Free Kosovo!

[Bum]

I have to give it to the Kosovo people, they are patient. Maybe too patient, this is long overdue.

http: The US must persuade others to back Kosovo's independence. (http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1121/p09s01-coop.html)

End apartheid in the Balkans now. Who wants to bet the Serbians will emply full scale terrorism again?

[VipertheSniper]

Problem is, those others who have to be persuaded have fears that parts of their, right now, own populace could also demand independance, or fear that their minorities in Serbia could be affected by a massive move of Serbians from the Kosovo into the minorities "territories"

[CCIP]

I'd be quite careful drawing this in mindless black-and-white here. Kosovo is a notoriously grey area, with my own suspicions falling more on the Albanians for foul play; and certainly the "apartheid" in Kosovo at the moment is very much of their own design. Of course noone ever accused Milosevic of being a godsend, either.

[Chock]

You have to consider that voices calling for the US to back this call for independence are probably less concerned with these people's freedom and more interested in using them as pawns to poke the Russians in the eye. And it's not hard to see that, even when you've been poked in both eyes.

The article linked on the original post warns of the dangers of unilateral moves, and lessons learned from other recent overtures of this nature, and then goeas on to suggest that the US should make another one, which, if for no other reason, makes me question just how smart the person is who wrote the piece if he doesn't even spot the contradiction in his assertion.

:D Chock

[waste gate]

Why doesn't Europe clean up this mess? The EU could not be accused of moving unilaterally and it would keep the US out of it. Which from what I can tell is what most Europeans want..........the imperialist US out.

[Skybird]

I wish Kosovo simply would not exist. It is a no win-no win situation for Europe. The whole damn Balkan should be put into a rocketship and shot up to the moon. Nothing but troubles coming from there. Albanian Mafia, Islam, Serbian nationalism, Russian interference, EU naivety - what a nice mixture for a totally messed up situation. I am sure we haven't yet seen the last war over it.

[Chock]

Well, technically, the UN is still presiding over the situation, so that precludes European nations from sorting it without having a mandate from the UN to do so, something the US would be likely to block since it would give carte blanche to the Russians by virtue of proxy control of other Baltic states (just as Russia is blocking overtures in the other direction), so that one is out. Many of those newly independent states may have declared independence from Russia's old Soviet control, but they are still spiritually more in tune with Russia than anywhere else, and they can see which way the wind blows just as well as anyone else too (one look at the block voting on something as trivial as the Eurovision Song Contest will confirm the truth of that). So with that in mind, if for example, you asked the EU to try and sort it instead, they'd spend ten years trying to decide where to have an initial fact finding meeting about the thing, and then another ten years working out the seating plan at that meeting, because the individual countries of the EU are also not averse to having fingers in pies too, so they are not likely to easily reach a conscensus on matters either.

But, joking aside, this is a problem that has been around since the year dot, because we are talking about the region which was traditionally the crossroads of Europe during the days of the Holy Roman Empire (both strategically and culturally), and so you are also talking about cultural clashes and differences in even fundamental views on life as well, before you even get to any race issues. Then as now, the region is a hotspot for the clash between muslim beliefs and more traditionally 'western' religions, and is of course still the crossroads of Europe as far as many immigrants who come via Italy to Europe proper see it, which of course is part of why Russia was backing the Serbs in the first place, as it was seen as another front in defending against such incursions, which of course was why the US was keen to come down on the other side, to make life harder for its traditional Cold War enemy and so on ad infinitum. So all that adds to the complexity of any US involvement clashing with Russia's co-operation with the US and other western nations in the 'war on terror' or at least its appearance of cooperation on the war on terror.

When you think about all that, it's not hard to see why there is an impasse, there are a lot of fingers in pies, for a lot of reasons, and as ever, the people on the ground are the ones who end up suffering.

Incidentally, I was training a woman from Serbia on Photoshop just last week (she was very nice - Ivana, her name is), and we were joking about national traits. She mentioned that the Brits were notorious for going on drunken rampages when abroad (she had worked in Greece for a while - a typical cheap package holiday destination for British louts), but then quantified that by saying 'Don't worry, that's not meant to be an insult, after all, we Serbians have the reputation of stealing anything that isn't nailed down! and that's a fairly accurate assertion'. So if even she is prepared to admit they are trouble, what does that tell you?

:D Chock

[waste gate]

Well, technically, the UN is still presiding over the situation, so that precludes European nations from sorting it without having a mandate from the UN to do so, something the US would be likely to block since it would give carte blanche to the Russians by virtue of proxy control of other Baltic states (just as Russia is blocking overtures in the other direction), so that one is out. Many of those newly independent states may have declared independence from Russia's old Soviet control, but they are still spiritually more in tune with Russia than anywhere else, and they can see which way the wind blows just as well as anyone else too (one look at the block voting on something as trivial as the Eurovision Song Contest will confirm the truth of that). So with that in mind, if for example, you asked the EU to try and sort it instead, they'd spend ten years trying to decide where to have an initial fact finding meeting about the thing, and then another ten years working out the seating plan at that meeting, because the individual countries of the EU are also not averse to having fingers in pies too, so they are not likely to easily reach a conscensus on matters either.

But, joking aside, this is a problem that has been around since the year dot, because we are talking about the region which was traditionally the crossroads of Europe during the days of the Holy Roman Empire (both strategically and culturally), and so you are also talking about cultural clashes and differences in even fundamental views on life as well, before you even get to any race issues. Then as now, the region is a hotspot for the clash between muslim beliefs and more traditionally 'western' religions, and is of course still the crossroads of Europe as far as many immigrants who come via Italy to Europe proper see it, which of course is part of why Russia was backing the Serbs in the first place, as it was seen as another front in defending against such incursions, which of course was why the US was keen to come down on the other side, to make life harder for its traditional Cold War enemy and so on ad infinitum. So all that adds to the complexity of any US involvement clashing with Russia's co-operation with the US and other western nations in the 'war on terror' or at least its appearance of cooperation on the war on terror.

When you think about all that, it's not hard to see why there is an impasse, there are a lot of fingers in pies, for a lot of reasons, and as ever, the people on the ground are the ones who end up suffering.

:D Chock

I don't know too much about the region but based on the reports I've seen some nation, or coalition of nations needs to step up. I realize it won't be easy but nothing worth doing ever is. Forget the UN its nothing more than a debating society for puny despots and would-be tyrants. It would be a great opportunity for some second tier nation to make a mark for itsself and become a player on the world scene. All it takes is the political will. France is a good candidate.

[Tchocky]

I don't know too much about the region but based on the reports I've seen some nation, or coalition of nations needs to step up. I realize it won't be easy but nothing worth doing ever is. Forget the UN its nothing more than a debating society for puny despots and would-be tyrants.
Um, the UN have been governing Kosovo since 1999, bringing the first province-wide free elections. One might say that they have stepped up.

[AntEater]

The Article is a load of crap.

First of all, there's no such thing as a nation of Kosovo.
This is a territory inhabited by the various balkans people, in varying compositions.
Borders are arbitrary on the Balkans, as every people live practically everywhere.
The historic claim of the Serbs is stronger, but demographically of course the Albanians are more, especially since 1999, as NATO enabled the Albanians to do to the Serbs what the Serbs had tried to do to them.
One of those strange examples for that before 911, western interventions always tended to be helping muslims against christians.
Any notion of a "multi-ethnical" Kosovo is simply refusing the realities. If NATO would withdraw, Albanians (who vastly outnumber Serbs now) would start massacring the Serbs. An independent Kosovo will mean an Exodus of Serbs anyway.
The easiest way out would be simply to let Serbia annex the northern Part, which is predominantly Serb while Albania gets the South.
Strangely enough the "real" Albania does not want to have much to do with Kosovo. Maybe that is because Albania is pretty secular and mixed christian and muslim, while our Kosovarian friends are quite Islamist (nice friends the US has, again).
The Serbs undeservedly are still seen as something of a bad boy of the Balkans.
Actually from my experience the average Serb is a lot more western minded than the average Albanian.

The Problem is, an independent Kosovo would be about the equal as if the US had given Pablo Escobar or Manuel Noriega their own cartel nation in latin america.
All the "Democrats" in that region are the very same people who supply Europe with drugs and prostitution.
This not claimed by the Serbs but (among others) by the German BND, an institution which is hardly suspect of being pro-Serb as it spin doctored quite a lot in the Balkans war.
An independent Kosovo would be Mafiastan, nothing less. I'm not sure why many european politicians are so hell bent on Kosovo independence. Either they're stupid or bribed, or a mixture of both.
There have been cases where the police was told by german federal authorities not to implicate certain Kosovarians in Drug busts.

It is amazing what an amount of wishful thinking is involved in the Balkans.

[elite_hunter_sh3]

LMAO :lol::lol: this is sooo funny....


NOT :nope::nope::nope:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAYlBLruNms

how the hell is kosovo apartheid:roll: read your history, it was serbian and it is, albanians illegally moved in and are commiting genocide agaisnt the orthodox serbs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlgtvoeRUJQ&feature=related

http://www.serbianna.com/columns/jevtic/016.shtml


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaqThra0kCI

someone supports terrorists :roll:

U.S. intelligence officials are investigating ties between the terrorists who carried out suicide airliner attacks and associates of Osama bin Laden based in Albania.

The connections were described as support for the terrorist operation to hijack U.S. commercial jetliners and crash them into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, according to U.S. intelligence officials.
No further details of the support could be learned.

One official said intelligence reports about the Albanian connection to the attacks is one of several leads being pursued overseas by the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies.

Bin Laden and his organization, al Qaeda, are believed to have small groups of terrorists or supporters in 50 to 60 nations, including Albania, according to U.S. officials.

Asked if getting bin Laden is the U.S. goal, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told reporters yesterday that "we are after the al Qaeda network."
"It's not one individual," Mr. Powell said. "It's lots of individuals, and it's lots of cells. ... Osama bin Laden is the chairman of a holding company. And within that holding company are terrorist cells and organizations in dozens of countries around the world."

The administration's war on terrorism will "start with that one individual" — bin Laden.

"It will not be over until we have gotten into the inside of this organization, inside its decision cycle, inside its planning cycle, inside its execution capability, and until we have neutralized and destroyed it," Mr. Powell said. "That's our objective."


Greater Albania, the final goal of the Albanian terrorists, through occupation of all desired territories belonging to neighboring countries. The map in this form was issued by Albanian nationalists.

Albania is one of several places U.S. intelligence agencies are focusing their resources — from human agents to electronic eavesdropping.

Since the mid-1990s, bin Laden associates have been based in Tirana, Albania's capital, as well as in at least two other towns in the small, formerly communist nation, U.S. officials said.

Islamic radicals, including supporters of bin Laden, have been supporting Albanian rebels fighting in the region, including members of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Intelligence officials have said there are reports that KLA members have been trained at bin Laden training camps in Afghanistan.
Bin Laden and his Islamic extremist group, al Qaeda, are the main suspects in last week's terrorist attacks.

As of last year, the group operated a residence in Tirana, and the CIA has been pressing Albania's government to expel all associates of the Islamic terrorists.

According to U.S. officials, bin Laden gained a foothold in Albania in 1994 by portraying himself to the government there as a wealthy Saudi national who was in charge of a humanitarian agency that could help Albania.
http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/crime/terrorists/osama-bin-laden/199891.5.jpg On Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda hijacked two jets and
Albanian intelligence believes terrorists have benefited from the theft of some 1,000 blank Albanian passports that were stolen during riots in 1997, according to a 1998 report in the London Sunday Telegraph.

Since the attack, the FBI has detained 49 persons, many of whom appear to be of Middle Eastern descent. Four of the detainees were are identified as "material witnesses" to the Sept. 11 attacks. None has been identified by nationality and the passports they used to enter the United States also have not been identified.

In 1998, U.S. and Albanian authorities broke up an Islamic terrorist cell in Albania and arrested two members of the bin Laden group.

The CIA was able to obtain a large quantity of documents and computer equipment that led to further arrests. Two members of the group, Egyptian nationals, were turned over to anti-terrorist police in Egypt that year.
"Bin Laden's group has a network in Albania," said former CIA counterterrorism official Vince Cannistraro.

"This looks like the support operation [for the U.S. attacks] was worldwide," he said of reports of the Albanian connection.

Albanian Police Chief Bilbil Mema told Agence France-Presse on Thursday that Albania had ceased to be a safe haven for terrorism. "In Albania there is no longer an Islamic threat," Mr. Mema was quoted as saying. "This country is no longer a refuge for Islamic terrorists."

Albanian security and intelligence authorities, in cooperation with the CIA, had "successfully led operations aimed at destroying the network that Islamic terrorists have attempted to establish in this country," Mr. Mema said.
..................
whole text with pics is on
http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/w...ge.asp?nid=452 (http://www.realitymacedonia.org.mk/web/news_page.asp?nid=452)

[elite_hunter_sh3]

Excerpt from report about Samidin Xhezairi
http://www.agimi.com/images/articles/t14/Kom_Hoxha.jpg

in Albanian newspaper Koha Ditore on 22 November 2004
( BBC MONITORING, 2004)

The German media have called him (Samidin Xhezairi, alias Hoxha) an informer of the German (Federal) Intelligence Service ( BND) , as well as a person linked to Al-Qa'idah and the CIA. In the meantime, he says that he is working on the production of the first cartoon in the Albanian language, as well as on filming the first Albanian-language natural science documentary on birds and butterflies.


There are also some assertions that he has fought in Chechnya, has trained in Afghanistan, and was a commander of a unit of mujahidin who operated in the region of Tetove (Tetovo) in summer 2001.


According to a confidential NATO report from 2002 quoted by the media, Xhezairi's task is to erect a branch of "God's Army" (Hezbollah) in Kosova (Kosovo), while his telephone number was also found among the confiscated documents of identified members of Al-Qa'idah.


http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.p...ext=va&aid=431 (http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=431)
http://resistance.chiffonrouge.org/spip.php?article9
http://www.lobi.com.mk/?ItemID=C1D84...0301F1B0FE052C (http://www.lobi.com.mk/?ItemID=C1D847BE85971743A90301F1B0FE052C)

ctivities of Jihadists in present Albania

http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/images/2005/10/24/ERLISphoto.jpg
so-called "Twin Towers" of central Tirana


In 2004, the (Albanian) government confirmed that the location was being used to launder financial activities for the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
(In October 2005.Albanian authorities took possession of office space)

The seized premises belong to a fugitive Saudi Arabian citizen named Yassin Qadi, a businessman who was named a specially designated global terrorist by the US Treasury Department in October 2001.

Qadi owned 18 per cent of shares in the two buildings, located opposite the Albanian prime minister's office...

Earlier this year, the opposition Socialist Party vowed to seek a probe into how thousands of foreigners -- including people allegedly linked to Osama bin Laden -- were able to get Albanian citizenship during the last 13 years.

http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setime.../24/feature-02 (http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2005/10/24/feature-02)



Quote:
In 2001-2002, saudi arabian businessman Yassin Al-Kadi (also spelled Yasin al-Qadi) has repeatedly denied any connection to bin Laden, but he was already on the U.S. government's "dirty dozen" list of leading terror financiers who are being investigated by the CIA. Al-Kadi's accounts have been frozen by the United States, as shown at the executive order 13224: AL-QADI, Yasin (a.k.a. KADI, Shaykh Yassin Abdullah; a.k.a. KAHDI, Yasin),......
http://911review.org/Sept11Wiki/Al-Kadi,Yassin.shtml

http://www.arabnews.com/2004/09/qadi26_.jpg
Yassin Abdullah Al-Qadi

Brisard had presented a report to the UN Security Council in December 2002 entitled “Terrorism Financing: Roots and Trends of Saudi Terrorism Financing” alleging that Al-Qadi was “one of the main individual Saudi sponsors of Al-Qaeda.” Al-Qadi has denied the allegation as “totally untrue.”

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&sect...=26&m=9&y=2004 (http://www.arabnews.com/?page=1&section=0&article=52017&d=26&m=9&y=2004)

Quote:
Qadi is thought to have had close links to Abdul Latif Saleh, a Jordanian-Albanian dual citizen who has been designated by the US Treasury Department as an al-Qaeda supporter.



According to Washington, he is associated with a number of Albanian NGOs linked to Egypt's Islamic Jihad -- a group with ties to al-Qaeda -- and has received $600,000 from Osama bin Laden to establish extremist groups in Albania.


Saleh set up an Albanian jihadist organisation, financed by the Al Haramain Foundation, with the goal of destabilising Albania by "fomenting conflict among the different religious groups in the country," the US Treasury Department said in a statement.


In addition, Saleh and Qadi ran several joint business partnerships, including a sugar importing business, a medical enterprise and a construction business. "Saleh served as the general manager of all of Qadi's businesses in Albania, and reportedly holds 10 per cent of the Qadi Group's investments in Albania," the department said.
http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setime.../24/feature-02 (http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2005/10/24/feature-02)

[elite_hunter_sh3]

Sky News Report on Al Qaeda infiltration in Bosnia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wx-REROXvtg


The next video you shows footage of Arab Muslim Mujahideen (Odred El Mudzahidin) being brought into Bosnia on UN transports to carry out part of the Islamic war against the non-believers, in this case the Serbs.

Formed under the orders of the Bosnian President Alija Izetbegović, the Mudzahidin, also known as the '7th Muslim brigade' were a unit made up entirely of Muslim Arabs shipped over from the Islamic world to engage in the wider Jihad and to help establish Muslim states in Europe
UN Complicity In Islamic Jihad Against Serbs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TPv1oiwq2U

you support this??
http://byzantinesacredart.com/blog/images/bin_laden.jpg
A reward for successful destruction of Christian civilization in Kosovo and Metohija: Osama bin Laden's mosque built in Kosovo during UN/NATO's watch.

http://www.byzantinesacredart.com/blog-img/erasing-christianity.jpg
Erasing Kosovo's Christian face: ethnic Albanian taking a stroll in front of Serbian ortodox Holy Trinity Cathedral destroyed by explosives in Djakovica, Kosovo and Metohija, Serbia.
This is the place where Albanians are currently building a memorial park to Albanian al-Qaeda, KLA, after removing the last trace of the church.

http://byzantinesacredart.com/blog/images/fr-hariton.jpg
Father Hariton (Chariton) of the Holy Archangels Monastery was abducted, tortured, repeatedly stabbed and decapitated by Albanian terrorists in Kosovo. His clothing was ripped with knives and soaked in blood; his head was never found.

Father Chariton was kidnapped by KLA in 1999 in the center of Prizren. His kidnapping was videotaped by a German journalist who afterwards refused to show that tape to the police, probably because he was afraid since, by all means, he knew whom he had dealings with (I think of KLA). The body of father Chariton was found in 2000, in village Tusos near Prizren, and it was found by the International Red Cross. The body showed us all the tortures father Chariton had gone through. His chest were stabbed with a knife, his rib and legs were broken, and above all, his head was cut off and it was never founded. We assume that father Chariton's head is now the trophy of some Mujahideens who had cut it off. (Interview with Hieromonk Benedict (http://www.bannerofliberty.com/BOL-06MQC/8-13-2006.1.html),).


Unparalleled savagery: Members of Albanian Muslim UCK/KLA bagging up their trophies, severed Serbian heads. Kosovo and Metohija, Serbia.

http://byzantinesacredart.com/blog/images/albanian-terrorists.jpg
Albanian al-Qaeda: KLA (UCK) triumphs in Kosovo

http://byzantinesacredart.com/blog/images/kosovo/uck1.jpg
Armed and masked Albanian paramilitaries are setting up illegal checkpoints in Metohija, the western part of Serbian Kosovo province.(2006)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAYlBLruNms

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auMsT5EDCF0&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qt1OEoP8brQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5xAVbC20ew&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ7Ym_XPGiU&mode=related&search=

[Chock]

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/AlanBradbury/Reaper.jpg

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j105/AlanBradbury/Dove.jpg

:D Chock

[baggygreen]

I was waiting for elite to weigh in on this one...

anyone care to remove the image of the men in military dress stowing severed heads please? I just ate, and i dont need to see that, more to the point neither does my partner.

the beauty of living down here is that there is noone else to fight over borders and land with. Sure the kiwis and poms are coming here in droves, but hey, i can live with that, cos it proves we're better!:lol:

As far as im concerned, if an ethnic group who are almost exclusive to a region of a decent size can elect a governing body, who in turn is able to produce to the UN a positive, progressive plan for economic development and stability, they ought to be given independence. Sure there'd be lotsa details to sort, but i think it oughta work like that.

EDIT: Elite, as for your 'unparrallelled savagery' comment, I'd reconsider your use of it, given the convictions for genocide against several serbs stemming from the conflict. Now to go back to topic, the current push for kosovan independence, not the history of the wars of the area.

[Fish]

Putins answer?

http://www.russiatoday.ru/news/news/17263

[elite_hunter_sh3]

I was waiting for elite to weigh in on this one...

anyone care to remove the image of the men in military dress stowing severed heads please? I just ate, and i dont need to see that, more to the point neither does my partner.

the beauty of living down here is that there is noone else to fight over borders and land with. Sure the kiwis and poms are coming here in droves, but hey, i can live with that, cos it proves we're better!:lol:

As far as im concerned, if an ethnic group who are almost exclusive to a region of a decent size can elect a governing body, who in turn is able to produce to the UN a positive, progressive plan for economic development and stability, they ought to be given independence. Sure there'd be lotsa details to sort, but i think it oughta work like that.

EDIT: Elite, as for your 'unparrallelled savagery' comment, I'd reconsider your use of it, given the convictions for genocide against several serbs stemming from the conflict. Now to go back to topic, the current push for kosovan independence, not the history of the wars of the area.

from an article.. not mine.

[elite_hunter_sh3]

Putins answer?

http://www.russiatoday.ru/news/news/17263

good stuff :yep:

Serbia needs new tanks and airplanes... a nuke would be excellent but i doubt it :roll:

[joea]

I'd be quite careful drawing this in mindless black-and-white here. Kosovo is a notoriously grey area, with my own suspicions falling more on the Albanians for foul play; and certainly the "apartheid" in Kosovo at the moment is very much of their own design. Of course noone ever accused Milosevic of being a godsend, either.

Agree 100% with this.

I hope elite_hunter_sh3's posts won't stop the rest of you from looking at the other side.

[Happy Times]

The Article is a load of crap.

First of all, there's no such thing as a nation of Kosovo.
This is a territory inhabited by the various balkans people, in varying compositions.
Borders are arbitrary on the Balkans, as every people live practically everywhere.
The historic claim of the Serbs is stronger, but demographically of course the Albanians are more, especially since 1999, as NATO enabled the Albanians to do to the Serbs what the Serbs had tried to do to them.
One of those strange examples for that before 911, western interventions always tended to be helping muslims against christians.
Any notion of a "multi-ethnical" Kosovo is simply refusing the realities. If NATO would withdraw, Albanians (who vastly outnumber Serbs now) would start massacring the Serbs. An independent Kosovo will mean an Exodus of Serbs anyway.
The easiest way out would be simply to let Serbia annex the northern Part, which is predominantly Serb while Albania gets the South.
Strangely enough the "real" Albania does not want to have much to do with Kosovo. Maybe that is because Albania is pretty secular and mixed christian and muslim, while our Kosovarian friends are quite Islamist (nice friends the US has, again).
The Serbs undeservedly are still seen as something of a bad boy of the Balkans.
Actually from my experience the average Serb is a lot more western minded than the average Albanian.

The Problem is, an independent Kosovo would be about the equal as if the US had given Pablo Escobar or Manuel Noriega their own cartel nation in latin america.
All the "Democrats" in that region are the very same people who supply Europe with drugs and prostitution.
This not claimed by the Serbs but (among others) by the German BND, an institution which is hardly suspect of being pro-Serb as it spin doctored quite a lot in the Balkans war.
An independent Kosovo would be Mafiastan, nothing less. I'm not sure why many european politicians are so hell bent on Kosovo independence. Either they're stupid or bribed, or a mixture of both.
There have been cases where the police was told by german federal authorities not to implicate certain Kosovarians in Drug busts.

It is amazing what an amount of wishful thinking is involved in the Balkans.

This is 100% same, what i think of Kosovo, thanks for writing it.:up:

[STEED]

Dodgy thread. ;)

[elite_hunter_sh3]

The Article is a load of crap.

First of all, there's no such thing as a nation of Kosovo.
This is a territory inhabited by the various balkans people, in varying compositions.
Borders are arbitrary on the Balkans, as every people live practically everywhere.
The historic claim of the Serbs is stronger, but demographically of course the Albanians are more, especially since 1999, as NATO enabled the Albanians to do to the Serbs what the Serbs had tried to do to them.
One of those strange examples for that before 911, western interventions always tended to be helping muslims against christians.
Any notion of a "multi-ethnical" Kosovo is simply refusing the realities. If NATO would withdraw, Albanians (who vastly outnumber Serbs now) would start massacring the Serbs. An independent Kosovo will mean an Exodus of Serbs anyway.
The easiest way out would be simply to let Serbia annex the northern Part, which is predominantly Serb while Albania gets the South.
Strangely enough the "real" Albania does not want to have much to do with Kosovo. Maybe that is because Albania is pretty secular and mixed christian and muslim, while our Kosovarian friends are quite Islamist (nice friends the US has, again).
The Serbs undeservedly are still seen as something of a bad boy of the Balkans.
Actually from my experience the average Serb is a lot more western minded than the average Albanian.

The Problem is, an independent Kosovo would be about the equal as if the US had given Pablo Escobar or Manuel Noriega their own cartel nation in latin america.
All the "Democrats" in that region are the very same people who supply Europe with drugs and prostitution.
This not claimed by the Serbs but (among others) by the German BND, an institution which is hardly suspect of being pro-Serb as it spin doctored quite a lot in the Balkans war.
An independent Kosovo would be Mafiastan, nothing less. I'm not sure why many european politicians are so hell bent on Kosovo independence. Either they're stupid or bribed, or a mixture of both.
There have been cases where the police was told by german federal authorities not to implicate certain Kosovarians in Drug busts.

It is amazing what an amount of wishful thinking is involved in the Balkans.
This is 100% same, what i think of Kosovo, thanks for writing it.:up:

i agree with everything EXCEPT the part of giving serbia only the northern part... kosovo is 100% serbian, historically it was ours and should be ours, ALBANIANS should go back to albania , simple as that...:shifty:

most of what you said is on the dot :up:

[Bum]

You cannot stop human progress. Free Kosovo!

[elite_hunter_sh3]

DEFINE HUMAN PROGRESS!!!!

is human slave trafficking, child prostitution, terrorism, drug smuggling and transportation human progress???? you have absolutely no idea what your talking about do you??? :-?:nope:

[Bum]

DEFINE HUMAN PROGRESS!!!!

is human slave trafficking, child prostitution, terrorism, drug smuggling and transportation human progress???? you have absolutely no idea what your talking about do you??? :-?:nope:

I do know the Serbs are not angels either. Human progress, you cannot stop it. They couldn't stop it in SA, nor in Georgia, nor in Tel Aviv, nor in east Europe. The people will always find a way to trump the dictator's boot.:smug:

[elite_hunter_sh3]

riiight.. :roll:, here is a wonderful idea, how about i pay for your airline ticket and you go live in kosovo for 1 week, i'll be surprised if you survive :roll: i'll also be willing to pay for your trip to South Africa, how about Chechnya??? you want to go there too??

[CCIP]

DEFINE HUMAN PROGRESS!!!!

is human slave trafficking, child prostitution, terrorism, drug smuggling and transportation human progress???? you have absolutely no idea what your talking about do you??? :-?:nope:
I do know the Serbs are not angels either. Human progress, you cannot stop it. They couldn't stop it in SA, nor in Georgia, nor in Tel Aviv, nor in east Europe. The people will always find a way to trump the dictator's boot.:smug:
Georgia? Saakashvili is a hair away from being a dictator. Nasty nationalism, threats to militarily "solve" the Abkhazia and Ossetia problems (where there is a far more legitimate, democratic and documented case for independence than Kosovo will ever have. Why don't you have a Free Abkhazia or Free South Ossetia thread? Or do I detect a certain bias at play...) and economic ruin in the country - so much for that progress! That country is going nowhere fast, courtesy of nationalism gone haywire. Isn't that what Serbia got wrong back in the day? :roll:

For the record, I don't support the "our land, our right" argument in any way. No geopolitical problem in the world will ever be solved in a humane way so long as nationalist sentiments, rather than pragmatic approaches to the real and actual situation, are accepted as legitimate justifications.

My question is: who will pay for the independence of Kosovo in the form you suggest? Is the cost to local Serbs, regional stability and European security justified? I think not. Not when you have a fairly extreme nationalist from a group that advocates violence against serbs, use of underhand (read:terrorist) tactics, and has documented links to international terrorism (read:Al-Quaeda) and organized crime elected into power. And the cost to Kosovo from this will be hard - I don't see their neighbours besides Albania having much love for it, I don't see a way for it to economically support itself as a consequence - and that means that if NATO or anyone else wants it, they'll have to pay for keeping Kosovo afloat - either directly or by having to maintain a constant mission there to ensure stability. And that means Americans and European taxpayers will probably have to pay for it. Are you sure that's a good use of their money? I also think not.

[Skybird]

I know a guy in the BND and BKA field. He said internally they refer to Albania and Albanian Kosovo as "Mafianistan". Even the media sometimes pick up that name. A UCK leader with questionable reputation from the war being elected there as the leader of Kosovo is not any encouraging at all. I think it is a mobster'S regime, nothing else. And the EU - probably would accept Kosovo "indepedence", to do another favour to Islam and the poor Muslims of the Balkan having suffered so dearly.

Emoptions are a bad advisor for policy making. My sympathy for Serbia (as a political actor, and a centre of extreme nationalism) is limited, but the EU should even consider to prefer waging another war to reduce Albanian influence in Kosovo - instead of legalizing that Albanian influence. An independant Kosovo will be an infection, spreading organized crime into Europe, more than the Balkan area already does. In Germany, Albanian Mafia ranks amongst the most aggressive, brutal and dangeorus crime organizations. Police does no longer patrol in claimed territories of the Albanian Mafia in metropoles - policemen's lives at risk, they say. The mobsters can chart and practice their business (drugs, smuggling, sex slave trading) plans almost untouched, for that reason.

[Winston Caine]

I consider the whole situation a hiatus. The conflicts there won't end, be it under Serbian or Albanian supervision. NATO or UN can't or shouldn't do much. Yet again, the area without international supervision will turn into a bloodbath, be it Albanians massacring Serbs or viceversa.


i agree with everything EXCEPT the part of giving serbia only the northern part... kosovo is 100% serbian, historically it was ours and should be ours, ALBANIANS should go back to albania , simple as that...

Well, the same was said for Krayina in 1991.
Anyway, war in Croatia aside, I am familiar with the situation, and I know how you feel about it, but you know it's not that easy.

[elite_hunter_sh3]

it never is, but when if someone doenst want to leave, and you point a loaded gun at them i wonder:hmm::hmm: :shifty: (if we have to resort to that then blame it on the EU and the UN for being ignorant and blind)...all i know is one simple thing

independence = WAR :yep: :shifty:

[elite_hunter_sh3]

"EVERYTHING ABOUT SERBIA WAS A LIE"

NATO War Crimes and links to Al Qaeda confirmed
Former UN Commander in the Balkans

We bombed the wrong side?
by Lewis MacKenzie

This article was in major papers in Canada.
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MAC404A.html

Five years ago our television screens were dominated by pictures of Kosovo-Albanian refugees escaping across Kosovo's borders to the sanctuaries of Macedonia and Albania. Shrill reports indicated that Slobodan Milosevic's security forces were conducting a campaign of genocide and that at least 100,000 Kosovo-Albanians had been exterminated and buried in mass graves throughout the Serbian province. NATO sprung into action and, in spite of the fact no member nation of the alliance was threatened, commenced bombing not only Kosovo, but the infrastructure and population of Serbia itself -- without the authorizing United Nations resolution so revered by Canadian leadership, past and present.

Those of us who warned that the West was being sucked in on the side of an extremist, militant, Kosovo-Albanian independence movement were dismissed as appeasers. The fact that the lead organization spearheading the fight for independence, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), was universally designated a terrorist organization and known to be receiving support from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda was conveniently ignored.


“We Bombed The Wrong Side”

http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2004/04/...he-wrong-side/ (http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2004/04/07/we-bombed-the-wrong-side/)


Retired Canadian general and veteran UN peacekeeper Lewis McKenzie isn’t the first to say that, and may not be the last.

In an op-ed in Canada’s National Post today, McKenzie deals with the very same issues as last week’s Balkan Express: a seemingly (and likely) coordinated effort to ignore or spin away the truth behind the pogrom in Kosovo, going as far as omitting the discovery that gunmen who murdered two UN police were Albanians posing as Serbs.

McKenzie commanded the first UN contingent in Bosnia in 1992, and by managing to open up the flow of humanitarian aid to Sarajevo buggered up the Bosnian Muslim leadership’s plan to provoke a NATO intervention on its behalf. That earned him the burning hatred of Izetbegovic’s toadies and their foreign enablers, who smeared McKenzie endlessly as a “Serb-lover” and even accused him of war crimes! So he knows what he’s talking about, first-hand.


The Muslims destroyed everything,
different rules for different folks,
some animals are more equal than others.
CHURCHES Many 600 years old. Europeans from all over Europe
defended these grounds hundreds of years ago.
http://www.rastko.org.yu/kosovo/crucified/default.htm

http://www.rastko.org.yu/kosovo/cruc...ches/ch01.html (http://www.rastko.org.yu/kosovo/crucified/churches/ch01.html)
http://www.rastko.org.yu/kosovo/cruc...ches/ch03.html (http://www.rastko.org.yu/kosovo/crucified/churches/ch03.html)

ere you go, 15hrs ago:
Russia backs traditional ally Serbia over Kosovo
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/...bia-Kosovo.php (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/11/22/europe/EU-GEN-Russia-Serbia-Kosovo.php)
AP

and 2hrs ago:

West ‘pressing to dismember Serbia’
BELGRADE The Serbian Prime Minister has said that powerful Western nations have asked his country to give up the province of Kosovo voluntarily and to be an accomplice to the creation of a new Albanian state.
Vojislav Kostunica said: “We must now decide whether Serbia will succumb to this violence and become the first country in Europe to have been humiliated by a land grab since the Munich agreement.”
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2925934.ece (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2925934.ece)

from another forum
The Russians launched one of the greatest wars in history in defense of the Serbs, I doubt that they will simply sit back and watch as the country is torn apart.
Maybe Putin has put the russian nuclear arsenal on high alert for this reason.

This is what I read on a newspaper some days ago. The US allegedly have admitted that if Serbia launches another war against albanians, they aren't currently capable to deploy another force against them and the europeans aren't ready to stop the Serbs. Besides Serbs are now backed up energetically by the Russians and therefore they would be scarcely affected by sanctions.


:lol::lol:
:rock::rock::rock::rock:

KLA terrorist group = :dead::dead::dead::dead::dead:

[elite_hunter_sh3]

Putin puts Nuclear Arsenal on HIGH alert
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2910112.ece
President Putin accused Nato yesterday of threatening Russia’s security and ordered the military to place the country’s strategic nuclear arsenal on a higher state of alert.
“In violation of previous agreements, certain member countries of the Nato alliance are increasing their resources next to our borders,” Mr Putin told generals in a meeting broadcast on state television. “Russia cannot remain indifferent to this obvious muscle-flexing.”
Mr Putin, whose rhetoric has become more strident as relations with the West have deteriorated, went on: “One of the most important tasks remains raising the combat readiness of the strategic nuclear forces. They should be ready to deliver a quick and adequate reply to any aggressor.”
He issued his stark message as Russia confirmed that it would pull out of a landmark arms limitation treaty on December 12. The Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty was fundamental to ending the Cold War.

[Winston Caine]

it never is, but when if someone doenst want to leave, and you point a loaded gun at them i wonder:hmm::hmm: :shifty:

What if they point a loaded gun back at you? Bad blood leads to bad blood.


(if we have to resort to that then blame it on the EU and the UN for being ignorant and blind)...

There's no excuse in putting blame on UN and EU considering that. It will be Serbian and Albanian doing.


all i know is one simple thing
independence = WAR :yep: :shifty:

Probably, I heard some extremist groups in Serbia are already preparing for one. Yet I don't believe a war will solve anything? When it comes down to ethnical cleansing and genocide, all the ideals and mottos stop making sense.


The Russians launched one of the greatest wars in history in defense of the Serbs, I doubt that they will simply sit back and watch as the country is torn apart.


If the war above mentioned is WWI, I must say Russia had different interests than the defence of Serbia. Expansionism, crisis, and so on. It's more of an excuse.

[joea]

A plea for reconciliation:

http://www.orthodoxcanada.org/comentaries/Meditation-on-kosovo.html


A MEDITATION ON HARDEN’S DIORAMA: A FIELD OF POPPIES

Introduction
Every human tragedy may be considered a tragedy for humanity since all of mankind shares a common human nature. The fact that we do not recognise ourselves in the peoples of other tribes, nations and cultures is among the greatest of our human failings. How is it that we so seldom understand from our heart that all human beings feel pain, hopelessness, despair, love, joy, hope and aspirations in the same way that we do? Perhaps it is because we also act with fear, malice, hatred and prejudice in the same manner?
Every nation, every tribe, every race and every era of mankind produces both great humanitarians and savage tyrants and every form of character in between. The constant struggle of mankind is to become fully human, to recover the image and likeness of God in ourselves for in God's image and likeness we were all created and to learn to see that image in every other human being. We can validate our own humanity in no other way than by fully acknowledging from the heart the equal humanity of those whom we consider to be enemies. This can only be accomplished when, together, we can liberate ourselves from the tyranny of the past.
Every tribe, every nation, is most profoundly self-identified by its ethnic legends, heroes and national mythologies. These are far more powerful than the mundane realities of history, and it is those great moments and outstanding persons both heroes and villains alike which forge a stage upon which heroes and great events act out their roles, are of little note and seldom are remembered. Yet these people often are the real heroes who so often endure and carry on under the heaviest of burdens. It is through them that the ultimate triumph of the human spirit is accomplished and witnessed.
It is the manner in which we interpret these great events and the heroes that marshal them which shapes our spiritual lives and defines the inner qualities of our souls. The fact that the Serbs chose as their national holiday the anniversary of their greatest defeat, the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, speaks volumes. It is necessary to understand how we interpret this event in order to comprehend the history of this event and its aftermath. The battle, called "Vidodan" because it was fought on the Feast Day of Saint Vidus (Vitus), took place on a hillside, covered with poppies, in the Serbian "holy land," known today as Kosovo-Metochia. For us Serbs, Vidodan has a direct connection to another great battle, waged on a hill outside the holy city of Jerusalem, also covered with poppies. That great battle, between Darkness and Light, was waged by Jesus Christ on the Cross atop the hill of Golgotha. For us, the Battle of Kosovo is our direct identity with Golgotha, with Christ on the Cross, and with the ancient Christian martyrs. It is here that our nation and its people shared in the suffering of our own ancient martyrs and truly became partakers of Christ's sacrifice on Calvary.

Among the great national monuments of the Serbs and their kings there are no rich palaces or formidable castles only churches and monasteries, the largest number of which are found in Kosovo-Metochia, which for centuries has been the spiritual and religious heartland of Serbia. Within this fabled provine lie the richest treasures of Serbian Orthodox Christianity; it is here that one finds some of the world's most deeply spiritual Christian art and relics. For me and for most Serbs, it represents the visible, tangible spiritual reality of our lives. Clearly then, Serbian consciousness of Kosovo-Metochia as a holy land is not simply part of a national mythology. The sense of the field of poppies amidst the Battle of Kosovo, as an image of Golgotha, is only heightened as we watch with indescribable grief our people being martyred and our holy places being destroyed anew, by wanton hatred for their representation as Christian people, Christian monuments, and for Christ Himself. If the sense of Kosovo as our identity with Golgotha was powerful before, it has been burned ever more deeply into the Serbian psyche. Only by comprehending this can one address the current tragedies of Kosovo-Metochia successfully. This is, however, only one aspect of the Kosovo crisis.
Regardless of the means by which Albanians began to dominate the province of Kosovo-Metochia, the fact is they do! They have their own perspective, their own agenda and, though they are intangible, their own mythologies. In the absence of understanding, compassion and a sincere recognition of each other's humanity, history and aspirations, this crisis will continue its painful progress as an ongoing and deeply wounding human tragedy. Both Serbs and Albanians have their realities, their legends, and their deep attachment to Kosovo-Metochia, whose history has been told and retold a hundred times by a hundred authors. It is not for us to retell it once again here, but rather to appeal to the humanity of all those who find themselves in the midst of this sorrow.
Art does not address history so much as it addresses the human soul, and thereby bares the heart of a society to the eyes of the world. Richard Harden's monumental work, In a Field of Poppies, is one of the most powerful and compelling explorations of this ineffable tragedy. Thus it speaks to my heart, and I hope to the hearts of all who may see this work of art exhibited.
A Meditation on Harden's Painting "In a Field of Poppies"
The field of poppies sweeps like a river of fire that burns deeply into both Serbian and Albanian hearts. In the ancient battlefield the Blackbird Meadow only a little green from spring rains, the crimson poppies bloom like bloodstains on the landscape of the Balkan psyche. National myths rise with the mist, obscuring the purer visions of humanity. Who dies and who lives become questions lessened only by the anguish over who has a right to plant his dead in Kosovo's soil.
They hate because they love. Their singular tragedy is that they cannot reconcile themselves to each other's love. They love the land and cannot tolerate each other's presence on it. This land, this narrow strip of soil, this hallowed ground of Kosovo-metochia, is so deeply woven into the fabric of their souls that even those Serbs who have not yet seen it feel its presence in their consciousness.
The twisted remains a bicycle that perhaps had once made a child's eyes sparkle is slowly engulfed by the poppies. A flaming house burns without being consumed, branding the landscape like the fire of malevolence that torments the human soul.
If only the same fire could cauterise the wounds and refine the love from the human dross of fear and hatred. Is there no means of reconciliation? Must it forever be the destiny of Kosovo to harbour shattered lives and nurse the deadliest of human passions?
The land does not ask, "Whose bones are these that decorate my hillsides; whose broken dreams and conquered hopes smoulder in my valleys?" From her desolate hillsides a soft wind murmurs through the now stunted trees, whispers across the land and ruffles the poppies in the Blackbird Meadow. It is a mournful breeze the sound of lamentation. Like Rachel, Kosovo weeps for her children and will not be comforted because they are gone.
Archbishop Lazar Puhalo

[Otto Von Strunf]

this is how things is: if kosovo become independent all serbs from kosovo will move to east bosnia (republic of srpska) and ower there thay will become majoriti. calculating on this if kosovo can separate from serbia, than rep. srpska can separate from bosnia. and conect to serbia. that is serbian plan and if thay can do that than they win BUT bosnian goverment want alow splitting, and croatia vants hercegovina (south part of bosnia with croatian major population) so we hawe a WAR again. I live in croatia and i dont care about politic but only war that i want is virtual. If this scenario becomes a true, than God help us all

[Happy Times]

this is how things is: if kosovo become independent all serbs from kosovo will move to east bosnia (republic of srpska) and ower there thay will become majoriti. calculating on this if kosovo can separate from serbia, than rep. srpska can separate from bosnia. and conect to serbia. that is serbian plan and if thay can do that than they win BUT bosnian goverment want alow splitting, and croatia vants hercegovina (south part of bosnia with croatian major population) so we hawe a WAR again. I live in croatia and i dont care about politic but only war that i want is virtual. If this scenario becomes a true, than God help us all

But Bosnia is a joke, the Croat and Serb parts should be given the right to join Croatia and Serbia.

[Otto Von Strunf]

The Article is a load of crap.

First of all, there's no such thing as a nation of Kosovo.
This is a territory inhabited by the various balkans people, in varying compositions.
Borders are arbitrary on the Balkans, as every people live practically everywhere.
The historic claim of the Serbs is stronger, but demographically of course the Albanians are more, especially since 1999, as NATO enabled the Albanians to do to the Serbs what the Serbs had tried to do to them.
One of those strange examples for that before 911, western interventions always tended to be helping muslims against christians.
Any notion of a "multi-ethnical" Kosovo is simply refusing the realities. If NATO would withdraw, Albanians (who vastly outnumber Serbs now) would start massacring the Serbs. An independent Kosovo will mean an Exodus of Serbs anyway.
The easiest way out would be simply to let Serbia annex the northern Part, which is predominantly Serb while Albania gets the South.
Strangely enough the "real" Albania does not want to have much to do with Kosovo. Maybe that is because Albania is pretty secular and mixed christian and muslim, while our Kosovarian friends are quite Islamist (nice friends the US has, again).
The Serbs undeservedly are still seen as something of a bad boy of the Balkans.
Actually from my experience the average Serb is a lot more western minded than the average Albanian.

The Problem is, an independent Kosovo would be about the equal as if the US had given Pablo Escobar or Manuel Noriega their own cartel nation in latin america.
All the "Democrats" in that region are the very same people who supply Europe with drugs and prostitution.
This not claimed by the Serbs but (among others) by the German BND, an institution which is hardly suspect of being pro-Serb as it spin doctored quite a lot in the Balkans war.
An independent Kosovo would be Mafiastan, nothing less. I'm not sure why many european politicians are so hell bent on Kosovo independence. Either they're stupid or bribed, or a mixture of both.
There have been cases where the police was told by german federal authorities not to implicate certain Kosovarians in Drug busts.

It is amazing what an amount of wishful thinking is involved in the Balkans.
This is 100% same, what i think of Kosovo, thanks for writing it.:up:

i agree with everything EXCEPT the part of giving serbia only the northern part... kosovo is 100% serbian, historically it was ours and should be ours, ALBANIANS should go back to albania , simple as that...:shifty:

most of what you said is on the dot :up: yep serbs are pacifists = serbia to pacific, serbs still think that serbia is all the way to virovitica - karlovac - karlobag and south adriatic (including montenegro)

[Happy Times]

Here we go, moderatoooooooooors!!

[Otto Von Strunf]

this is how things is: if kosovo become independent all serbs from kosovo will move to east bosnia (republic of srpska) and ower there thay will become majoriti. calculating on this if kosovo can separate from serbia, than rep. srpska can separate from bosnia. and conect to serbia. that is serbian plan and if thay can do that than they win BUT bosnian goverment want alow splitting, and croatia vants hercegovina (south part of bosnia with croatian major population) so we hawe a WAR again. I live in croatia and i dont care about politic but only war that i want is virtual. If this scenario becomes a true, than God help us all

But Bosnia is a joke, the Croat and Serb parts should be given the right to join Croatia and Serbia. it is joke but you cant cut country on peaces look ak switserland, and if europ cut kosovo from serbia than ETA has rights to cut spain, great britain will fall in a part of england, scotland and walles, ireland will be free, corsica will separate from france, and 1991 serbs will hawe right to create a big serbia on teritory of serbia with kosovo, bosnia and herzegovina and 2/3 of croatia. Including my beautifle small island VIS

[elite_hunter_sh3]

war drums are beating in moscow and in beograd, i dont see any other ways to stop them from declaring independence, if kosovo albanians start a war, macedonian and montenegrian albanians will most likely start a war in those countries, since i was born in montenegro, i got weapons body armor and ammunition at my uncles house, all i need is a 1 way plane ticket and im ready:yep::arrgh!:, already know around 50 serbians in my school alone who are willing to go fight incase a war breaks out.. "only unity can save the serbs"

[Takeda Shingen]

You're over the line, elite_hunter_sh3. We will not be indulging one's fantasies of violence on this website.