Friday, August 05, 2011

Storm, Kosovo and Empire

I really don't have much to add to my 2005 essay about "Operation Storm," the Empire-sponsored ethnic cleansing operation by which Franjo Tudjman's government effected a final solution of its "Serb problem."

Though the Hague Inquisition has declared it part of a "joint criminal enterprise" when convicting two Croatian generals in April, it is unlikely this verdict will be allowed to stand for long. Zagreb maintains that this was a great and noble victory, celebrates the holiday as "Homeland Thanksgiving Day" and - most importantly - the sponsors of the operation still look upon Croatia with favor, even as it is no longer their "junkyard dog."

There is no doubt that "Storm" was cooked up in the Pentagon kitchen; the Empire doesn't deny its mercenary outfit MPRI was instrumental in turning Tudjman's army from rabble into something resembling a military. A decade later, the pattern was repeated in Georgia (which eventually attempted a similar-style operation, albeit with a very different outcome).

Of course, the conquest of Krajina was greatly helped by the fact that Croatians had the Serbs outnumbered, outgunned, surrounded, blinded (NATO airstrikes took out their communications) and - last, but not least - abandoned. Perhaps the calculation in Belgrade was that the sacrifice of Krajina might save Serbia from Imperial invasion; if so, they soon realized their mistake. But that's a topic I'll save for later.

Croatians and their Western advocates erroneously label the war a struggle for independence; no one - not Belgrade, nor the Krajina Serbs - actually sought to stop Croats from having their own state, as much as that would have been a perfectly legal course of action under the extant Yugoslav constitution. The only thing in dispute was whether a Croat government - moreover, one that has deliberately sought continuity with the WW2 Ustasha - had any right to rule over territories inhabited mostly by ethnic Serbs.

There is one aspect of that conflict that remains largely ignored: the involvement of Kosovo Albanians in the Croatian military. I am not aware of any research into the actual number of Albanians who joined Tudjman's forces. There is anecdotal evidence of Albanians fighting in both that war, and the subsequent/parallel war in Bosnia, where they supported the Muslim government of Alija Izetbegovic. But the plural of anecdote is not data. More research is needed.

Two names do come to mind, however. Rahim Ademi was a brigadier-general during the Medak Pocket operation, and was even put on trial for war crimes there, but was acquitted by a Croatian court - surprise! - along with General Norac, in 2008.

Somewhat more (in)famous is Agim Ceku, who also joined Tudjman's army in 1991, and took part in the Medak operation (where he was wounded). Ceku commanded Croatian army units during "Storm." After the war, Tudjman gave him command of the 5th Military District - but in 1998, he "retired" to join the KLA, which was being rebuilt in Albania (the Serbian law enforcement having successfully quashed the Jashari rebellion).

Neither Ceku nor his political superior, KLA supreme leader Hashim Thaci, have ever been charged with any atrocities, even though under the Inquisition's own doctrine of command responsibility they were ultimately responsible for every single act of terrorism their underlings (such as Fatmir Limaj or Ramush Haradinaj) had committed. Thaci is now "Prime Minister" of the self-proclaimed Kosovaristan, while Ceku simply changed insignia and continued to command the KLA under the name of "Kosovo Protection Corps" (which now passes for Thaci's military).

The Official Truth in Croatia (and Kosovia) is that their separatist rebellions were legitimate self-defense from "Serbian oppression" embodied in the evil Slobodan Milosevic. The problem with this theory is that it completely fails to explain the prior history of Albanian and Croat belligerence towards the Serbs, which predates Milosevic by a great deal.

What is one to make of Albanian separatism in Tito's Yugoslavia, which created Kosovo as a political entity in the first place, invested vast amounts of money into its modernization, and provided a welfare system that enabled Albanian families to have a dozen children or more? What is one to make of the 1973 "Maspok" (mass movement) events in Croatia, long before Milosevic was even on the political radar?

And for that matter, what about the Croat and Albanian alliance with Hitler in WW2, exemplified by the "Independent State of Croatia" and its Devil Division at Stalingrad, or the 21st Waffen-SS division "Skanderbeg", composed primarily of Albanians from Kosovo?

When one connects the dots, the pattern is there: Croats and Albanians, joined in pursuit of the same cause. Where Hitler failed to deliver, the Atlantic Empire succeeded (so far, anyway). It seems everything is in the choice of allies.

13 comments:

Asteri said...

The neo-Ustase hires the comedy stylings of Jeffrey T. Kuhner!

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2011/k0463_04_20.asp

Anonymous said...

Has anyone actually ever bothered to research any proposals for oil and gas pipeline projects from the Caspian that go through the Balkans?

Even the Weight of Chains documentary (used to be on YouTube before I posted a comment on the Global Research TV website that the entire thing was posted on YT, oops!) which takes a primary position that this was the reason for Yugoslavia’s destruction does not even consider this as one of its main purposes.

Given the fact the BP and MI6 overthrew the government in Azerbaijan and installed the current regime in 93 securing oil guarantees, was instrumental in setting up the BTC pipeline and those involved in pushing pro-Muslim Bosnian and KLA support against the Serbs are also at the forefront of supporting Chechen separatism who signed numerous contracts with Britain including development of Caucasian oil industry in 97, oil pipeline and energy agreements that bypass Russia through Turkey and lobbyists for Turkish interest in the US it is not hard to put two and two together.

At least one website seems to get it.

http://www.btinternet.com/~nlpwessex/Documents/balkansUSbackterrorism.htm#geopolitical

CubuCoko said...

Asteri, thanks, I saw that article back in April, and had a good chuckle.

Jack, if not for the fact that the whole Caspian oil project post-dates the destruction of Yugoslavia, I'd be willing to favor that theory. The sequence of events just doesn't add up.

Anonymous said...

@Grey Falcon

"Jack, if not for the fact that the whole Caspian oil project post-dates the destruction of Yugoslavia, I'd be willing to favor that theory. The sequence of events just doesn't add up."

I don't know how you come to that conclusion which is blatantly false.

The only reason we have not gotten a foothold in Central Asia and annexed the North Caucasus is because of 9/11 and our focus towards the Mid East.

You will notice the large number of Obama’s staff appointees that have a history of dealing with Islamic militants in the Balkans and Eurasia.

Obama’s current special envoy to Afghanistan who replaced Richard Holbrooke is Marc Grossman probably the most prominent individual working and promoting Turkish interests as well as NATO expansion towards Russia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Grossman

CubuCoko said...

Well, if you're saying the Caucasus/Central Asia pipeline project predates the destruction of Yugoslavia, by all means, give me some links supporting that claim. Just saying that something is "blatantly false" doesn't make it so.

Anonymous said...

@Gray Falcon

I will have to gather the info together but as I said I don't know if there is a specific oil pipeline initiative as there has not been any research on the matter to my knowledge but we do know oil consortiums linked to Islamic terrorism and Britain and the US started to emerge in 93 with the MI6 coup in Azerbaijan, 94-2001 with the Taliban in Afghanistan and 97 with the Chechen separatist regime in London.

I can give you that information but I can’t give you the name of a specific oil pipeline operation with the exception of Nabucco.

When I put it all together and post it I think it becomes pretty clear.

Anonymous said...

A speech by former Croatian diplomat Tom Sunic discussing at a Vlaams Belang Jongeren (youth wing of the Flemish Vlaams Belang party) the situation in regards to Croatia and the Balkans during the 90’s.

http://reasonradionetwork.com/20110816/the-sunic-journal-croatia-and-flanders-ex-yugoslavia-and-belgium-as-failed-multicultural-entities

Really disappoint in Sunics characteristic of events during the 90’s especially Operation Storm which was really shocking as he is always rejected anti-Serb Croatia nationalism and the break out of war in the former Yugoslavia and I think is friendly with Srdja Trifkovic or at least friendly with associates of his and run in the same conservative circles like Richard Spencer at Alternative Right.

www.alternativeright.com

CubuCoko said...

I'm not surprised, actually.

Anonymous said...

Forgot to mention that the US in the lead up to the Winter Olympics in Sochi are supporting radical Circassian internationalism against Russia who are fighting Russian forces in Chechnya starting in 2007 the latest tactic to destabilise Russia having failed to enact an Islamic insurrection in Chechnya a massive international intelligence network war that dwarfs that of Afghanistan during the 80’s. They are also supporting Crimean Tatars to expel the Russian fleet from Sevastopol and access to the Black Sea.

This is nothing new as Britain has been supporting and supplying weapons to Circassian and Chechen guerrillas since 1835.

http://alexandrelatsa.blogspot.com/2011/05/battle-for-eurasia-i.html#comments

Looks like Russia is putting up its own resistance from a typical bias perspective from Time

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2088949,00.html#ixzz1VRKWqf87

Article fails to mention that Ukrainian intelligence aligned with the Orange regime has its own Banderite intelligence division in the Ukrainian intelligence and military that is affiliated with a company Far West Gulf, LLC that has links to Bin Ladin commander Khattab, the Moscow apartment bombings, possibly 9/11 and the Norwegian terrorist Andres Brevik which bizarrely they are trying to connect with Russian intelligence despite the fact those affiliated with it are conducting terrorist operations against Russia in Chechnya.

98 US DIA IIR report confirms Khattab - Bin Ladin link to Crimiean Tatars and Chechnya.

http://www.judicialwatch.org/story/2004/nov/defense-intelligence-report-details-al-qaedas-plans-russia-chechnya-and-wmd

Lasse Johansson said...

Maybe this and other fresh cables will be of interest:
http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/02/08TIRANA116.html
It is interesting to read the lies american embassy personal was reporting back home..

Lasse Johansson said...

I should point out that the link I gave is only one out of several thousand new cables released on 2011-08-26. On the wikileaks site, click on "Browse by origin" and you will find just the subject summaries of the cables released on 26/8 fills up 16 pages only from the embassy in Belgrade, 7 pages from the embassy in Pristina and so on. It would take a week just to read through everything new.

CubuCoko said...

Thanks Lasse. The cables are important not so much because they reveal new information, but because they confirm existing suspicions. To suspect is one thing, to know with certainty quite another.

Lasse Johansson said...

If you already checked, then it might be a good idea to check again.

http://wikileaks.org/cablegate.html

Because of a human error The Guardian accidently published a password in a new book on wikileaks. That password could actually be used to decrypt ALL cables (which was leaked earlier, encrypted). As a result WL decided to publish everything themselves too. Now, from 2011-09-02, all 250000 cables are available, undedacted! No names are removed. A lot of the previously unpublished ones are classed as confidential and some are even classed as secret.