Donald Trump should un-recognize 'Kosovo'

 (Originally published March 24, 2019, on Rt.com)

Here is one simple trick US President Donald Trump could pull right now to bolster the rules-based world order, decisively derail Russian criticism of US foreign policy, and stick it to his domestic critics in the process.

All Trump has to do is withdraw the US recognition of ‘Kosovo’, the fake state established as a result of an illegal occupation, following a war that began exactly 20 years ago.

Confused? Unaware? Let me explain. Claiming the government of what was then Yugoslavia was conducting a genocidal campaign against ethnic Albanians in its province of Kosovo (it wasn’t), President Bill Clinton launched what would become a 78-day NATO air campaign to “end human rights abuses” there. What it actually did was displace hundreds of thousands of people – including ethnic Albanians, who even got bombed by NATO on occasion – and turn the province into a NATO protectorate. In 2008, the “Kosovians” declared independence, and have been recognized by around half the UN since then. The other half includes Russia, China, India and – thus far, anyway – Serbia.

But wait, why un-recognize it, then? Wouldn’t that be siding with “adversaries”? Proof of “collusion” with the Kremlin? In a word, no. Correcting this historic mistake would actually disarm the critics of Washington, who currently – and rightly so – point out the US hypocrisy, double standards and selective reasoning.

(Wrong) Message to Russia

In the minds of the architects of the 1999 war, Serbia and Yugoslavia served as a proxy for Russia, a way to send a message to Moscow that “resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform” would not be tolerated by the West. That, by the way, was the argument laid out by John Norris, former aide to the State Department’s topmost Russia hand Strobe Talbott, in a 2005 book, complete with the quote from its preface.

Russia got the message all right: that the West was a duplicitous enemy that could not be trusted. Russian disillusionment with the West can be traced to 1999, and the anger at their government’s surrender to NATO in Yugoslavia, at least to some extent, paved the way for Yeltsin’s surprise resignation and the takeover by one Vladimir Putin.

Putin actually brings up 1999 and Yugoslavia almost every time when he talks about the West, using it as an example of arbitrary and lawless behavior by the US even as Washington talks the talk about the “rules-based world order” supposedly threatened by Russia and China. Speaking of which, Beijing is also nursing a grudge from that war, because its embassy in Belgrade was destroyed by a NATO strike in May 1999. By “mistake,” supposedly.

Fast-forward to 2014, when Crimea rebelled against a US-backed government in Kiev and voted to rejoin Russia. When the US howled in protest, Putin merely said that people who seized Kosovo from Serbia in an illegal war had no leg to stand on:

“It’s beyond double standards. It’s a kind of baffling, primitive and blatant cynicism. One can’t just twist things to fit his interests, to call something white on one day and black on the next one.”

In response, President Barack Obama invented a referendum in Kosovo to justify US actions. Eagle-eyed fact-checkers in the Western media gave him a pass. Don’t you hate when that happens?

Snubbing the Clintons

But wait, there’s more. Back in 2009, Bill Clinton personally unveiled a gilded statue to himself on the central square of the “Kosovian” capital. Three years later, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called independence of Kosovo a “personal” issue to her and her family. A city in Albania actually erected a monument to her in 2016, anticipating her presidential triumph. Emoluments much, anyone?

Senator Bernie Sanders supported the ‘99 war too, prompting one of his senior staffers to resign in protest. Former senator and VP Joe Biden was also a big Kosovo War backer. Meanwhile, Trump was actually critical of the war, if his 1999 interview to Larry King is anything to go by. He hasn’t said much about it since, though.

These days, when Trump talks about “sovereignty” and denounces globalism, Russia responds that maybe the US should respect the sovereignty of others – and brings up Kosovo. Awkward. 

Meanwhile, both liberal and conservative think-tanks in Washington constantly fret over “Russian malign influence” in the Balkans – specifically Serbia – which always amounts to Moscow simply voicing support for UNSCR 1244 and Serbia’s claim to Kosovo. Frustrating!

Values and principles

Critics of the Trump administration, who accuse him of failing to uphold American values abroad, would have to admit it’s virtuous to stop propping up a place that engages in “endemic government corruption; crimes involving violence or threats of violence against journalists; and attacks against members of ethnic minorities or other marginalized communities” per the State Department’s most recent human rights report.

With all that in mind, it becomes obvious that un-recognizing Kosovo would make US foreign policy great again. In one simple step, Trump can demolish Russia’s argument that Washington is cynically applying double standards, and show that no, the US does believe in rules – “and how about that Crimea now, Putin?”

Postscript: 

When I wrote this, five years ago, I accurately predicted such a development was not actually going to happen, because Trump had “turned over foreign policy to warmongers interested only in perpetuating the American Empire the Clintons established in the 1990s by any means necessary.”

But it's a new day. With new opportunities. 

The East Still Remembers

1999 - 2022

Evil then, evil now.

Unforgotten.

Unforgiven.

The East Remembers.

Ignore the lessons of Yugoslavia at your peril

or, why 'Balkanization' isn't what you think and "retreat to hold" strategy is doomed to fail

On this day, 30 years ago, Slovenia and Croatia declared independence and the slow and violent death of Yugoslavia officially began. My American readers may not care about this quaint historical fact, except they should. As someone who lived through the demise of Yugoslavia, it's my duty to warn them there are entirely too many similarities between what happened there and what's afflicting their own country right about now. 

Yugoslavia, too, believed in diversity as strength (called "brotherhood and unity") and "equity" (equality of outcomes, achieved by elevating some and denigrating others). There, too, everyone was equal - but the ruling politicians were more equal than others. There, too, inflation and national debt were spiraling out of control.

The political system was a version of Communism adapted by Dear Leader Josip Broz Tito, who was 11 years dead by that point. The country was divided into six "republics" - and one of them was subdivided further , with two provinces carved out - and ruled by a Presidency, a council of eight. Things were already falling apart, but once Germany reunited and Communism failed across eastern Europe, all of a sudden ethnic nationalism flared up.

What I'm going to say next will probably go against what you've read in the news, seen on CNN or learned from "history" books. I don't care. I know what happened because I was there. My goal isn't to relitigate whose cause in Yugoslavia was just (the rest of this blog speaks to that) but to address the argument of some Americans along the lines of "Balkanization is the way! Get out of cities, move to the countryside, form communities with like-minded people, build our own society there, etc." Because I don't think that will work. Let me explain why. 

In June 1991, the republics of Slovenia and Croatia moved to secede. The Yugoslav presidency was deadlocked on how to react, with one of the key votes being the representative of Bosnia-Herzegovina, a weak-willed Serb whose mysterious and murky elevation to that position over a better qualified candidate suddenly became clear. In the power vacuum, the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) - where Marxist indoctrination trumped warfighting ability - decided to send a small, lightly armed force of fresh conscripts to "restore constitutional order" on the border between Slovenia and Austria. Due to their rules of engagement, they were ambushed and massacred by Slovenian militia.

At this point, the political leader of Serbia (Slobodan Milosevic) makes the biggest strategic mistake: he decides to let Slovenia go. On a moral level, that may have been the correct choice, as keeping the Slovenes in Yugoslavia by force seemed wrong. Yet by doing so, Yugoslavia's sovereignty and survival were effectively forfeit.

Yugoslav military intelligence actually managed to infiltrate the Croatian government and secretly film them buying weapons from Germany and preparing for war. The footage was aired on national television. But instead of sending a force to occupy Zagreb, arrest those involved as traitors and crush the rebellion in its infancy, Belgrade did... nothing.

When Croatia seceded, it was the local Serbs - who made up a majority on about a third of its territory, and had suffered a genocide during WW2 when Croatia was an ally of Nazi Germany - rose up and counter-seceded. This was not done on orders from Belgrade, and the Republic of Serbian Krajina (RSK) was never under Belgrade's direct command and control. This will prove important - and fatal - later on.

At this point, it's important to note that Croatia was not fighting a "war for independence," as Zagreb claimed. The Croats' right to secede from Yugoslavia was obviously not contested - not by the disintegrating federal government, not by Milosevic, not even by the local Serbs. While doing that might have given them the upper hand from the standpoint of international law, instead they chose to dispute only the amount of territory Croatia could claim as its own. Naturally, the Croats seized the vacated high ground and claimed they were victims of "Yugo-Serbian aggression."

The JNA actually got dragged into the conflict when Croat militias attacked their garrisons. When the JNA defended itself - de facto siding with local Serbs - the cries of "aggression" redoubled. The final ceasefire line, negotiated by the UN in late 1991, saw the Army and the Serbs in control of territories that mostly had a Serb majority.

By then, however, the Badinter commission - a bunch of European lawyers that appointed itself the arbiter of Yugoslavia's fate - had decided that the country was "in dissolution." Though the Yugoslav constitution said its PEOPLE had the right to self-determination, the commission said no, it was was the REPUBLICS, not people, and their borders were to be considered international ones.

In practice, this meant that the Serbs went from the legal and moral high ground (maintaining Yugoslavia as their homeland) to being minorities in Croatia and Bosnia - where its Muslim and Croat communities sought independence - and outlaws if they resisted. At the stroke of a foreign pen.

The Serbs in Bosnia agreed to independence (see the pattern?) but sought a power-sharing agreement by which the new country would be partitioned into ethnic cantons - like Switzerland - that would guarantee their rights. Croats agreed. Muslims, backed by the US, reneged on the deal after it had already been signed.

So what did the Serbs do? Instead of declaring the Muslim-dominated government illegitimate and its referendum illegal, they pulled back and basically abandoned several cities - most notably, the capital of Sarajevo. Their strategy was to stake out the territory where they were the majority and declared the Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina (SRBiH, later known as Republika Srpska, RS). The idea was to leverage their military power to negotiate a political deal.

Belgrade had already implicitly recognized Bosnia's separation (again, perhaps the moral thing to do, but a strategic mistake), declaring the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, made up of Serbia and Montenegro. It didn't matter - foreign powers refused to recognize it as Yugoslavia's successor, and blamed Belgrade for "aggression" against Bosnia (!).

At this point, Muslims and Croats made a major tactical mistake: they attacked the JNA, which had been recalled and was retreating towards the FRY. Their officers later said this was in an attempt to capture the JNA's heavy weapons. In that, they mostly failed - but they radicalized the Serbs officers, NCOs and enlisted who might have otherwise stayed neutral to enlist in the Bosnian Serb military (VRS). One of those officers was Gen. Ratko Mladic, who took command from the ineffective JNA generals and proceeded to made quick work of Muslim commanders over the next three years. So it's not as if the Serbs were the only ones to make mistakes here.

As a consequence of Serbs giving up the moral and legal high ground, however, their situation was grim. Yugoslavia, built on some two million Serb lives over the two world wars, was gone. In less than a year, from June 1991 to May 1992, some two million Serbs went from being equal citizens of their own nation-state to being outlaws in their own homes. Their own RS and RSK were considered rogue states, while the separatists in Croatia and the Muslim government of Bosnia were internationally recognized as legitimate! That whole "let them go and hold our own in the countryside" worked out so well, didn't it?

It gets worse. By 1993, the US and NATO are openly involved, aiding Croatia and the Bosnian Muslims. Washington stops a war between Croats and Muslims - who had fallen out over territory - and forges them into an anti-Serb alliance. That's another example of their strategic error, as they thought it temporary but it's ended up poisoning their relations ever since. But for the US purposes, it worked perfectly.

UN peacekeepers were swept aside in May 1995, by US-trained Croatian troops, who overwhelmed the RSK enclave of Western Slavonia ("Operation Flash"). Then, in August, Croats launch a blitzkrieg against the rest of RSK. Neither the UN nor Yugoslavia lift a finger; it is said that Milosevic was either angry the RSK leadership was disobeying him, or was trying to disavow them to protect FRY proper. As we'll see later, it didn't work. With the RSK wiped out, the Croat troops move into Bosnia, while NATO launches airstrikes against the RS.

What happens then is an anomaly. The US sidelines the RS leadership by charging them with war crimes, so Milosevic would have to negotiate on behalf of all Serbs - thus validating the Narrative about the wars being "Serbian aggression." Yet by some miracle (if you read my review of Richard Holbrooke's memoir, you'll understand) he somehow manages to negotiate the Dayton Peace Agreement. The Muslims ended up being the reluctant ones in Dayton. They believed they could hold out and achieve "final victory" - i.e. destruction and expulsion of Serbs like in RSK - but the Clinton administration needed a peace deal right then and there, so it pressured them to sign.

Dayton pulled a partial victory from the jaws of defeat. While the RS leadership was angry that Milosevic gave up "too much" territory - including all of Sarajevo - they eventually realized that Dayton gave them recognition as a legitimate political entity within Bosnia.

Meanwhile, the RSK was a total loss. Even the eastern region bordering with FRY was eventually handed over to Zagreb, "reintegrated" into Croatia. Two thirds of the Serbs living there pre-war had been expelled, and any who thought of returning - mostly the very old - harassed and abused.

Being a "key factor of peace" in Dayton didn't save Milosevic, though. In March 1999, the US launches an attack on Serbia itself and occupies Kosovo, on behalf of ethnic Albanian separatists there. Because suddenly the Badinter opinion is irrelevant and the law is whatever NATO says it is.

The Serbs complain this is unfair and point to a UN resolution (1244) that says Kosovo is part of Yugoslavia. So the Americans organize a "color revolution" in Belgrade in October 2000, get rid of Milosevic, and have him put on trial for war crimes - where he dies under mysterious circumstances, without a verdict, in March 2006. Two months after his death, the US-backed regime in Montenegro rigs the independence referendum and the last vestige of Yugoslavia is officially abolished.

Macedonia (aka FYROM, now North Macedonia) got some UN peacekeepers in 1992 out of fear of "Serbian invasion" that never materialized. Instead, its service to the West was repaid by forcing it to federalize in 2001, after US-backed Albanian separatists claimed a third of its territory. Again, some rebellions are more legitimate than others. Might makes right, etc.

While the sordid history of Yugoslavia's demise is an object lesson in the perils of making deals with foreign empires to fight your wars - only to realize that you were used to fight theirs, and to hell with your goals - that's cold comfort to the Serbs, or the point I set out to make about the merits of the "retreat and Balkanize" strategy.

Remember, at no point did it occur to anyone in the Serb leadership to deny Slovenes, Croats, Bosnian Muslims or "Macedonians" their independence (Albanians were different; they had a nation-state next door, and were trying to claim historic Serbian lands). The prevailing thinking every step of the way was "we'll retreat and regroup and try to preserve our own and maybe they'll leave us alone, and if they don't we'll fight until they do."

How did that Grand Strategy work out? Objectively speaking, overwhelmingly poorly. Dayton was an outlier, obviously. And even Dayton didn't really end the war, but only its kinetic dimension. Since then, the Muslims have endeavored to dismantle the RS and create a centralized state by means ranging from lawfare and leveraging foreign support to tactical demographics (targeted resettling of internally displaced people) and even a rigged census.

Croats and Albanians did not stop until they claimed all the territory they could, and expelled or killed all the Serbs living there that could be a "disrupting factor." As I just described, the Bosnian Muslims are still working on it. The "let them go we'll protect the Serbs' minority rights" backfired spectacularly in Montenegro as well, where the NATO-backed regime embarked on a campaign of aggressive nation-building and historical revisionism intended to turn the once-proudest part of Serbdom into a new group identity that's rabidly anti-Serb.

THIS is why I am skeptical of Americans who believe some kind of peaceful separation and Balkanization of their own country is, or may, be possible. Once you cede legitimacy to the other side, especially an enemy that has no intent or incentive to leave you alone - but seeks to either subjugate or eliminate you outright - you lose the war even before the first bullet is fired.

Believe me. I was there.

Kosovo: Still an Evil Little War

March 24, 1999 is a date that rightly lives in infamy. On that day, NATO launched an unprovoked war of naked aggression, violating its own charter and international law, while claiming to be on a "humanitarian" mission.

For 78 days, the outnumbered and outgunned Yugoslavia (which would later be split into Serbia and Montenegro) resisted, turning back ground attacks from Albania, capturing a trio of US soldiers, and even shooting down a F-117 "stealth" bomber. In the end, abandoned by all and threatened with carpet bombing, the government in Belgrade accepted a compromise armistice - which NATO immediately tore up, letting the Albanian separatists terrorize the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo.

Thousands died in the war. Tens of thousands have died since, from cancers caused by depleted uranium dust. Most non-Albanians were ethnically cleansed from Kosovo, and the province turned over to warlords and organized crime. In 2008, the province illegally declared independence, which is not yet recognized by the UN.

Thanks to the shameless propaganda and spin, the Kosovo War is considered by most American politicians to be a great success and even a shining example of virtue in the "liberal world order" the US is upholding through its military might. Only one candidate in the 2016 election dared disagree with that conventional wisdom even a little; once elected, he ended up sticking with the inertia of US policy, delivering a pointless "normalization agreement" that did something Israel, a bit for the "personal project" of the Clintons, and nothing at all for the US. He was then replaced by an establishment warmonger.

 

Since the war, Serbia has served as the test bed for the first "color revolution" (October 5, 2000) and turned into a failed state ruled by a succession of servile slugs, each worse than the one before. The Atlantic Empire continued to enable Albanian aggression, in hopes of rekindling its romance with dar-al-Islam even as it bombed and invaded Iraq, Libya and Syria and fomented revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere that claimed even more Muslim lives.

Yet the Kosovo War served as a wake-up call for Russia, which had until then lionized the West even as it was being robbed blind and buried alive by Western "democratizers" and their domestic helpers. Within six months of NATO's land grab, Vladimir Putin was at the helm in the Kremlin. The rest, as they say, is history.

🔻#OTD in 1⃣9⃣9⃣9⃣ @NATO started bombing #Yugoslavia. For the first time since #WWII an aggression was committed against a sovereign European nation, an active participant in the anti-Hitler coalition, one of the @UN founders.
🔻https://t.co/EZqgWPmryq pic.twitter.com/fdPjy0eFz6

— Russian Embassy in USA 🇷🇺 (@RusEmbUSA) March 24, 2021

It is tempting to declare the saga of Kosovo over, 21 years after the war, as the quisling regime in Belgrade is busily recognizing the Albanian land grab. But the Atlantic Empire wouldn't be the first to write the Serbs off and declare them conquered and beaten, only to see them rise again. 

Next year in Prizren. The East Remembers.

(If this sounds familiar, it's because you may have read an earlier version here)

Kosovo is Serbia

March 24 will mark the 21st anniversary of NATO’s occupation of Serbia’s Kosovo province, and so we reaffirm: Kosovo is Serbia. Serbia does not and will not ever recognize Kosovo’s claims of sovereignty. We call on NATO to end its occupation of Kosovo.

NATO’s occupation of Kosovo and its increasing militarization of the province is a threat to the world’s common security. Albanian occupation authorities continue their assault on human rights and fundamental freedoms, brutally silencing critics in civil society and the media, and curtailing religious freedom. Hundreds of individuals from Kosovo, including members of the Serb community, have been imprisoned by NATO-backed ethnic Albanian authorities – and some subjected to torture – for peaceful opposition to the occupation.

Members of the Serb community continue to experience unjustified raids on their homes and churches, surveillance and intimidation by occupation authorities, restrictions on cultural events, and the criminalization of their representatives. Occupation authorities severely limit religious freedom, target religious believers with bogus terrorism charges, and destroy Orthodox Church shrines. Serbia calls on the United States to free all Serbs wrongfully imprisoned in Kosovo in retaliation for their peaceful dissent and to end Albanian abuses of fundamental freedoms in Kosovo.

Twenty one years on, the US and NATO continue to rely on lies and disinformation in their failed attempt to legitimize the illegitimate. Their efforts are doomed to failure. The world will never forget NATO’s unprovoked invasion of Serbia. We condemn NATO’s illegal actions in Kosovo and its continued aggressive actions against Serbia, and will maintain sanctions against the US until NATO returns control of Kosovo to Serbia and fully implements its commitments under UN Security Council Resolution 1244.

(Inspired by this. Only the names were changed. See if you can spot the raging hypocrisy.)

'Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal'

Since at least 1945, the US has treated people around the world like pawns on the grand chessboard (as Darth Zbigniew titled his magnum opus). Yet time and again, I see leaders and entire nations convince themselves that this time it will be different.

EU summit to discuss #Turkey sanctions next week – Paris

STORY: https://t.co/77Mph1vsCY
VIDEO: Civilians in northeastern #Syria flee Turkish #OperationPeaceSpring pic.twitter.com/Zs6BoK7DLc

— RT (@RT_com) October 11, 2019

That this time, they will get Washington to fight and win their wars for them, and then have their backs forever, because freedom and democracy and human rights, or whatever. That they are different, better, more deserving.

It may even seem like that's happening, for a while - a year, or four, or ten, or even twenty. But it never lasts. It can't. And each and every time, they curse Washington's sudden but inevitable betrayal, wondering why they had to suffer the sad fate of a used and discarded tool - not realizing that's exactly what they were to Washington, even as they thought it was the other way around.

Time and again, this happens. Because leaders and entire nations refuse to learn the simple truth that Empires have no friends, partners or allies - only vassals and victims. 

Some recent writings

Just because I've neglected posting here for a while doesn't mean I haven't been busy at work. We live in interesting times, after all.

Of the things I'd like to point out here, I've written on the drumbeat of war with Iran, and the possibility Justin Raimondo's theory is correct and all this inept imperialism is a feature, not a bug.

I have also touched on the finale of 'Game of Thrones' and the very real lesson about the power of narratives, however poorly it was communicated in the show.

Closer to home, I touched on the embarrassing idolatry of "Kosovarianians" for their imperial overlords, and the self-serving lies they continue to tell to justify their crime.

I've also touched on the Culture War currently affecting the Empire itself, an ongoing conflict between the mainstream media and Big Tech, and the dissidents caught in the crossfire.

So if you're still hanging around these parts, give these a read. I promise I'll write more soon. 

'Kosovo' at 10: Still wards of Washington

When they declared "independence" ten years ago, the KLA terrorists no doubt it was a transit stop on their 130-journey towards "Natural Albania." They had forgotten the crucial characteristic of the Atlantic Empire: any deals with it are Faustian in nature.

Ten years later, "Kosovian" independence is stalled, the promised prosperity is nowhere to be found, and instead of supporting Albanian expansionism the Empire is setting up special courts to keep KLA chiefs under control. Nor are "Kosovians" the first or only ones to have their hopes so dashed - but that's another topic, for another time.

Read more in my latest at RT.com:

#Kosovo: A decade of dependence (Op-Ed by @NebojsaMalic) https://t.co/ae25oTB3DR pic.twitter.com/sEJzwkrS6s

— RT (@RT_com) February 17, 2018

Vucic might be setting up Putin to take the fall on Kosovo

"Once bitten, twice shy" goes the old saying, and Serbs have been bitten a few more times besides. While the Empire is renewing interest in "finishing the job" in the Balkans, Russia is relying on Empire-made Aleksandar Vucic to be the patriot. What could go wrong?

While Moscow treats President Vucic as a credible partner, he reportedly said he was “satisfied” with the Atlantic Council’s proposals and wished they would become official US policy. Having previously conducted an “internal dialogue” with himself on the topic of surrendering the Serbian claim to Kosovo ‒ in the pages of Western-owned newspapers, no less ‒ he now says he’d be happy to hand the issue over to Russia for mediation.

Read the rest in my latest piece on RT. God help us all.

Kosovo: An Evil Little War Turns 18

March 24, 1999 ought to be a date that will live in infamy. On that day, NATO launched an unprovoked war of naked aggression, violating its own charter and international law, while claiming to be on a "humanitarian" mission.

For 78 days, the outnumbered and outgunned Yugoslavia (which would later be split into Serbia and Montenegro) resisted, turning back ground attacks from Albania, capturing a trio of US soldiers, and even shooting down a F-117 "stealth" bomber. In the end, abandoned by all and threatened with carpet bombing, the government in Belgrade accepted a compromise armistice - which NATO immediately tore up, letting the Albanian separatists terrorize the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo.

Thousands died in the war, and tens of thousands have died since from cancers caused by depleted uranium dust. Most non-Albanians were ethnically cleansed from Kosovo, and the province turned over to warlords and organized crime. In 2008, the province illegally declared independence, which is not yet recognized by the UN.

Thanks to the shameless propaganda and spin, the Kosovo War is considered by most American politicians to be a great success and even a shining example of virtue in the "liberal world order" the US is upholding through its military might. Only one candidate in the 2016 election dared disagree with that conventional wisdom even a little - and though he ended up getting elected, hasn't signaled any willingness to break with the inertia of US policy, either.

Serbia has since served as the test bed for the first "color revolution," and turned into a failed state ruled by a succession of servile slugs, each worse than the one before. The Atlantic Empire continued to enable Albanian aggression, in hopes of rekindling its romance with dar-al-Islam even as it bombed and invaded Iraq, Libya and Syria and fomented revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere that claimed even more Muslim lives.

That war, however, served as a wake-up call for Russia, which had until then lionized the West even as it was being robbed blind and buried alive. Within six months of NATO's land grab, Vladimir Putin was at the helm in the Kremlin. The rest, as they say, is history.

It is tempting to declare the saga of Kosovo over, 18 years after the war and as the quisling regime in Belgrade is busily recognizing the Albanian land grab. But the Atlantic Empire wouldn't be the first to write the Serbs off and declare them conquered and beaten, only to see them rise again... NATO1999

Five facts about Kosovo the #fakenews media is lying to you about

1. Kosovo is not ancient Albanian land. 

Its very name comes from the Serbian word "kos," meaning blackbird. Its Albanian name, "Kosova," means nothing whatsoever.

Kosovo was the heartland of medieval Serbian state and the site of the 1389 battle in which both the Serbian prince and the Ottoman sultan died, checking the Turkish expansion into the Balkans for almost 70 years. Ethnic Albanians were settled there by the Ottomans over the intervening centuries, and became a majority due to pogroms and persecution of Serbs - which began under Ottoman rule but continued under Austro-Hungarian occupation in WWI and German/Italian occupation in WWII.

Kosovo was never a political entity of any kind until 1945, when the Communist regime that reconstructed Yugoslavia after Axis occupation (with which Albanians overwhelmingly collaborated) created the "Autonomous Region of Kosovo & Metohija" - the latter being a Greek word describing church lands.

The Communists also forbid any Serbs expelled in WW2 to return to Kosovo, cementing its ethnic Albanian majority, which further grew through an influx of illegal immigrants from Enver Hoxha's Albania and the ethnic cleansing of non-Albanians since the NATO occupation began in 1999.

Aftermath of the March 2004 pogrom: burned-out Serbian church with "UCK" (KLA) graffitti

2. Operation Allied Force, the 1999 NATO bombing campaign, was not a legitimate humanitarian intervention approved by the UN.

It was a war of aggression, in violation of both the NATO and the UN charter. Contrary to what the mainstream Narrative says today, NATO's justification for the war was not Serbian "human rights violations" against the Albanians. No, the bombing began as a way to force Serbia to accept the ultimatum issued at the French chateau of Rambouillet, in which NATO demanded a 3-year occupation of the province and a NATO-organized referendum that would give the ethnic Albanians independence.

It was at Rambouillet that the US negotiated on behalf of the "Kosovo Liberation Army," a separatist group it had previously acknowledged as terrorists. As part of its terrorist campaign to separate Kosovo from Serbia, the KLA has engaged in murder, assassination, extortion, torture, and trafficking in drugs, guns, sex slaves and even human organs.

KLA commander Ramush Haradinaj was greeted as a hero after a NATO-backed war crimes court acquitted him of torturing Serb captives. Haradinaj was provisionally released, and witnesses against him were intimidated and killed.

3. Serbia did not kill 10,000 ethnic Albanian civilians during the 1999 war.

That figure is an estimate based on assertions by NATO, entirely unsupported by any facts whatsoever - same as the "up to 100,000 men" speculated by NATO propagandists during the war itself. Western media continue to repeat it the same way they repeated the claim of 300,000 dead in Bosnia, which was later revised down to under 100,000.

4. There was no Serbian plan to deport a million ethnic Albanians.

The so-called "Operation Horseshoe" was concocted by German and Bulgarian intelligence to provide justification for the illegal and illegitimate NATO war (see #2 above), to the point where they used the Croatian word for horseshoe. While there was a mass exodus of Albanians towards Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro (odd, since it was part of Yugoslavia same as Serbia), some evidence suggests that may have been orchestrated by NATO and the KLA.

5. Kosovo's "independence" is neither legal nor legitimate. 

UN Resolution 1244, which authorized a NATO-led peacekeeping mission after the June 1999 armistice, reaffirmed Kosovo's status as a part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Legally, it remained a province of Serbia, whose integrity was sacrosanct on the same grounds as Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia (and later Montenegro) were recognized in their Communist-drawn borders when the proto-European Union and the US decided to declare Yugoslavia nonexistent in 1992.

In February 2008, the provisional administration of Kosovo set up under the UN viceroy and NATO occupation, declared independence - based on a plan rejected by the UN Security Council, the final arbiter of Resolution 1244.

The International Court of Justice later tortured logic and language to rule that international law didn't say anything about random people making such declarations - but these were not random people. Their very legitimacy rested on the UN mandate, which their declaration violated.

President Barack Obama lied in March 2014 that there was internationally recognized and supervised referendum on the issue; there wasn't. No mainstream media outlet ever called him on it, though.

But they put up a monument to Hillary, so it's OK

Remember the Islamic State "kill list" of some 1,300 US government employees - with their credit card records and Social Security numbers obtained by hackers some months ago? No?

While the DNC and its satellite press were in throes of hysteria about "Russian" hackers (based on the completely unproven assertion of a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, naturally), it emerged that the hacker who obtained the list was one "Ardit Ferizi, an ethnic Albanian who was raised in Kosovo."

Now, forgive me for bringing this up nine days after McClatchy named Ferizi, but I was in Cleveland and then in Philadelphia, reporting from the coronations - erm, conventions - of both major parties. While in Philly, I heard no mention of this hack, or who was behind it - or "Kosovia" for that matter - from Hillary Clinton's camp.

I mean, why would I? Albanians are a great shining example that "America is great because America is good," according to the Clintonites, who persevere in the lie that Hillary inspired Bill to intervene against the (nonexistent) Serbian "aggression and genocide" in 1999. And look, the grateful Albanians have erected a gilded statue of Bill in the "Kosovian" capital, and just recently a bust of Hillary in an Albanian seaside resort. Completely unrelated to the prospect of her becoming the Empress, of course.

Even the New York Times (perpetually shilling for Empire) can no longer pretend that "Kosovia" is not an ISIS hotbed - though they throw Saudi Arabia under the proverbial bus for that, because Social Justice forbid they blame the Clintons. But the mainstream media that either made up or justified ever single vicious lie about the Kosovo War will never allow you to add the two and two. You hear hacking, you're not supposed to think "Kosovians" and ISIS and gross carelessness or criminal negligence - no, you're supposed to scream "RUSSIANS," just like the DNC-coached media operatives.

I mean, who are you going to believe, your own lying eyes or CNN?

Kosovo: An Evil Little War

Still wrong, 17 years later

(This article originally appeared March 25, 2005 on Antiwar.com)

Belgrade, 1999

In the early hours of March 24, 1999, NATO began the bombing of what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. For some reason, many in the targeted nation thought the name of the operation was "Merciful Angel." In fact, the attack was code-named "Allied Force" – a cold, uninspired and perfectly descriptive moniker. For, however much NATO spokesmen and the cheerleading press spun, lied, and fabricated to show otherwise (unfortunately, with altogether too much success), there was nothing noble in NATO’s aims. It attacked Yugoslavia for the same reason then-Emperor Bill Clinton enjoyed a quickie in the Oval Office: because it could.

Most of the criticism of the 1999 war has focused on its conduct (targeting practices, effects, "collateral damage") and consequences. But though the conduct of the war by NATO was atrocious and the consequences have been dire and criminal, none of that changes the fact that by its very nature and from the very beginning, NATO’s attack was a war of aggression: illegal, immoral, and unjust; not "unsuccessful" or "mishandled," but just plain wrong.

Donald Trump on Kosovo in 1999

When I saw the media in Serbia reporting about Donald Trump's alleged condemnation of the 1999 NATO attack on then-Yugoslavia, also known as the Kosovo War, I shrugged it off as disinformation. Most of them, I'm sad to say, are almost entirely dedicated to gaslighting the general populace, and as likely to spread confusion and cognitive dissonance as actual news.

It turns out that Donald Trump did talk to Larry King about Kosovo - but everyone is leaving out that this took place in October 1999. That is sort of important, though: by that point, the Serbian province had been "liberated" by NATO occupation forces, and the ethnic cleansing of non-Albanians by the terrorist KLA had been going on since mid-June.

Here is the segment touching on Kosovo, from the official CNN transcript (with my emphasis):

KING: But, we don't know the - for example, you and Kosovo. Would you have done what Clinton did?

TRUMP: Well, I would have done it a little bit differently. And I know this would sound terrible. But look at the havoc that they have wreaked in Kosovo. I mean, we could say we lost very few people. Of course, we had airplanes 75,000 feet up in the air dropping bombs. But, look at what we've done to that land and to those people and the deaths that we've caused.

Now, they haven't been caused with us and the allies because we were way up in the air in planes. But, at some point, you had to put troops in so not everybody could go over the borders and everything else, and a lot of people agree with that.
Now, would people have been killed? Perhaps, perhaps more. But, at least ultimately, you would have had far fewer deaths. And you wouldn't have had the havoc and the terror that you've got right now. So, you know, I don't know if they consider that a success because I can't consider it a success.

KING: You don't.

TRUMP: They bombed the hell out of a country, out of a whole area, everyone is fleeing in every different way, and nobody knows what's happening, and the deaths are going on by the thousands.

He could be referring to the KLA ethnic cleansing of Serbs, Roma, and other groups here. But true to himself, Trump is being very vague and it is impossible to pin the statements down. At the time, he was considering running for the presidency, but ultimately decided against it.

It would certainly be interesting if someone asked him the same question today, 17 years later, when he is actually running for president (and may be getting the nomination, too). 

No to Kosovo in UNESCO

It ought to be the elementary standpoint of any civilized human being that those who destroy heritage (not to mention living houses of worship) absolutely do not belong in organizations whose purpose is to protect it.

The #EU wants us to say "This is perfectly fine." #NoKosovoUnesco pic.twitter.com/HwA4XEaac6

— Boris Malagurski (@malagurski) October 14, 2015

After gaining membership in the corrupt and morally bankrupt FIFA, "Kosovo," a NATO-occupied Serbian territory pretending to be a country, is trying to become a member of UNESCO.

The "Kosovar" Albanian treatment of Serbian churches, monasteries, cemeteries, libraries, books and monuments - deliberately destroyed and desecrated since the NATO occupation began in 1999 - has been no different than the one afforded by the so-called Islamic State to the antiquities in Mosul or Palmyra.

#ISIS is more qualified than Kosovo for member of UNESCO. Less monuments were destroyed. @UNESCO #NoKosovoUnesco pic.twitter.com/cAp02knvuF

— Марко (@MorgulValaris) October 16, 2015

Worse yet, these are not some ancient heritage sites, but living houses of worship - whose congregants have been expelled or murdered under NATO sponsorship in the past 16 years!

"Kosovo" does not belong in UNESCO. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

Mad about Serbia

Seeing as it's the anniversary of the 1999 armistice that ended NATO's aggression, and began the Alliance's occupation of Kosovo, I wanted to comment on a recent attempt to force Russia into the US narrative about the Balkans.

Shocking, I know.

A few weeks back (May 22, to be precise), the Washington Times ran an opinion piece by L. Todd Wood about why the Russians love Putin regardless of Western propaganda, sanctions, etc. Wood's explanation is that Putin restored Russia's honor by confronting NATO, "mad" (angry, not crazy) over the 1999 war on Serbia.

Left to right: KLA terror boss Hashim Thaci; NATO viceroy Bernard Kouchner; UK general Michael Jackson
KLA "general" Agim Ceku; US general Wesley Clark. Occupied Kosovo, 1999.

Way to discover the obvious! I've said as much a year ago, and Putin has indeed mentioned 1999's evil little war (seriously, read that) time and again. But Wood appears to be so devoted to the mainstream Western narrative about Russia - and Serbia - that he turns Russia's justified anger over NATO's illegal, illegitimate aggression into some kind of proof that Putin is a fascist.

I'm not using that word lightly, either. Wood literally writes: "Russians would much rather have a leader who makes the trains run on time and can stand up to perceived Western aggression." The particular phrase I italicized up there has been commonly used to describe Benito Mussolini, the father of actual fascism.

The other propaganda trick in that sentence is describing Western behavior as "perceived aggression." Yeah, because when Washington backs an illegal coup and endorses a Russian-hating regime dead-set on glorifying its Nazi ancestors - and proceeds to gruesomely murder anyone who objects - everything's just peachy and any idea this might be wrong or objectionable is entirely in Vladimir Putin's head. Right?

Then there is Wood's description of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic (my take on him here):

"[Milosevic] presided over a reign of terror in several of the Yugoslav provinces; that is a fact. He used mass media to delegitimize certain ethnic groups and accused them of fascist tendencies, setting up justification for military action. Sound familiar? He turned a blind eye to genocide, especially in Kosovo, and supported ethnic cleansing of Kosovo for Serbia." 

One sentence at a time, shall we?

He did not; this is not a fact, it's pure fiction. What some Serbian media (others were paid by the West and actually defended any and all Serb-killing) pointed out were not "fascist tendencies" but actual fascism (see here, and here, and here). This only "sounds familiar" because Wood is trying to shoehorn Putin into the "mythical Milosevic" mold. That last sentence doesn't even make sense; for years the West accused Milosevic of committing "genocide," and now he's merely supposed to have looked the other way? Well, which is it? Plus, the phrase "ethnic cleansing" actually originated from an Albanian appalled by Albanian efforts to expel or kill the Serbs in the 1980s - efforts that eventually succeeded only thanks to NATO's aggression and the subsequent trampling of the 1999 armistice.

Wood also mentions that Milosevic died in a holding cell while being on trial for genocide by the ICTY. That "court" has been a bonfire of absurdities since its very beginning, but its greatest "accomplishment" surely has to be using third-hand perjured hearsay to accuse the Serbs of genocide by invoking a Nazi Croatian plot to genocide the Serbs. Enough said.

Anyway, in Wood's telling, Putin is as bad as the Very Evil Milosevic, and Russia is just like Serbia only (a lot) bigger. While he doesn't actually follow through to the natural conclusion of that "logic", I have to: therefore, the West (meaning the US, really) must do to Russia what they have done unto Serbia.

Just to be clear, the mainstream Western narrative is that Serbia was "liberated" in October 2000, when a popular revolution (albeit assisted with "suitcases of cash" and overseen by the National Endowment for Democracy and a series of US ambassadors) overthrew the Very Evil Milosevic and introduced the country to progressive liberal democracy and human rights. Naturally, it took several election cycles to "filter out" the "recidivists" until the country could get its Most Progressive Government Ever.

Washington isn't even bothering to hide that the ultimate objective of the sanctions and the propaganda is "regime change" in Moscow. What they want is a return to the 1990s, when Russia was systematically looted by a cabal of US "advisers", while its president was a drunken puppet who shelled the parliament and stole at least one election.

That's the real reason the noun "democracy" and the adjective "liberal" are considered insults in modern Russian, right there on par with "fascist."

(see the Disclaimer at top right of page)

Kosovo's Kristallnacht

2004-2015

The East Remembers

Bus People

In the first six weeks of 2015, some 50,000 Albanians have reportedly left the "independent state of Kosovo", setting off in buses across Serbia towards Hungary and the EU. Their number may be even higher: some "Kosovian" media mention up to 120,000 migrants. And now there is word they are also crossing over into Albania proper. 

While the Western media reflexively blame the Serbs, nobody actually knows what is happening. Perhaps this account, from an ethnic Serb traveling from her enclave in Kosovo to Belgrade on a bus filled with Albanian migrants, may help shed some light on the phenomenon.

This Looks Like 1999
By Yanya Gachesha (Јања Гаћеша)
Novi Standard, February 9, 2015. (original)

When I set out for Belgrade with a group of friends, early in the morning, and saw a group of Albanians at the bus depot in Gračanica, I realized the trip would take at least three hours more - but that this was also the opportunity to get to know these migrants better.

More Albanians boarded the bus at Ajvalija, Priština, Podujevo, all the way to Merdare. Most of them were young men, and young couples with children. When a few Serbs came on board at Miloševo we cheered up - until then, it seemed we were the only ones not traveling to Subotica.

They are leaving en masse, literally disappearing overnight. None of the Serbs know what's gotten into them all of a sudden. What I saw on the bus only confirmed the doubts that I and many other Kosovo-Metohija Serbs share: they are up to no good again. Apart from one woman headed to Subotica with her husband and children, who came on board in tears, everyone else looked entirely carefree. Neither her, nor her family looked like they were suffering, impoverished, or starving. Nor did anyone else. Few had more luggage than a single backpack, even those with children in tow. They were completely relaxed, laughing and talking on their phones, couples necking and kissing, as if they were all going to a seaside holiday and were about to burst into song.

Facts and Fascist Fantasies

On Friday, February 6, six Bosnian Muslims ("Bosnians", per the US media) living in Missouri, New York and Illinois were arrested on charges of aiding ISIS. The day before, police in Manchester (UK) raided 17 homes, targeting an Albanian drug-trafficking ring. Meanwhile, thousands of Albanians are leaving their "free, independent state of Kosovo" - carved out of Serbia for them by NATO in 1999, and declared independent in 2008. Nobody seems to know why - though that doesn't stop the Western media for blaming the Serbs.

Over in Bosnia - the place that set the precedent for America's "white knighting" in the 1990s - an entire village has been taken over by Wahabi jihadists flying ISIS flags. This is news all of a sudden; yet the village's Serb inhabitants were driven out 20 years ago, and it has been a jihadist commune ever since - and no one in the West gave a damn. "See no jihad" was the order of the day, even after 9/11. Why? Perhaps because of Washington's plan to earn the jihadists' gratitude - even though they've clearly showm what they thought of the idea, over and over again.

Last week, Russian agencies reported that "up to 200 mercenaries from the Balkans" were fighting for the Nazi junta in the Ukraine. According to the report, the US corporation formerly known as Blackwater recruited Croats and Albanians.

Croats in the Nazi "Azov" battalion  (source)

It wouldn't be the first time; when the tattered remnants of the German 6th Army surrendered at Stalingrad in February 1943, among them were troops of the Croatian Legion - a unit personally deployed to the Eastern Front by the Croatian Nazi leader Ante Pavelić, proud of his alliance with the "Thousand-Year Reich." Albanians also served Hitler faithfully, as he (and Mussolini) gave them today's Kosovo and western Macedonia, a Waffen-SS division, and a blank check to murder and expel as many Serbs as they could.

Fast-forward fifty years after the end of WW2. Pavelić's heirs again hitched their wagon to the strongest power, and used the status of its "junkyard dogs" to fulfill their iron dream. But the International Court of Justice just said you shouldn't worry your pretty little heads about that.

Trouble in Kosovo? Must be the Serbs' Fault

Something strange is going on in the "Independent state of Kosovia" these days - but only if you're a mainstream Western media reporter.

Voice of America is stumped by the fact that some ten thousand "Kosovianians" have fled for the EU since the beginning of the year. Their explanation? It's Serbia's fault (of course, always) for making it easy for the "Kosovistanis" to travel freely, which "coincided" with "political turmoil and street unrest in Kosovo fueled by poverty, high unemployment and economically debilitating corruption."

Now wait just a bloody, bombed-out minute. Aren't "poverty" and "high unemployment" trotted out every time to explain every riot in "Kosovia"? Remember the 2004 pogrom resulting in the expulsion of some 40,000 Serbs? Within days, the Albanians' Western apologists were spinning it as a natural consequence of unemployment, poverty, etc. Their proposed solution? Independence, independence, independence!

NATO soldiers inspect a destroyed Serbian church in Prizren, following the March 2004 pogrom; the graffiti (in gutter Albanian) reads "Death to Serbs" (photo: SrbijaDanas)

You see, at the time Kosovo was legally considered a province of Serbia, albeit under NATO and UN occupation since NATO's illegal war of 1999. After almost four years of pro-independence propaganda, in February 2008 the provisional government proclaimed the "Republic of Kosovo." Two years later, the International Court of Justice tortured logic into declaring that this wasn't necessarily illegal.

Fast-forward to 2015. "Kosovia" has been recognized by some 100 states, mostly vassals of the Atlantic Empire. Moreover, the quisling government in Serbia has de facto recognized the province's independence - government, flag, borders, customs, documents, etc. - and sold the remaining Serbs down the river, basically forcing them to participate in "Kosovarian" elections. Never mind that only a handful of Serbs vote, and that even fewer agree to be token symbols of "Kosovian" tolerance and multicultural democracy or whatnot. And there is still a problem?