CREATING ANOTHER MUSLIM FOOTHOLD IN EUROPE
by Mike Scruggs
for the Tribune Papers
According to Hillary Rodham Clinton,
the U.S. and NATO war against Serbia in 1999 proved that the Democratic Party,
under the leadership of her husband, President William Clinton, is the party of
military success. Never mind that the U.S. Congress never actually approved the
war. A resolution supporting Clinton’s misadventure in the Balkans failed to
pass the U.S. House. What Field Marshall and former draft-dodger Wilhelm von
Clinton did accomplish was to make the former Serbian province of Kosovo a new
Muslim foothold in Europe.
Kosovo is still technically a
semi-autonomous province of Serbia, but since 1999 it has been occupied by NATO
and UN troops and governed under a United Nations Mandate. But it is a province
of great historical importance to the Serbs, especially in regards to their
Orthodox Christian heritage. In the fourteenth Century, the population of
Kosovo was 98 percent Serbian-Orthodox Christian. However, the Ottoman Turks
conquered them in 1389 and remained in power there until near the end of the
First World War. Despite persecution and sporadic ethnic cleansings under
Turkish rule and continuous immigration from Muslim northern Albania, Kosovo
remained predominantly Serbian and Christian until at least 1871. That year the
Austro-Hungarian Army completed a survey that showed Kosovo’s population of
about 500 thousand to be 64 percent Serbian Christian. But from 1876 to 1912
the Turks cleansed about 400 thousand Serbs from Kosovo.
During the Second World War, Albania allied
itself with Nazi Germany, and the Germans obliged their dream of “Greater
Albania” by facilitating the settlement of more Albanians in Kosovo. The German
Army also wished to retaliate against the Serbs for their fierce resistance to
German occupation. After the war Albania became the most radically Communist
state in Europe, and its utter economic failure encouraged more Albanians to
escape into Kosovo. Furthermore, following the war, the Communist rule of the
Croatian, Josip Broz (Tito) in Yugoslavia, tended to
discriminate against Serbia, and illegal immigration from Albania into Kosovo
continued. By 1953, Kosovo was 64
percent Albanian Muslim. By the time of Tito’s death in 1980, the Albanian
Muslim population had risen to 77 percent of a total of 1.6 million.
Once the Albanian Muslims became a
majority, they began agitating for independence from Serbia and started
committing atrocities against their Serb neighbors. Other harassment included
beating elderly nuns, raping young girls, and attacking monasteries.
Thanks to the U.S. and NATO victory
in 1999 and the help of ruthless ethnic cleansing and terrorism since then by
the Muslim KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army),
Kosovo’s population of nearly two million is now over 90 percent
Albanian Muslim. The Orthodox Christian Serbs have been reduced to about 5
percent. These live in a state of constant siege and fear.
In 1986, sixteen prominent members
of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts released a report focusing on the
plight of Serbs in Kosovo. They argued that the Serbian population there was
being subjected to “physical, political, legal, and cultural genocide” and
noted that 200 thousand Serbs had fled Kosovo in the last twenty years. They
called for Serbian government action to ensure “genuine security and
unambiguous equality for all peoples living in Kosovo” and for “creating the
conditions for the return of the expelled Serbian nation” there.
This report was at first denounced
by the old Communist guard, including Slobodan Milosovic,
an ambitious party apparatchik, who was later elected President of the Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) in 1989. But in response to
public pressure and violence against the remaining Serbs in Kosovo, he began to
change his thinking and policies. Reacting to violent Albanian agitation for
independence and demonstrations in which 24 people, including two policemen
were killed, he curtailed Kosovar autonomy and
imposed a curfew and state of emergency. Finally, on July 5, 1990, a referendum
was passed in the Serbian Republic (including Kosovo) providing for sweeping
constitutional changes in the governing of Kosovo. In addition, some 40
thousand Serbian troops and police were sent to replace the Albanian-run
security forces.
The Albanian reaction was continued
violence and terror against Serbian civilians, police and soldiers. During this period the Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA) became the principal resistance against Serbia’s attempt to take back
control of Kosovo.
Many Western journalists have called
the KLA “freedom fighters,” but their methods soon resulted in their
designation as a terrorist organization by the State Department in 1998. When
NATO and the Clinton administration sided with the Albanians in 1999, they
became freedom fighters again. The KLA has since proved its reputation both as
terrorists and criminals. They have close contacts with such Islamist terror
organizations as Al-Qaeda and are important purveyors of drugs and prostitution
in Europe.
Beginning in late 1997, the Western
powers began to respond to Muslim pressures to side with the Albanians.
Additionally, multiculturally correct European and
American leaders periodically feel the need to affirm Islam as a religion of
peace and tolerance, even if it means demonizing former staunch allies like the
Serbs, who happen to be Orthodox Christians. But as I have noted elsewhere, any
form of Christianity is suspect to the secular humanist worldview.
Russian President Boris Yeltsin
persuaded Milosovic to negotiate with Albanian
leaders, but the Albanians would not negotiate. By this time they knew they had
the U.S. and NATO on their side. Meanwhile, NATO and the Albanians stepped up a
propaganda campaign against the Serbs, accusing them of ethnic cleansing and
many atrocities. This occurred despite the fact that General Klaus Naumann, Chief of the NATO Military Committee, stated that
the KLA was responsible for a majority of all such incidents.
Much of it appears to have been
fabricated by the Clinton administration and their KLA allies to justify
military intervention. Nevertheless, on March 18, 1999, the Albanians,
Americans, and British signed what became known as the Rambouillet
Accords. This called for Kosovo to be
administered by NATO. Remarkably, it also called for an unhindered NATO troop
passage into not only Kosovo but Serbia and Montenegro as well. In addition, it
insisted that NATO troops and agents be immune from Serbian/Yugoslav Law. The
demands were such that no patriotic Serbian leader could sign. It seems rather obvious that NATO
deliberately created a document that no self-respecting leader of any country
in Serbia’s place would sign. Clinton and Britain’s Tony Blair wanted to bomb
Serbia to teach the Serbs a lesson—not to aid their ethnic and religious kin in
Kosovo or Bosnia. Former Secretary of
State Henry Kissinger described the Rambouillet text
as a “provocation, an excuse to start bombing.”
Both the Serbs and the Russians refused to sign, and the Serbs bravely
rejected NATO’s subsequent bombing ultimatum.
Clinton ignored a CIA warning that a
humanitarian refugee disaster could result if NATO started bombing The Serbs did not begin to drive Albanian
refugees into Albania until NATO had already commenced bombing. Except for
thousands of Albanians fleeing Kosovo in the face of Serbian troops, escalating
war, and NATO bombing, very little of the NATO propaganda turned out to be
true. The number of refugees, once estimated at 800 thousand, also turned out
to be vast exaggeration.
For 78 days in 1999, we bombed
Christian Serbia and their forces in Kosovo, ostensibly as a humanitarian move
to prevent Serbian ethnic cleansing of Kosovo’s Albanian population. Our real
motive was to cripple the troublesome anti-multiculturalist
Serbs and to enhance our standing with the oil-rich Muslim world. We bombed
bridges, selected buildings, railroads, even passenger trains, and other
targets in the Serbian capital of Belgrade. Unfortunately, the Chinese Embassy
was also hit. According to John Pilger, writing in the
Guardian, many of the bombs dropped from a relatively safe altitude (for
us) of 15,000 feet, also hit schools, hospitals, and homes. Total
Serbian dead amounted to about two thousand. Pope John Paul II described the
bombing as an “act of diabolical retribution.” Many conservative and liberal
American leaders agreed, but the Serbs eventually had to yield to our more
advanced technology and vastly superior force.
As a former Air Force officer I take
much pride in the accomplishments of our Armed Forces and especially the USAF.
My own experience is that USAF and U.S Navy bombing in Viet Nam and later in
Iraq went to great, almost extreme, length to avoid collateral civilian
casualties. But the bombing of Belgrade in Bill Clinton’s unauthorized war
against Serbia is something no American can be proud of.
The results of our alliance with the
KLA and establishing an Albanian base of Muslim power in Kosovo have been
horrific. The Albanians have driven 277 thousand Serbs from Kosovo. Hundreds
have been murdered. Thousands have been robbed and brutalized as their homes
and property were destroyed. Muslim multiculturalists have destroyed 135
Orthodox churches, monasteries, and shrines. All this was done under the noses
of UN security forces.
Bill Clinton’s great military
achievement was a humanitarian disaster, and it established a dangerous Muslim
foothold in Europe that is exporting terror and crime.