Chris Wallace Interview: Clinton's Kosovo

Former President Bill Clinton was in business of ruining other countries. Current President George W. Bush is in business to ruin both other countries and the United States of America.

This article is from http://www.aim.org

Clinton's bombing of the former Yugoslavia killed more people than died in this "genocide."

Of all the whoppers told by former President Clinton in his Chris Wallace interview, perhaps the most outrageous was his claim that he was involved in "trying to stop a genocide in Kosovo..." In fact, Clinton's bombing of the former Yugoslavia killed more people than died in this "genocide." And his policy benefited Osama bin Laden and the global Jihad.

In the year before the bombing, some 2,000 people had been killed in a civil war in Kosovo. A conservative estimate is that 6,000 were killed by U.S. and NATO bombs.

It's strange as well that Clinton complained to Wallace about the "neocons" attacking him when many of the same neocons in 1999 supported Clinton's war on Yugoslavia. The war was never approved by the U.N. or the U.S. Congress, and in fact violated the War Powers Act. The main beneficiary of the intervention was a Muslim terrorist group, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), with links to bin Laden, who had declared war on America in 1996, bombed our embassies in Africa in 1998, and would later, of course, orchestrate 9/11.

When former CIA official Michael Scheuer says that the Clinton Administration "had eight to ten chances" to kill bin Laden and "they refused to try," he is making a statement that goes far beyond acknowledging Clinton Administration incompetence or a lack of will. The fact is that Clinton had a pro-Muslim foreign policy that actually benefited bin Laden and facilitated 9/11. Most Republicans don't mention this because too many of them were duped into backing Clinton's misguided policy in Kosovo. President Bush, then a candidate, even backed U.S. military intervention there through NATO.

Scheuer's CIA also has a lot to answer for. It is noteworthy that the CIA issued a January 2000 report that essentially whitewashed the nature of the KLA and claimed it was pro-American. The only public release of this dubious report came through Rep. Elliot Engel, in a posting on the website of the National Albanian American Council, which supports an Albanian Muslim takeover of Kosovo.

That report was prepared under CIA Director George Tenet, who on February 2, 1999, gave testimony referring to the Serb "massacre at Raçak," which provided the pretext for NATO intervention against Serbia but which turned out to be a hoax. Tenet was, of course, kept on by President Bush. Not only were Tenet's fingerprints all over the failed and deceptive policy in Kosovo, he told Bush that finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was a slam dunk.

Interestingly, Al-Jazeera celebrated the fifth anniversary of 9/11 by airing several al-Qaeda videos, one of which showed two of the 9/11 hijackers saying their actions were designed to avenge the suffering of Muslims in Bosnia and Chechnya. Nothing demonstrates the bankruptcy of the Clinton policy more than that. Not only did Clinton order the CIA to help the KLA in Kosovo, he approved Iranian arms shipments to the Bosnian Muslims, in order to help them establish a Muslim state in Bosnia. Still, that wasn't good enough for the Jihadists. Nothing appeases them.

The Clinton policy of supporting the same extremist Muslim forces in Europe that subsequently attacked us on 9/11 is far more controversial than the policy of regime change in Iraq, which was officially a policy of Clinton, Bush and the Congress. Kosovo was never a threat to the U.S., and Serbia didn't even pretend to have weapons of mass destruction.

At least in Iraq, despite some questionable intelligence, the cause is just. The U.S. removed a dictator and is fighting for democracy and against the terrorists. The neocons got it right here. Such a policy may in the short term provoke a strong anti-American reaction, as Al-Jazeera rallies the foreign fighters to Iraq to kill Americans, but it is vastly preferable to the Clinton policy of helping Muslim radicals come to power in places like Bosnia or Kosovo. What's more, as the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) acknowledges, in a statement that has been curiously played down by most of the media, a victory in Iraq would deflate the forces of global Jihad.

Our media like to talk about Iraq, because they think the issue will damage Bush, but Kosovo gets no mention, except when Clinton himself or former officials of his administration bring it up and claim it as a foreign policy success. There is no coverage of the anti-Christian Jihad underway there. But seven years after the illegal Kosovo intervention, the September 15 Washington Post reports on a new World Bank study on fragile or failing states that "can breed terrorism." One of them is listed as Kosovo, which is not a state-not yet. Actually, in the report itself, Kosovo is identified as a "territory," not a province of Serbia, but the point remains valid. Kosovo is identified as being "outside the control of a recognized and reputable government," offering "fertile soil on which terrorism could thrive." Terrorism is thriving there, of course, because it was Clinton's official policy to support the terrorist KLA and remove Kosovo from Serbian control.

The result was captured by the summer 1999 U.N. Association newsletter, The Interdependent, which showed Clinton Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on the cover with her thumb in the air. The headline was: "Kosovo: The U.N. Takes Charge."

Seven years later, the U.N. is still in charge.

The growing danger in Kosovo is compounded by the fact that the problem gets almost no attention in our media, which reported the false charges of genocide that provided the pretext for the military intervention in the first place but still refuse to correct the record and hold Clinton, Albright and then-NATO Commander, General Wesley Clark, responsible for what they have done.

The media blackout is what enables Albright, in a lecture on religion and international affairs at Georgetown University on September 18, to declare, "Of all that we accomplished during my time in office, I'm proudest of what we did in Kosovo because we stopped the killing, and people are back in Kosovo living a free life."

A free life when Christian Serbs are fleeing and their homes and churches in Kosovo are being destroyed? Albright's outrageous comments provide the answer in stark terms to the question: Whose side was the Clinton Administration on in the clash of civilizations between Islam and the West? All of the "missed opportunities" to kill bin Laden, and the interventions on behalf of Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo, didn't give us anything but more anti-American attacks, more terrorism, and finally, 9/11.

Compounding the failure of the Clinton policy in Kosovo, the George Soros-funded International Crisis Group recently released a report saying that the international community "must avoid creating a weak state" and that the territory must have its own army. Left unsaid is that it would be an army dominated by former members of the KLA. That would be the ultimate reward for terrorism. The terrorists would become the official army of Kosovo.

Buried in the report, on page 8, you will find an interesting piece of information. It states that "A tiny but growing minority is turning to Wahhabi Islam," the dangerous brand of Sunni Islam underwritten by Saudi Arabia, which is also financing the building of many mosques in Kosovo. But this should come as no surprise. That element was always there, nurtured by the Clinton policy. Now it gathers force again, just as it did before 9/11.

Serbian President Boris Tadic was in the U.S. recently, on the eve of the anniversary of 9/11, but failed to make any public comments about the status of Kosovo in the context of the global war against radical Islam. That was a glaring oversight. He failed to educate the American people about the stakes involved in the proposed dismemberment of the Serbian Republic. His article in the Washington Post, "Justice for Serbia," was similarly flawed in this respect, focusing on the admittedly important issue of Serbian sovereignty but ignoring the religious dimensions of this conflict.

It won't be enough to oppose independence for Kosovo. The terrorism problem will remain regardless of whether it is a province, territory or a state. But a U.S. position against independence will at least reflect belated recognition that the Clinton policy of encouraging terrorism in Kosovo has finally come to an end. The Bush Administration must side with Serbia in this important chapter in the clash of civilizations.

Hague tribunal confirms it's anti-Serb bias

The 27-year prison term handed down on Wednesday to former Bosnian Serb wartime leader Momcilo Krajisnik by the United Nations' Hague war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, has shocked local Serbs and reignited polemics with majority Muslims. Dragan Cavic, president of the Bosnian Serb entity Republika Srpska (RS) was one of the first to react, saying he was "shocked," and that the verdict was a "manifestation of the political character" of the tribunal.

"Krajisnik, as president of the People's Assembly of the RS from its very founding in the difficult war years [1992-1995], was first among equals," said Cavic. "Therefore, any judgements pronounced on him are judgements pronounced on the People's Assembly," Cavic added.

He said the Bosnian Serb parliament during the war did not pass "a single act which would be contrary to the norms of war humanitarian law or any part of the international law," which he claimed made Krajisnik's sentence all the more absurd.

Cavic compared Krajisnik's harsh sentence to the one passed on Muslim war commander of the eastern town of Srebrenica, Naser Oric, who was sentenced to only two years for crimes against Serb civilians and has since been released. Other Muslim and Croat military commanders have never even been tried by the UN tribunal, he pointed out.

"All this, compared with the trial against Krajisnik and the verdict pronounced, points to the political campaign which is being waged not against individuals, but in the final instance against the RS," said Cavic.

Sulejman Tihic, a Muslim member of Bosnia's three-man rotating state presidency, said the Krajisnik verdict confirmed "the RS authorities participated in a joint criminal undertaking of persecution, obliteration, murder, deportations and forcible resettlement of the non-Serb population."

"This verdict shows that RS entity was created by a criminal undertaking, aimed at changing the ethnic composition of Bosnia," Tihic stated. He and other Muslim leaders have stepped up their demands for the RS's abolition, saying it arose from genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Several Bosnian Serb generals have been sentenced by the Hague tribunal on charges of genocide for the murder of up to 8,000 Muslim civilians in Srebrenica in July 1995, after Serb forces overran the town. But Bosnian foreign minister Mladen Ivanic, a Serb, said the fact that Krajisnik was acquitted on charges of genocide, "removes any possibility of accusing the Serbian people and RS leaders of genocide."

Washington-based political analyst of Serbian origin, Obrad Kesic, told the media the timing of Krajisnik's sentencing - three days before Bosnian elections on Sunday - had been bad. Pointing out that Krajisnik was also arrested on the eve of the elections in April 2000, Kesic said his sentence would impact "on emotions" and on how people vote.

"The tribunal has once again demonstrated its bias on ethnic grounds," said Kesic, claiming it was also seeking to intervene directly in Bosnia's electoral process.

The UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) on Wednesday sentenced Krajisnik to 27 years in jail for crimes against humanity, persecution, extermination, murder, deportation and forcible resettlement of local Muslims and Croats.

Krajisnik - considered one of the architects of ethnic cleansing in Bosnia - was acquitted, however, on charges on genocide and breaking the laws and the rules of war.

Russian Orthodox Church calls for pan-Christian alliance

Rodos, Greece, September 29, Interfax - The Moscow Patriarchate has voiced concern about differences between various churches and has called for the creation of a strategic alliance between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches to defend traditional Christianity, primarily in Europe.

"The fact that the Russian Orthodox Church has already severed dialogue with the Episcopal Church [The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America] and the Church of Sweden [due to its approval of same-sex marriages] show that Christian society has begun to disintegrate, " the Moscow Patriarchate' s representative at European and international organizations, Bishop Ilarion of Vienna and Austria said at the Dialogue of Civilizations forum being held at Rodos, Greece.

It is becoming more and more difficult to speak about Christianity as a unique system of values shared by all Christians of the world or, at least, by the majority of Christians. "The existing abysm divides traditionalists and liberals rather than Orthodox and Catholics, Catholics and Protestants, " he said.

In this situation it is necessary to consolidate the efforts of all Churches that consider themselves to be "Churches of Tradition," that is Catholics and Orthodox including pre-Chalcedonian [ancient Eastern] Churches, he said.

"I am not speaking about the serious dogmatic differences that exist between these Churches and which should be discussed in terms of bilateral dialogue. I am speaking about the need to conclude a certain strategic alliance, a pact, a union for between these Churches defending traditional Christianity - a defense against the challenges of modern times, be it militant liberalism or militant atheism," he said.

related: Seeking unity among christians

CNN "What Are We Becoming?"

I was really surprised that CNN is able to show something like this. I believe better question is what got into CNN all of sudden, this kind of idioclacy has been happening since Bush took office in 2001.

Roman Catholic, Orthodox Church Dignitaries Seek Unity in Belgrade

BELGRADE, Serbia - Top Roman Catholic and Orthodox dignitaries declared Monday that the time has come to close the ages-old rifts between the ancient branches of Christianity and bring East and West closer together.

Representing the world's 1.1 billion Catholics and more than 250 million Christian Orthodox, sixty bishops, metropolitans and cardinals - 30 from each side - convened in the Serbian capital Belgrade for a renewed "theological" dialogue while acknowledging that much wider issues are involved.

"East and West have been estranged from each other since the 11th century," said Orthodox Metropolitan John Zizioulas, referring to the historic schism in 1054 when the spiritual leaders in the Vatican and in Constantinople - now Istanbul, Turkey - severed ties over the rising influence of the papacy.

That split was sealed then with an exchange of anathemas - spiritual repudiations, which were lifted in the 20th century but only with halting progress toward restoring bonds.

"We experience in our time that European nations unite and create one family," he said. "It is time to recover the ancient unity. ... East and West meet now not only on the theological level, but also on the political level."

Cardinal Walter Kasper, the Vatican's most senior figure on Christian unity, said the long-separated branches should turn to their "unity in God, one faith, one baptism."

"We look to the future to build unity for Europe," he added. The week-long gathering in Belgrade is intended to re-start the top-level dialogue after formal talks broke off six years ago.

It is also a fresh start under Pope Benedict XVI, who has appealed to all Christians to unite against what he considers rampant secularism and declining faith in the West.

The Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox, however, have a long history of disputes and rivalry. Issues include the extent of papal authority and alleged attempts by Vatican to poach followers and encroach on historically Orthodox territory, particularly Ukraine and other areas of the former Soviet Union.

"As Christians, we ask our Lord to give us strength to put behind the past," Zizioulas said.

Cardinal Kasper responded praising "forgiveness, purification of our memory of bad things, from both sides."

The last such dialogue was in Emmitsburg, Maryland, in 2000, when the representatives put together a draft document examining the issues. That effort, however, fell apart and the text was never formally debated. The venue of the present talks, the participants said, has symbolic importance. Belgrade was the capital of the former Yugoslavia, which broke up violently in the 1990s, including battles between Roman Catholic Croats and Orthodox Serbs. But its ethnic groups now strive for reconciliation.

"We have gathered in a country which is recovering from great difficulties, a country that is trying to resurrect itself," Zizioulas said after Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica greeted the guests at the opening ceremony.

Gere closes shops in Sarajevo

Sarajevo - Actor Richard Gere, who is a Buddhist and a vegeterian, became ill from the smell of cevapi [trans. note: small grilled sausages, a traditional dish] in the Sarajevo quarter of Bascarsija.

The hospitable restaurant operators were forced to close their shops during filmining in Bascarsija because of Gere, even though they made an effort and brought him the very best cevapi to be had, writes the Sarajevo press.

The famous Hollywood star is in Sarajevo filming "Holiday in Bosnia". Gere's arrival in the Bosnia-Herzegovina capital has not been well-received for a number of reasons, including his muscular security guards who have been tough with photo journalists.

Greece urges caution on Kosovo

Greece's foreign minister urged caution in setting tight deadlines on the future of Kosovo, a Serbian province, so that solving one Balkan controversy would not create another.

"Whatever decisions are made on Kosovo must be decisions which are the product of broader agreement in the region," Dora Bakoyannis, in New York for a high-level U.N. General Assembly session, said in an interview late on Saturday.

U.N. negotiations on the future of Kosovo, known as final status talks, are conducted by Martti Ahtisaari, a Finish statesman. A plan is expected to be presented to the U.N. Security Council for approval by the end of the year.

"That means also Serbia and the neighboring countries. One must be very careful that whatever decisions are made do not solve one problem and create another," she said.

"If we need a few more months for the decision we must not hasten a decision which might not be fully prepared," Bakoyannis said. She would not say what kind of a solution she preferred, adding the devil was in the detail of any plan.

KOSOVO IS SERBIA from the Izetbegovic

KOSOVO IS SERBIA

The son of Alija Izetbegovic and vice-president of the Bosnian Party of Democratic Action Bakir Izetbegovic says the secession of Kosovo would set a dangerous precedent
Bakir Izetbegovic, the vice president of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and the son of the late leader of that party, Alija Izetbegovic, sharply opposes the secession of Kosovo from Serbia and the proclamation of the independence of the southern Serbian province. In a statement for "Kurir" Izetbegovic assessed that "it would be better if Kosovo did not secede because this would set a precedent for Europe".

"It would not be good for something like that to happen because it would lead to a series of separatisms, which would encourage secessionists in all countries, and that would not be good," believes Izetbegovic.

When asked whether his position resulted from the fear that in the event of the proclamation of an independent Kosovo the same thing would happen in Republika Srpska or whether it was based on principle, the SDA vice-president did not wish to answer directly.

"Principles exist in order to be respected and they should be adhered to. In all honesty, the Albanians in Kosovo went through all sorts of things but the principles of inviolability of territory must be respected, and that is why the problem of Kosovo should not be resolved by proclaiming independence, " says Izetbegovic. He repeated his position stated two days ago on Sarajevo's OBN TV, where he said that Kosovo should remain a part of Serbia.

"Kosovo should have the status of broad autonomy but within Serbia because every re-tailoring of borders could encourage other regions to go the same way," assessed Izetbegovic.

Republika Srpska premier Milorad Dodik was the first to stir up passions on both sides of the Drina by comparing the status of Kosovo and Republika Srpska. Dodik warned that "if the independence of Kosovo should occur, it will invigorate the thoughts of people here about the same right to something like that". At the same time, Dodik rejected a referendum on the independence of Republika Srpska any time in the near future, as well as its annexation to Serbia.

"Now is not a good time for a referendum because Serbia could not support it due to its internal problems. However, when the issue of Kosovo is resolved and a few other problems, we can discuss the matter at that point," said Dodik recently. He noted that the referendum would not have to be on the independence of Republika Srpska but could involve a greater independence for it within Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Dodik also recently assessed that the possibility of annexing Republika Srpska to Serbia was "foiled earlier". He explained this position by saying that it is necessary to have "realistic policies" instead of "failed projects [like] Serbia to Karlovac or wherever". Dodik's assessments have provoked serious reactions in Europe. The London "Guardian" even went so far as to state that Dodik's call for a referendum on the independence of Republika Srpska could "launch a new war and mean the end of the Bosnian state".

Muslim pilgrim from the shadows

Even though he is formally the vice-president of the SDA, many people in Bosnia-Herzegovina consider Bakir Izetbegovic the most powerful man in the party, and in certain circles he is even considered the most influential Muslim politician in Bosnia. As well, Croatian and Bosnian media describe him as a gray presence in various developments, scandals and internal Bosnian Muslim political upheavals in the last decade. He rarely gives interviews, especially to independent media. He is an architect by profession, and was at one time the director of the Institute for Urban Construction.KOSOVO IS SERBIA

The son of Alija Izetbegovic and vice-president of the Bosnian Party of Democratic Action Bakir Izetbegovic says the secession of Kosovo would set a dangerous precedent

BELGRADE - Bakir Izetbegovic, the vice president of the Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and the son of the late leader of that party, Alija Izetbegovic, sharply opposes the secession of Kosovo from Serbia and the proclamation of the independence of the southern Serbian province. In a statement for "Kurir" Izetbegovic assessed that "it would be better if Kosovo did not secede because this would set a precedent for Europe".

"It would not be good for something like that to happen because it would lead to a series of separatisms, which would encourage secessionists in all countries, and that would not be good," believes Izetbegovic.

When asked whether his position resulted from the fear that in the event of the proclamation of an independent Kosovo the same thing would happen in Republika Srpska or whether it was based on principle, the SDA vice-president did not wish to answer directly.

"Principles exist in order to be respected and they should be adhered to. In all honesty, the Albanians in Kosovo went through all sorts of things but the principles of inviolability of territory must be respected, and that is why the problem of Kosovo should not be resolved by proclaiming independence, " says Izetbegovic. He repeated his position stated two days ago on Sarajevo's OBN TV, where he said that Kosovo should remain a part of Serbia.

"Kosovo should have the status of broad autonomy but within Serbia because every re-tailoring of borders could encourage other regions to go the same way," assessed Izetbegovic.

Republika Srpska premier Milorad Dodik was the first to stir up passions on both sides of the Drina by comparing the status of Kosovo and Republika Srpska. Dodik warned that "if the independence of Kosovo should occur, it will invigorate the thoughts of people here about the same right to something like that". At the same time, Dodik rejected a referendum on the independence of Republika Srpska any time in the near future, as well as its annexation to Serbia.

"Now is not a good time for a referendum because Serbia could not support it due to its internal problems. However, when the issue of Kosovo is resolved and a few other problems, we can discuss the matter at that point," said Dodik recently. He noted that the referendum would not have to be on the independence of Republika Srpska but could involve a greater independence for it within Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Dodik also recently assessed that the possibility of annexing Republika Srpska to Serbia was "foiled earlier". He explained this position by saying that it is necessary to have "realistic policies" instead of "failed projects [like] Serbia to Karlovac or wherever". Dodik's assessments have provoked serious reactions in Europe. The London "Guardian" even went so far as to state that Dodik's call for a referendum on the independence of Republika Srpska could "launch a new war and mean the end of the Bosnian state".

Muslim pilgrim from the shadows

Even though he is formally the vice-president of the SDA, many people in Bosnia-Herzegovina consider Bakir Izetbegovic the most powerful man in the party, and in certain circles he is even considered the most influential Muslim politician in Bosnia. As well, Croatian and Bosnian media describe him as a gray presence in various developments, scandals and internal Bosnian Muslim political upheavals in the last decade. He rarely gives interviews, especially to independent media. He is an architect by profession, and was at one time the director of the Institute for Urban Construction.

Martti Ahtisaari patron of Nazi SS

I've long considered Martti Ahtisaari of Finland a Serbophobe simply because he was an agent of the Empire in 1999 and subsequently a Board member of the International Crisis Group. His statement that Serbs bore collective guilt for what (allegedly) happened in 1999 - and, by obvious implication, that Albanians bore no guilt whatsoever, collective or individual, for what has happened since - did not surprise me much.

According to Carl Savich of Serbianna.com, however, there's another reason Ahtisaari is a Serbophobe: during his presidency, he sponsored a monument to Nazis! Savich writes that Ahtisaari's government bankrolled a monument to the Finnish Waffen SS volunteers, some 1400 members of the Waffen-SS division "Wiking." This is in addition to the Finnish troops who fought against the Soviet Union between 1940 and 1945, as allies of Nazi Germany.

Retired NY Times reporter David Binder wrote that Ahtisaari was one of the Finns displaced by the Soviet invasion of Karelia during the 1940 Winter War. So, it stands to reason he would have anti-Soviet (and anti-Russian, by extension) sentiments. A lot of the early 1990s Serbophobic propaganda endeavored to present Serbs as "Russians lite." Ahtisaari would have absorbed this propaganda when he was involved in the early EU efforts to mediate the conflict between Yugoslav republics - efforts that failed miserably when Germany strongarmed the rest of EU countries into recognizing the unilateral secession of Slovenia and Croatia.

So, Ahtisaari has a family history of being displaced by Russians; his country was allied with Hitler in WW2; he sponsored a monument to Waffen SS during his presidency, and he was in position to acquire anti-Serb bias as a diplomat involved in Yugoslav affairs in the early 1990s. I'm no psychologist, but I can see how all that would predispose him towards, say, Kosovo Albanians - who were actually allied with Hitler themselves, but claimed they were victims of "Serb Nazis," and came up with horror stories accusing the Serbian authorities of the most heinous crimes. Although these stories have never been substantiated, they served as the propaganda justification for NATO's invasion, so anyone involved in that enterprise cannot afford to disavow them. And Ahtisaari was very much involved.

But the issue here isn't whether Ahtisaari is biased. That's been obvious even without these background details that have recently emerged. The issue is what to do about him? Would his sponsorship of the Waffen SS be enough of a political tarnish to have him removed? Or are charges of sympathy for the Nazis taken seriously only when their target is an enemy of the Empire, not its agent?

Source: Gray Falcon

Russian U.N. veto

Serbia's government has said it is cheered by Russia's premier Vladimir Putin's recent comments apparently hinting his country could veto any "unacceptable" United Nations Security Council resolution, such as one backing independence for the breakaway province of Kosovo. Serbian government spokesman Srdjan Djuric hailed Putin's statement as a "principled stand, in harmony with the highest principles of international law," on the inviolability of the existing state borders.

Belgrade's press on Tuesday ran banner headlines hailing Serbia's "Russian brothers." Former foreign minister, Goran Svilanovic, called for caution, however. He said the issue would never come before the UN Security Council - the organisation' s top decision-making body - unless the decision was first agreed upon in the so-called Contact Group for Kosovo, which includes the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia.

UN special envoy for Kosovo, Martti Ahtisaari, was due to present a report on progress in negotiations between Serbs and majority ethnic Albanians in Kosovo during a meeting of the Contact Group on Monday through Tuesday.

Elena Guskova, a Russian academic and an expert on Balkans, told Belgrade media it was too early to say what the Russian position on Kosovo might ultimately be. On one hand, Kosovo's independence would grant the same rights to the people of the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. But on the other hand, it could boost separatist movements in Russian republics such as Chechnya, she said.

Putin - whose country is one of the UN Security Council's permanent five veto-wielding members, along with Britain, France, the US and China - was quoted on Monday by Britain's Financial Times newspaper as saying: "If we find the solution for Kosovo unacceptable, we will not hesitate to use our veto right in the UN Security Council."

Putin's allegedly made the remarks last last Saturday at a dinner with a group of American and Russian journalists and businessmen at his residence in Moscow. But a Russian government official neither confirmed nor denied the statement, saying only he couldn't recall the word "veto" being used.

Putin reportedly said that the same yardstick should be applied to Kosovo and the former Soviet republics. "If a precedent is set, it will negatively reflect on the post-Soviet region and it will be difficult to explain to the peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia why Albanians (in Kosovo) can breakaway from Serbia and they cannot," he stated, quoted in the Financial Times.

National Bank of Greece buys Serbia's Vojvodjanska Banka

BELGRADE, Serbia-National Bank of Greece SA on Tuesday bought Serbia's Vojvodjanska Banka for 385 million Euros($489.5 million), the official Tanjug news agency reported.

Serbia's Finance Minister Mladjan Dinkic, who signed the deal with the Greek bank, said that the sale wraps up the reform of the republic's banking system following privatization of other state-owned banks.

Vojvodjanska Banka is one of Serbia's largest banks. Media reports said that the Greek bank was the only bidder that agreed to buy 99.4 percent of the Vojvodjanska Banka capital, as was requested by the authorities.

Serbia sign Status of Forces Agreement with United States

A Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) is an agreement between a country and a foreign nation stationing military forces in that country. Source: Wikipedia.com

The United States and Serbia signed a Status of Forces Agreement on Thursday in Washington, opening the door to military partnerships between two countries that just seven years ago were at war. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Serbian President Boris Tadic signed the agreement in a formal morning ceremony held in the State Department's historic Treaty Room.

The SOFA is an important step in the ongoing normalization of relations between the two countries, and a sign of the increasingly warm relationship between the two militaries, according to Maj. Gen. Zdravko Ponos, chief of staff of the Serbian army.

"We've already made good progress in the last few years," with initial exchanges of a few students at military academies in each country, last month's donation of $1.2 million worth of flood-control equipment by the U.S. European Command, and a new partnership between the Serbian army and the Ohio National Guard, Ponos told Stars and Stripes in a Thursday interview in Washington.

"Having a SOFA means that we can conduct joint exercises" and otherwise expand those initial cooperative efforts, Ponos said. On Friday, Ponos will travel to Ohio to meet with its adjutant general, Maj. Gen. Gregory Wayt, and discuss the possibility of bringing some guardsmen to Serbia for a small exercise, he said.

In return, Wayt is scheduled to visit Serbia at the end of September to visit some troops and make further plans. A joint exercise "could even be this year - it depends on the Ohio National Guard," Ponos said. "We are ready for any size [unit] and we will appreciate it."

Before heading to Ohio, Ponos was also scheduled to meet with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Navy Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, NATO's transformation commander and commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command in Norfolk, Va. Asked what the Serbs are asking the Pentagon for, Ponos promptly replied, "education."

"It's good to have equipment and money, but more important is education and experience," Ponos said. "Some day, equipment gets old, and money, you can spend." "We want to become partners, and develop interoperability, " Ponos said. "If you are drawing campaign maps using different colors and symbols and can't understand each other's [maps], it's difficult to have joint exercises." Military education has other benefits, Ponos said.

In times of tight budgets, "it is not expensive and it shows good political will. It can help us in changing mind-sets" on both sides, Ponos said. Changing U.S. military's perception of Serbia is very important to Ponos. "So many American soldiers served in the Balkans, but have not visited Serbia," he said. "Many of them have some prejudice, unfortunately. We want to give them opportunities to visit Serbia and Belgrade, and see the other side.

"Serbia today is not Serbia 10 years ago."

Serbs present new evidence of Dudakovic's war crimes

Bosnian Serbs, the second largest ethnic group in the country, have presented fresh evidence of crimes allegedly committed by the Bosnian Muslim army during the 1992-1995 civil war. The Centre for Public Security (CPS) in Banjaluka, the capital of Bosnian Serb entity Republika Srpska, has said it submitted evidence to the Bosnian public prosecutor against 20 individuals for crimes committed against the civilian population and prisoners in western Bosnia.

The crimes were allegedly perpetrated against Serbs, but also against a rebel Muslim group headed by Fikret Abdic, who opposed Muslim wartime leader Alija Izetbegovic, the CPS claims. It says they were committed in 1994 and 1995 by the Fifth corps of the Bosnian Muslim army, led by general Atif Dudakovic.

A total 800 people were killed in the Fifth corps offensive, including 350 civilians, and 100,000 people were displaced, mostly Abdic's Muslim supporters, according to the CPS report. A video that appeared to show Dudakovic's forces killing civilians and burning villages was recently shown by Serbian television. But Dudakovic rejected the accusations, saying he only "defended his country."

Bosnian Serb officials have said they submitted evidence against Dudakovic to the United Nations' Hague war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. But the tribunal, which plans to complete its work by 2008, is not accepting new cases and is referring them to local courts. Most of the 150 individuals indicted by the UN's Hague tribunal are Serbs, which has prompted accusations from Serbia that the court was practising "selective justice" and trying only Serbs.

Bosnian Muslim leaders, including Sulejman Tihic, Muslim member of Bosnia's three-man rotating state presidency, have rushed to Dudakovic's defence. Tihic said he was "proud of Dudakovic's war record," describing him as a hero. In a related development, the Banjaluka Alternative Television channel late on Tuesday aired another video apparently showing one of Dudakovic's commanders, Hamdija Delalic, ordering his soldiers near the western town of Cazin to use all means to retake the lost positions.

"We must break through - kill everything that comes in your way," Delalic is heard telling his soldiers. "I approve and order the destruction of the enemy by all means - knives, bombs, teeth," he says. Asked by soldiers whether rape was allowed too, he is heard replying: "You have the right to do everything."

Apart from murder, looting and burning of villages, many women were raped as a result of Delalic's orders, Esad Covic the Muslim president of western Bosnia's war prisoners' association, told Banjaluka Alternative Television. He cited the case of a Muslim woman, now living in the United States, who suffered a nervous breakdown after repeated rapes. "Unfortunately, she will never be a person to whom one could talk again," he said. Covic said his the western Bosnia's war prisoners' association sent the documentation on the crimes of the Fifth corps to Hague in 1999, but never received a reply from the tribunal.

Serbian trumpet festival attracts 400,000 revellers

The growing popularity of an annual Roma trumpet festival has drawn hundreds of thousands of revelers to Serbia over the past few days.

The majority of the 1,500 participants of the 46th festival in Guca, about 160 kilometers (about 96 miles) south of the Serbian capital Belgrade, are Roma from around the region. But as the word spreads further west, the festival has been attracting an increasing number of foreigners, boosting the attendance numbers to an estimated 400,000 this year.

At the main stage, standing not far from the village's Orthodox church, Ludovic Delomme effortlessly carries a 13-kilogram (28-pound) sousaphone and is welcomed by a vociferous crowd. Delomme is a member of "Tzi Slav Orkestar Paris" -- a French brass outfit formed in 2000 and attending Guca for the third year.

"They don't play too badly," says Julie Del Toro, a 25-year-old from Toulouse in southern France, as the band warmed up for the "Golden Trumpet" competition. "If such a festival was held in France, I'm not sure it would be as successful," she adds, referring to the uninhibited behavior of the young spectators.

In Guca, they jump onto tables to strut their stuff and show their appreciation for their favorite bands. Played by up to 50 or even 60 musicians at the same time, the melodies are transformed into a kind of deafening, higher sound.

Founded as a local trumpet competition in 1961 by musicians who earned a living by playing at baptisms, marriages and other family ceremonies, the festival gained its renown in the '90s. Nowadays, Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, who attended the final day of the festival on Sunday, speaks of it as having become a "national label" that his country contributes to world heritage.

For the organizers, it has become "the most important trumpet event in the world" -- a phrase that wouldn't surprise the greats of music like Miles Davis.

"I didn't know you could play the trumpet that way," the famous late American jazz musician said once after a pilgrimage to Guca. The trumpet festival, which offers visitors free entry, is well on the way to becoming a commercial event.

Serbian brewery MB, the main sponsor of this year's festival, reported beer sales of 4,000 hectoliters, or more than 700,000 British pints. The event has also become lucrative for various travel agencies.

A representative of a Berlin-based travel agency, Snezana Knoepffler, a former refugee of Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, hopes to attract more and more Germans seeking a music festival with a difference. "There used to be a hatred of Serbs, and it takes time to overcome this," says Knoepffler.

German student Jelena Kleisler said that like her, many young foreigners come to the festival in Guca attracted by music "that has a heart." The festival is also to be immortalized in a film, organizers said. "Guca -- Distant Trumpet" is in the tradition of Emir Kusturica, the Balkan director who first introduced the world to the cacophonous sound of the region's "Gypsy music" through a string of award-winning movies.

Written and directed by Dusan Milic, the new feature-length film is a history of love surrounding Marko Markovic, the young, talented son of Serbia's best known trumpet player, Boban Markovic.

Milic hopes to unveil the film soon after the latest edition of the festival in Guca, a tiny village in southern Serbia, with the soundtrack already released ahead of the celebration of trumpet music.

Boban and Marko Markovic attended the latest version of the Guca festival, where they were seen sauntering among dozens of the shiny brass instruments, chatting about music together in both Serbian and Romany.

Boban prefers the traditional Austro-Hungarian bugle, while Marko is a virtuoso of the valve trumpet, best known for its use in jazz music.

Child trafficking on the rise in Kosovo

Child trafficking in the countries of southeast Europe, particularly in Serbia's Kosovo province, has been on rise and is reaching worrying proportions, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Wednesday. In a report, Action to Prevent Child Trafficking in South-Eastern Europe, released in London, UNICEF stated that said that many children were smuggled from southeast Europe into west European countries, "to be used in the sex trade, slavery or for begging". It noted that 1.2 million children were trafficked across the world annually, while 246 million kids world-wide were involved in illegal child labour.

"We know that child trafficking within Kosovo borders is on rise," said UNICEF regional director for southeast Europe, Maria Kalavis. "Children are being recruited for certain jobs and forms of exploitation, " she added. After visiting Romania, Moldova, Albania and Kosovo, the countries most frequently named in child trafficking, one of the reports' authors, Mike Dottridge, said that the trafficking could be fought only by "addressing root causes of the problem. The traffickers themselves are very well organized, very flexible and very ruthless, yet the systems that are in place to deal with them are inflexible and unharmonized, " he added.

Kalavis told the BBC it was absurd that UNICEF's presence in Kosovo wasn't felt more strongly, despite the fact that the province, whose majority ethnic Albanians demand independence, has been under United Nations control since 1999. "Kosovo's priorities have been so far the establishment of the rule of law and the reform of institutions" and we, "as UN agency caring for children want to point out that this area of protection has been neglected", said Kalavis.

Kalavis praised Serbia's efforts in preventing child trafficking. "Serbia is a good example how to prevent child trafficking, because they are eliminating causes which make the children vulnerable," Kalavis concluded.

Two albanians rape 5 year old girl

BERN (AP) -- Switzerland remained shocked Wednesday the shortly after the advertisement of the rape of a five year old young girl by schoolboys of 11 and 13 years made in June in the Grison commune of Rhazuns. "It is alarming. One forever considering that", declared the Minister for Justice, confirming that the two authors were of the Albanians of Kosovo.

For Christophe Blocher, who expressed itself in front of the press, it is about a "frightening event" and all must be implemented to prevent other sexual abuse this kind.

The federal Office of the migrations will examine under which conditions the two children rapists lived. It will also be necessary to examine whether sexual reasons are really at the origin of this act, continued the minister.

The business of Rhazuns was approached Wednesday by the federal Council (government) in margin of his meeting.

According to newspapers' alemenic "Blick" and "Sudostschweiz" , which made the public affair, the young girl was attracted in the neighbourhoods of a place of park and was sexually deceived by the two schoolboys. Young person the small victim would have retained while the 13 year old teenager violated it. It would have then also misused it.

All three lived Rhazuns and knew each other. The prosecutor for the minors of the canton of the Grisons, Albert Fausch, stated Tuesday that measures had been taken against the two boys, who do not attend any more the local school.

The procedure against the two boys is always in hand. For the punishable acts made by children of less than 15 years, the Swiss penal code envisages educational measurements. The authority of judgement can order the educational welfare, the family placement or the sending in a house of education. Disciplinary measurements, like the obligation with a school work or stops, are also possible. AP

Richard Gere's film about Karadzic

Hollywood actor Richard Gere will start searching for war crimes fugitive Radovan Karadzic in a new film due to start shooting in Bosnia this month, a local production company said on Friday.

Richard Shepard's light-hearted thriller "Flak Jacket" will also star U.S. actors Jesse Eisenberg and Terrence Howard, who along with Gere play reporters heading to post-war Bosnia on an unauthorised mission to locate Karadzic.

The film is based on an article written by Scott Anderson, a journalist who reported on the Bosnian war for Esquire magazine.

Edo Sarkic of the Sarajevo-based Scout Film production company said the first 10 days of shooting would be done in Bosnia and the remainder in Croatia.

"We have completed the technical scouting and selected several shooting locations in and around Sarajevo and the 160-member crew will start making the film on September 12," Sarkic told Reuters.

He could not disclose who would play Karadzic.

Bosnian Serb wartime leader Karadzic is wanted along with his military chief Ratko Mladic by the U.N. war crimes tribunal in The Hague over the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslims by the Bosnian Serb forces and the 43-month siege of Sarajevo.

His staying at large represents an embarrassment for the international community, NATO and regional leaders.

Killing in the Name of Democracy

President George W. Bush perpetually invokes the goal of spreading democracy to sanctify his foreign policy. Unfortunately, he is only the latest in a string of presidents who cloaked aggression in idealistic rhetoric. Killing in the name of democracy has a long and sordid history.

The U.S. government's first experience with forcibly spreading democracy came in the wake of the Spanish-American War. When the U.S. government declared war on Spain in 1898, it pledged it would not annex foreign territory. But after a swift victory, the United States annexed all of the Philippines. As Tony Smith, author of America's Mission, noted,

Ultimately, the democratization of the Philippines came to be the principal reason the Americans were there; now the United States had a moral purpose to its imperialism and could rest more easily. William McKinley proclaimed that in the Philippines the U.S. occupation would "assure the residents in every possible way [of the] full measure of individual rights and liberties which is the heritage of a free people, substituting the mild sway of justice and right for arbitrary rule." He also promised to "Christianize" the Filipinos, as if he did not consider the large number of Filipino Catholics to be Christians. McKinley was devoted to forcibly spreading American values abroad at the same time that he championed high tariffs to stop Americans from buying foreign products.

The "mild sway of justice" worked out very well for Filipino undertakers. The United States Christianized and civilized the Filipinos by authorizing American troops to kill any Filipino male 10 years old and older and by burning down and massacring entire villages. (Filipino resistance fighters also committed atrocities against American soldiers.) Hundreds of thousands of Filipinos died as the United States struggled to crush resistance to its rule in a conflict that dragged on for a decade and cost the lives of 4,000 American troops.

Despite the brutal U.S. suppression of the Filipino independence movement, President Bush, in a 2003 speech in Manila, claimed credit for the United States's having brought democracy to the Philippines:

America is proud of its part in the great story of the Filipino people. Together our soldiers liberated the Philippines from colonial rule. Perhaps Bush believes that subservience to the U.S. government is the highest freedom that any foreign people can attain. His comments illustrated the continual "1984"-style rewriting of American history.

Latin American interventions

Woodrow Wilson raised tub-thumping for democracy to new levels. As soon as he took office, he began saber-rattling against the Mexican government, outraged that the Mexican president, Victoriano Huerta, had come to power by military force (during the Mexican civil war that broke out in 1910). Wilson announced in May 1914,

They say the Mexicans are not fitted for self-government; and to this I reply that, when properly directed, there is no people not fitted for self-government. This is almost verbatim what Bush has said about Iraqis and other Arabs. And as long as a president praises self-government, many Americans seem oblivious when he oppresses foreigners.

Wilson summarized his Mexican policy: "I am going to teach the South American republics to elect good men!" U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain Walter Hines Page explained the U.S. government's attitude toward Latin America:

The United States will be here 200 years and it can continue to shoot men for that little space until they learn to vote and rule themselves. In order to cut off the Mexican government's tariff revenue, Wilson sent U.S. forces to seize the city of Veracruz, one of the most important Mexican ports. U.S. soldiers killed hundreds of Mexicans (while suffering 19 dead) and briefly rallied the Mexican opposition around the Mexican leader.

In 1916, U.S. Marines seized Santo Domingo, the capital of the Dominican Republic. After the United States could not find any Dominican politicians who would accept orders from Washington, it installed its own military government to run the country for eight years. The previous year, the U.S. military had seized control of Haiti and dictated terms to that nation's president. When local residents rebelled against U.S. rule in 1918, thousands of Haitians were killed. Tony Smith observes,

What makes Wilson's [Latin American] policy even more annoying is that its primary motive seems to have been to reinforce the self-righteous vanity of the president. World War I and II

After Wilson took the nation into World War I "to make the world safe for democracy," he acted as if fanning intolerance was the key to spreading democracy. He increasingly demonized all those who did not support the war and his crusade to shape the postwar world. He denounced Irish-Americans, German-Americans, and others, declaring, "Any man who carries a hyphen about him carries a dagger which he is ready to plunge into the vitals of the Republic." Wilson urged Americans to see military might as a supreme force for goodness, appealing in May 1918 for "force, force to the utmost, force without stint or limit, the righteous and triumphant force which shall make Right the law of the world." As Harvard professor Irving Babbitt commented,

Wilson, in the pursuit of his scheme for world service, was led to make light of the constitutional checks on his authority and to reach out almost automatically for unlimited power. Again, the parallels with Bush are almost uncanny. And many of the same intellectuals who currently praise Wilson for his abuses in the name of idealism also heap accolades on Bush's head.

The deaths of more than 100,000 Americans in World War I did nothing to bring Wilson's lofty visions to Earth. The 1919 Paris peace talks became a slaughter pen of Wilson's pretensions. One of his top aides, Henry White, later commented, "We had such high hopes of this adventure; we believed God called us and now we are doing hell's dirtiest work." Thomas Fleming, the author of The Illusion of Victory, noted, "The British and French exploited the war to forcibly expand their empires and place millions more people under their thumbs." Fleming concluded that one lesson of World War I is that "idealism is not synonymous with sainthood or virtue. It only sounds that way." But it did not take long for idealism to recover its capacity to induce political delusions.

During the 1920s and 1930s, U.S. military interventions in Latin America were routinely portrayed as "missions to establish democracy." The U.S. military sometimes served as a collection agency for American corporations or banks that had made unwise investments or loans in politically unstable foreign lands. Marine Corps Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler bitterly lamented of his 33 years of active service,

I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.. .. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. Franklin Roosevelt painted World War II as a crusade for democracy - hailing Joseph Stalin as a partner in liberation. Roosevelt praised Stalin as "truly representative of the heart and soul of Russia" - as if the lack of bona fide elections in Russia was a mere technicality, since Stalin was the nation's favorite. Roosevelt praised Soviet Russia as one of the "freedom-loving Nations" and stressed that Stalin was "thoroughly conversant with the provisions of our Constitution. " Harold Ickes, one of Roosevelt's top aides, proclaimed that communism was "the antithesis of Nazism" because it was based on "belief in the control of the government, including the economic system, by the people themselves." The fact that the Soviet regime had been the most oppressive government in the world in the 1930s was irrelevant, as far as Roosevelt was concerned. If Stalin's regime was "close enough" to democracy, it is difficult to understand why Roosevelt is venerated as an idealist.

Cold War interventions

Dwight Eisenhower was no slacker in invoking democracy. In 1957, he declared,

We as a nation ... have a job to do, a mission as the champion of human freedom. To conduct ourselves in all our international relations that we never compromise the fundamental principle that all peoples have a right to an independent government of their own full, free choice. He was perfectly in tune with the Republican Party platform of 1952, which proclaimed,

We shall again make liberty into a beacon light of hope that will penetrate the dark places.... The policies we espouse will revive the contagious, liberating influences which are inherent in freedom. But Eisenhower's idealism did not deter the CIA, dreading communist takeovers, from toppling at least two democratically elected regimes. In 1953, the CIA engineered a coup that put the shah in charge of Iran. In 1954, it aided a military coup in Guatemala that crushed that nation's first constitutionally based government.

The elected Guatemalan government and the United Fruit Company could not agree on the value of 400,000 acres that the Guatemalan government wanted to expropriate to distribute to small farmers. The Guatemalan government offered $1.2 million as compensation based on the "taxed value of the land; Washington insisted on behalf of United Fruit that the value was $15.9 million, that the company be reimbursed immediately and in full, and that [President Jacobo] Arbenz's insistence on taking the land was clear proof of his communist proclivities, " as America's Mission noted.

Yet, at the same time, the federal government in the United States was confiscating huge swaths of private land throughout American inner cities for urban renewal and highway projects, often paying owners pittances for their homes. There was no foreign government to intervene to protect poor Americans from federal redevelopment schemes. The fact that the U.S. government got miffed over a 1954 Guatemalan government buyout offer helped produce decades of repressive rule and the killing of hundreds of thousands of Guatemalan civilians.

Since the Eisenhower era, U.S. government bogus efforts to spread democracy have sprouted like mushrooms. Especially with the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy in 1983, all limits were lifted on how many democratic cons that the U.S. government could bankroll abroad. The U.S. government is currently spending more than a billion dollars a year for democracy efforts abroad. But Thomas Carothers, the director of the Carnegie Endowment's Democracy and Rule of Law Project, warns that Bush policies are creating a "democracy backlash" around the globe.

The greatest gift the United States could give the world is an example that serves as a shining city on a hill. As University of Pennsylvania professor Walter McDougall observed, "The best way to promote our institutions and values abroad is to strengthen them at home." But there is scant glory for politicians in restraining their urge to "save humanity." The ignorance of the average American has provided no check on "run amok" politicians and bureaucrats.

September 1, 2006

James Bovard [send him mail] is the author of the just-released Attention Deficit Democracy, The Bush Betrayal, and Terrorism & Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice, and Peace to Rid the World of Evil. He serves as a policy advisor for The Future of Freedom Foundation.