, along with NATO states knew EXACTLY what was going on in Rwanda - but patently refused to call it by its properterm-i.e.,genocide;unlike in Kosovo, where the term 'genocide' was frivolously being bandied about by NATO governments even BEFORE the bombing by US/NATO aircraft commenced.

In fact it was NOT a matter of being "slow" to act inthe case of Rwanda - and "quick" to act in the case of Kosovo; it was actually a matter of outright REFUSAL bythe Clinton/Albright team to acknowledge that genocide was happening in Rwanda and then deliberately obstructing-at every turn- every effort by UNpeacekeepers to prevent the genocide of up to 800,000 people.

Why did the US Clinton Administration do this? One possible answer can be found at the following url:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO305A.html

In a report by an eminent panel entitled "Rwanda: The Preventable Genocide" by the Organization for African Unity [now the African Union-released in May 2000] it is openly declared that even though the US was fullyaware that genocide was occurring in Rwanda, then-US ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright, was responsible for "playing the key role" in "tossing uproadblocks" at the UN to "..prevent effective action" to stop the genocide.

Isn't it strange how Clinton and Albright were ACTIVELY involved in direct actions at the UN to ensure that the Rwanda genocide took place [ which is far worse and completely different to doing 'nothing' at all] and yet claim that they were intervening on the side of of a known terrorist organization [the KLA] in Kosovo and siding with the Iranian-backed Islamist regime of Alija Izetbegovic [a known Osama bin Laden ally] in Bosnia because they were allegedly trying to "prevent genocide"? It just ISN'T credible.

See the story at:
http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2001/6.html

The report can be viewed in its entirety at:

http://www.visiontv.ca/RememberRwanda/Report.pdf

As terrible as the carnage committed by all three sides was during the Bosnian civil war from '92 to'95, it certainly did NOT qualify as anything approaching genocide [i.e the literal dictionary meaning of the word] of any single ethnic group in thewar [i.e., deliberate extermination of an entire people].
See for example the articles by the prestigious International Strategic Studies Association at: http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Sep1703.htm
http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Sep1903.htm

Nor did what occurred in Kosovo in 1999 (max. 2,200 to 2,500 deaths in total for all civilian and military personnel on ALL sides from ALL causes-including "accidental" NATO bombing of civilian victims) qualify as genocide either-despite Clinton/NATO claims to the contrary.

See for example the article by renowned Canadian author, Professor Michel Chossudovsky: "NATO'S CLAIM OF ETHNIC CLEANSING CHALLENGED" at:
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/chossudovsky/ethnic.htm

Since June '99, at least 95% of the pre-war non-Albanian minority population of 19 distinct ethnic groups [amounting to approximately 350,000 people] has been ethnically cleansed from the province under the very supervision of NATO troops who were supposed to be protecting them.

The NATO bombing of Serbia/Kosovo in 1999 had less to do with preventing genocide and more to do with "regime change" in Belgrade just as the 2003 war in Iraq had less to do with preventing an attack by WMD and more to do with installing a compliant regime in Baghdad.

The attempt by US and NATO governments to exonerate themselves by, in effect, saying [to paraphrase]:

"Well we know that 800,000 people were masscared in Rwanda and it's really an unfortunate and sad thing we didn't prevent it because we were just too slow to act, but hey, at least we prevented genocide in Kosovo and you have to give us credit for that"
is a lame and specious argument not supported by the facts.

Regards,


Peter Robert North.

PS: The Srebrenica Hoax was a Cover Up for Clinton's support of Alija Izetbegovic: a fanatical Al Qaeda Islamist Jihad supporter and close friend of Osama bin Laden and KNOWN WAR CRIMINAL Naser Oric [to top it all off, the terrorist KLA leader was Agim Ceku - also a KNOWN WAR CRIMINAL -who worked with the brother of Osama bin Laden's #2 man, Dr. Ayman Al Zawahiri - also another Al Qaeda fanatic supported by Clinton and NATO]

http://nato-media-lies-exposed.blogspot.com/2005/12/exposing-sbs-bias-censorship-hypocrisy.html
**********************************************************************

 "...Holbrooke, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and the Clinton White House all played key rôles in supporting the Islamists who, as it transpired, were consistently working with al-Qaida and the Iranian Government, among others, in planning major terrorist attacks on the US. Amb. Hays worked closely with Mr Holbrooke in the UN during this period. As a result, it was now seen as important that this pattern of support for people who were later seen to be involved in terrorist actions against the US should not be allowed to emerge, particularly in the build-up to the elections, which were regarded as being critical to Sen. Hillary Clinton and former NATO Supreme Allied Commander-Europe (SACEUR) Gen. Clark."

International Strategic Studies Association, Washington DC: GIS Special Topical Reports - Balkan Strategic Studies: October 20, 2003.

http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Oct20%2003.htm

*****************************************************


International Strategic Studies Association, Washington DC: GIS Special Topical Reports - Balkan Strategic Studies: The New Rome & The New Religious Wars, March 1999.

"Little wonder that numerous US policy analysts, even
those who are hostile to Yugoslavia as a basic stance,
are extremely uncomfortable with the Clinton
Administration's close ties with the KLA.

"There is no doubt that the involvement of the two
brothers al-Zawahiri in the two movements is not
coincidental. Ben Works, director of the Strategic
Research Institute of the US, noted: "There's no doubt
that bin Laden's people have been in Kosovo helping to
arm, equip and train the KLA. . . . The [US]
Administration's policy in Kosovo is to help bin
Laden. It almost seems as if the Clinton
Administration's policy is to guarantee more
terrorism."

"Noted strategic analyst and columnist, former US Army
Colonel Harry Summers, said on August 12, 1998, that
in Kosovo, the US found itself "championing the very
Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups who are our
mortal enemies elsewhere".

http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Rome.htm

**************************************************** 

For more evidence of the above concerning the true character of the late Alija Izetbegovic - that of a pro-Islamist Jihad/al Qaeda radical Islamist fundamentalist Nazi - as well as further details on what really happened in Kosovo and Srebrenica, see:

http://www.hirhome.com/yugo/ihralija1.htm
http://www.hirhome.com/yugo/ihralija2.htm
http://www.hirhome.com/yugo/ihralija3.htm 

http://www.srebrenica-report.com
http://www.hirhome.com/yugo/freezer1.htm

http://www.serbianna.com/features/srebrenica/

http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1997/iran.htm 

http://www.senate.gov/~rpc/releases/1999/fr033199.htm
http://www.hirhome.com/yugo/guide-yugo.htm
http://www.hirhome.com/yugo/ranta.htm
http://www.hirhome.com/yugo/kosovo.htm
http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Oct0703.htm
http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Sep1703.htm
http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Sep1903.htm
http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Oct1503.htm
http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Oct0903.htm
http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Oct1603.htm
http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Oct20%2003.htm

http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Jun1503.htm
http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Sep0803.htm
http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Aug3193.htm
http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Genocide.htm
http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Dec3192-2.htm

http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Rome.htm
http://www.espritdecorps.ca/new_page_220.htm
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO310B.html
http://michaelparenti.org/yugoslavia.html 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MOS20050803&articleId=795
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=HER20051229&articleId=1667

http://emperors-clothes.com/bosnia/svijet.htm

http://emperors-clothes.com/sreb/branco-1.htm

http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/documents/srebrenica.pdf

 

******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

ex-Clinton 'peace envoy' Richard Holbrooke- beneficiary of KLA Narco Terrorist Child Sex Slavery Mafia - gets president of Hague ICTY to free ex-Kosovo PM and KLA war criminal, Ramush Haradinaj, IN ADVANCE of his "surrender" to The Hague ICTY: "a deal would be struck to ensure that he did not serve prison time for the charges he faced."

*********************************************************************************************************************************************************************

 

US Policy in the Balkans and the Eastern Mediterranean: Time to Stop Choosing Sides, and to Start Choosing Strategic Interests

 

By Gregory R. Copley,

President, the International Strategic Studies Association.[1]

Presented at the Capitol Hill Conference on

FYROM: The Need for Reassessment of US Policy in the Balkans.

 

Longworth House of Representatives Office Building,

Washington, DC: April 14, 2005

 

"The fact that the KLA leader and, until March 8, 2005, Prime Minister of Kosovo, Ramush (Hilmi) Haradinaj, was indicted for war crimes and taken to The Hague for trial still has not penetrated the consciousness of what is transpiring. Moreover, in order to somewhat ease the embarrassment of having backed the wrong side — the side of al-Qaida, the narco-traffickers, the true genocidal xenophobists, and the criminal gangs — in Kosovo, the US is in some ways actively working to let Mr Haradinaj out of prison, so that he can “fight his legal battle from a position of freedom”.

"This is a man charged with having directly and personally killed many innocent people, not a politician who allegedly allowed things to happen by default. The scandal of this particular case has yet to break, but suffice it to say that Albanian mafia linked to the KLA have worked through former US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke — a close associate of the KLA and a beneficiary of its support — to approach the US President of the International Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Theodore Meron, to see Haradinaj released.[4] There are reports from within the ICTY that the State Department would approve the release of Haradinaj, and had, in fact, agreed with Haradinaj in advance of his surrender to the ICTY, that a deal would be struck to ensure that he did not serve prison time for the charges he faced."

4] Meron, a professor of law at New York University, was a member of the US official delegation to the Rome talks in 1998, at which the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) was discussed. At that conference, he reflected the US line, which was in complete opposition to the foundation of the ICC, but subsequently accepted to be President of the ICC's subsidiary court, the ICTY.

http://www.macedoniansincanada.com/Grecory%20R.%20Copley.htm

******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

http://www.kosovo.net/ramush.html 

"In 1999, the KLA unit under Ramush Haradinaj's command killed 40 civilians from the Kosovo village of Glodjani and threw the bodies into the Radonjic Lake canal."

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now the United Nations is investigating him after a shooting incident, an investigation which the US has tried to interfere with. Here are the facts:
In June, 1999, Ramush ordered the killing of four members of FARK (Armed Forces of the Republic of Kosovo), a rival group to the KLA. As is Albanian custom, the brothers of one dead man went to the father of Ramush to ask for their brother's bones. Ramush later that night went to the brothers, of the Musaj family, where a shooting incident took place.

Ramush was helicoptered to the US base in Kosovo, Camp Bondsteel and then to a United States military hospital in Germany to receive treatment. He is at present in Washington, the guest of congressman Benjamin Gillman, raising funds for his political party before next October's elections in Kosovo.
United Nations investigators into this incident claim that while Ramush was away, Unites States officials left Bondsteel, went to the village of Strellic, where the incident took place, and removed forensic evidence that Ramush had been present, including the act of taking bullets from walls.

United Nations police reports link Ramush to two well-known Albanian Mafia men, Naser Kelmendi and Ekrem Lluka. Lluka is suspected by UN police of being involved actively in the trafficking of drugs in Kosovo, Greece, Italy and Albania.

British military sources, who asked to remain unnamed, classified Ramush as “a psychopath”.

“Someone would pass him information and he would disappear for two hours. The result would be several bodies in a ditch”.

 

http://www.kosovo.net/ramush.html  (Photographs and excerpts from article on details of atrocities  against Kosovo Serbs perpetrated by US/UK ally KLA commander & ex-Kosovo Prime Minister, Ramush Haradinaj)

 

" At the end of 1999 the chief prosecutor of the Hague tribunal, Carla del Ponte, announced that an investigation had been started regarding war crimes against the non-Albanian population in Kosovo. The investigation was almost completely blocked until recently because information was not forthcoming from either side, the spokeswoman of the prosecutor's office of the Hague tribunal, Florence Hartmann (Florence Hartmann-Domankusic), told "Reporter". The new government in Serbia, according to Hartmann, has submitted all documentation to The Hague. "Indictments will be issued only against those persons against whom we have evidence," she explained. Zoran Zivkovic, the Yugoslav minister of internal affairs, told "Reporter" that "more than 30 kilograms of various documents were turned over to the head of the office of the Hague tribunal in Belgrade." In the meanwhile, the investigators of this tribunal have collected about 80 testimonials from family members of the missing and witnesses.

 

Despite increasingly frequent public discussion (in Serbia) that Agim Cheku, Hashim Thaci and Ramush Haradinaj are under investigation by the Hague tribunal, Hartmann said that "the investigation is in progress", however, she added that she "never confirmed that these three men are under investigation."

 

The voting machines will come under much scrutiny when the Republicans are beaten, by such a wide margin ,this fall.

For some clarifications on various Chomsky claims about Kosovo and Yugoslavia, see this excellent interview from RTS television station and the daily "Politika." They originally appeared in Serbian.

http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20060425.htm

 

 

further to my previous post correctiing an apparent error in your opening para. i, apparently, must have been wrong, for i have just reviewed the broadcast i linked to and find it cannot possibly be the one you are referring to (though it does apparently touch on the same topic that is the subject of this blog post).

the reason i say it can't possibly be the one you refer to is that prof chomsky calls the interview in question "mostly a tirade" and one "in which I was barely able to get a word in edgewise".

while the rte 'prime time' interview is in the standard european robust mode - ie not soft-sopaing, not merely allowing the intereviewer a sopa-box on which to expound their well reported views (certainly prof chomsky's views are well reported in ireland, as he has frequently himself pointed out in the past, citing various elements of the irish media) - one could hardly call the interview "a tirade" and one could certainly not claim that prof chomsky was "barely able to get a word in edgewise".

i apologise for any confusion i may have inadvertently brought into this debate and trust that some other commenter can provide an accurant link for this "tirade" that befell prof chomsky in ireland.

in your opening para you refer to "an interview on Irish television (RTS News “On the Iraq War and Rendition Flights”, January 19, 2006)" - there is no broadcaster in ireland called rts that i am aware of. the only televised interview with prof chomsky transmitted on irish tv on january 19 was on rte 1's "prime time" programme" - available to view over the web here: <a href="http://dynamic.rte.ie/av/228-2108180.smil">dynamic.rte.ie/av/228-2108180.smil</a>

The Utter Dysfunction of the United Nations

 

It will take five minutes to read this and another five minutes to take action, proposed below.  Please don't ignore this, and please send it to friends and family.  Your action could literally change the world.

 

Recently Mark Malloch Brown, deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, said that "Middle America" did not know how the US is constructively engaged with the UN because of UN detractors and too much unchecked UN-bashing and stereotyping over too many years.  Friends, the UN deserves to be bashed and bashed hard. 

 

Please allow us to give you a glimpse into how the United Nations is run:

 

Hirings and promotions routinely violate UN rules (and are illegal under most national laws) and revolve around patronage and whom one knows rather than professional qualifications.  Poorly performing managers are simply moved into different management slots while others are placed in senior positions solely because of their nationality, or because of favors owed to them by their supervisors or colleagues.

 

Salaries for UN employees are free of taxes and come with six weeks vacation, 11 holidays, 10 sick days that are often used as vacation, plus 4 weeks of “home leave”, rental and housing grants to supplement an already generous salary (we all make an average of $7,000-$10,000 a month tax free), a pension at 8% of salary times years of service that can be cashed out tax free at any time, and educational subsidies for children of UN employees.  Many also participate in an "alternative work schedule" in which they get every other Friday off.  But don't even try to apply.  Your application will not be acknowledged nor will you ever get invited for a job interview.  You must know someone to work at the UN (or worse, sleep with them).

 

Several of us have advanced degrees in management and have been trained to manage large public organizations, yet we are blocked from advancing by bureaucrats in their 50s with no management training, education, or experience - only sitting in their chairs because they are friends with someone in a higher position.  We threaten them because they know they are there based only on their connections.

 

And there is a profound lack of accountability within the UN regarding budget and resource allocation, resulting in loss of millions upon millions each year through skimming, graft and corruption. Simple procurement that would normally take five minutes using modern technology systems takes 2-3 months in the UN. And many United Nations Development Program country offices pay "local experts" outrageously high sums of money for products of dubious quality. Such contracts would never be made by other international aid agencies such as USAID that have much stronger internal controls and oversight. 

 

We are all familiar with outrageous examples of scandals within the UN system, and yet time and again the scandal is covered up. In fact, a recent article on internal management in the Financial Times cited a UN-commissioned report released in 1994 that was remarkably damning and yet, as the article noted, nothing has changed which has led to this present crisis of credibility at the UN.

 

Despite its dysfunction, if the UN were actually making a difference, many would mutter to themselves but the UN deserves its strongest bashing because of its profound inability to respond to genocide, war, famine, natural disasters, and corruption.

 

Kofi Annan, current head of the United Nations who ironically lives in a mansion in New York worth about $10 million, was head of peacekeeping operations in 1994 in Rwanda when 800,000 people died. In 2004, he said "I believed at that time that I was doing my best" despite the fact that he held back UN troops from intervening to settle the conflict and declined to provide more logistic and material support to stop the slaughter. 

 

And don't forget that ten years ago thousands of Bosnian Muslims were murdered by the Serb militias who were in a UN protected “safe haven” with hundreds of UN soldiers assigned to defend them.  Yet the UN stood by while the entire adult and teenage male population was systematically butchered.

 

Kofi Annan was unable to stop mismanagement of the Oil-for-Food Program that allowed Saddam Hussein's regime to embezzle $4.4 billion through pricing irregularities and an additional $5.7 billion through illegal oil smuggling.  And for several years Kofi's son Kojo received payments from the Swiss company Cotecna (while not even working there!), which won a lucrative contract under the UN Oil for Food program.

 

Kofi Annan protected Ruud Lubbers, UN High Commissioner for Refugees, against a report that found him guilty of sexual harassment by declaring him innocent.  This created a global protest against Annan, resulting in Lubbers being eventually forced to resign, not because of his own egregious actions, but because he was starting to adversely impact Annan's public image.  By the way, Annan's image is propped up around the world thanks to an $85 million dollar annual “communications” budget.  What other modern corporation has two directors of communication like the UN doe - one for the UN “Secretariat” and one for the Secretary General.

 

Kofi Annan accepted a $500,000 prize from the ruler of Dubai, courtesy of a judges' panel full of U.N. cronies, one member of which Annan then appointed to a high U.N. job!  By the way, Annan was advised to take the prize money by Malloch Brown who rents a home in Westchester County from his friend George Soros for $12,000 a month with a $287,087 annual salary.

 

Kofi Annan remains in power despite continuing sexual abuse scandals by UN peacekeepers. A 2005 internal UN investigation found that sexual abuse and forced pregnancies has been reported in at least five countries where UN peacekeepers have been deployed including the Congo, Haiti, Burundi, Cote d'Ivoire, and Liberia.

 

And Kofi Annan remains in power while genocide continues in Darfur, while Zimbabwe tailspins into despotism, while up to a third of the population of some African countries will die from AIDS, while government corruption keeps the poorest countries in starkest poverty, and while the U.N. Human Rights Council includes repressive non-democratic states such as Cuba, China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia.

 

Kofi Annan and Mark Malloch Brown arrogantly ignore the fact that the quality of life of several of us has come close to being destroyed because of the mismanagement, abuse, fraud and corruption.

 

Most who work for the UN are so used to its dysfunctionality that they have NO idea how sick the organization is or they are unwilling to come forward because UN labor laws and protections are abysmal.  Coming forward to a kangaroo court will only result in firing or worse.  Please refer to the recent report prepared by UK Barrister and Human Rights QC Geoffrey Robertson on behalf of UN Staff, which highlights the gross deficiencies of worker protections at the UN at www.iowatch.org - and read about so many more abuses at www.iowatch.org.

 

Adding insult to injury, the newly created OIOS (the new "independent" internal oversight panel established to "reform" the UN) has been strong-armed by Malloch Brown and is not independent because its meager budget comes directly from the UN, equal to about one-half of Annan's annual PR budget! Thus all are dissuaded from within the UN from coming forward. 

 

And what really happened at UNDP, the organization that Malloch Brown used to “lead”?  Why would Malloch Brown leave his influential post as head of UNDP to spend a year defending the scandals swirling around Kofi Annan and then announce that he would resign when Kofi leaves at the end of this year?  Because he royally mismanaged UNDP.  Everyone at UNDP knows this but is too scared to share the details of what happened for fear of retaliation by Brown.  But ask UNDP Country Directors and UNDP Practice Managers what happened under King Mark's reign and you will get a completely different picture of his mismanagement skills and bombastic ways.

 

Another example, in order to uphold their political neutrality, UN employees are expressly barred from political participation and yet UNDP employee Justin Leites was allowed to campaign for U.S. Presidential candidate John Kerry - with MMB's approval!

 

As the walls literally crumble down around them, those who work for the UN and citizens who believe in the founding principles of the UN have no understanding how bad it really is.  Unfortunately, we encourage young people who are seeking a career in international affairs to avoid the United Nations at all costs.  We wish there would come a day when we would no longer make this recommendation.

 

Of course the senior leadership of the UN try to hide the profound problems of the UN but shame on them for saying that Americans don't know or understand how the US is engaged with the UN.  If you and everyone in Middle America truly understood what ails the UN, the US, which funds $3.3 billion annually or 22% of the entire UN budget, would shut off the money spigot yesterday. 

 

And remember - the talk of “reforming the UN” has gone on for over a DECADE.  In sum, the UN should be shuttered, allowing a brand new organization to emerge because the current UN is broken beyond repair.

 

Not much has changed since the UN was founded 60 years ago.  The UN could have done much, much better in making the word a better place.

 

Make no mistake.  This is about the future of YOUR world – a world of some 191 countries desperate for a better life for all their citizens.  Don't let self-interested, incompetent middle-aged bureaucrat hacks – most raised and educated under dictatorships - determine the future of OUR world.

 

Please contact your two Senators and your representative to the House of Representatives by clicking here: http://www.house.gov/writerep/.  Ask your Senators and Congressman to stop discussing "reform" of the UN.  Ask your Senators and Congressman to create a NEW organization that can lead the world well into the 21st Century. 

 

This is NOT a Democrats vs. Republicans debate.  All Democrats and all Republicans should be able to easily agree that if deep, deep reform is not possible, the UN should be closed and a new organization should be created to truly make the world a better place.

 

This is a non-partisan issue!  Please share this with family and friends and post it on your favorite blogs.

 

For more information, please contact Edward Patrick Flaherty at info@iowatch.org who represents UN employees including our views here.

 

Written by a concerned group of current and former UN employees.

 

 

 "intent to apply mass killing" -- is a contingency plan, in that context: intent under certain circumstances, if they arise. That wasn't in question” NC  Yes it was. The query was raised here;  “I haven't been able to find any mention of “contingency plans” in this report”. 

Your interlocutor is clearly questioning the existence of plans to commit mass atrocities against the Kosovo Albanians. You waffling on about whether or not these plans were contingency plans or normal everyday plans is just feeble minded evasion. You conclude by informing us that the KLA escalated its “attacks”. Terrorist Muslim guerrillas mount attacks, Serbs “commit atrocities”. If the Serbs had plans to commit atrocities at the first opportune moment, how come it was the KLA that seemed to kick of first?

 

Chomsky is trying to blame both NATO and Serbia for the Kosovo conflict, because of course both institutions are basically White and European. It's funny how easily Chomsky falls on his ass trying to ride two horses at the same time.  

Jared Israel wipes the floor with Chomsky.

Uffekaels:

I believe your reading of Stephen R. Shalom's "A Just War?" was closer to the mark than you're giving yourself credit for.   In this particular article, Shalom undertakes two main tasks: He argues against the justness and even logistical wisdom (i.e., when judged on bona fide humanitarian grounds---as opposed to avenging-angels grounds) of NATO's springtime 1999 attack on the former Yugoslavia; and he adduces a lot of putative evidence along the lines that (to use your original formulation), in the event of NATO's war (i.e., conditionally, contingent upon), Belgrade did plan to undertake the expulsion of a lot of the ethnic Albanian population from Kosovo, and carry out the kinds of atrocities enumerated in the various indictments of Milosevic et al. by the ICTY.  (See, e.g., indictments I, II, and III.)  What I argue, on the contrary, is that in the event of NATO's war, Belgrade planned to engage both NATO and the armed rebels forces of the KLA, with which Belgrade already had been engaged for quite some time.  It was NATO that was the aggressor here.  Not Belgrade.  Unless we accept the Vietnam-era canard that Belgrade was guilty of internal aggression.  And the preponderance of the English-language media's coverage of this conflict was this distorted, dating all the way back to 1991. 

However.  It would be dead wrong to maintain that Belgrade on some occasions threatened (planned, promised, and the like) to carry out some kind of ethnic cleansing, atrocities, and so on.  Whether, on the other hand, individuals or groups carried out Haditha-class atrocities is another matter.  Unquestionably they did.  With the exception of Slovenia's 1991 secession from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, the wars over the fate of the SFRY were replete with Haditha-class and Abu Ghraib-like atrocities.  Even Fallujah-class: Most notably, the siege, fall, and evacuation of the Bosnian Muslim populations from the UN-designated "Safe Areas" of Srebrenica and Zepa in July, 1995; and the armed-expulsion of the ethnic Serb population from the Croatian Krajina from May through August, 1995.  Though I hasten to add that in these cases, the perpetrators were indigenous.  (Except for the crucial American involvement in the Krajina.)  Whereas in the Haditha, Abu Ghraib, and Fallujah cases, the perpetrators cannot mount even this kind of defense.  They were all foreigners militarily occupying another country.

I want to thank you for quoting me so felicitously.  It is indeed the case that (to de-sex the otherwise sexed-up versions of lore) Belgrade had been waging a war over Kosovo for quite some time.  But where is Kosovo, exactly?  Is Kosovo located inside German territory, for example?  Or Serbian territory? 

Your questions at the very end are superb.  To repeat them here: "But there's the separate question about the specific character of Belgrade's 'plan'.  In what way did Belgrade plan to wage the war?  How much – and what – do you think we can say about this issue?"

Ideologues of the rank that really seem to have cut their teeth during the breakup of Yugoslavia (among which three of the best exemplars are Michael Ignatieff, David Rieff, and Samantha Power) will tell you that Belgrade or the Bosnian Serbs did not so much engage with other combatants in a series of sometimes brutal civil wars over the fate of the SFRY as they simply perpetrated one gigantic crime after another, all motivated, ultimately, by a racist desire to create an ethnically pure Greater Serbia, leading directly to the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity ("ethnic cleansing" and "systematic rape" included) and even genocide, and forcing a horrified international community to create the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the indictments and trials that have followed.  (About which, see "Milosevic's Death in the Propaganda System," Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, ElectricPolitics.com, May 14, 2006.)

Belgrade specifically intended to destroy the KLA and to hold onto Kosovo.  Eventually, it was forced to carry out this plan in the context of an asymmetrical war of aggression waged against it by NATO.

Belgrade failed on both counts.    

 

Thanks for the response, David!

First of all I should have said “threatened” instead of “promised”.

It seems I was unfair to Shalom's “A Just War?” since he only says that there were “warnings” or “threats” from the Serbs, without specifying what the Serbs exactly threatened to do. Two of his references regarding the matter says that the Serbs threatened to react against KLA in case of the NATO aggression: “Yugoslav General Pavkovic "made no secret of his intentions, warning publicly that his troops were poised to take care of the 'internal enemy' if NATO went through with its threats to bomb" (NYT, 29 May 1999)” and "While diplomats negotiated in Rambouillet, Pavkovic made boisterous public comments denouncing the 'creators of the new world order,' threatening war and pledging that if NATO bombed, he would move quickly and forcefully against the rebel army, so that Yugoslavia could eliminate its internal enemies and prepare for external attack" (WP, 11 April 1999)." Another two says that ethnic cleansing would take place: “Vojislav Seselj, an ultra-nationalist extremist who was Serbia's Deputy Prime Minister, told a rally that "not a single Albanian would remain if NATO bombed" (Observer, 18 July 1999). German Foreign Minister Fischer "added that he deeply regrets that he did not take Milosevic seriously when the Serbian leader told him in early March that Serbian forces could empty Kosova 'within a week.'" (Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Balkan Report, vol. 3, no. 14, 14 April 1999.)"

So there's no basis in Shalom's essay for arguing that the Serbs threatened to carry out atrocities. Nobody said: “we will carry out atrocities”. But it seems Belgrade on some occasions threatened to carry out some kind of ethnic cleansing. Is that correct? If it is correct would it be proper to call this an “atrocity”? Even if the ethnic cleansing was an understandable, reasonable – or even proper and just – response to NATO's illegal aggression I would call it an “atrocity” (since it was brutal and caused a great deal of human suffering). Should I?

It seems to me we have to distinguish between “plan” and “threat”. You say that “what Belgrade clearly did plan to carry out was a war over Kosovo, waged against the joint aggression carried out by NATO---NATO's being as clear a case of criminal, asymmetrical warfare waged against a foreign state as the subsequent wars of more recent vintage. About this, there can be no doubt.” I agree. But there's the separate question about the specific character of Belgrade's “plan”. In what way did Belgrade plan to wage the war? How much – and what – do you think we can say about this issue?

I can't speak directly to what the Serbs may or may not have planned in Belgrade. I was, however, on friendly terms with Nebojsa Vujovic, who at the time preceding NATO's attack was the Yugoslav Charge in Washington, and to the best of my knowledge he had no awareness of any such plans.

At at earlier point in the Yugoslav crisis Nebojsa and I had been note-takers for our respective sides in meetings -- after I left State we stayed in contact as he was promoted up the ladder at the Embassy to eventually become Charge. For seven or eight years I used to see him routinely, by the late 1990s every month or so, for coffee, either in his office or at The Front Page cafe, and I dare say I got to know him fairly well.

We did discuss what would happen if NATO attacked, a prospect that Nebojsa heavily discounted (his inaccurate reporting may have been a problem for Belgrade), and one scenario he envisioned, among others, was a flood of Albanian refugees out of Kosovo. It would not be fair to say, however, that he meant the Serbian authorities were planning to throw them out. And it seems to me that this difference, between being aware of different scenarios, and planning a particular one, may be at the root of the confusion over Serbian responsibility for what happened. It would be surprising, indeed, if no Serb leader in Belgrade had ever mentioned the possibility of a mass outflux of Albanians if NATO were to attack, since it is such an obvious thing to take into consideration.

If by now no official document outlining an expulsion plan has emerged from the generally cooperative Serbian government I'm inclined to believe that no such document ever existed and I'm extremely skeptical that any such orders could ever have been sustained solely on a verbal basis.

The burden of proof, really, is on the other side.

David Peterson

Quick response to "Uffekaels":

Interesting that you are able to cite Stephen R. Shalom's "A Just War?" to make the case that, in your very words, "the Serbs did promise to carry out atrocities if attacked."  (That is, where the context is the Serbian province of Kosovo, ca. 1998-1999, and the aggressor-states were the U.S.-led NATO bloc.)

Now.  I myself do not agree that the Serbs (i.e., Belgrade) promised or planned to carry out atrocities if attacked, including crimes against humanity, violations of the laws or customs of war, the mass expulsion of the ethnic Albanian population from Kosovo, mass murders of the same, persecutions of the same based on political, racial and religious grounds, and, ultimately, genocide (if one wishes to take the allegations to this extreme).  Rather, what Belgrade clearly did plan to carry out was a war over Kosovo, waged against the joint aggression carried out by  NATO---NATO's being as clear a case of criminal, asymmetrical warfare waged against a foreign state as the subsequent wars of more recent vintage.  About this, there can be no doubt.

However.  With respect to what Shalom contends in "A Just War?" you most certainly are right.  Although Shalom argues against the justness of the 1999 war (e.g., he writes that "alternatives to be bombing should have been pursued;" that "NATO bombing,... by requiring the withdrawal of the observers, made the massive ethnic cleansing more likely. The day the observers were pulled out "was the day all hell broke loose," a NATO intelligence official told the Washington Post (11 April 1999); that "those who urged and now cheer a policy that saw many thousands of deaths and more than a million displaced people have certainly not made a compelling case to convince us that their policy helped its supposed beneficiaries;" and that a "war which makes its supposed beneficiaries worse off cannot be just"), in every other respect, Shalom's essay does contend (to use your paraphrase) that the Serbs planned to carry out atrocities if attacked.

But this only goes to show that Stephen R. Shalom's "A Just War?" is aggressor-state-supportive.  Not that Shalom is a reliable source for understanding much of anything about this particular war.  Much less about what Shalom refers to as "Milosevic's character" and "Milosevic's grim record over the previous decade elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia." 

In short: Stephen R. Shalom's "A Just War?" is reliable as a source for the aggressor-states' perspective.  But little else.  

 

Peter:

A few comments.First, in the quote attributed to Jared Israel, notice exactly how it begins: "Anti-Serb intellectuals like Noam Chomsky...." 

Second, about your final paragraph: It's important that we consider (for example) A New Generation Draws the Line: Kosovo, East Timor and the Standards of the West (Verso, 2000), the whole of Ch. 3, "Kosovo in Retrospect" (pp. 94-147---though also any place else you'd care to suggest).  Throughout, the treatment Chomsky doles out to the major official sources from within the aggressor states is always the same.  These sources are:

The Prosecutor of the Tribunal Against Slobodan Milosevic et al. (IT-99-37), Louise Arbour, ICTY, May 22, 1999. (Also amended indictments I and II .)
Erasing History: Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo, U.S. Department of State, May, 1999
Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An Accounting, U.S. Department of State, December, 1999
Building Peace in Kosovo (Homepage), U.S. Department of State (electronic archive of material that predates January 20, 2001)
KOSOVO/KOSOVA: As Seen, As Told, (Part I: October 1998 - June 1999; and Part II: June 14 - October 31, 1999), Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

Thus, for example, Chomsky acknowledges that (New Generation, pp. 98-99):

In the two State Department reports and the Tribunal indictment [a point that also holds true of amended indictments I and II of Milosevic over Kosovo, please note well], the detailed chronologies are restricted, almost entirely, to the period that followed the bombing campaign initiated on March 24, 1999. Thus, the final State Department report of December 1999 refers vaguely to "late March" or "after March," apart from a single reference to refugee reports of an execution on March 23, two days after the air operation had been announced, a day after NATO's official declaration that they were about to begin.  The State Department is therefore instructing us, in the clearest terms, that the crimes of "Milosevic's willing executioners" were not a motive for the bombing: the crimes followed the bombing, according to the State Department's definitive case against Milosevic, and were precipitated by it, it is only rational to assume.

The one significant exception is the January 15 1999 Racak of forty-five people....

Similar arguments follow.  But this is not a critique of the factual claims put forth by the highest official sources about whether or not forty-five unarmed ethnic Albanians were rounded up in the vicinity of Racak and executed by Serbian forces on or about January 15, 1999; about whether or not, at some time in late 1998 or early 1999, "Milosevic [had] approved Operation Horseshoe---a plan of truly evil proportions designed to ethnically reengineer Kosovo by pushing much of its civilian population permanently out of the province" ("Was It A Mistake? The True Test: Lives Were Saved," Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O'Hanlon, Washington Post, March 26, 2000); or, in short, about whether or not U.S. - U.K.- NATO - OSCE claims about Belgrade's intent to do suchandsuch things is accurate.

It is, rather, a critique of the actions of the aggressor states, and their willingness to escalate hugely the crisis on the ground, and to precipitate circumstances which, in their justifications for the aggression, they claim to be reversing, not initiating, not causing.

According to the evidence adduced by the aggressor states at the highest levels---that the kind of atrocities they purported to be waging a war of aggression in order to reverse in fact began only after they started their war---what ought we to conclude about their decision to launch their war?

So much for the Human Rights Brigades' meeting their extremely high burden of proofs!  The aggressor states' own documents betray the fact that the essential contributing factor to the atrocities they descry was the same "humanitarian" war they waged in the name of countering atrocities. 

 

Peter:

A few comments.

First, in the quote attributed to Jared Israel, notice exactly how it begins: "Anti-Serb intellectuals like Noam Chomsky...."    

Second, about your final paragraph: It's important that we consider (for example) A New Generation Draws the Line: Kosovo, East Timor and the Standards of the West (Verso, 2000), the whole of Ch. 3, "Kosovo in Retrospect" (pp. 94-147---though also any place else you'd care to suggest). 

Throughout, the treatment Chomsky doles out to the major official sources from within the aggressor states is always the same.  These sources are: 

The Prosecutor of the Tribunal Against Slobodan Milosevic et al. (IT-99-37), Louise Arbour, ICTY, May 22, 1999
Erasing History: Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo, U.S. Department of State, May, 1999
Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An Accounting, U.S. Department of State, December, 1999
Building Peace in Kosovo (Homepage), U.S. Department of State (electronic archive of material that predates January 20, 2001)
KOSOVO/KOSOVA: As Seen, As Told, (Part I: October 1998 - June 1999; and Part II: June 14 - October 31, 1999), Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

Thus, for example, Chomsky acknowledges that (New Generation, p. 98-99):

In the two State Department reports and the Tribunal indictment [a point that also holds true of amended indictments I and II of Milosevic over Kosovo, please note well], the detailed chronologies are restricted, almost entirely, to the period that followed the bombing campaign initiated on March 24, 1999. Thus, the final State Department report of December 1999 refersvaguely to "late March" or "after March," apart from a single reference to refugee reports of an execution on March 23, two days after the air operation had been announced, a day after NATO's official declaration that they were about to begin.  The State Department is therefore instructing us, in the clearest terms, that the crimes of "Milosevic's willing executioners" were not a motive for the bombing: the crimes followed the bombing, according to the State Department's definitive case against Milosevic, and were precipitated by it, it is only rational to assume.

The one significant exception is the January 15 1999 Racak of forty-five people....

Similar arguments follow.  But this is not a critique of the factual claims put forth by the highest official sources about whether or not forty-five unarmed athnic Albanians were rounded up in the vicinity of Racak and executed by Serbian forces on or about January 15, 1999; about whether or not, at some time in late 1998 or early 1999, "Milosevic [had] approved Operation Horseshoe---a plan of truly evil proportions designed to ethnically reengineer Kosovo by pushing much of its civilian population permanently out of the province" ("Was It A Mistake? The True Test: Lives Were Saved," Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O'Hanlon, Washington Post, March 26, 2000); or, in short, about whether or not U.S. - U.K.- NATO - OSCE claims about Belgrade's intent to do suchandsuch things is accurate.  It is, rather, a critique of the actions of the aggressor states, and their willingness to escalate hugely the crisis on the ground, and to precipitate circumstances which, in their justifications for the aggression, they claim to be reversing, not initiating, not causing. 

According to the evidence adduced by the aggressor states at the highest levels---that the kind of atrocities they purported to be waging a war of aggression in order to reverse in fact began only after they started their war---what ought we to conclude about their decision to launch their war?  So much for the Human Rights Brigades' meeting their extremely high burden of proofs!  The aggressor states' own documents betray the fact that the essential contributing factor to the atrocities they descry was the same "humanitarian" war they waged in the name of countering atrocities.

 

 

 

Hi David,

Thanks very much for your reply. Hope you are having a great weekend.Yes, the so-called "Srebrenica Genocide blog" is run by a mentally deranged racist Islamist Nazi Serbophobe - whom denies ALL massacres OF Serbs (and the massacres committed against moderate Bosnian muslims of the Fikret Abdic faction) by Alija Izetbegovic's SDA party radical Islamists.

Mr. Daniel Lam likes to masquerade as a defender of something sacred and untouchable - his version of the Islamist fundamentalist "truth" where the Serbs are the monsters (he claims that "only 1,978 Serbs to be exact" were killed in 3 and a half years of war in Bosnia and also claims that Izetbegovic's notorious Islamo-Fascist warlord, Mr.Naser Oric, never massacred any Serbian civilians at all, despite eyewitness testimony by Dutch UN peacekeepers there on the scene and that of French UN general, Phillipe Morrillon, under oath at the Milosevic "trial" as welll as amply and rigorously documented evidence provided in two UN reports by the Serbs themselves: 

Okay, about Noam: maybe you are right and I am wrong - maybe I have possibly misinterpreted his remarks but then if that's the case so have many others (just look at the comments on his blog). I have a great deal of respect for professor Chomsky's intelligence and I was quite shocked that, judging by what he answered in reply to a question concerning an interview of him by the Irish media, it at least appeared to me that he was confirming what NATO (and the OSCE it controls) were alleging by acknowledging it with his statement below [in response to a query from a reader from Noam's blog]:

The interviewer[on Irish TV] quoted the executive summary of the OSCE report KOSOVO – As Seen, As Told concluding that the Serbian forces' “intent to apply mass killing as an instrument of terror, coercion or punishment against Kosovo Albanians was already in evidence in 1998”. You[Noam] responded “They didn't say that. What they said is that they had contingency plans to carry out atrocities if they were under attack”.

Noam also says in one paragraph: "After the bombing elicited the anticipated atrocities..."

 

Also, if you read the interview of Pristina, Kosovo's Jewish leader Mr.Cedomir Prilincevic, by Mr. Jared Israel, here,you will find that Mr. Israel states the following in his introduction:

" Anti-Serb intellectuals like Noam Chomsky made a fake criticism of NATO, saying yes, the Serbs had instituted a reign of terror, and that's why Albanians had fled - but NATO was at fault because the Serbs instituted terror after the bombing started, and NATO  knew full well that the Serbs would take it out on Albanians if they were bombed. (I say this was a fake criticism of NATO because it uncritically accepted the media's claim: that the flight was proof of Serbian terror. In other words it was the Serbs Chomsky was attacking, in the guise of criticizing NATO.)"

So, naturally after having read Noam's blog and the comments above by Mr. Israel, I came to the conclusion that Noam was convinced of the veracity and honesty of the NATO dominated OSCE's report: "Kosovo: As Seen As Told" where NATO claims that the Serbs had an "intent" to "commit atrocities" against the Albanians if NATO commenced bombing and that they had actually carried out these atrocities as allegedly "planned".

Also, Noam refers to the NATO backed-KLA terrorists as "guerrillas" when even the US state Department in 1997 and early 1998 unequivocally acknowledged that the KLA was a "terrorist organization" before dropping that term when US political diktat in late 1998 demanded it .

These fascist thugs-who get their inspiration for their foul deeds from the infamous WW2 Albanian and Bosnian Nazi SS divisions, "Skanderbeg" and "Handzar" -were notorious for murdering innocent Serbian and anti-KLA Albanian civilians in cafes and restaurants by throwing grenades or opening fire with machine guns; kidnapping young Serbian children and raping them before torturing them to death in front of their parents, and murdering Serbs in refugee camps who had fled from the US-backed and led (through ex-Pentagon mercenary outfit, MPRI) massive Nazi style ethnic cleansing operation in Croatia/Krajina in August 1995 (known as "Operation Storm").

These were the Clinton backed fascist drug-trafficking thugs responsible for FORCING - en masse- the innocent Albanian people of Kosovo to head towards the Albanian and Macedonian border or face being executed - where BBC, CNN cameras and Christianne Amanpour-were waiting to record harrowing tales of "Serb atrocties and genocide" with most of the footage being staged (i.e., FAKED) by CNN. See   "New Hague Testimony Bolsters the Case for CNN's Fraud" available at: http://www.antiwar.com/deliso/?articleid=5140

Maybe you could clarify Noam's position vis-a-vis his acceptance of NATO/OSCE claims of the Yugoslav government's "intent to commit atrocities" followed by "elicited the anticipated atrocities" used to justify/criticize NATO's 78 day terror bombing of civilians and civilian infrastructure - most of it hundreds of miles from Kosovo. I sincerely hope you are right about Noam's stand on this issue.

 

Take care,

 

Peter. 

 

Dear ZNet community, 

I am amazed that anybody -especially a man as intelligent as Noam Chomsky- would give any credence to so thoroughly a corrupt organization as the NATO controlled OSCE and ipso facto, ANY report they have produced without some kind of corroborating evidence from a truly independent source (i.e. non-Western government/non-Soros funded organization). People seem to forget whom NATO placed as head of the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission - none other than Washington-backed Central American regimes' atrocities denier/supporter: CIA pointman, Mr. William Walker.  

 The cited report "Kosovo: As Seen as Told" is as FAKE as "Operation Horsehoe": the supposed Serbian "plan" to ethnically cleanse Kosovo ,which was later revealed by a top German general (Heinz Loquai) to have been fabricated by the German government from run-of-the-mill Bulgarian intelligence reports (the so-called "maps" shown by NATO/OSCE as "proof of Serbian plans for ethnic cleansing" were in reality drawn up at German military headquarters at Hardthohe in Germany.

In reality, the Bulgarian intelligence report concluded that the goal of the Yugoslav/Serbian military was to destroy the terrorist KLA and NOT to expel the entire Albanian population (as was later argued by German defense minister, Rudolf Scharping and the entire criminal NATO leadership) 

What's even more amazing is that NATO attempted to justify its decision to bomb Serbia on the basis of "preventing a humanitarian catastrophe". This, despite the fact that confidential internal documents of the German Foreign ministry (leaked in April 1999) dealing with events prior to the bombing, showed that during 1997/1998 and early 1999 there was NO persecution of the ordinary Albanian population but that the Yugoslav/Serbian military and police operations were directed solely at the KLA and its collaborators.

A Canadian,Mr.Roland Keith, an OSCE observer in Kosovo prior to the bombing by NATO also has stated - on the record - that he saw NO ethnic cleansing or genocide of the Albanian civilian population by the Yugoslav/Serbian military or police - even at the peak of the KLA's terrorist attacks against the Serbian civilian population as well as the Serbian police and military. See also the article by John Xiros Cooper: "German Foreign Office inadvertently casts doubt on NATO humanitarian role" available at:  http://faculty.arts.ubc.ca/jcooper/GERMAN~1.HTM

It is highly unlikely and incredibly doubtful, that the Yugoslav/Serbian government would be so inclined as to draw up a "plan" to expel the entire Albanian population AFTER NATO commenced bombing.There is not a shred of evidence to support such a theory (unless you regard the NATO/OSCE report "As seen as Told" as somehow constituting "evidence").

All the NATO/corporate media horror stories of death camps/rape camps,mass graves, mine shafts used as dumping grounds for corpses, mobile crematoria, acid baths used to melt bodies, refrigerator trucks used to transport tens of thousands of corpses hundreds of miles to Serbia proper and so forth, ad nauseam, ad infinitum ALL PROVED TO BE SPECTACULAR LIES after NATO troops and forensic teams entered Kosovo in mid June 1999. There was not a shred of evidence to justify the criminal NATO terror bombing campaign against mostly civilian targets (e.g.,schools,maternity hospitals,emergency/casualty wards,child care centers,churches,nursing homes,bridges,residential apartment blocks/houses,buses and trains filled with commuters,grocery markets,zoos,petro-chemical and fertilizer plants,columns of refugees fleeing the fighting, the list goes on and on).   

 

Remember, it was supposedly "a given" that what the media and NATO/OSCE were telling all of us in 1998 and early 1999 was true: that the Serbs were persecuting the Albanian civilian population and forcing them to leave Kosovo and that this was a long prepared "Serb plan" for ethnically cleansing Kosovo of its civilian Albanian population that was put into operation by the Yugoslav/Serbian government.

 

When the NATO bombing commenced and the terrorist KLA was forcing ordinary Albanian civilians, en masse, to leave Kosovo for the Macedonian and Albanian border, and NATO was deliberately bombing Albanian refugee columns heading back home towards Kosovo - in order to send a clear message to others attempting to do the same - we were told by NATO through its mouthpiece, the corporate controlled media (to paraphrase):

 "Look how terrible and monstrous the Serbs are!! See,we told you so.We, the good guys at NATO, are here to stop all of these terrible crimes by the Serbs with our smart bombs and cruise missiles.We shall continue bombing until all conditions are met by Milosevic".

The head of Pristina's Jewish community,Cedomir Prilincevic, whom was ethnically cleansed out of Kosovo by the KLA,pretty much confirmed the above in this interview here: "How NATO staged Albanian flight during the NATO bombing". Available at http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/keys.htm

 

See also:  Mr. Nice Loses His Mind And Accuses Milosevic Of Allowing The NATO Bombing"
available at: http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/smorg102505.htm

and "Appraisal of the Two OSCE Reports: "Kosovo/Kosova: As Seen As Told"  http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/Johnstone/osce.htm

For more information on how thoroughly bogus and easily debunked the OSCE's "As seen as Told" report really is, see "Cooking the Books: NATO's Ethnic Cleansing Claims Challenged" by 
Michel Chossudovsky available at  http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/chuss/nato.htm, see also "The New Rome and The New Religious Wars" available at:  http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Balkan/Rome.htm (Here you will find a transcript of an intercepted radio communications recording between a US NATO fighter/bomber and an EC-130 Hercules AWACS command plane ORDERING the pilot to cold bloodedly murder columns of Albanian refugees coming back home to Kosovo towards Serbia proper - a massacre of approximately 87 Albanian civilians which NATO then falsely blamed on the Yugoslav/Serbian military).

For further debunking of the NATO owned OSCE report, "Kosovo: As Seen As Told", see the transcripts of the Milosevic "trial" at the NATO owned Hague ICTY, available at: http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org  

 

Best regards,

 

Peter Robert North.  

Thanks for the clarification since I and the person writing the original "Disappointing" comment were confused by the use of "they."  Likely you've got it right. At any rate, it still seems that the "disappointed" comment is unfounded as it's based on the commenter's misunderstanding.

dog food

To my last question: Yes, the Serbs did promise to carry out atrocities if attacked. See for example Shalom's "A Just War?": http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/shalom.htm

 

FYA ("For your archives"): My thanks to Rick Rozoff for calling this one to my attention.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.307207490&pa
r=0


ADN Kronos Internatioal (Italy)
June 6, 2006
KOSOVO: PROVINCE IS A HUMAN RIGHTS "BLACK HOLE" FOR
SERBS, OFFICIAL WARNS

Belgrade, 6 June (AKI) - The ethnic Albanian majority southern province of Kosovo's tiny Serb minority is facing annihilation, a senior Serb official on Tuesday warned the UN chief representative in Kosovo, Soren Jessen Petersen. The Serbian government's coordinator for Kosovo, Sanda Raskovic Ivic told Jessen Petersen that Kosovo is a ‘black hole' when it comes to human rights, blaming the international community for not doing its job there. Since the continuing talks on Kosovo's final status started last October, 186 ethnically motivated incidents against Serbs have taken place, including two murders and 20 serious injuries. 
 
There will soon be no Serbs in Kosovo if the present situation continues, Raskovic Ivic told Jessen Petersen in a letter. She pointed out that 140,000 remaining Serbs in Kosovo live in isolated ghettos, without freedom of movement and basic human rights, including the “right to live”. Serb officials have previously accused Petersen of bias in his support for the ethnic Albanian drive for independence.

Serbs in Kosovo were the victims of constant harassment and even murders by the majority ethnic Albanians, Raskovic Ivic stated. “Today, Kosovo and Metohija (the Serbian name for the province) is a ‘black hole' when it comes to human rights, and many democratic countries keep assaulting the territorial integrity of Serbia through their officials and lobbyists,” said Raskovic.

"Serbs are the most endangered ethnic group in Europe. Today an ethnocide is being carried out on its soil front of the international police force, which simply looks the other way, not wishing to see the reality,” she said.

Raskovic Ivic blamed the United Nations Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) for "killing even the Serbian word" by censuring its press. "Only this time the gunshot did not come from an Albanian sniper, it was fired from UNMIK's office,” Raskovic concluded.
 
The dramatic letter, distributed to the press, was written on the eve of the seventh anniversary of Kosovo being put under UN control in June 1999 and ahead of Petersen's imminent report to the UN Security Council on the situation in Kosovo. Over 3,000 Serbs have been killed or listed as missing since the province was put under United Nations control in 1999.

Belgrade and local Serbs oppose Kosovo's independence, which they regard as the birthplace of their state, preferring a form of broad autonomy for the province. According to signals from world powers, the international community is now moving towards granting Kosovo independence - wanted by most of its 1.7 million ethnic Albanians.
 
 

 

The report didn't say that the Serbs had intent to commit genocide or that they did commit genocide.

You write: " Chomsky argued at the time, and ever since that the Serbs only had intent to do such things if they were attacked - a threat (or a "promise" - either term suffices) made in order to prevent an attack by the US, which obviously failed. The Serbs did carry out their threat when attacked, as "promised." "

A few questions. I can't remember Chomsky argue that the Serbs threatened (or promised) to initiate the ethnic cleansing campaign in case NATO attacked. Do you have some references/citations?

Did the Serbs actually "promise" to carry out atrocities in case of an attack? Again, do you have some references/citations?

The interviewer said:

”It's not the entire Western documentation. For example the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe went back, did a verification, and what actually happened... Its conclusion was that the Serb campaign against the Albanians was a “well rehearsed strategy”. Their “intent to apply mass killing as an instrument of terror, coercion or punishment against Kosovo-albanians was already in evidence in 1998”, the year before the bombing.”

Chomsky responded: "They didn't say that. What they said is that they had contingency plans to carry out atrocities if they were under attack."

Clearly, the first two "they" in Chomsky's response are referring to "OSCE", the last two to "the Serbs". Chomsky and the interviewer were only talking about what the Western documentation says about the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo, not what the Serbs said.

I reread my post, this may help

 

"They [Serbs] didn't say that [what the report claimed, sans crucial qualifier]. What they [Serbs] said is that they [Serbs] had contingency plans to carry out atrocities if they [Serbs] were under attack."

You misunderstand Chomsky's argument, which goes as follows:

 

The interviewer quoted a report that said the Serbs had the intent to commit various atrocities (genocide, etc), which was missing the qualifier "if the Serbs are attacked by the US/UN."  According to Chomsky, the Serbs intent to commit atrocities was _contingent_ upon their being attacked, which the report never mentioned, and which Chomsky referred to in the quote you cited, "They didn't say that. What they said is that they had contingency plans to carry out atrocities if they were under attack."

 

Chomsky argued at the time, and ever since that the Serbs only had intent to do such things if they were attacked - a threat (or a "promise" - either term suffices) made in order to prevent an attack by the US, which obviously failed.  The Serbs did carry out their threat when attacked, as "promised."  In so doing the blood the Serbs spilled is on America's hands, as the Americans understood fully what the Serbs intended to do if attacked.  The US chose a course of action, understanding the consequence, and carried it out anyway, doing little if anything to prevent that known consequence.  This is similar, as Chomsky has reported, to the US choosing the course of action in Afghanistan in late 2001, where the US was fully aware that hundreds of thousands could potentially die from exposure and starvation if the US followed that course of action, which it did.  A true number of how many did die from exposure and starvation is unknown, unknowable, and the desire to find that truth by those capable is non-existent.

 

Chomsky's consistency, logic and argumentation are all solid, there is no doubt about that, but his facts are what some people may question, since they are frequently contrary to the conventional wisdom.  The facts given by every pundit, intellectual or politician should be as skeptically received as Chomsky's are.

I posted the initial questions. Here´s a few comments on the Trilateral Commissioner´s comments on Chomsky´s reply, the OSCE report KOSOVO/KOSOVA – As Seen, As Told, and Chomsky´s response to my questions.

First of all, the OSCE report said exactly what was quoted. Here´s the complete quote: "On the part of the Yugoslav and Serbian forces, their intent to apply mass killing as an instrument of terror, coercion or punishment against Kosovo Albanians was already in evidence in 1998, and was shockingly demonstrated by incidents in January 1999 (including the Racak mass killing) and beyond."
Apparently Chomsky response countered the claim that (1) the Serbian forces´ campaign after the withdrawal of the monitors and the NATO bombing would take place under any circumstances. This is the kind of "intent" that Chomsky objects to. Understood this way, there´s no conceptual confusion.
The report doesn´t say (1) directly - but seems to suggest this interpretation. For example, it contains a section called "Indicators of a strategy well rehearsed, and brutally implemented". The report says that it´s analysis "demonstrate how the violations inflicted on the Kosovo Albanian population after 20 March were a continuation of actions by Yugoslav and Serbian military and security forces that were well rehearsed, insofar as they were already taking place in many locations in Kosovo well before 20 March."
So there´s no documentary evidence of this "strategy" in the report, only material evidence. The Serbian forces´ actions after 20 March are a "continuation" of the actions before 20 March. One can compare the scale and level of human rights violations, killings, expulsions, military engagement etc. of the pre and after bombing periods documented in this report and elsewhere to see what kind of "continuation" this is.
Now, the report says the Serbian campaign after the bombing constitutes "a well rehearsed strategy" indicating that what we witnessed before the bombing was Serbian forces rehearsing a strategy to be fully and "brutally implemented" after the bombing. This claim is unsubstantiated in the report. The only evidence presented is that "they [the Serbian forces´ actions] were already taking place in many locations in Kosovo well before 20 March". Only a few incidents are mentioned in the report (the “Racak mass killing” is mentioned constantly; it “was to become a precedent for numerous other atrocities recounted to the OSCE-KVM in the period after 20 March”, i.e. a precedent in retrospect, in a different context). Again, compare the pre and after bombing periods.
But what does "well rehearsed strategy" mean? Notice that the report says the "violations inflicted on the Kosovo Albanian population after 20 March" (including the mass expulsions, presumably) constituted a well rehearsed strategy insofar as similar actions took place before 20 March (let´s put aside the question about whether the actions were “similar” or not). So the report actually says: "If something happens in one period and similar things happens on a far larger scale in dramatically different circumstances in the following period, we say that what happen in the last period constitutes a “strategy” that was “rehearsed” in the first period.” This seems to be the report´s operative definition of "well rehearsed strategy". This is an exceptional use of the term, far from ordinary usage. Normally a “strategy” involves “formal planning”, “intent” and so on. The report doesn´t present pre-bombing evidence that the Serbian forces´ actions under NATO bombs were an implementation of a strategy in the normal sense of the term. So instead of saying that the report says that the Serbs had “contingency plans”, I think we should say that the report suggests conclusions – namely (1) – unsubstantiated by its own evidence and not even supported by the idea of a “well rehearsed strategy” in the report´s technical sense, however plausible, or that it´s use of the term “well rehearsed strategy” is too far from ordinary usage and misleading, though useful for propaganda purposes.
Chomsky says that “what you cite -- "intent to apply mass killing" -- is a contingency plan, in that context: intent under certain circumstances, if they arise.” But as the full quote shows the report proposes the “continuation” thesis. This one could call the report´s interpretative context. However, the report´s material evidence supports the “contingency plan” interpretation much more strongly. “In that context” I think Chomsky is right. There are even a few moments of insight in the analysis. Concluding a review of the period right before the intervention, the report says: ”In effect, Yugoslav preparations for a confrontation with NATO and operations with the aim of defeating the UCK through piecemeal operations were well underway.”

In A New Generation Draws the Line – in which Chomsky´s thoughts are presented in a clear and organized way – Chomsky comments on a collection of International Documents edited by Marc Weller: “The documents in this useful collection should be distinguished from the commentary, which is often thinly disguised advocacy of his clients and the bombing by the editor.” Similar distinctions should be made with regard to the OSCE report KOSOVO/KOSOVA – As Seen, As Told.

I would like to add another aspect to the description. As described in the book "Schattenkrieger" of Erich-Schmidt Eenboom Klaus Kinkel, the ex-foreign minister of Germany and BND-director in the 70s and 80s, supported separatist groups in Slovenia and Croatia. These groups consisted mainly of supporter of the Nazi-Army in 2nd World War. Germany followed a strategy described in the book "Europastrategien des deutschen Kapitals 1900-1945" of Reinhard Opitz. The strategy is to split the countries in eastern Europe into smaller entities by exploiting ethnic differences in order to create some kind of "European Latin America".

Further the BND, Germany&undefined;s CIA, delivered weapons to the KLA until the USA took control of the situation.

Some people may remember that foreign minister Genscher recognized Slowenia and Croatia in 1991 despite of the protesting NATO-allies.

It was a plan to destruct Yugoslawia.

The struggle for spheres of influence can be seen in Belorussia. The EU is paying for the destabilization of the country in order to rollback Russian infliuence in Eastern Europe.

I recommend http://www.german-foreign-policy.com;

Best
RosaL

 

 

Seems like a very poor response from Chomsky. A few points: * The report is quoted as saying that Serbian forces had "intent to apply mass killing". Chomsky disagrees, saying that "They didn't say that. What they said is that they had contingency plans to carry out atrocities if they were under attack." That makes it sound like contingency plans and intents are not the same--otherwise why raise the objection? But then Chomsky's response later says that "what you cite -- 'intent to apply mass killing' -- is a contingency plan...intent under certain circumstances, if they arise." So: Does the intent reflect a contingency plan, or doesn't it? * Why does the word "admit" "give the game away"? Why doesn't Chomsky's word "infuriating" or "knows, but would never say" similarly give the game away? Such polemics are unhelpful. Perhaps his book presents his thoughts in a clearer and more organized way.

 

FYA ("For your archives"): My thanks to George Szamuely for calling this little gem to my attention: 

"Europe Prepares To Evacuate 40,000 Kosovo Serbs," Focus News Agency, April 18, 2006
Focus News Agency (Bulgaria)
April 18, 2006
Europe Prepares to Evacuate 40,000 Kosovo Serbs

Podgorica - Chair of the Serbian National Council for Central Kosovo Rada Trajkovic revealed that the WHO and UN Refugee Agency are preparing a project for the evacuation of 40,000 Serbs who are expected to leave Kosovo after it receives its independence. The project is in its final stage and crisis headquarters that will receive Serbs who would leave Kosovo are being set up, the Montenegrin newspaper Dan reads today.

Trajkovic expressed her regret that the World Health Organization participates in a project for moving Serbians from Kosovo. "I am waiting for an official reaction from Belgrade because instead of creating an environment to keep the Serbs in Kosovo there is a project that proposes [them] leaving it," Trajkovic noted.

(On the side: I&undefined;ll bet that, even today, late April 2006, it is still possible to hold symposia at which members of the Human Rights Brigades and assorted leftists of the If-Only-State-Violence-Were-Employed-For-Kinder-and-Gentler-Ends can hark back to those heady days of late 20th Century New Humanitarianism, and lament how nasty American foreign policy, and therefore the lack of an humanitarian-interventionist scene, have become, since the ouster of the Clintonites, and the rise of the oil-crazed Neoconservatives.---Anyone care to take the bet?) 

 

 

FYA ("For your archives"): My thanks to George Szamuely for calling this little gem to my attention: 

"Europe Prepares To Evacuate 40,000 Kosovo Serbs," Focus News Agency, April 18, 2006
Focus News Agency (Bulgaria)
April 18, 2006
Europe Prepares to Evacuate 40,000 Kosovo Serbs

Podgorica - Chair of the Serbian National Council for Central Kosovo Rada Trajkovic revealed that the WHO and UN Refugee Agency are preparing a project for the evacuation of 40,000 Serbs who are expected to leave Kosovo after it receives its independence. The project is in its final stage and crisis headquarters that will receive Serbs who would leave Kosovo are being set up, the Montenegrin newspaper Dan reads today.

Trajkovic expressed her regret that the World Health Organization participates in a project for moving Serbians from Kosovo. "I am waiting for an official reaction from Belgrade because instead of creating an environment to keep the Serbs in Kosovo there is a project that proposes [them] leaving it," Trajkovic noted.

(On the side: I&undefined;ll bet that, even today, late April 2006, it is still possible to hold symposia at which members of the Human Rights Brigades and assorted leftists of the If-Only-State-Violence-Were-Employed-For-Kinder-and-Gentler-Ends can hark back to those heady days of late 20th Century New Humanitarianism, and lament how nasty American foreign policy, and therefore the lack of an humanitarian-interventionist scene, have become, since the ouster of the Clintonites, and the rise of the oil-crazed Neoconservatives.---Anyone care to take the bet?) 

 

 

FYA ("For your archives"): My thanks to George Szamuely for calling this little gem to my attention: 

"Europe Prepares To Evacuate 40,000 Kosovo Serbs," Focus News Agency, April 18, 2006
Focus News Agency (Bulgaria)
April 18, 2006
Europe Prepares to Evacuate 40,000 Kosovo Serbs

Podgorica - Chair of the Serbian National Council for Central Kosovo Rada Trajkovic revealed that the WHO and UN Refugee Agency are preparing a project for the evacuation of 40,000 Serbs who are expected to leave Kosovo after it receives its independence. The project is in its final stage and crisis headquarters that will receive Serbs who would leave Kosovo are being set up, the Montenegrin newspaper Dan reads today.

Trajkovic expressed her regret that the World Health Organization participates in a project for moving Serbians from Kosovo. "I am waiting for an official reaction from Belgrade because instead of creating an environment to keep the Serbs in Kosovo there is a project that proposes [them] leaving it," Trajkovic noted.

(On the side: I&undefined;ll bet that, even today, late April 2006, it is still possible to hold symposia at which members of the Human Rights Brigades and assorted leftists of the If-Only-State-Violence-Were-Employed-For-Kinder-and-Gentler-Ends can hark back to those heady days of late 20th Century New Humanitarianism, and lament how nasty American foreign policy, and therefore the lack of an humanitarian-interventionist scene, have become, since the ouster of the Clintonites, and the rise of the oil-crazed Neoconservatives.---Anyone care to take the bet?)