Sunday, July 01, 2007

Forget the Crummy Effigies — Burn a Church!

Many conservatives supported the 1999 air war against Serbia over Kosovo, even though it was instigated by Bill Clinton. I was not one of them; it seemed like an ill-advised use of America’s political and military capital, and a look into the background of the KLA did not inspire confidence. What did we think we were doing by going to bat on behalf of such a seedy, shadowy, and dangerous organization?

Later events only confirmed my worst expectation. Putting Kosovo into UN receivership has been a disaster for everyone except for the Kosovar Albanians, and the subsequent ethnic cleansing of Christians from Kosovo highlighted the nature of the people we were so eager to help.

The burning of a church in KosovoLast night a reader drew my attention to a video published by CNS that shows the desecration and burning of an Orthodox church in Kosovo by a Kosovar Albanian mob. The event took place in 2005, but there’s no indication that things have improved since then. In the interim more Christians have been driven out or killed, more churches have been razed, and the remnant left behind have been forced to live in greater and greater fear. With the huge influx of Saudi petrodollars, Kosovo has been thoroughly Wahhabized, and has become a springboard for the extension of the Great Jihad into the heart of Europe.

According to the CNS article accompanying the video:

Between 1999 and 2004 approximately 150 churches, monasteries, seminaries, and bishop residences were attacked by ethnic Albanian mobs. Many of the churches contained priceless Byzantine frescoes and other religious artifacts dating as far back as the 13th century. Many of the sites were reduced to rubble.

And all under the watchful eye of the UN. At the beginning of this video a clearly marked KFOR armored vehicle rolls by as the mob gathers to destroy the church. As the smoke rises from the windows of the church, several men climb to the roof and break off the large metal crosses from the gables, pitching them over the side to the cheers of the crowd below. As the flames rise higher, an Albanian flag is seen flying in the foreground.

And this is not an isolated event; similar atrocities have occurred throughout the province. Apologists for the Kosovars have written all this off as the work of criminals and extremist elements, nothing to do with the ruling junta in Kosovo.

Does all this sound familiar?

The official Nazi government response at the time [of Kristallnacht] was that such outbreaks were spontaneous, not organized. In the Kosovo situation, analysts are also expressing doubt over a similar line touted by the government.

Referring to the destruction of 34 churches in March of last year Melady said, “Thanks to a few amateur films that were made when the protests broke out, we can see how things unfolded. At all the scenes someone would climb to the top and tear down the cross, then stomp on it. Then they would set fire to the church.”

During the Aug. 12 congressional staff briefing, Melady’s research assistant, Ivan Djurovski, showed footage of the destruction of St. Andrew the Apostle Church in Podujevo.

The 17-minute video obtained by Cybercast News Service shows crowds of men ranging in age from about 15 to 50, calmly and methodically fanning out around the church after marching through town. After setting the church on fire, one of the vandals enters the bell tower to ring the church bell, which draws cheers from the crowd. Men scale the roof of the church to tear down three crosses, resulting in more cheers. Cybercast News Service edited the 17 minute video down to approximately two-and-a-half minutes.

The video also shows the presence of a Kosovo Force tank and soldiers. The Kosovo Force (KFOR) is a NATO-led international contingent responsible for establishing and maintaining security in the province. French and German forces later said their mandate was to protect lives, not property. [emphasis added]

A further reminder (as if we needed one) that UN “peacekeepers” do not keep what you and I would call peace.
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“This is a very grave threat,” said [defense analyst Frederick] Peterson. “With final status changing from Serbian Orthodox hegemony into at very best a gray line, the dividing line between the Christian and Islamic world moves closer to the European Union, and we’re at great risk of tolerating what should not be tolerated in order to buy some peace in our time.”

In the war against an expanding radical Islam, Peterson said, “We have three choices: convert, submit or die. But there’s a fourth choice and that’s to fight.

“What is going on in Kosovo today is the future of Europe tomorrow,” he added.

As Dahn Pettersson recently discovered, speaking the plain truth about the Muslims of Kosovo violates the precepts of multicultural political correctness and can get a man in serious trouble.

But the fact remains that Kosovo is essentially a proto-state being run by a Wahhabist criminal mob. This is the same entity that President George W. Bush wants the international community to recognize, to reward with its own sovereign nation.

Here’s an excerpt from an article called “Albanian Terrorism and Organized Crime in Kosovo and Metohija”, which is part of a site run by the Serbian Orthodox Church in Kosovo:

At the time KLA was being founded, in the first half of 1993, organized crime was not so prominent in this region. Primarily for the purpose of arming the newly organized groups, members of KLA in the areas of Drenica and Metohija established connections with their relatives, migrant workers in Switzerland, Germany, Belgium, Sweden and other countries, who had already been involved in illicit activities, and established multiple channels for transporting the arms and equipment, as well as financial resources for the needs of K&M terrorists.

This way, a firm link of the key persons of Albanian terrorism and the leaders of organized crime in the region with the highly criminalized and politically manipulated Albanian diaspora, a very important factor in the operation of the partnership between Albanian terrorism and criminal organizations, was established.

At the same time, the sanctions imposed on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by the international community and the trade blockade of the FYRepublic of Macedonia by Greece have switched drug trafficking from the routes connecting Turkey with the Western European market to a new one, across the territory of Albania and K&M. A part of the money earned in these illicit operations was paid to some allegedly humanitarian funds that were actually used to sponsor the activities of KLA members.

Of almost DM 900 million that reached Kosovo and Metohija in the between 1996 and 1999, nearly a half was the money earned in drug trafficking, which made Interpol experts conclude (in December 2000) that the activities of fund raising for Kosmet and KLA were used for laundering of illegally acquired money.

KLA did not use the channels for illegal transportation of drugs only as a way to ship heroin to Europe in order to earn enormous profits, but also to smuggle arms to the Balkans. Drugs were directly traded for arms, or the arms were purchased with the money earned from drug trafficking in Albania, B&H, Croatia, Cyprus, Italy, Montenegro, Switzerland and Turkey.

These are the people that the West want to do business with. The only conclusion one can draw is that there must be some very lucrative stakes indeed to induce our leaders to climb into bed with the likes of the KLA.

This is a good opportunity to follow the money into the shadows and see where it leads.

16 comments:

Unknown said...

For many europeans, as me, US is not anymore a trusted friend. And we wonder if it is a friend at all.

Panday said...

Do a google search for Bosnia + Mujahideen and it's apparent we supported the wrong side in the Balkans back in the 90s.

Had we supported the other side, this whole thing in Kosovo may well not have been an issue today.

Shrill Will said...

Some of the worst massacres against civilian Albanians occurred after that NATO started the bombing of Yugoslavia. Cuska massacre,[28] Podujevo massacre,[29] Velika Krusa massacre[30] are some of the massacres committed by Serbian army, police and paramilitary.

During the Kosovo War, Serbs also engaged in a deliberate campaign of cultural destruction and rampage. According to a report compiled by the Kosovo Cultural Heritage Project, Serbian forces tried to wipe out all Albanian culture and traditions. Of the 500 mosques that were in use prior to the war, 200 of them were completely destroyed or desecrated. The report concludes that most mosques were deliberately set on fire with no sign of fighting around the area. Among numerous other things, the following important objects were destroyed because they represented Albanian as well as Muslim and Catholic cultures:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo

Kosovars seems to have a hard time forgetting the past.

Dr.D said...

The leaders in the West, both Europe and the USA, steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the fundamentally religious nature of this conflict. Religion is at the very core of our differences. Even though much of the West is now irreligious, that is a religious position of sorts, and is not tolerated by the Muslims.

The right to be irreligious is allowed in the West fundamentally as a freedom that grew out of Christianity. If Christianity is displaced as the dominant source of thought, laws, philosophy, etc. for the West, then this right will likely be eliminated as well.

The very primitive, underdeveloped nature of Islam is allowing it to use the humane provisions of the much more developed Christian West against the West. The defense of the Christian Church must begin in earnest everywhere or we will see things erode even more rapidly than they are at the present rate. And yet, in America, our liberals cannot bear to imagine this!

Whiskey said...

Why did Serbs destroy Mosques? To show they ran the place. Why do Albanians burn churches? To show they run the place.

Bottom line: this is all tribal, and a power struggle between peoples. The UN, KFOR, etc. is useless. About as useful as a UN Special Rapporteur dealing with a blood feud between two neighboring and invariably hostile tribes.

Fellow Peacekeeper said...

Correction : Like so many churches and monasteries, St. Andrew the Apostle Church in Podujev near Obilic was burned during the March 2004 riots (the article was from 2005). Apparently the partially rebuilt Church has been vandalized repeatedly since then (ERPKIM). While I'm on Church burning in March 2004, here is St Sava in Mitrovica being put to the gas cylinder under the watchfull eye of Moroccan KFOR.

Do a google search for Bosnia + Mujahideen and it's apparent we supported the wrong side in the Balkans...

Aye Stephen, and a google for "KLA and "al Qaeda" reveals more of the same, and amazingly even after 9/11.

The only conclusion one can draw is that there must be some very lucrative stakes indeed to induce our leaders to climb into bed with the likes of the KLA.

Yep, but I still blame incompetence trying to play some Grand Game not petty conspiracy. Kosovo was more of the continuing misguided march of the liberal New World Order, the same humanitarian-concern media-impulse dopiness that gave us Somalia. If almost anyone (except Madeline Albright had been State it probably would not have happened.

Mind you, the enormous flow of black money is inevitably distorting actions by the lesser players. In particular various UN appointees should have their bank accounts audited, doubly so those that habitually spout defacto pro-Albanian rhetoric (the "inevitable" independence of Kosovo etc).

Fellow Peacekeeper said...

Ooops. Correction to correction : I only now doublechecked the map, Podujevo is N of Pristina and not particularly close to Obilic. Memory put Obilic on the wrong road out of of Pristina for some fool reason. My bad.

Chiefy said...

Some of the 9/11 hijackers got their 'education' in Bosnia. To look at the Kosovo situation and say it's 'tribal' differences, is to not see the bigger picture.

The muslims were stopped in Vienna and Transylvania in the 1600's, and they need to be stopped in the Balkans now!

History Snark said...

The only purpose the NATO troops in Kosovo serve is to keep the trade in women and prostitution strong.

Agreed that the trouble there is "tribal" in origin, but I recall reading before the useless attacks on Serbia that the KLA had to be taken off the State Dep't terrorist list. I knew then that we had a problem.

Ah well, at least it was a short deployment, preceded by a declaration of war. Right?

mikej said...

I must admit that, at the time, I thought that Clinton was merely "wagging the dog" by waging war against Serbia. (Oddly, the film Wag the Dog has a scandal-ridden president attacking Albania.) Remember that Slick Willie was a total pacifist until the day his impeachment hearings began. I still have no idea why he chose to support a revanchist Muslim drive into the Balkans.

Evanston2 said...

Hey, not to worry. At the American Thinker authors Patrick Poole and Ray Robison have published several articles to reassure us that muslims in Kosovo are moderate and peace-loving. Relaaaaaax.

conservativebrit said...

@Chiefy's blog
The muslims were being "stopped in the Balkans" until the good ol' U S OF A started bombing Serbia...duhhh!! Makes you proud to be an American dunnit???

History Snark said...

Gringo,

Yeah, that was an amazing coincidence, no?

Given his view of his place in the world versus the rest of us, I remember wondering if he did it just to thumb his nose at the American people.

But at the time, friends assured me "no president would do such a thing" (i.e. Wag the Dog). Those same people now assure me that Bush went into Iraq for oil, to avenge the attempt on his father, etc. And don't believe it when I say "no president would do such a thing."

Chiefy said...

@conservativebrit.

My point was at someone else saying we should stay out of there because it is tribal. I perfectly aware we stomped the wrong people in the balkans. That is all thanks to Billy boy king.

Always On Watch said...

Doesn't it just figure that Slick Willie empowered the Muslims by intervening in the Balkans?

Profitsbeard said...

Every new Muslim structure build on the ruins in this region should be called the Al-Clinton Mosques.

(Those in Kosovo, the al-Bushi Mosques.)