Owen Parsons

In my Racak post, Len Colby asked if I "have evidence of similar chicanery in Bosnia? Were all the reported cases of ethnic cleansing and other atrocities there faked also?" As I said there, I do indeed. In this post, I will be looking at one specific area of the conflict. Namely, the attrocities that the Bosnian Serb government of Republika Srpska was accused of committing by the Islamist government of Alija Izetbegovic during the "siege of Sarajevo" (it wasn't actually a siege). Actually, all the evidence appears to show that most of these acts were carried out by the Muslims government to create international sympathy for Izetbegovic's cause and outrage at the Serbs, thus facilitating the fulfillment of his goal of creating a Muslim state in Europe, as laid out in his book The Islamic Declaration. I suggest readers read this brief article by Andy Wilcoxson for background information on how the war started, so readers will have some context to place all this in.

1. Shelling

a. Kosevo hospital

The conventional wisdom about the shelling of Kosevo hospital at the time is exemplified best in this story for The Washington Post, March 10, 1993, by Peter Maas:

"SARAJEVO -- It was midday, and Munira was at the doorstep of Kosevo Hospital's diagnostic building. She was an architect, and her job was to assess shell damage at the medical complex and supervise repair work.

Midday is the time when the hospital is busiest. Doctors and nurses are on their noon break, going from one mortar-gouged building to another. It is also visiting time, when family members come to the hospital to see an injured mother, father, brother or friend.

It also is the deadliest time. The Serbs often shell the hospital around noon.

At 12:30 on March 2, a tank shell fired by Serbs came smashing into the hospital complex and landed a few feet from the diagnostic building.

One man and seven women -- grandmothers, mothers, a couple of girls -- were injured. One person was killed. That was Munira, who knew better than most that at Kosevo Hospital death can be just around the corner for the healthy, too.

(...)

The Serbs have two explanations: that the Muslim-led Bosnian Army is shelling its own citizens, and blaming it on the Serbs, or that the Bosnians are firing mortars from the hospital grounds, thereby turning it into a legitimate target of retaliation." (source)

The way Maas writes this, you would think there was no evidence that the Muslims were actually firing mortars from the hospital. In actual fact, the evidence for this is not disputable. At least he is honest enough to note that the allegation was made, unlike some reporters.

In footnote 13 of his paper, "Selling the Bosnian Myth to America: Buyer Beware," Lt. Colonel John Sray, who was on the ground in Sarajevo, writes:

"In a similar media oversight, the Bosniacs have long maintained a mortar in a garage adjacent to Kosevo Hospital. They occasionally fire this weapon into Serb gun positions hoping to draw counterbattery fire which would hit the hospital and generate substantial publicity. This fact is well-known around the city but conveniently not mentioned in press dispatches." (source)

On the Crimes of War Project website (which is anti-Serb), you may read this in an article by Emma Daly entitled "Immunity from Attack":

"Two weeks earlier, two patients had been killed when a shell hit their ward. We could hear the sounds of bombardment in the distance, and, suspiciously close to the hospital, the hollow sound of outgoing mortar fire. Hospitals are generally immune from attack under the Geneva Conventions, which grant civilians and civilian objects a high level of theoretical protection in times of war. The siege of Sarajevo, however, made a mockery of the humanitarian ideal that the dangers of war should be limited, as far as possible, to the armed forces engaged in the fighting." (source)

Peter Brock, in his article "Dateline Yugoslavia: The Partisan Press," writes:

"'Kosevo' hospital in Sarajevo was a favorite backdrop for television journalists who, when the hospital's water supply was interrupted because of the shelling, eagerly awaited the first birth without water in the maternity ward. Once they got their pictures, the Western film crews dismantled their cameras and returned to the nearby Holiday Inn, where hot water was abundant. Unreported was the fact that on their exit from the hospital they had to avoid tripping over a shielded Bosnian army mortar emplacement that was never identified as the probable reason why Serbs sporadically fired at the hospital." (source)

Finally, I quote from Andy Walker's summary of the testimony of General Phillipe Morillon, who was the UNPROFOR commander in Bosnia from September 1992 to July 1993:

"Tapuskovic read out a quote from Morillon's testimony to the French Parliament regarding the Kosevo Hospital in Sarajevo. Morillon said, 'We saw a [Muslim] mortar there ready to provoke a reaction from the Serbs. They did that all the time. I know that some UN observers saw that mortar at Kosevo. Very frequently they used mortars at Kosevo for provocation purposes.'

Morillon confirmed that this was true and that he denounced that practice. It is unconscionable that anybody could be so evil that they would try to draw their fire on to a civilian hospital for the purposes of propaganda, but that is exactly what the Muslim authorities did in Sarajevo." (source)

I agree with this moral judgment, and this is far from the worst that the Muslims did.

b. The "Breadline" Massacre

Peter Maas alluded to the Bosnian Serb allegation that the Muslims shelled their own people above, implying that there is no evidence for it. Indeed, there is quite a bit of evidence for it. The first case is the "Breadline" massacre.

I quote from Leonard Doyle's article for The Independent of August 22, 1992, entitled "Muslims Slaughter Their Own People":

"The televised scenes of civilians cut to pieces by an explosion as they queued for bread on one of Sarajevo's main shopping thoroughfares, Vase Miskina, horrified international public opinion and added to growing pressure for military intervention against the Serbian side in the war. Vivid footage showed dead bodies littering the street and people with severed limbs sitting on the pavement in pools of blood. The attack came shortly before a meeting of European Community ambassadors to consider imposing sanctions on Serbia. The world's press concluded that the atrocity was caused by mortar bombs fired from a Serbian-held positions and attack was widely interpreted as a cynical display of defiance by the Serbs.

UN officials said then that they were suspicious about the circumstances but could not go public without jeopardizing the UN mission and possibly endangering UN peacekeepers' lives.

Classified reports to the UN force commander, General Satish Nambiar, concluded, however, that the Bosnian forces loyal to President Alija Izetbegovic may have detonated a bomb.

'We believe it was a command-detonated explosion, probably in a can,' a UN official said then. 'The impact which is there now is not necessarily similar or anywhere near as large as we came to expect with a mortar round landing on a paved surface.'" (source)

This is not the end of it, however. Mrs. Radmilla Draskovic, a Bosnian Serb recounts in a deposition how

"...I was an eyewitness of the Vasa Miskin street massacre. About forty minutes beforehand they [Muslims] forbade passage through this street from the Muslim Slav part of the town, while allowing passage from other parts of the city. They were preparing the ambulance and the TV report truck. I saw this from the window of my apartment, noticing that passage was forbidden from one side of the town. The TV report truck were by the Sarajevo city market, allegedly reporting on the market. The same moment explosion occurred on the street, they began the TV report. For that day, they transported bread and ice cream to that street. I knew some of the people who were hurt in that alleged artillery attack. I heard only the explosion, but not the sound of mortar shells in the flight. Stretchers and ambulances were prepared beforehand, and there were other vehicles parked in front of my house just before the explosion..." (source)

Dr. Zoran B. Djordjevic, a representative of Republika Srpska Krajina in Croatia (which would later be ethnically cleansed in Tudjman's Operation Storm) wrote to U.N. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali about the incident:

"Serbs still living hidden in the streets near the place of the accident informed the Serbian Government that cameramen of [Moslem controlled] TV Sarajevo visited the site with their gear half an hour before the killing. Most of the people, standing in line, were brought close to the site by the soldiers with Muslim insignia. Three of those killed were recognized as Miroslav Svrakic, Stojan Skoric and Nedeljka Dobrijevic, all Serbs.

All evidence collected so far indicate that this 'accident' was a premeditated murder organized by the Muslim Government of Bosnia and Herzegovina with intention of slandering Serbian side. It appears that those massacred were Serbs which had been held as hostages in the city of Sarajevo by Moslem and Croat forces." (source)

Of course, we all know that Serbs are untrustworthy, so I'll quote a greater authority just in case.

Canadian General Lewis MacKenzie, who was Chief of Staff of UNPROFOR forces in Bosnia in 1992, writes in his book Peacekeeper:

"Disaster in Sarajevo. People lined up for bread were attacked, and at least seventeen killed. Presidency claims it was a Serb mortar attack, Serbs claim it was a set-up using explosives. Our people tell us there were a number of things that didn't fit. The street had been blocked off just before the incident. Once the crowd was let in and lined up, the media appeared but kept distance. The attack took place, and the media was immediately on the scene. The majority of people killed are alleged to be 'tame Serbs'. Who knows? The only thing for sure is that innocent people were killed." (source)

It should be noted before moving on that this staged atrocity against Serbian civillians appeared to be timed to influence a vote in the U.N. to impose sanctions on Serbs (see here) They were imposed and were brutal (see here).

c. The First Markale Massacre

The second staged shelling took place on February 5, 1994. Peter Makara notes that on January 14th, 1994, NATO issued adopted a communique that read as follows:

"On the basis of the authorization given by the UN Security Council and in accordance with the decisions made by NATO on 2 and 9 August 1993, we confirm our readiness to take air strikes in order to prevent strangulation of Sarajevo, safe zones and other endangerd areas in Bosnia-Herzegovina."

NATO wanted the U.N.'s "Go" signal first, however. Makara reproduces an articles from the Washington Post:

"At a Jan. 11 meeting in Brussels, NATO leaders called on Boutros-Ghali to draw up plans for carrying out the operations and reiterated the threat, originally made last August, to use U.S. and other NATO combat aircraft if called on for help by the United Nations."

On February 1st, 1994, NATO gets its way:

"Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali signalled his preparedness Tuesday to use air power in Bosnia to maintain the credibility of U.N. and NATO threats. In a wide-ranging news conference, the U.N. chief also said he was strongly opposed to lifting the arms embargo for Bosnia, saying it would only prolong the conflict.

'There is no reason not to use force,' he said in response to a query on airstrikes. "To the contrary, once we use force we will give credibility to the fact that we say we will use force.

'I believe it is important to use air force without any hesitation to impose certain decisions taken by the Security Council.'

(for all the above, see here)

The massacre took place four days later. It was an odd sort of shelling, in that 68 people were killed and 144 wounded. Paul Beaver, editor of Jane's Defense Weekly, told The Independent "I find it difficult to contemplate that a 1200mm mortar could cause this number of casualties even in a confined space like market... I'm not aware of such a high number being killed by a single shell." (source)

"Within hours of the explosion, the Clinton administration, while acknowledging there was no definitive culprit, pointed the finger of blame for the massacre at the Serbs... Madeleine Albright, the U.S. representative to the U.N., said on television: 'It's very hard to believe any country would do this to their own people, and therefore, although we do not know exactly what the facts are, it would seem to us that the Serbs and the Bosnian Serbs are the ones that probably have a great deal of responsibility.'" (source)

David Binder's article, Anatomy of a Massacre in Foreign Policy, relying on a U.N. report of the incident (source), notes the strange events that followed the massacre, reminiscent of the earlier Breadline incident:

"The UNPROFOR officers who hurried to the scene immediately after the blast were barred from the interior of the market by Muslim policemen. Partly as a result, the UNPROFOR officers deposed no eyewitness of the shelling at that time. In the UNPROFOR report, the officers stated that they were permitted to stand at the southern edge of the market and observe while casualties were evacuated in the trunks of small cars and on truck beds. That was "done exceptionally quickly," one officer reported -- within 25 minutes. The officers saw no medical personnel attending the evacuation. When the evacuation was complete, the two officers were permitted to walk the 40 yards or so from the edge of the market to the explosion crater in the northeast corner, where they stood watch until the first UNPROFOR crater analysis team arrived at about 2 p.m. They later reported that there had been no tampering with the crater site while they watched." (source)

Dr. Sevket Karaduman, who treated the victims, reported:

"that 80% of the injuries were from the waist down. There were burns on legs and some cases of heavy bleeding from open fractures. On the other hand, there were hardly any foreign bodies or shrapnel in the wounds, most of which were internal. 'Some of the first casualties to arrive said they had seen four or five grenades flying through the air... and thought they had heard a bomb. Only later, when U.N. personnel arrived, they said that a shell had fallen.'

(...)

"Dr. Karduman's testimony was presented two days ago to a senior Israeli ballistics and explosives expert, who specializes in investigating sabotage. He concluded no shell could have caused such devastation and that the disaster had been caused by a cone-shaped explosive device placed among the crates in the market. Within the device were a propelling charge, a phosphorus bomb and three or four shell heads and hand grenades, which exploded simultaneously. It was probably detonated by remote control. The Israeli expert added that the device need not have weighed more than 15 kilograms and that similar devices are used by the Hezbollah in Lebanon and were used by the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan. There are at present several hundreds of Mujaheddin in Bosnia.

The absence of a shell crater was explained in news reports by the suggestion that the shell fell on a table. But the Israeli expert said that this would have caused injuries mainly to the upper part of the body and that the nature of the wounds described by Dr. Karduman points to a phosphorus bomb which would cause tissue burning. The near-absence of shrapnel in the wounds and the high proportion of internal wounds point to a propelling charge." (source)

British journalist Eve-Anne Prentice also had some information of her own (one of her sources was the aforementioned Paul Beaver, see page 47945 of the transcript). I quote from Andy Wilcoxson's summary of her testimony:

"Milosevic questioned the witness questions about the Markale market. Over the course of her work, Ms. Prentice spoke with people who had access to ballistics data on the blast. According to the information she received the blast did not come from an outside projectile. The blast came from an explosive device that had been taped under one of the tables at the market.

When she interviewed Lord Owen she asked him whether he had believed that the Bosnian-Muslim government planted the bomb themselves. She said that Owen responded by refusing to confirm or deny the suggestion. The Markale Market is significant because NATO used it as the justification to bomb the Bosnian Serbs." (source)

In article about the incident, she writes:

"Survivors and witnesses said they heard no characteristic whistle of an approaching missile; this later led to suggestions that a bomb had been placed under a stall. A Western diplomat who was in Sarajevo at the time told me in 1999 that he was convinced the bombing was perpetrated by the Muslim-led Government. The Muslims were sure that the Serbs would be blamed and hoped that outrage at the carnage would lead to airstrikes against their foes and increase pressure for a lifting of the arms embargo that was in place against all the warring sides. Britain and France were vehemently opposed to lifting the embargo, although America had shown signs of wanting to arm the Muslims.

"On the morning of the explosion some people were told that it was not a good day to go to the market," the Western diplomat said. "There was also no shelling from the Serb positions that day, and the injuries were mainly from the waist down, as if a bomb had exploded in situ." The diplomat said that another sign that the Muslim-led Government had been responsible was that government media with cameras were on the scene "within seconds", as if poised in advance to record the full horror of the carnage to gain as much world impact as possible." (source)

On February 8th, Dr. Radovan Karadzic, president of Republika Srpska, wrote letters to President Clinton, Boris Yeltsin, and B.B. Ghali urging a UNPROFOR investigation that would include both Serb and Muslim experts. (source) (source)

Running on the assumption that it was mortar fire that caused the carnage, investigations by the U.N. were carried out. A French officer arrived at the conclusion that the shell had come from behind Muslim lines.

"On February 9, NATO foreign ministers, animated by the belief that Serbs had fired the mortar, were meetting in Brussels to set a 10-day deadline for a Serb widhdrawal of heavy weapons to a point 12 miles outside of Sarajevo. At that moment, Rose, the UNPROFOR commander in Bosnia, was negotiating a ceasefire in Sarajevo. He was operating on the French captain's premise that Muslims may have shelled their own people.

The Serb commander, General Manojlo Milovanovic, showed up on time at Sarajevo's Butmir Airport to meet Rose. But the Bosnian government leaders, long reluctant to commit themselves to ceasefires that they believed gave the Serbs an advantage, stayed away, breaking the date. In a fury, as he later confided to a BBC correspondent, the British UNPROFOR commander drove downtown to the Bosnian government presidency to confront General Jovan Divjak and President Aija Izetbegovic. Demanding that they sign the ceasefire agreement, he waved an envelope at them, according to senior UNPROFOR officers, saying, 'I have an allegation here.' Rose said that it implicated Muslims in the mortar attack on the market- place. He was referring to the French captain's crater analysis. Divjak hastened to the airport and signed the ceasefire accord -- a response that seemed to Rose to confirm the culpability of the Muslims." (source)

The U.N. would do another investigation and arrive at an "inconclusive" conclusion. What is important here, however, is the reaction of Divjak and Izetbegovic, which seem to be the actions of guilty men.

Binder continues:

"There was one other indicator of culpability, though it would hardly rate as evidence in a court of law: Bosnian Serb officers confirmed to the team that their Kosevo Brigade had mortar positions in the area of Mrkovici, which lay within the cone determined by UNPROFOR as encompassing the possible firing site. On February 5, U.N. monitors (UNMOs) stationed within Serbian lines reported no shots fired from the Serbian mortars. Although the UNMOS stationed near the Muslim side had 'no indication of the origin of the fire,' the fact that U.N. monitors had reported no shelling from Serb-controlled areas led one high-ranking UNPROFOR official to speculate from this 'shot report' that the mortar was probably fired from within Muslim lines." (source)

Finally, Lord Owen, of the Vance-Owen peace plan, wrote in his book, "Balkan Odyssey," of the efforts to cover up unhelpful information:

"In addition, a senior ballistic expert in Zagreb has studied a map of likely trajectory patterns produced by UN investigators in Sarajevo and believed the angle at which the mortar had hit the roof of the market stall indicated that the firing point was more likely to be 1,100 - 2,000 metres from the impact than 2,000-3,000 metres, and that this would tend to indicate that the mortar had been fired from a Bosnian army position. When this highly charged information reached the UN in New York on Tuesday everything was done to clamp down on the number of people who saw it so as to reduce the chance of press leak." (source)

This was all quite good for NATO, who succeeded in getting the Serbs to remove their heavy weapons from around Sarajevo with the threat of air strikes, and on April 10th, 1994, NATO carries out its first air raid against the Serbian positions around Gorazde. (source)

d. The Second Markale Massacre

On August 27th, 1995, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke threatens the Republika Srpska on Meet the Press:

"If this peace initiative does not get moving -- dramatically moving -- in the next week or two, the consequences will be very adverse to the Serbian goals.

One way or another, NATO will be heavily involved, and the Serbs don't want that. NATO will either assist the U.N. withdrawal, or there will be more active NATO air over the skies. These are not things the Serbs should want..."

(source)

The very next day, NATO gets its pretext. A shell hits Markale market; 37 people are killed and 90 are wounded.

I quote from David Binder's article, Bosnia's Bombers, in The Nation of October 2, 1995:

"Within a day of that explosion, investigators for the UN Protection Force under Lieut. Gen. Rupert Smith 'concluded beyond all reasonable doubt' that the lethal mortar round had been fired from a Bosnian Serb position in the suburb of Lukavica, 1.5 to 3.5 kilometers southwest of the marketplace. On August 30, NATO's bombs began to fall.

The crucial UN report on the market massacre is classified secret, but four specialists--a Russian, a Canadian and two Americans--have raised serious doubts about its conclusion, suggesting instead that the mortar was fired not by the Serbs but by Bosnian government forces.

(...)

The Russian dissenter is Col. Andrew Demurenko, an artillery officer who commands the small Russian UN peacekeeping force in Sarajevo. On August 29, Demurenko announced that the probability of hitting a street less than thirty feed wide from one or two miles away, 'the distance to the nearest Serb artillery positions', was 'one to one million'. Noting that no UN artillery observers heard the distinctive high-pitched whistle of a mortar shell prior to the detonation, he said he believed the fatal round had been 'fired from some technical' weaponry other than mortars.

On September 2, Demurenko went on television in Sarajevo, declaring the UN report 'a falsification'. With maps and diagrams he pointed out what he called inconsistencies and contradictions, saying 'It is absolutely unacceptable for me to consent to the arguments ... that the shelling came from the Serb side'. Later a senior UN official confided to the Associated Press that the UNPROFOR command was considering disciplinary action against Demurenko.

The Canadian specialist, an officer with extensive service in Bosnia, said in a telephone interview that the UN report, which he'd seen, was 'highly suspect'. He cited 'anomalies with the fuse' of the mortar shell recovered from the marketplace crater. Unlike the fuses of four other shells that hit Sarajevo that morning, this one, he said, 'had not come from a mortar tube at all'. He added that he and fellow Canadian officers in Bosnia were 'convinced that the Moslem government dropped both the Feb. 5, 1994, and the August 28, 1995 mortar shells on the Sarajevo markets'.

A US Administration official who may not be identified further says, "It is impossible to see the street level of the marketplace from the distance and location of the Serb gun positions" meaning the Serbs would have been 'shooting blind'. Further, such a shot from such a distance would have had a high trajectory, he says; however, since 'there was no distinct whistle ... a shell could not have fallen from a very great height'. Also, the crater as shown was very shallow, while a high trajectory shell digs deep'. He contends that the available evidence suggests either 'the shell was fired at a very low trajectory, which means a range of a few hundred yards--therefore under government control' or 'a mortar shell converted into a bomb was dropped from a nearby roof into the crowd.'

A second US dissenter, a military officer, says that at least three of the five mortar founds that hit Sarajevo on August 28 'came from the identical firing position' on the Serb side. 'But the fourth was of different origin, the one that killed people in the market.'

The UN command in Sarajevo was offered a point-by-point rebuttal to these arguments. Curiously, it agrees with the dissenters on three basic points: that the fatal shell was fired at a very low trajectory; that it would have been a 'one in a million' shot if it had been fired by Serbs; and that it would have been fired blindly. Nevertheless, the UN's Lieut. Col. Chris Vernon says the UN sticks by the conclusions of its inquiry."

(source)

Another report, this time from the Sunday Times of October 1, 1995, cited British and French ammunition experts who concluded that there was no evidence that the Serbs were responsible.

"A senior American officer at the United Nations Protection Force (Unprofor) headquaters in Sarajevo dismissed their findings, however, citing a small groove known as a fuse furrow made in the ground by the bomb head.

...Neither British nor French analysts notice such a groove." (source)

2. Sniping

Undoubtedly Serbs were behind some snipings of civillians in Sarajevo. What has been overlooked, however, is some rather irrefutable evidence that the Muslims were sniping their own civillians to frame the Serbs and manipulate world opinion.

I quote from a Reuters report:

"FRENCH BELIEVE BOSNIAN ARMY FIRED ON SARAJEVO AS SNIPERS

NEW YORK (Reuter) - French U.N. peacekeepers believe Bosnian soldiers on a Sarajevo rooftop have shot at civilians, perhaps in an attempt to gain international sympathy, The New York Times reported in Tuesday editions.

The shooting stopped in June after the investigators from an anti-sniping unit used ``very sophisticated optical enhancement equipment'' to spot a sniper on a government-held roof and then notified the Bosnian army the sniper would be shot, the Times said.

The French officers started an investigation into shots they thought had been fired from the former parliament building, which is held by Bosnian forces, after studying the trajectory of some bullets, the paper said.

"It was the only place where some of the snipers could be,'' one investigator told the Times.

Kemal Muftic, a spokesman for President Alija Izetbegovic of Bosnia, told the Times that the report was ridiculous and was designed to allow the United Nations to shirk responsibility.

"Instead of doing its duty, the United Nations wishes to blame both sides equally,'' the paper quoted Muftic as saying. ''By doing so, the United Nations can justify remaining impassive.''

The newspaper quoted a `"senior French officer'' saying the report was never written or reported to "upper-level United Nations officials'' because the shooting stopped.

The soldiers told the Times that they did not keep records but believed that bullets fired from the building hit at least two civilians, came close to others and damaged U.N. vehicles.

The soldiers theorized that the shootings were designed to generate publicity and sympathy, and unidentified diplomats blamed a rogue group within the army who might profit from instability by dealing on the black market.

The 40-story building was damaged in 1992 and is used by the Bosnian army to fire on Serb positions."

(source)

The New York Times report goes into a great deal more detail and can be read here.

Jovo Janjic, who founded the Democratic Initiative of Sarajevo Serbs, talks about the Muslim snipers here:

Also, there were plenty sniper attacks from Sarajevo on this side, controlled by the Army of Srpska. I recall when several citizens died in sniper attacks, one of them was a friend of mine, in the center of Ilidza. They were shot by a sniper stationed on the top of the Freezer building. Finally, during the last few years we are slowly learning details about some of their organized sniping groups, such as "Seve", which, besides Serbs, even killed Bosniaks in their part of the city.

Read these articles about "Seve."

Seve practiced by Shooting Civilians in Sarajevo

Hague Investigators Collected Evidence That Indicates That Bosniak Authorities Murdered Their Own Citizens!

Here's an excerpt from one:

"In a display of honesty seldom seen in these parts, Nijaz Durakovic explained that he had prepared all the documentation in connection with the case Alibabic-Alispahic, photocopied and hid it in Vienna. "I also informed the Presidency about that. I wanted to make sure that I won't be hit by a 'Chetnik sniper'," said Durakovic. An unpleasant experience Prof. Durakovic had with "Chetnik snipers" while driving over the bridge in the direction of the bar "Dva Ribara" was definitely enough for caution. Several months earlier a sniper bullet flew though the window of the room in the State Hospital in which at the time gravely wounded deputy Prime Minister of the government of Bosnia-Hercegovina, and today the leader of the SDP, Dr. Zlatko Lagumdzija, was recovering. That happened on the day when, after being tied to the bed for several days, Lagumdzija tried to get up and walk. Experts confirmed that the bullet could not have come from the Jewish cemetery, or any Serb sniping positions.

The fact that these days the Hague investigators are focusing the investigation in the case "Seve" on Slobodanka Sakotic and her brother Slobodan, indicates that Durakovic's caution was justified. The two Sakotics were before the war distinguished sharpshooters, and in "Seve" they were among the chief killers. They used sniper rifles for the executions. The wartime biography of brother and sister Sakotic became the object of investigation by the Hague Tribunal. The investigation indicates that the Sakotics were members of the group "Seve" and were ordered to shoot from sniper rifles at civilians and carry out executions in Sarajevo and around the city. For a while the unit "Seve" was based in the base of the Special Police Unit. Asim Dautbasic was in charge of coordinating its activities during the time the unit was based in the special forces base."

Previous threads

The hoaxing of the Racak "massacre"

Lie #2: "Operation Horseshoe"

Well, that pretty much settles it. I move that Mr. Walker be deported off the Education Forum. (EDIT: For a second there I forgot that I believe in free speech. )

Is he enough of a "fanatic" now, Mark?

P.S.: Rymer, your fourth quote (Ariel Sharon, Kol Yisrael Radio etc.) is a hoax. Your presentation would be much improved by getting rid of it. Just a heads up.

I disagree about Piper being a neo nazi. But that's not what the thread is about is it?

You are correct, this thread is about Walker's dubious views, not Piper's. However, the subjects are related and we're already here, so...

Why do you feel that someone needs a 'free pass' in order to criticise Israel and escape the anti-semite canard? Should protection from all criticism be bestowed upon Israel?

I think you misunderstand me. I said you are allowing certain people who criticize Israel to get a free pass on the separate issue of their anti-Semitism. Apparently the Zionist propagandists have been so successful in their attempts to link anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel that you have accepted their definition. Let me be clear: Criticism of Israel's racist policies and anti-Jewish racism are separate things. No one here is actually taking issue with criticism of Israel. We are taking issue with anti-Semitism, a trait that Piper possesses and probably Walker. You haven't ever addressed (to my knowledge) Piper's Holocaust denial. You just ignore it. Using your standards, there might as well be no such thing as anti-Semitism.

If I criticise America am I anti-American?

No.

If I criticise Norway am I anti-Norwegian?

No.

If I criticise you am I anti-Owen Parsons?

No.

It's the instant attaching of the label 'anti-Semite' which I find irritating. Does Israel have some explaining to do concerning the current conflict in Lebanon? Damn right they do. Will I be criticising Israel long and loud about this and other policies, the same way I have been critical of Governments here and in America? For sure. I'll be criticising them and I won't need a free pass. Anyone protesting that such a view is anti-Semitic can go to hell.

I'm not "protesting that such a view is anti-Semitic." I agree that Israel is way out of line. This is not what is at issue.

The remainder of this CTer's post is stuff that's been debunked time after time by astute LNers far smarter and wiser than I (of which, of course, is Mr. Vincent T. Bugliosi, who's got every crazy pro-CT base covered in "Final Verdict" -- that's a given). ......

"{Bugliosi's} book is a narrative compendium of fact, ballistic evidence, re-examination of key witnesses, and, above all, common sense. Every detail and nuance is accounted for, every conspiracy theory revealed as a fraud upon the American public. While reading it we have the eerie feeling that we are in Dallas the day a lone gunman changed the course of history. Mr. Bugliosi's irresistible logic and absolute command of the evidence shed fresh light on this peculiarly American nightmare. At last we know what really happened; at last it all makes sense." -- W.W. Norton & Co.

Here we go again.

The issue of whether Piper is technically a "neo-Nazi" may not be established. However, I think that the fact that he denied the Holocaust using phony BS arguments and didn't own up to it says something about his character. Couple that with his tendency to see Jews (or "Zionists") as being behind everything. Taking these two factors into account, I think it can be quite safely said that he is an anti-Semite.

I think the idea that the Mossad is behind the assassination is a reasonable position to hold, although I am far from convinced of it. That is not what I (and I assume Len, and John Dolva, and Andy) took issue with.

You appear to be taking the opposite extreme of certain Zionist arguments that criticism of Israel is Anti-Semitic. Not only is criticism of Israel not anti-Semitic, it can't be anti-Semitic. If someone criticizes Israel, they get a free pass.

I think that Andy objects to bigotry rather that criticism of the "Israel Lobby" I don't remember him posting on Owen's "The US favors the PLO" thread.

For the record, I no longer support that thesis. I still think the Mearsheimer/Walt paper is (very) shoddy and the influence of the "Israel Lobby" is overrated vis a vis U.S. foreign policy.

I am also still waiting for Mr. Walker's denunciation of Israel "Blood Libel" Shamir in addition to a clarification of his recent comments about the Jewish "preferred historical narrative."

why he is so influential

Because he's a very good writer and a scrupulous researcher. His evisceration of TMWKK was delicious and long overdue.

If you hadn't noticed, Dr. Aguilar eviscerated Holland's "scrupulous" research.

Previously, I have debunked the so-called Racak "massacre," which was a KLA hoax (see here). This was one of NATO's principal justifications for its totally illegal bombing of Yugoslavia (source, source, source, source). Consistent with this, internal German government documents, distributed to the German press on April 24, 1999 by the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms (IALANA), show that there was no humanitarian catastrophe, no genocide, no persecution (link).

In response, the German government referred back to the allegation they had earlier made to shore up faltering support for the "humanitarian" bombing of a certain "Operation Horseshoe," the supposed plan to expel Albanian on the part of the Yugoslav government. In response, IALANA noted that even if the supposed "Operation Horseshoe" actually existed, the bombing would still be illegitimate since, as even the German government admitted, the supposed plan had only been "discovered" after the bombing had started (link).

Did "Operation Horseshoe" even exist? No. "Operation Horseshoe" did not exist. It was just one more lie on top of the large mountain of lies which composes the narrative of the Balkan conflicts as propagated in the West. "A REPORT purporting to show that Belgrade planned the systematic ethnic cleansing of Kosovo's entire Albanian population was faked, a German general has claimed." General Heinz Loquai "has claimed in a new book on the war that the plan was fabricated from run-of-the-mill Bulgarian intelligence reports."

"The facts to support its existence are at best terribly meagre," he told The Sunday Times. "I have come to the conclusion that no such operation ever existed. The criticism of the war, which had grown into a fire that was almost out of control, was completely extinguished by Operation Horseshoe."

Scharping reported in his wartime diary that he had received the intelligence report on Horseshoe from Fischer. But according to Die Woche, the German news weekly, the report was a general analysis by a Bulgarian intelligence agency of Serbian behaviour in the war.

Loquai has claimed that the German defence ministry turned a vague report from Sofia into a "plan", and even coined the name Horseshoe. Die Woche has reported that maps broadcast around the world as proof of Nato's information were drawn up at the German defence headquarters in Hardthöhe.

The Bulgarian report concluded that the goal of the Serbian military was to destroy the Kosovo Liberation Army, and not to expel the entire Albanian population, as was later argued by Scharping and the Nato leadership. Loquai also pointed to a fundamental flaw in the German account: it named the operation Potkova, which is the Croatian word for horseshoe. The Serbian for horseshoe is Potkovica. "A state prosecutor would never think of going to trial with the amount of evidence available to the German defence ministry," said Loquai.

Nato sources rejected Loquai's claims, but admitted it was impossible to prove the origins of the Horseshoe story. "There's never any absolute certainty about these things," said one source. "But the idea that there was nothing pre-arranged is counter-intuitive. (source)

So, there was no "Operation Horseshoe." Nevertheless, the Serbs may still have expelled Albanians. After all, the fact that there were massive refugee flows (AFTER the bombing commenced) is indisputable. I agree with the unnamed NATO source that "the idea that there was nothing pre-arranged is counter-intuitive." Before I proceed to demonstrate that this "ethnic cleansing" was carried out by the KLA and NATO, I think it is important to point out that the OSCE Kosovo Verification Mission's own data indicates that there were proportionately more Serbian refugees from Kosovo than Albanian refugees (source). Read the stories of KLA expulsion from the Serb refugees here.

Cedomir Prlincevic, Chief Archivist of Kosovo and the leader of the Jewish Community of Pristina, was expelled from his apartment by KLA terrorists under the eye of British KFOR troops, along with the rest of his neighborhood.

Prelinchevich: With machine guns. They completely cleared up the building and the whole area where we lived.

Israel: Cleared up?

Prelinchevich: The whole area of 30,000 people, they completely cleared it.

Israel: 30,000? Emptied it?

Prelinchevich: Emptied it. Went from house to house and building to building.

Israel: Did they kill anyone.

Prelinchevich: Initially one person, family named Kompic, a Serbian family, they killed, which was an obvious reason for us not to resist.

Israel: In other words they made an example of one family and then they said if you want to die -

Prelinchevich: All night they were banging the doors and slamming the doors and going inside the doors and from apartment to apartment. (source)

Read more about Prlincevic and the other Kosovo Jews in this Globe & Mail article.

In another interview with Jared Israel, he clarifies how the expulsion of Albanians was done. It is important, so I will be quoting at length.

Jared Israel: Why did so many Albanians leave Kosovo a few days after NATO began bombing? Was the Yugoslav Army attacking them?

Cedomir Prlincevic: No, not attacking them. In some areas the Army did relocate people, but not out of Kosovo. The idea was to move them further into Serbia. You must understand, the Army was presented with a most difficult situation. A major clash was expected between NATO and Yugoslav troops. This kind of NATO ground attack was a special threat in the area [of Kosovo] bordering Albania.

Under those circumstances, with the KLA [Kosovo Liberation Army] attacking inside Kosovo and from Albania and with NATO poised to invade and about to start bombing from airplanes, how could the Yugoslav Army hope to protect that border population?

You should understand, the Army had had an experience like this in Vukovar. That was in 1991. Civilians were trapped in a battlefield between the Army and the Croatian Ustashe [neo-fascist] secessionists. To avoid making the same mistake again, the Army wanted to empty a space 40 kilometers deep so people wouldn't be trapped between the Army, NATO and the KLA.

At the same time there was a big increase in the number of KLA terrorists illegally crossing the Albanian border into Kosovo. In that situation there were bound to be some unhappy events. It was a most difficult situation, you see.

(...)

Israel: Getting back to the Albanian exodus during the bombing, here's the question: if the Yugoslav Army didn't throw the Albanians out, why did so many leave? It's true we don't know the exact number. The Western media has given all sorts of figures, from 150,000 to over a million, which is slightly ridiculous - but certainly many thousands did leave. Why? To escape the bombs?

Prlincevic: Not exactly.

Israel: Not exactly?

Prlincevic: No. The reason they left and went out of Serbia, to Albania or Macedonia, is rooted in the cultural history of Albanian people living in Kosovo. Because of their mindset, which I think people in the West thoroughly misunderstand, the KLA had a big impact when it attacked and executed Albanians who cooperated with the government.

[NOTE: Such as, for instance, Corin Ismali, of the Kosovo Democratic Initiative. See here about his (probable) assassination]

Israel: I would have thought such attacks would turn them against the KLA.

Prlincevic: No, no. They led the ethnic Albanian population to stop cooperating with the Yugoslav government and start cooperating with the KLA.

Israel: Doesn't a guerilla movement need to treat ordinary people decently to get support?

Prlincevic: Yes, but the KLA was never what you mean by a guerilla movement. It was a foreign-organized group of terrorists delivering a message. The so-called 'International Community,' that is, NATO, had trumpeted that they had plans for the Albanians, that they would give them independence and a Greater Albania, make them a major power in southern Europe. So there was this intense propaganda from the West for ten years and at the same time the crisis in the Albanian community was quite pronounced. Even before the bombing, some Albanian representatives asked the Yugoslav government to allow their people to form convoys and go toward Macedonia, basically to save themselves from this crisis.

Israel: What crisis? The fighting between the Yugoslav Army and the KLA?

Prlincevic: Not exactly, although this fighting did have a big effect. So did the bombing, which started a bit later; it had a critical psychological effect. But this was related to the KLA. You see the KLA was trying to fulfill their own overall goals. To achieve these goals, which involved proving to the West they could deliver, they told the ethnic Albanians to leave. And this was not a polite request. It was an order. Do you see? At the same time the KLA, their special units, and then a bit later NATO bombers, were attacking traffic on important roads that led to inner Serbia.

Israel: And this influenced the Albanians?

Prlincevic: Yes. It dissuaded them from going further into Serbia and it also told them: Yugoslavia can't help you. Meanwhile the United States was training their KLA proxies in Albania including in how to wage this sort of psychological warfare, to deliver the message that Albanians should temporarily vacate Serbia.

Israel: So you're saying that this culture, this Kosovo Albanian culture, had a strong tendency to respond to carrots and sticks?

Prlincevic: That's it. Now you're beginning to understand.

Israel: And the U.S. was telling Albanians, "We'll help you secede; we'll make you a star. But if you reject our help we'll kill you." Is that it?

Prlincevic: Your question is complex. I'll have to give a long answer.

Israel: OK.

Prlincevic: Historically, the Kosovo Albanians were never involved in frontal battles. Instead, they had groups of warriors called kachatzi, small bands of fighters that used hit and run tactics. But they never kept large scale weapons to use in frontline war. Part of the purpose of the Western training was to get the KLA to surpass small group combat and become an army able to carry out NATO's commands throughout Kosovo. NATO's foot soldiers.

To this end, one KLA group left Kosovo and went to Albania where they were trained by the Americans, and by the way, they became the core of what is now called the Kosovo Protection Corps. They marched back into Kosovo with NATO in June 1999 and seized government offices and facilities and drove out hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Roma ["Gypsies"] Jews, pro-Yugoslav Albanians and others.

Israel: You're saying that after NATO took over Kosovo these KLA types were under orders to drive out those people?

Prlincevic: Yes. We can see the results of the action of exactly those forces today. NATO planned the expulsion of 350,000 people. Without NATO's approval and instructions, these KLA, whom NATO had trained and brought back to Kosovo, would never have attempted this mass expulsion. Impossible. NATO was eliminating a potentially rebellious population.

And remember, they didn't expel only non-Albanians. Perhaps the most important group was Albanians who in any official capacity had helped the Yugoslav government. They had to go. NATO wanted the ethnic Albanians who stayed in Kosovo to be without a Yugoslav alternative.

[NOTE: Read these interviews with members of the aforementioned Kosovo Democratic Initiative, a "Yugoslav alternative," here.]

Israel: So this first wave of Albanians who marched across the border with the KFOR [NATO] troops - they were hardcore KLA? Not simply gangsters?

Prlincevic: Well some were KLA gangsters and others were ordinary gangsters from Albania. They carried out and allowed others to carry out all kinds of crimes. Some wanted revenge; some wanted to steal; some wanted to do this; some wanted to do that, to achieve whatever political goals. And no one was interrupting the others. They were doing it altogether in concert and not interfering with each other.

Israel: They were all KLA? There were no mysterious elements here? KFOR claims mysterious elements carried out (and still carry out) these crimes.

Prlincevic: KFOR knows exactly who organized the expulsions, but of course, as it became clear to ethnic Albanians that KFOR would tolerate criminal actions carried out by the KLA, KLA crime became a mass phenomenon. Whoever was doing criminal stuff would use the KLA label. If someone would steal some Serb's car, he would say: "I'm KLA." It got to be a joke among Albanians to call themselves 'KLA', to cover up. If someone wanted to rob someone else's house, they would say - "We're KLA."

Israel: Because they knew that KFOR wouldn't touch them if they were KLA?

Prlincevic: Yes, they became untouchable.

(...)

Israel: My impression is that the KLA had a weak base during this period [Rambouillet talks]. Is that true?

Prlincevic: Yes, but remember there was a continuous influx of their people from Albania. So they had weak popular support but they were getting reinforcements from Albania, trying to turn the tide.

Israel: Which is why there were constant border clashes with Yugoslav troops fighting these intruders.

Prlincevic: Right.

Israel: So the KLA's solid base was in northern Albania?

Prlincevic: At that time, yes. But the Yugoslav Government program of self defense failed in the border area and then gradually throughout Kosovo people switched to the KLA side.

Israel: During the bombing was the KLA used as spotters for NATO air attacks?

Prlincevic: Yes. Definitely.

Israel: Was the bombing used to drive Albanians out of Kosovo?

Prlincevic: Not mainly on its own, but yes, insofar as it reinforced the KLA's attempt to destabilize the area. Mr. Walker was the one who was organizing the KLA. Mr. Walker of the Verification Mission that came into Kosovo, under the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] umbrella, in the fall of 1998.

You see this is a complex thing and I wanted to give a long answer. Even this international corps of monitors, this Verification Mission, they were also involved in organizing KLA. Before the bombing started we had this forced diplomacy. The European Community and the U.S. insisted that their forces come into Kosovo as peace monitors. At the head of these peace Verifiers was Mr. Walker.

The Verifiers organized the KLA. That's why terrorist attacks by the KLA increased after they arrived. During that period there was no major shift of population, whether Albanian or Serbian, though this international monitor group was laying the basis for migration. They needed migration to create the impression of a crisis for international public opinion.

Israel: How did they lay the basis for migration?

Prlincevic: They did it by having the KLA kill some Albanians who were cooperating with the government.

Israel: The Verifiers, the OSCE Monitors, did all this?

Prlincevic: Yes, they organized the KLA into a more cohesive force so it could influence events. And they prepared for the bombing. The Yugoslav government caught some Albanians and some Serbs who were positioning bombing markers. Those are radio devices that emit signals to identify targets. We were confused when the OSCE monitors left Kosovo. It should have been obvious why they left. Their job was done.

Israel: OK, I'm confused right now. I'm not sure about our focus. Are we talking about the Verifiers being responsible for positioning bombing markers?

Prlincevic: Yes! That is one thing they organized. I say this in full responsibility. Yes, OSCE monitors prepared the NATO attack. The KLA is only a proxy for what NATO wanted to achieve in this geographical area. All the current political turmoil points to NATO, whether in Kosovo or Montenegro or the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

Israel: Explain what you mean, please.

Prlincevic: I mean Kosovo is just one of the points of destabilization of Yugoslavia. It is manipulated from the US and Europe. And this is not just what I think. It is obvious.

Israel: I apologize for these picky questions. People are starved for clarification on these points. Nobody has made things clear.

Prlincevic: I'm grateful for the questions. And again: I am answering with full consciousness of my responsibility to be accurate.

Israel: I understand. You're an historian of Kosovo.

Prlincevic: Yes, I am, and I want people to know the truth about what happened here. So getting back to the period before the bombing: the OSCE was taking steps to produce a migration of Albanians towards Macedonia and Albania. The idea was to break down the physical barrier of the border existing between Yugoslavia on the one hand and Macedonia and Albania on the other. The OSCE wanted to create for the international community the impression of a humanitarian catastrophe.

Israel: Even before the bombing?

Prlincevic: Yes. The OSCE was actually organizing the complete scenario for the crisis in Kosovo. Once again, they were trying to push the ethnic Albanian population to Albania and Macedonia to present the impression of a humanitarian nightmare. We were surprised that right before the bombing significant numbers of Albanians began moving toward the border. We were surprised. But of course, it was planned.

Israel: But there were no bombs yet.

Prlincevic: At that time the KLA had a big influx of reinforcements from Albania. They attacked road crossings and so on with the intention of making a total chaos and collapse of the situation in Kosovo. This was intended to make a point to all Albanians.

Israel: But in terms of the population movement, why were the ethnic Albanians leaving? I wish you could just give me some idea.

Prlincevic: That is exactly why I started answering your question by talking about the culture of the Albanian people. Because they have a strong clan structure and as part of that tradition, if the leader of the village says, "Let's vote for this candidate!" they tend to vote for this candidate, and if the leaders says "Let's all go!" - they go

Israel: But why would the clan leaders say "Let's all go!"?

Prlincevic: First of all, a large part of the ethnic Albanians wanted to return to the situation that existed a hundred years ago, under the Ottoman Empire, and again during World War II, when Kosovo was under Nazi- Albanian control. Most of the Albanian population had been won to this goal by the secessionist movement.

Prlincevic: When I speak of secession you might think of the Basques in Spain or the Irish in Northern Ireland, but this is very different. In Kosovo, a foreign Superpower supported the secessionists for well over a decade. Because of this support, the Albanians were psychologically prepared to achieve - no, not to achieve, to be given - secession. As a gift. The secessionist leaders, starting with Rugova, had promised them, "Do this, do that and the US will intervene and we will get Kosovo." They had been promising this for years. "Sacrifice your children by boycotting the schools; sacrifice your health by boycotting the hospitals; use your suffering to show foreign public opinion how we suffer under the Serbs, and the U.S. will come to our rescue."

By March 1999 this political theater had been going on 10 years. "The US will set us free." And of course, many Albanians believed that during World War II the German Nazis had set Albanians free.

The Yugoslav constitution of 1974 didn't help. It weakened the central government and thus encouraged those in Kosovo who wanted to return to the W.W. II regime when Albanian nationalists ruled Kosovo under the German Nazis and terrorized the Serbs, Roma ['Gypsies'] and Jews. After 1974 the abuses against Serbs and Roma increased. This was openly manifested during the ethnic Albanian riots in 1981.

These were race riots, with Serbs as the targets, both the Serbian clergy and ordinary Serbian citizens. After that the Americans entered the picture and magnified the secessionists' political strength ten times over.

Prlincevic: For example, when US Ambassador Zimmerman arrived in Yugoslavia in 1990 [before the outbreak of the Yugoslav wars of secession] one of his first acts was to go to Kosovo and open an Exhibition of architectural works from Chicago. He used this exhibition to boost the Albanian secessionists.

Israel: How?

Prlincevic: He didn't invite anyone from the Federal Yugoslav Federal or Serbian Governments. But he did invite Ibrahim Rugova [the main secessionist leader at that time] and the like.

By snubbing the Federal Government, which represented multiethnic society, and snubbing those Albanian leaders who opposed secession, Zimmerman's action had a profound psychological effect

Israel: I can imagine. Everyone notices who doesn't get invited to a party.

Prlincevic: Yes, and especially in this period, when there was much ultra-nationalist agitation in Kosovo, to break Kosovo away from Serbia and to take parts of Macedonia and Bulgaria and link it all up with Albania. And these were the leaders whom Zimmerman invited. How could Albanians argue against secession when Rugova could say, "See? We have the support of the most powerful nation on earth!"

(...)

The United States, for its own geopolitical reasons, deliberately encouraged the secessionist tendency among Albanians, used them against the Yugoslav government in order to destabilize the Balkans.

The fact is that Serbs and Albanians had been living together with some degree of tolerance for centuries, whenever there was peace... The United States disrupted this status quo.

(...)

Israel: So the secessionists weren't strong there?

Prlincevic: Not at first, but then later even in Pristina the Albanians were sucked into the secessionist camp. This could happen because of certain cultural traits, deeply rooted in their history. During the bombing, suddenly they started leaving. And when we asked them, "Why are you doing this?" they replied, "We have to!"

Israel: Who are you talking about?

Prlincevic: Professors, managers at stores, retired people, even retired Yugoslav Army officers who were ethnic Albanian.

Prlincevic: I'll give you an example. My Albanian neighbor was a Professor. He seemed very much integrated into Yugoslav life. Our children played together; we were friends, you see. And then, without warning he packed up and started to leave his flat, to leave Kosovo. So I said: "Why are you leaving, neighbor?" He said: "Sorry. I have to." And I said, "Why? We're safe here. Nobody's bothering you. The housing complex hasn't been bombed. We're all working together." And he said, "I was ordered to leave." He gave me the keys so I could watch his flat. Ironically, after NATO took over he returned and then I was forced out by the KLA gangsters. I gave him my key, so he could watch my flat.

Israel: But who ordered him to leave?

Prlincevic: The leader of his clan.

Israel: Why?

Prlincevic: To prove obedience to the KLA. This was the KLA's national plan. All loyal Albanians were to leave during the bombing and go to Albania or Macedonia to show the world how terrible the Serbs were; this exodus was staged; it was a performance, Hollywood in Kosovo. What is Hollywood without actors? A large number of Albanians had to perform, had to actually leave Kosovo. This was not so different from what they had been doing for ten years, you see, pretending they had been locked out of the schools when actually it was an organized boycott, and so on.

Moreover, once they were in the refugee camps, the Albanians would be under the direct leadership of the KLA, which could intensively indoctrinate them, Which it did.

Israel: But why would his clan leader agree to this crazy plan?

Prlincevic: You think it was crazy? This gets us to the heart of the matter. Between the attacks from the KLA on Albanians who cooperated with the Yugoslav government and the continuous bombing by NATO, especially of Albanians who disobeyed the KLA, the KLA had gotten their message across to the clan leaders. So now the clan leaders ordered their people to pack up and leave.

Israel: You know, during the bombing, NATO said the Albanians were fleeing atrocities. We Western opponents of NATO said they were fleeing the NATO bombing. But you're saying we were both wrong, that the Albanians weren't fleeing the Serbs or the bombing.

Prlincevic: Let's just say the bombing isn't a sufficient explanation. If they were just fleeing bombs, why did they have to go to Albania and Macedonia? Why not to inner Serbia? And what about people like my friend, who just packed up, seemingly for no reason, and left? The rest of us, Serbs, Jews, Roma, we were in Pristina too. Why didn't we leave? Did we value our lives less than they valued theirs? No, it wasn't the bombs. They were afraid to disobey their clan leaders.

But the bombing did play an important role. The KLA served as spotters; they could direct NATO attacks against hostile Albanians, and this confirmed for the clan leaders that the KLA had serious power.

It was psychological warfare, intended to reinforce the psychological crisis among Albanians, a crisis rooted in fear.

The KLA and NATO were telling Albanians: NATO supports the KLA. After NATO takes over, the KLA will be in charge and if you don't leave now you will be in big trouble later. There will be no safe refuge.

That's what I meant when I said you need to know something about Albanian culture in order to understand why Albanians left.

You have to know about blood feud.

Prlincevic: One book has a great hold over Kosovo Albanians. It's called the 'Canon of Leke Dukagjiniis'. It's a 15th century text that spells out codes of behavior. It goes into great detail on how to carry out blood feuds, when and whom it is proper to kill. It lays out the proper methods to use when killing, rules and regulations and so on.

And this Canon is alive among Albanians today, especially since the fall of communism. This is an intensely tradition-oriented culture. Blood feud is a constant threat for Albanians. Thousands of people in Albania and Kosovo cannot leave their houses because they are being hunted; even a child in the cradle might be marked for death as part of a feud. It is for this reason that Kosovo Albanian houses are often built surrounded by high walls and with gun slits instead of windows.

By methodically killing those who refused to support them, the KLA was striking a deep fear among Albanians: the refusal of one Clan member to obey could lead to revenge against his entire clan. And now the KLA had NATO bombers to enforce blood feud.

What took me by surprise was how much this affected Albanians, even intellectuals. It's amazing. Here is a Professor in Pristina, very sophisticated, but when the order comes from his Clan leader, who is perhaps a farmer 100 miles away, the Professor immediately packs up and leaves for Albania without even considering saying no.

Israel: We didn't understand the KLA. We thought their terror tactics were counter-productive.

Prlincevic: Well, they knew their own people, their fears, their traditions. They knew that if they could prove they were deadly, the clan leaders would fall in line.

Now they live in a society dominated by gangsters. None of this would have happened were it not for years of effort by the United States. (source)

The KLA's efforts to create a phony humanitarian crisis are confirmed by Kosovo Albanians. For instance, take the testimony of the Albanians who testified for the defense at the Milosevic trial (from Andy Walker's summaries):

The witness recounted one occasion when he stopped a truckload of ethnic Albanian refugees who were leaving Kosovo on their way to Albania. Mr. Ibraj asked them why they were leaving, and they told him that they were terrified by the NATO bombing.

It was Mr. Ibraj's testimony that ethnic Albanians, and others, fled Kosovo to escape the NATO bombing, and because the KLA was telling the Albanian population to leave. Mr. Ibraj said that he personally witnessed Albanians leaving because the KLA had told them to go. (source)

(...)

Mr. Fazliu testified that in 1991 certain Albanian clan leaders ordered the Albanian population to break off all contact with Serbs. Mr. Fazliu explained that he ignored the order and worked with a Serbian family tending fields in his village. On his way home from work that night he was insulted by a group of Albanian nationalists. The next morning, a group of Albanian nationalists came to his house and tried to beat him up. Luckily, he had a pistol and was able to fend off his would-be attackers.

(...)

Mr. Fazliu explained that the KLA was a group of terrorists and criminals. He said that the KLA, together with NATO, was responsible for the war and the humanitarian disaster in Kosovo.

He said that the KLA prepared the entire exodus from Kosovo so that they could blame the Serbs for it. He said that refugee camps were being prepared in Macedonia and Albania as long as six months before the war.

Mr. Fazliu told the court that it was the NATO bombing, and not the Yugoslav Army or Serbian Police, which caused the people to flee Kosovo. He explained that the Army and the police wanted people to stay in their homes and even brought them food and humanitarian assistance. He told the tribunal point-blank, "the [Yugoslav] army has done nothing wrong in Kosovo."

In addition to the terror instilled in the population by the NATO bombing, was the KLA's order that Albanians should all leave Kosovo. Mr. Fazliu explained that the KLA told the people to leave, and killed anybody who did not obey their orders. He recounted one example where an elderly Albanian man refused to leave his home, so the KLA came to his house and killed him. Then they blamed the Serbs for the killing. The witness explained that the KLA issued orders to the population through certain Albanian clan leaders. (source)

British journalist Eve-Ann Prentice interviewed many Albanian refugees:

Ms. Prentice was one of the few Western journalists who was actually in Kosovo during the NATO bombing campaign. She testified that she spoke to hundreds of Albanian, Roma and Turkish civilians.

She testified that the Kosovo-Albanians told her that they were leaving Kosovo primarily because they were afraid of the KLA and the NATO bombing. She only came across one Albanian who told her that he was leaving because the Serbian police had told him to.

She said that the KLA was telling the Albanian population that it was their "patriotic duty" to leave Kosovo in order to make it appear that the Serbs were victimizing the Albanians and ethnically cleansing the province.

Ms. Prentice testified that she took measures to speak to Albanian civilians at times when Serbian police were not around. Her Albanian interpreter was a lawyer who worked for Ibrahim Rugova.

She testified that Albanian civilians were afraid to speak freely in the presence of the KLA. She recounted one instance in Kosvoska Mitrovica where she was interviewing a group of Albanians and they would not speak to her once a member of the KLA came within earshot. (source)

In addition, Faik Jasari, president of the Kosovo Democratic Initiative, who was also a representative at the Rambouillet talks, confirms this:

Lituchy: Approximately how many Albanians were forced out of Kosovo by the KLA?

Jasari: About 150,000. About 200 were killed.

Lituchy: Tell us a little bit about the KLA.

Jasari: Initially the KLA was a separatist organization and then became a military organization. They killed loyal Albanians, Serbs, also Albanians who held public office. (source)

These stories differ from journalistic accounts of the time, which is not hard to explain; the KLA controlled most of the interviews done with the refugees, as Daniel Pearl (yes, that Daniel Pearl) and Robert Block explain:

The KLA helped form the West's wartime image of Kosovo. International human-rights groups say officials of the guerrilla force served on the Kosovo-based Council for the Defence of Human Rights and Freedoms, whose activists were often the first to interview refugees arriving in Macedonia. Journalists later cited the council's missing-persons list to support theories about how many people died in Kosovo, and the State Department this month echoed the council' recent estimate of 10,000 missing. But the number has to be taken on faith: Western investigators say the council won't share its list of missing persons. (source)

This agrees with the London Times, "Reports from Macedonia and Albania confirm that KLA 'minders' ensure that all refugees peddle the same line when speaking to Western journalists. KLA gangsters rob them of any remaining cash. And KLA pimps driving Mercedes kidnap refugee girls for prostitution in Italy." (source)

To get an understanding of what NATO did to help the KLA's efforts, you may want to read of how NATO knowingly bombed Albanian refugee columns returning to Kosovo (source, source).

I believe all of this speaks for itself.

Owen, Mommy needs the computer. Off to bed you go.

Your postings are the definition of "puerile."

I feel sorry for anyone you've ever done "public relations" for.

Not true. I posted a long reply to Simkin yesterday and cast a cold eye towards Putin's Russia in several different posts. Look harder. BTW, not all of these threads require bloated dissertations on my part. Quality, not quantity.

And what a poor show you put on, at that. The quality was very lacking.

On the public relations side, one of the most influential Kremlin aides, Vladislav Surkov, met with Western journalists to explain that Russian "sovereign democracy" is not much different from democratic practices of the Western countries. "Sovereign democracy" is a Kremlin coinage that conveys two messages: first, that Russia's regime is democratic and, second, that this claim must be accepted, period. Any attempt at verification will be regarded as unfriendly and as meddling in Russia's domestic affairs.

Whatever Ms. Lipman believes it "conveys," when Putin speaks of "sovereign democracy" he means "democracy" not imposed from the outside, as is happening so often now (here).

But the performance wasn't entirely convincing. The day after their meeting with the president, representatives of many leading Russian and foreign human rights organizations issued a statement in which they expressed "deep concern about the situation with human rights in Russia" and cited a "systemic crisis in the field of human rights and democratic institutions." "Concealment of these issues," the statement says, "will promote further degradation of the situation with human rights and the erosion of democracy in Russia."

Yes, there are various "non-governmental" organizations who make irresponsible charges in the interests of the NATO governments. A study of what happened in Yugoslavia will show how this game is played.

A new alarming development is the use of police-state practices. Much as they did when President Richard Nixon visited Moscow in 1974, authorities are arresting and detaining public activists, with no legal basis for doing so. Three decades ago Communist authorities prevented dissidents and refuseniks from contacting the members of Nixon's delegation. This month, in the days before the G-8 summit, more than 100 people were intimidated, harassed or beaten by the police in various Russian cities. In some cases their passports were taken away from them for no legal reason. Some were young radicals headed for St. Petersburg to rally against the summit; others were on their way to Moscow to attend "The Other Russia," a meeting of Kremlin political opponents and human rights NGOs held Tuesday and Wednesday.

Here's the real story:

The article is actually about "The Other Russia" forum that Kasparov held a week or so ago. Western media pictured it as a "democratic" challenge to Putin. Few mentioned the fact that at this forum Kasparov gathered almost all extremists both left and right. Like, Limonov's National Bolsheviks (their flag is an exact copy of Hitler's banner only swastika in the center is replaced by black hammer and sickle) and Anpilov's Working Russia – an ultra Stalinist organization that promises to hang millions of "democrats" on every tree in Russia if only it gets to power. Even Miss Novodvorskaya – mentally challenged "freedom" bigot – refused to join Kasparov. On the other hand the British Ambassador and two guys for the US State Department saw nothing wrong to sit at one table with Nazis and Stalinists. If one follows the perverse logic of Western mainstream media Putin had to support this forum. Isn't he the one who loves Stalin and encourages racist attacks?

Another funny passage from Kasparov's article:

Just days ago, dozens of activists en route to Moscow to attend the conference were arrested, some beaten.

The above mentioned activists (not dozens – there were twenty of them) are members of AKM – Avant-garde of Communist Youth. They were beaten by the train passengers who got sick and tired of their shouting for hours, "Stalin is our hero. Putin is haemorrhoids". (Сталин наш герой, Путин геморрой). Police actually had to defend the drunk teens. (link)

Foreign officials ignored the Kremlin message and attended the event, at which four young activists were arbitrarily arrested and a German journalist beaten when he tried to photograph the arrests.

The "four young activists" were members of the National Bolshevik Party; the German photographer only appears to have had his camera taken from him. (link) Read more about this party here. Its a strange mix of Leninism and Fascism.

Masha Lipman, editor of the Carnegie Moscow Center's Pro et Contra journal, writes a monthly column for The Post.

Carnegie Moscow Center, huh?

Report: Israel gives Syria ultimatum

Looks like its time for stage 2.

I covered the "scary" part in post #25. I have moved on to crazy. Please try to keep up.

Hey, I'm not the one making up quotations as I go along.

Sounds like you'd be much happier in Putin's Russia, although I can't vouch for the radio reception over there. Bon voyage.

I probably wouldn't. Free market "reforms" screwed things up pretty badly (see Solzhenitsyn), although Putin's doing a pretty good job of pulling things back together.

Jack, I think that alleged ice pick did more damage than you realize. Were you a normal person before the attack?

Were you ever a normal person?

Not true. Mark invoked "crazy" leaders in DC, and she's certainly one of them. I win.

No, you lose. Mark didn't use the word "crazy." He used the word "scary" (quite appropriately, IMO) to describe people holding political views much like your own who are currently on the rise in my country. The McKinney picture didn't address anything he said.

Because we all know W hasn't been attacked, lampooned, maligned, or satirised on this forum. You can dish it out ...

Yeah, but the discussion was at no point about Cynthia McKinney. This is just a diversionary tactic on your part to avoid serious discussion and scrutiny.

Well, it looks like Brendan is done attempting to defend his ludicrous opinions about Russia. Now we move on to attacking Cynthia McKinney with embarrassing screen caps taken from Fox News.

I'd like it just fine because I'd still have the power to, you know, NOT LISTEN. Don't you think the Russian people deserve that same CHOICE?

Of course they deserve that choice. And they still have it. If you hadn't noticed, there are four stations that didn't violate their licenses. They continue to broadcast the VOA propaganda. There are many other American/NATO propaganda outlets that continue undisturbed.

And please don't tell me you're so naive as to think the licensing issue is anything more than a ruse to suppress opinions they don't like. BTW, Beeb World Service is state-sponsored radio. Are they propagandists too?

It probably is a ruse, but that doesn't mean that the stations didn't actually violate their licenses. What Putin did was perfectly legitimate and legal, even if the motives were probably not exactly "pure." And yes, I am aware the BBC is state-sponsored. It serves the interests of the British government when necessary, but it is nowhere near VOA in propaganda output.

I dunno Brendan, would you like it if a "Voice of Cuba" or "Voice of People's Republic of China" was broadcasting anti-American propaganda into the States? In any case, it appears you missed the part about the stations violating their licenses.

You didn't even address the rest of my post, particularly Solzhenitsyn's comments. Not that I'm surprised.

I hate to break this to you, but Communists in the State Department, Pentagon, and Hollywood did exist, except that McCarthy never found them. The witches were there (ever read the Venona papers?) (...)

Yeah, have you? The Venona intercepts show Julius Rosenberg to be guilty of spying (not so much Ethel). Alger Hiss, Lauchlin Currie, and Harry Dexter White are looking as innocent of espionage as ever, though. See here and here.

Horror of horrors, Putin shut down Voice of America and Radio Free Europe programming! Some of us are a little more jaded regarding these "independent" "American voices of freedom."

But lets take a closer look, shall we?

Yevgeny Strelchik, a top official at the Russian Culture Ministry's media department, said the curtailment came because many radio stations were using Radio Liberty programming but made no mention of that in their license applications.

"We have no complaints against Radio Liberty. It is a purely a question of the stations' licenses, of them violating their 'programming conception,''' he said. (source)

Officials said that the changes had been ordered because the stations had violated their licences by failing to get permission to broadcast news from other sources. Staff at Radio Liberty and Voice of America, which are both funded by the US Government and produce news in Russian, have condemned the move. (source)

As for the appointment, rather than election of governors, Putin points out that this is the case in India and no one debates that India is democratic. He also points out that the candidate he selects is then sent to the local parliament, which is directly elected by the people, to confirm or deny. (source)

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a man whom I admire and I'm sure you would claim to admire, makes precisely my point about western arrogance.

For centuries governors in Russia were appointed. It makes sense. The governor implements the will of the central government locally. Yeltsin, with his broad sweep, introduced free elections of governors. Ninety governors? Okay, let it be 90. Were these elections prepared? Not at all, there was a total mess in the local elections.

The local moneybags interfered, money, bribes, cheating decided everything, and in some places the elections were downright criminal, run by the local mafias. But the worst of it was that the government thought it was not enough to rob people of their savings. A lot more was up for grabs. What riches! They are there for the taking. They robbed Russia, quickly, quickly. Chubais bragged at the time that no country in the world had seen such rapid privatization. And he was right, nobody in the world had ever witnessed such quick privatization.

Quite right, nobody in the world had there been such idiots. With immense speed our God-given resources, minerals, oil, non- ferrous metals, coal and production were distributed. Russia was stripped naked. Nothing is left. Is that democracy? Was there a referendum on this issue? Was anyone's opinion asked? Was it a case of the people exercising its power and deciding its future? And so they created out of filth some kind of billionaires who had done nothing for Russia. At best they grabbed what was given to them for free or almost for free. They grabbed chunks of property to become billionaires and in our impotent despair we now admire them. We have a cult of millionaires.

(...)

[Here he speaks of the various Western controlled and funded colored "revolutions" that have been sweeping Eastern Europe, starting with the 2000 overthrow of Milosevic and now stalled with Lukashenko in Belarus]

As it is, who can respect Russia if they see that Russians can be trampled underfoot in any national republics without Russia ever stepping in to defend them. It fails to interfere, it provides no consular protection. That alone rules out any respect for Russia. Thinking about the relations with the CIS, I think we should first of all try to cure ourselves. And let the CIS cure itself. The common economic space may be saved. You speak about "orange revolutions". Strangely, I myself marveled when the orange revolution occurred. The methods are reminiscent of our revolution in February 1917.

(...)

America now -- in fact, for more than ten years now -- has been carried away by a harebrained project or impulse: to impose democracy throughout the world. To impose it. And they set about doing it with a vengeance. First, they staged a bloodbath in Bosnia. Then they bombed Yugoslavia. In Afghanistan they claim to have installed democracy, and in Iraq too. Iraq is a great success in democracy. Who is next? Maybe Iran. (source)

If Russia were to join the North Atlantic Alliance [He means NATO], which is engaged in propaganda and forcibly inculcating the ideology and practices of today’s Western democracy in various parts of the planet, it would lead not to an expansion, but to a decline of Christian civilization. (source)

Mark Lane's a pretty solid researcher. His involvement is just enough to make me think there may be something to this...

One part of this ridiculous rant caught my eye.

Why scrutinize the anti-democratic and corrupt reigns of Castro, Assad, Putin and the Palestinian Authority when you can ascribe crazy, sinister motivations to an innocent collegiate group like YAF?

And just how is Putin especially anti-democratic and corrupt? Is it because he's Russian? It seems that for some people (including you apparently) the Cold War never ended. Undoubtedly Russia is on the hit list of some very important people; just witness the recent spate of "democratic pro-Western revolutions" (courtesy of the CIA) in eastern European countries backed by Russia and the campaign against Russia coming from certain think-tanks and Soros-funded "non-governmental organizations."

We've had disagreements in the past and there are still some things that I take issue with in your position, but we are much closer to being on the same page now. I'd like to say right now that I repudiate my previous position; that the United States is in some manner working against Israel. Far too much intellectual gymnastics is required to maintain that silly position for my comfort and I now feel ridiculous for endorsing it the extent that I did. Since that's out of the way, lets proceed.

Remarkably, there appears to be no topic in this forum suitable for recording one's revulsion at Israel's latest crimes against humanity - and for expressing concern about the possibility that current events in the Holy Land may escalate into a full-scale war. One can find more discussion about soccer. Hence this new thread.

You're totally correct. The way this conflict is developing is unnerving, to say the least. A thread of this nature is certainly needed. Its unfortunate that almost no one visits this particular corner of the Education Forum.

Collective punishment against civilian populations is a war crime under the Geneva Convention. Today's Wikipedia informs us that: "Collective punishment is the punishment of a group of people for the crime(s) of a few or even of one. It is contradictory to the modern concepts of rule of law and due process, (ie. civil society) where each individual receives separate treatment based on their individual circumstances — as they relate to the crime in question. Article 33 of the fourth Geneva Convention specifically forbids collective punishment."

In recent days, the Israeli military has been systematically demolishing the basic infrastructure of Gaza and the Lebanon and has conducted numerous remote assassination attempts, oblivious to the massive civilian causalities these so-called 'targeted attacks' are causing. There is no proportionality in Israel's violent actions. One can only infer its intent is to terrorize neighbors and enforce its will by brute force, unconstrained by any regard for national sovereignty or international law. Gaza is on the brink of a humanitarian debacle. Israel also shows signs of seeking to expand the conflict and ferment a wider war in the region.

I can't find any fault with your analysis here.

Unsurprisingly, given its pro-Zionist bias, the western mainstream media has been fence sitting or openly siding with Israel. Condemnation of Israeli aggression by leaders of the self-styled 'free world' has been muted at best and completely lacking in many cases.

Most western politicians, journalists and other 'talking heads' are too intimidated by Zionists or too miseld and morally desensitized to blow the whistle on the criminal activities of the world's most dangerous rogue state. This silence encourages the Israeli Government to take further provocative actions. It has hinted at extending its punitive attacks to Syria and Iran.

Israel is not a special case by any means. The most massive and outrageous example of media falsification in recent times would be the coverage of the conflicts in Yugoslavia, the subject of my recent studies. A totally false history was created and propagated to serve the interests of the NATO governments. The end result was the destruction of a nation and massive suffering. None of this had anything to do with Israeli goals. The media says (mostly) what the government wants or needs it to say; if this involves falling lock, stock and barrel behind Israel, then this is what will occur.

Warning signs abound that Israel is in 'mad dog' mode, willing to jeopardize the very survival of civilization in pursuit of hegemony.

I can't disagree with this. What Israel is now doing is insane. Israel's goal of hegemony goes all the way back to Ben-Gurion, as this enlightening read shows. The "roadmap" does not appear to have significantly changed. Let's hope that Israel doesn't enter into the next stage of madness, as Iran and Syria will not hesitate to respond in kind.

Peace-loving people everywhere must rise in active opposition to mad dogs such as Olmert and van Creveld lest they destroy civilization itself through their rabid sectarianism.

And to think... for a while I was half-way under the delusion that Olmert was some sort of sell-out to the PA. Needless to say, he's set me straight. "Operation Summer Rain" was/is horrible and "Just Reward" is even worse.

Alright, thanks for clarifying that in a satisfactory manner Jack. It just seemed that you were deliberately avoiding and/or confusing the issue. I wasn't interested in using this issue to discredit you because I dislike some aspect of your work; I just wanted to see it addressed, which you did.