Hostile Actions

The online edition of Albuquerque Journal ran a story today, almost entirely based on a New Mexico National Guard press release, that three Guard members are scheduled to receive Purple Hearts, "for injuries they received during hostile actions in Kosovo on Sept. 27, 2011."

What was it that happened in Kosovo on September 27 last year? Oh, yes: the Americans opened fire on unarmed Serb demonstrators, injuring several. I wrote about it then, and another blogger has helpfully collected a selection of video clips, stills and background information.

But to hear the ABQJ tell the story, "New Mexico troops helped prevent a Serbian mob from breaking through a border crossing and potentially killing a group of German soldiers on the NATO team, the Journal reported last December."

NATO's actual mission (from The Weight of Chains)

First of all, that was no "border crossing," but a checkpoint on the road between (the occupied Serbian province of) Kosovo and (the rest of) Serbia. Granted, the U.S. government believes that "Kosovia" is an independent state, and has tried to impose this belief on the rest of the world. But the very least a journalist could do is acknowledge that there is in fact a dispute. Secondly, the "Serbian mob" consisted of unarmed civilians. The German soldiers had body armor, rifles and tanks. Who was really a threat to whom? But since one can hardly have a story of heroism involving Our Boys ("New Mexico troops," to be precise) shooting at unarmed people whose land they are occupying, these inconvenient facts had to go.

At the time of the incident, KFOR claimed some of its troops were injured. They never offered any evidence for that, however - unlike the Serbs, who documented their injuries with photos and unedited video footage. But the ABQJ helpfully explained that the "The Purple Heart is awarded to members of the U.S. Armed Forces who are wounded by an instrument of war in the hands of the enemy and is specifically a combat decoration." (emphasis added)

There is no mention what the "instruments of war" allegedly used on the New Mexicans might have been. But note that the said instruments have to be wielded by "the enemy" in a combat situation. So by the NMNG's own admission, the Serbs of Kosovo are "the enemy" and NATO's "peacekeeping" mission is really a combat mission. Judging by KFOR's operational activities, the objective of that mission is to finalize the ethnic cleansing of Serbs begun in 1999, thus creating and securing a 100% Albanian "independent state of Kosovo."

Closing up the story, the ABQJ paraphrases a statement by former Guard commander, Maj. Gen. Montoya, who reportedly said that New Mexicans' handling of the situation was praised by U.S. "military leaders around the world" (?!) for "potentially stopping a new Kosovo war by managing conflict situations without lethal force."

Whoa. First we had the deliberate shooting of unarmed civilians re-told as Saving Gefreiter Gruber, and now it has morphed into "potentially stopping a new Kosovo war"? I used to wonder how the U.S. government and military could make embarrassingly stupid decisions; now that I know how divorced they are from objective reality, I wonder no more.

Final question: if live ammunition isn't "lethal force," General Montoya, what, pray tell, is? Unarmed Serbs, perhaps?

Footnote

From a regular reader:

"If New Mexico troops have now been granted Purple Hearts for routine crowd control duties, isn't it that much more imperative that NATO military authorities track down the identity of, and award the highest existing medals for bravery to, those daring NATO pilots who, dropping cluster bombs from a high altitude, risked their lives in a daring confrontation with enemy troops who would pass by the area unarmed thirteen years in the future?  Never have so many owed so much to so few."