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The Farce of our Kosovo Mission
by Julia
Gorin [pundit/comedian] 8/9/07
page 2
BUT IT’S NOT IN MY SECTOR!
One of the aforementioned articles on Fellenzer’s site that were posted to dispute her attempt to debunk me was the Petrilla piece, part of which read:
From Pristina I headed for Gracanica, a small enclave of Christian Serbs [whose] ancestors have been living in Kosovo for thousands of years. Gracanica Monastery has been the site of Christian churches since the 6th century, yet when I arrived I was struck by the towering concrete walls adorned with coiled barbed wire and machine gun nests, all required now for the protection of the nuns and bishops who live there. The outside was also spotted with vehicle blockers reminiscent of Normandy Beach, with KFOR guards and vehicles patrolling to protect the Christians from Islamist attacks.
Contributor
Julia Gorin
Pundit, comedian and opinionist Julia Gorin is proprietor of www.JuliaGorin.com and
is a contributing editor to www.JewishWorldReview.com..[go to Gorin index]
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I visited with the nuns in the monastery, who told me their stories, how much they lived in fear of being murdered by radical Muslims. My heart sank as I saw that even though their families had been there for countless years, they knew that their situation would never get better, and that sometime in their lives they would either be murdered or forced to leave.
Fellenzer’s response: “A) It’s not in our sector and B) It’s not the norm.” Further: “The visual of the NATO concentration camps--again--not in our sector. The Chaplain with whom I spoke is aware of ONE church and ONE Serbian enclave that resembles [sic] what she has described. Gorin makes it sound like this is happening all over Kosovo....”
Of course, the main reason this can’t be happening all over Kosovo, and the reason it’s “more true” of the “pre-2005” era, is that there aren’t Serbs all over Kosovo anymore for it to happen to. But let’s hear from this chaplain she mentions, who like Fellenzer has been in Kosovo for about a year. Presumably, the chaplain, 1st Lt. Michael Wikstrom whom Fellenzer quotes in her press release, is the “Friar Michael” who has been in Kosovo one year and who weighs in on her blog with the following:
Since 2004, the violence against the Serbs is almost non-existant [sic.] and I would contend that many of them are safer here than in some parts of Detroit and Chicago. [Thank you for bringing up Detroit. Here’s why one Serb had to move out of there.] I concelebrated with both Vladyka [a term of endearment meaning "Bishop"] Artimije and Vladyka Theodosius two weeks ago at the dedication of the chapel of Sts. Cosmos and Damian in Zociste Monastery.
And thank you for bringing up Zociste Monastery; it was just in the news. From Belgrade’s Tanjug news agency (not linkable anymore, but this military blog linked my item on it):
Bishop of Raska and Prizren Artemije said on Tuesday that the Austrian contingent of Kfor had demanded Serbian flags be taken off the bell tower of Saints Kozmo and Damjan monastery in the village of Zociste near Orahovac, because local Albanians don’t want to see it…[Bishop Artemije] pointed out that no one is preventing ethnic Albanians from using the flag of another state in our state.”He said that Kfor members said ethnic Albanians threatened to attack the monastery, and pointed out that “it is Kfor’s job to protect the monastery, and not to meddle in the issue of the flag”…
“This is a message to expelled Serbs whose houses have allegedly been rebuilt in Zociste. This is a message not to return, because if such a violence is applied on monks, what can returnees hope for if they came to live in the same village with ethnic Albanians as neighbours,” Artemije said.
Some relevant background on the monastery, from the Serbian Blic daily:
Zociste Monastery was completely dynamited in 1999. However, three years ago the monastery elder, Father Petar (Ulemek), received the blessing of Bishop Artemije to begin rebuilding the holy shrine…Zociste Monastery is currently unique in Kosovo and Metohija in that it is the only restored and consecrated holy shrine out of the approximately 150 that have been destroyed (since) 1999.
And from the newspaper Danas:
After the deployment of the UN mission in Kosovo-Metohija, Zociste Monastery (dating back to the 12th century) was first plundered and then dynamited in September 1999; it was set on fire several times subsequently. On 14 July 2002, when the Eparchy of Raska and Prizren launched a drive at the monastery for "Restoring by Prayer Our Desecrated Holy Places," Serbs that attended the liturgy at the devastated monastery barely escaped with their lives from the attacking Albanians, although the German Kfor battalion was securing the monastery.
…[T]he local Albanians perceived as too swift a restoration of the monastery living quarters, as a result of which, in the middle of winter two years ago, the monks had to dismantle a newly built roof; they also had problems with the use of the church bells. Protosyngellos Petar, the prior of Zociste Monastery, explains for Danas that Kfor had first forbidden the monks to ring the church bells in order that their "daily use should not aggravate interethnic relations in the village." Last summer and only after the municipal authorities had given their consent and undertaken to prepare the local population beforehand, Kfor allowed the monastery to ring the bells twice a day--morning and evening.
Lt. Wikstrom/Friar Michael goes on:
Living in the past will not solve the issues folks. Only going forward from here. Yes there are problems, yes there have been mistakes, yes there is hatred and mistrust, but I do not see ANY of the things that Ms. Gorin has stated and I travel Kosovo extensively. I meet with Bp. ARTIMIJE and Bp. THEODOSIUS and many of the priest[s] here regularly and we work together to make life better for the Serbs as well as the Albanians. For some of you leaving your posts here, you may be surprised that many of the monasteries and churches here feed and clothe the Albanians and Romas as well as there [sic.] own.
No—we’d be surprised if Albanians were feeding and clothing Serbs.
[T]he rhetoric needs to be replaced by actions. Serbs need to return to Kosovo. Scaring them off by publishing reports, false reports that those left here face wholesale slaughter on a daily basis is not helping or encouraging them to return. If the idea is to get as many Serbs to return to Kosovo-Metohija then telling them they have a high probability of being murdered and that they will be forced to live in “concentration camps” is not going to do it. Am I wrong?
You’re not wrong, Lt. and indeed, as Ms. Fellenzer reported, “we have aided 74 Serbian Kosovars in their return into Srpski Babus, helping to provide infrastructure, food and CIMIC support.” But the question is, why am I a liar for reporting Serb Returnee Killed in Central Kosovo (June 2006):
A Serb returnee was found shot dead inside his house in a central Kosovo town Tuesday, police and Serb officials said. The 68 year-old Serb, identified as Dragan Popovic, was discovered by police after the officers received a report of a body found in a house in the town of Klina, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Kosovo's capital, Pristina, Kosovo's police said in a statement…He was last seen late Monday returning to his home from a shop. Nothing was touched in the house, the Serb officials said…Police have no suspects and have not yet established a motive for the apparent killing. Several Serbs have returned to Klina recently, after fleeing the aftermath of the province's 1998-1999…Separately, vandals damaged sixteen graveside monuments in the Serb village of Staro Gracko, 20 kilometers (12 miles) south of the province's capital, Pristina, police said.
And here’s me “living in the past”--this past September, to be exact:
An explosion in western Kosovo injured four Serbs late Tuesday, the fourth bombing in the last five days, police said. The blast occurred outside a home in the small town of Kline [Klina], about 60 kilometers (40 miles) west of the capital…Three other bombings in the province since Friday only damaged cars, with no reports of injuries…Today, only about 100,000 [Serbs] remain [in Kosovo], most living in small, isolated enclaves scattered around the province.
From Reuters:
Police said the victims were former refugees who had returned to Klina a year ago having fled Kosovo after the 1998-99 war...At least half the Serb population fled a wave of revenge attacks after the war, and those who stayed live mainly in isolated enclaves. U.N. officials say the rate of attacks against Serbs has fallen, but they fear fresh violence as a decision nears on Kosovo's "final status."
And here’s another Serb refugee return story that I’m a liar for telling readers about, because it’s “exceptional”:
After fleeing almost seven years ago, [Zoran] Stanisic, along with his mother, moved back to Pristina five months ago…“I’ve found both my business and living places broken in to…Since I am one of the few Serbs living in Pristina, it’s funny that this is the second time this month that someone has probably tried to send us a message.” …Stanisic said that he trusted the promises of the international community, the Kosovo Government and the Return Ministry, that the minimum conditions of normal living would be given to him, which encouraged him to return to Pristina.
“When winter came, we had nothing, so we were forced to temporarily get out of the way, and wait to see whether their promises would be fulfilled or not. It looks as if there is nothing for Serbs in this city, and Serbs are ordained to live in enclaves, concentration camps, and behind barbed wire.” …Until 1999, about 40,000 Serbs lived in Pristina. There are currently 150 living there now. Zoran Stanisic is now living in Gracanica, because, as he stated, he cannot live in his Pristina apartment.
More on all that freedom of movement Fellenzer assures us that Serbs have, from the former cop Leifels who served in Bosnia:
I visited a friend in Kosovo (Gracanica) last August…I took a bus from Novi Sad to Gracanica. I took a private bus run by Serbs as there are no public transports to that region from Serbia to the Serbian enclaves. When I crossed the border into the Albanian section I noticed a lot of new construction and new cars, etc. Everything was well lighted and the region appeared upbeat and in the process of new construction everywhere. Then all of a sudden everything got pitch black (it was nighttime). It was then that I realized I had entered Gracanica. None of the homes or buildings had electricity. My friends told me that it was like that in most or all of the Serbian enclaves. In addition there was no public transportation in or out of those areas. Miraculously the power came on in the morning and remained until I departed. My friend joked that it was because local intel heard an American was in town. We all laughed but then got serious. Was it paranoia or reality?
Note: Electricity cutoffs are a problem in some of the Albanian villages as well, but as this following item illustrates, Serb villages are generally not a priority in Balkan states/provinces where they are a minority: 70 villages in Bosnia, home to 15,000 Serb returnees, have reportedly been without electricity for several years.…
Back to Serbian freedom of movement, from Douglas Bandow’s June 2006 article, “Blind Eyes over Kosovo”:
Unfortunately, any Serb who travels outside of few remaining enclaves does so at his own risk. At the quasi-border dividing Serbia from Kosovo (which nominally remains part of Serbia), drivers routinely replace their Serbian license plates with ones marked Kosovo to disguise their identities. To do otherwise would risk not only their cars but their lives.
Even foreigners are at risk. Some British tourists recently were roughed up [fired upon, actually] and their car was destroyed because the vehicle had been rented in Belgrade. Had they been Serbian their lives probably would have been forfeited. More than 900 Serbs have been murdered since the allies took control and ethnic killings continue in the territory. But you will look long and hard to find an ethnic Albanian jailed for committing the crimes.
The Serbian paper Politika recently reported on Serb “resourcefulness” with regard to getting around these “bumps” in the road, plus a few other details:
…one resorts to special measures: one either switches license plates--Novi Pazar license plates are the best for the purpose--or rents a car with original Kosovo license plates for travelling deeper into Kosmet [Kosovo-Metohija]…Serbian convoys under escort and with "appropriate" license plates generally pass through without stopping. They are escorted mostly by people of Albanian origin, extremely polite and professional in what they do, so that their presence makes a traveller from Serbia feel much safer…
“Every American soldier I meet in Kosovo,” Father Culibrk related to me in May, “says the same thing: ‘We came here to protect Albanians. But after a week we realize it is Serbs who need protecting.” He says the same of the Spanish KFOR contingent and described how every new rotation of troops has to figure this out for itself in what is a constantly repeating process.
TROOPS “DEFECATING”…ON FELLOW TROOPS?
But don’t expect any of this reality, unseen by Fellenzer from the confines of Camp Bondsteel, to sink in. “This woman claims to be Republican,” Fellenzer wrote of me. “She claims to be conservative. And then she takes a large, steamy dump on the troops. It’s inexcusable!”
That's a delightful image. But did the troop I spoke with defecate on his fellow troops? What about the other two soldiers whom I quoted earlier as disagreeing with exactly one aspect of my Legion article (and for whom I provided evidence for my claim and didn’t hear back)? How about that military blogger posting about the bludgeoned septuagenarians, and his fellow troops who read his blog? How about James Jatras, who was brought up in a military family and served on the Senate Republican Policy Committee for 15 years and posted the soldier’s letters on the American Council for Kosovo site? Would he defecate on our troops and compromise their safety? And what about this police officer--is he about to defecate on the troops?:
I read the anonymous letter from the U.S. soldier. I came to the UN mission here as a police officer in aug 99 and stayed 1 year. I recently returned. There are many of us here who concur with his assessment. I had my own recent experience with a Jihadist here. They move freely here. I would be happy to share my story with you. But as the soldier, I most likely will have to remain anonymous.
And what about the former NATO officer, who wrote the following entry in the visitors’ book in the Patriarchate of Pec in May, 2006, as excerpted from Hiding Genocide in Kosovo:
Christians have abandoned God although God has never abandoned them. This holy place is an eternal testimony to the greatness of God. We internationals have a moral obligation towards this holy church in the midst of evil. Sufferings of Christians here is unbearable and unacceptable. We are committing here in Kosovo a crime against God and humanity.
Are all these people “stressed,” “angry,” or otherwise disturbed? And is Fellenzer going to hunt them all down? Because there are others who wanted to talk. These would be the others who, according to her, wanted to “endanger” themselves and their fellow troops. I don’t expect to hear from any of the 1,500 National Guard troops stationed in Kosovo at this point, thanks to the clampdown.
But people finish their rotations. They finish their service all together. And when they do, they’ll know where to find me. Or Scott Taylor. Or Sherrie Gossett. Or Cliff Kincaid. Or Chris Deliso. Or Gregory Copley. Or Mary Mostert. Or Joseph Farah. Or Don Feder. Or Andrew Bostom and Robert Spencer, who serve in an unpaid capacity on the advisory board of the American Council for Kosovo, with people as devious as Gorin.
As my soldier source weighs the possibility that for some bizarre, selfish “political,” “racist and bigoted” agenda, Julia Gorin manipulated him into contacting her and getting his story out, I’ll remember instead his words before he was ensnared: “We all REALLY appreciate what you're doing, and there are a lot more out there, not just the few who choose to contact you.”
At the same time, if the command in Kosovo is in fact clamping down, and soldiers are clamming up, why did I get the following invitation to chat from a Lt. Robert Lozzi, telling me I’ve got it all wrong:
were you ever in kosovo? or are you serbian? your article on kosovo was way off. i am an LT here and you are are completely misinformed about what goes on here. if youd like to really know ask me as well as a serbian and an albanian then write you article. [sic. throughout]
I guess the gag order doesn’t apply to those who give the right story.
About Fellenzer, Ms. Novko explained, “The problem is that most of us are very reluctant to slam American soldiers, because the bottom line is that it really isn't their fault. I think she's well aware of the protection the uniform gives her and is abusing it to peddle the official lies and attack those who are dismantling the myth.”
Indeed, contrary to the rosy picture painted by Ms. Fellenzer, UK Guardian writer Neil Clark in June quoted the Minority Rights Group that "nowhere is there such a level of fear for so many minorities that they will be harassed simply for who they are...nowhere else in Europe is at such a high risk of ethnic cleansing occurring in the near future--or even a risk of genocide."
The American Council for Kosovo website spells it out:
Intermittent reports continue of masked men setting up checkpoints, which in the late 1990s was the first indication of the launch of the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army’s terrorist campaign. In particularly ominous developments for potential regional destabilization...Serbian police broke up a Wahhabist cell in Sandzak, north of Kosovo. Since 1999, two-thirds of Kosovo's Christian Serbs have been terrorized from the province, and some 150 churches and monasteries destroyed or desecrated and replaced with hundreds of new mosques propagating the extremist Wahhabist version of Islam. Organized crime rackets, connected to the Albanian mafia's operations throughout Europe, and implicating the highest levels of the UN-supervised Albanian administration, traffic in drugs, weapons, and slaves--women and even children.
About all that stability Ms. Fellenzer has been keeping:
Situation in Kosovo "getting out of control" (July 2007)
UNMIK Chief Joakim Ruecker…said that the Kosovo status solution must be found in an optimal period of time, because…the situation can potentially spiral out of control," the daily writes. Koha Ditore cited one diplomat from a country to which the letter was sent, who said that Ruecker's letter was "a clear cry for help."
THE END GAME
Where is this all heading? Canadian journalist Scott Taylor--who was made to have his feet washed before interviewing an Albanian leader in Macedonia in 2001 (and at that time witnessed U.S. planes dropping off mortars outside the man’s house)--concluded in the June issue of Canadian military magazine Esprit de Corps:
The continual presence of NATO troops and the virtual isolation of the Serbian population from the Albanian majority has given Kosovo the outward appearance of relative stability. However, as the massive pogrom into the Serbian enclaves in March 2004 and the ongoing protests against the international community reveal, Kosovo remains a boiling pot of inter-ethnic hatred...While U.S. President George Bush is backing the Albanian Kosovo independence movement, this is more driven by the hard-pressed American military necessity to close the books on at least one conflict rather than on common sense.
... As the pogrom of [March] 2004 clearly illustrated, the Albanians have no intention of allowing the few remaining Serbs to reside peacefully in their Kosovo enclaves. Should George Bush get his wish and Kosovo becomes truly independent in the near future, the final Serbian residents will be wise to depart with the last of the NATO soldiers. If that transpires, then NATO’s intervention in 1999 to prevent ethnic cleansing will have resulted in the most thoroughly ethnically cleansed region in the entire world. A victory worth remembering.
Europe Prepares to Evacuate 40,000 Kosovo Serbs (April 2006):
Chair of the Serbian National Council for Central Kosovo Rada Trajkovic revealed that the WHO and UN Refugee Agency are preparing a project for the evacuation of 40,000 Serbs who are expected to leave Kosovo after it receives its independence. The project is in its final stage and crisis headquarters that will receive Serbs who would leave Kosovo are being set up, the Montenegrin newspaper Dan reads today.
Trajkovic expressed her regret that the World Health Organization participates in a project for moving Serbians from Kosovo. "I am waiting for an official reaction from Belgrade because instead of creating an environment to keep the Serbs in Kosovo there is a project that proposes [them] leaving it," Trajkovic noted. [UNHCR acknowledged the existence of the plan.]
Everything is in place for the following scenario, sketched out in a short missive from an analyst specializing in the region, who is currently there and asked to not be named:
Expect all of KosMet to be cleansed in a Kosovo Storm operation by November. Yanks and Muslims will say that their patience was overwhelmed by international intransigence about freedom, and that their European destiny couldn't wait. US and others will recognize [Kosovo’s status], then others will follow suit. Almost all Serb politicians have sold out, and are trying to save face, power and position by making statements about sovereignty, declare victory for Serbia, then deny collusion when KosMet, Bujanovac/Presevo, Sandzak/Raska, Western Macedonia, SE Montenegro, Republika Srpska, and Vojvodina either go up in flames, or in the case of the latter two, are simply bought off.
But Ms. Fellenzer doesn’t understand what independence will mean. In her comments section, she wrote:
Do you know what it's like getting phone calls from loved ones scared to death because they read Gorin's crap in the American Legion magazine? Many Soldiers here do. She screwed us for her political agenda. Told lies about us, in particular, that are not true....
I understand that everything feels quiet for now. Aside from the 2004 pogrom and the recent pro-independence protests that turned violent, things have been pretty pleasant for the command at Bondsteel. Things will stay pleasant as long as we continue doing Albanian bidding, which is official U.S. policy. But what happens if and when we stop falling in line, which--according to Fellenzer--we will do if Serbian lives are endangered as they were in the 2004 “warm-up” (which is what many Albanians call it)? Does Fellenzer really not understand what independence will bring on?
With regard to immediate physical danger: if Albanians get or declare independence, it’s bad news for the remaining non-Albanians. If Albanians don’t get independence, it’s bad news for everyone there. Such are the scenarios that our source soldier and others like him worry about. Fellenzer herself scoffs at the idea that U.S. soldiers would turn a blind eye (regardless of the command’s orders?). But if they don’t turn a blind eye, and return violence against Serbs with gunfire or interfere with the impending, final push of ethnic cleansing, what happens then? The answer is that the soldiers’ loved ones have cause to worry.
The following comment posted by “euro106” under a YouTube video is actually a typical one for Kosovo forums, and paints the picture better than Bondsteel flacks are willing to:
f--k you we will deestroy every serbian orthodox church in kosova. dont you wory in 3 years there wont be one orthodox church or any serbians in kosova. and after we get kosova than presheva valley is gona be next thats ours. ulcinj and other places in montenegro and half of macedonia. we gettin all the lands back that was taken from us in 1912 by western powers in london. [sic. throughout]
Fellenzer fails to understand that if we “luck out” and get the non-violent scenario, the soldiers may be either spectators to, or continuing facilitators of, the peaceful final stage of Kosovo’s ethnic cleansing, and Fellenzer will learn that her efforts to help returning Serb refugees were just symbolic formalities. In 1995, there was something called Operation Storm, by which 300,000 Serbs were violently cleansed from Croatia. An Albanian volunteer serving as a colonel in this cleansing campaign was Agim Ceku, the current so-called prime minister of Kosovo.
Of course, if you ask Fellenzer, 1995 was prehistory and therefore has no implications or applications for the future. (What makes you think bin Laden is after us? He hasn’t attacked us since 2001!) Those who ignore “history” are destined to repeat it.
Should that happen, this time Americans--especially those with loved ones in Kosovo--will be watching. Thanks to articles like mine. And should March 2004 be repeated, Americans for the first time will understand what’s going on in Kosovo, and instead of the foggy confusion they felt in 1999 or this past May with the Ft. Dix plot, they might finally call for an end to the U.S. policies which ultimately endanger our troops.
THANKFULLY, SOME SOLDIERS ARE BETTER THAN THEIR MISSIONS
It’s precisely because this flawed mission that our troops have been assigned to is endangering those troops that my soldier wanted to help let the country know. That his fellow soldier would silence him is a shame. Protect the mission at all costs, even America’s. Interestingly, on her blog, Fellenzer herself twice emphasizes that she won’t comment whether we’ve taken the right side. While feeling he's been assigned to a flawed mission, my source continues to do its dangerous work--not only to keep both Albanians and Serbs safe, but also to better see the coming dangers. It’s certainly hard to see it his way from inside the sanitized confines of Camp Bondsteel.
Fellenzer wrote that “there are a number of problems with sending these types of letters to people like Gorin.”
Who are "people like Gorin"? I’m virtually a lone voice calling attention to the disaster eight years in the making. To be unmoved by my description in American Thinker, which Fellenzer claims to have read and which details with meticulous documentation what I’ve gone through in trying to get this story out while she plays in the pastures with ethnically pure children--is cold. She then adds to the abuse I’ve taken for trying to break the story that no one--not journalists, not governments, not military, not artists, not Democrats, not Republicans--wants broken.
“Oh that’s a Julia Gorin piece--it’s propaganda.” I get that a lot, since I’ve been given a reputation for having some kind of ulterior motive. The “reputation” is based solely on the fact that I am the only non-Serb writer in America who isn’t letting up on this issue. It’s also based on a fact that is out of my control, namely that I’ve come to be loved by Serbs who, as Sherrie Gossett can attest, start to weep upon the extraordinary event of meeting an American who knows the truth, much less is willing to tell it.
I do ninety percent of this work without payment, since few publications will touch this subject. What “agenda” could I have when even a 25-page article doesn’t scratch the surface of the Serbs' horror? How am I “predatory” when I have yet to publish a third letter, based on my source’s request that I hold off? If I were a predator, I wouldn’t have double-checked about publicizing the armor issue, and those communications which he requested be off-limits would be in print. Nor did I press him about things he only hinted at but wasn’t ready to speak of.
“Julia Gorin shouldn’t be writing for anyone,” commented one poster on Fellenzer’s blog. Indeed, that’s been the whole idea. What is it about Kosovo that a single voice in the wilderness issuing a warning is one too many?
In her blogged press release, Fellenzer shared another PR story--about recently giving some Legion members the politicians’ tour of Kosovo. Like our politicians, rather than being given the destroyed-church and wire-surrounded-enclave tour of Kosovo, they got to see Camp Bondsteel:
During the third week of July, two members of American Legion Post 178 from Millerton, N.Y., arrived in Kosovo for a stay at Camp Bondsteel. Post Commander Lee Garay and post Treasurer Sid Byron came to Kosovo in order to work with the War Veterans Association to help develop an American Legion-style organization, and based on Ms. Gorin’s piece, they didn’t know what to expect.
“I’ve never had the opportunity, and I’m glad I could come to see first-hand what the military does [in Kosovo],” Garay says. “I was really impressed. First thing we did when we came out of the airport in Kosovo… we stopped and had a game of soccer with some kids.”
Garay knew very quickly what was exaggerated in the article Ms. Gorin wrote. “The stuff they put in the article… I haven’t seen that. I haven’t seen a Serb being shot every day while I’m here, and I haven’t seen any Soldiers running from any fight either.”
Can you believe it? He didn’t see anyone getting killed at Camp Bondsteel! The UNMIK author of Hiding Genocide in Kosovo explains:
The UN observation team representatives were brought to villages where return has been successful (if you would like to call the village of Brestovik near Pec a successful return, where Serbs do not even have freedom of movement), but not to villages where it has failed like Srpski Babush, Zhitinje and Leshtar....
Jesse Petrilla had told me the same about the guided tour that his friend, U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrbacher, R-CA, got of Kosovo, after which the congressman came back raving about the wonderful success of it all. But the press release gets even better. Fellenzer continued:
Everywhere we go, we see smiling faces of children and adults who come up to us and thank us for the job we are doing here.
One wonders how many of those smiling, grateful faces belong to Serbian children. Given these drawings on SerbBlog.com--a source Rush Limbaugh relied on in the days following the Ft. Dix news--it’s not likely.
If there is one place on earth where our heart-pounding patriotism doesn’t belong, it is Kosovo. And contrary to the accusations of “bigotry and racism” by Fellenzer and others, I don’t hate Albanians. I despise any ethnic supremacist. Unfortunately, too many Albanians are supremacists or support them. Doubly unfortunate is that this is whom my country has handed the region to.
If the province’s security organs aren’t able to protect Serbs today, under direct international control, how will they protect them when we reward the violence and threat of violence with independent state power? And what will be the incentive? If Fellenzer and Staggs can’t see this from their proximity to the situation, then perhaps they should take a few steps back, so they get more than the worm’s-eye view.
BUT THE SERBS DON’T HATE US YET, SO THERE’S NO PROBLEM
“Today,” the Fellenzer PR went on, “we work closely with the Serbian military to interdict criminal activity along the ABL [Administrative Boundary Line with Serbia]. How do I know this? Because my entire job consists of working with Serbian Soldiers, whom I like very much, who are professional and real and enjoy working with our Soldiers as well.”
What’s not to like? We defecate on them for eight years and they still don’t hate America. These are true Christians. As the retired police officer Bob Leifels wrote (the first two paragraphs in a letter to me and the latter two in a 2006 article):
When NATO…carpet bombed Serbia I was saddened beyond words. Is this what my grandfather and father fought for in the two World Wars? On September 11th…I thought Serbs would be full of “I told you so.” However, I spoke to a friend of mine who lives in Serbia named Slavica a few days later. She was very worried and concerned for my safety. I asked her why she was so concerned about America? She replied that “if they can do that to America then what will happen to the rest of us.” For once I was speechless.
It has been a mystery to me since Bosnia as to why our government is supposedly fighting a war against terror and on the other hand supporting the KLA, etc. to the point of violating International law and being the instigator and financial supporter of “ethnic cleansing”...
My ancestors fought in several wars to defending [sic] our American values and way of life. I devoted twenty years of service to upholding the rule of law, while trying to make a better and safer New York for all of its citizens. In recent years, however, American power has been misused, at radical variance from our values, employed to run Serbian families out of their homes by the hundreds of thousands. Almost everyday [sic], Serbs and non-Albanian Kosovars are dying at the hands of thugs protected by NATO and KFOR. In winter, the elderly die from an enforced lack of heating in Kosovo enclaves. Now that Kosovo appears headed for independence, the situation is only going to get worse.
Sixty years ago, my father fought against the Nazis, only for his son to witness the extermination of the Serbs - once America’s best Balkan ally in the fight against the Nazis. Now America is helping to ensure the ethnic cleansing of the Serbs, which means rewarding the still militant descendents of the very people who fought against America, on the side of fascism, committing untold atrocities in the process. The US and the EU are accomplishing something right now that even Hitler could not.
But this is what patriotism looks like in Kosovo--at least not questioning it does--according to Fellenzer and Staggs. They deny the brutal fate of Kosovo Christians. Fellenzer and Staggs are disappointed in me? I'm disappointed in the politicians who helped turn the free world’s hard-won values on their head in Kosovo, and in those attempting to muzzle anyone who will blow the whistle on their political agenda.
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For those readers whose hearts can take it, from yesterday a few paragraph excerpts from Hiding Genocide in Kosovo—a Crime against God and Humanity, just released by the American Council for Kosovo. (The book can be ordered here.)
ExileStreet
First appeared at Front Page Magazine
copyright
2007 Julia Gorin
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