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We
Bombed the Wrong Side?
By Lewis
MacKenzie
April 22, 2004
From The National Post, Canada,
April 6, 2004
Five years ago our television
screens were dominated by pictures of Kosovo-Albanian
refugees escaping across Kosovo's borders to the
sanctuaries of Macedonia and Albania. Shrill reports
indicated that Slobodan Milosevic's security forces were
conducting a campaign of genocide and that at least
100,000 Kosovo-Albanians had been exterminated and buried
in mass graves throughout the Serbian province. NATO
sprung into action and, in spite of the fact no member
nation of the alliance was threatened, commenced bombing
not only Kosovo, but the infrastructure and population of
Serbia itself -- without the authorizing United Nations
resolution so revered by Canadian leadership, past and
present.
Those of us who warned that the
West was being sucked in on the side of an extremist,
militant, Kosovo-Albanian independence movement were
dismissed as appeasers. The fact that the lead
organization spearheading the fight for independence, the
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), was universally designated
a terrorist organization and known to be receiving
support from Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda was conveniently
ignored.
The recent dearth of news in the
North American media regarding the increase in violence
in Kosovo compared to the comprehensive coverage in the
European press strongly suggests that we Canadians don't
like to admit it when we are wrong. On the contrary,
selected news clips on this side of the ocean continue to
reinforce the popular spin that those dastardly Serbs are
at it again.
A case in point was the latest
crisis that exploded on March 15. The media reported that
four Albanian boys had been chased into the river Ibar in
Mitrovica by at least two Serbs and a dog (the dog's
ethnic affiliation was not reported).Three of the boys
drowned and one escaped to the other side. Immediately,
thousands of Albanians mobilized and concentrated in the
area of the divided city. Attacks on Serbs took place
throughout the province resulting in an estimated 30
killed and 600 wounded. Thirty Serbian Christian Orthodox
churches and monasteries were destroyed, more than 300
homes were burnt to the ground and six Serbian villages
cleansed of their occupants. One hundred and fifty
international peacekeepers were injured.
Totally ignored in North America
were the numerous statements from impartial sources that
said there was no incident between the Serbs, the dog and
the Albanian boys. NATO Police spokesman Derek Chappell
stated on March 16 that it was "definitely not true" that
the boys had been chased into the river by Serbs.
Chappell went on to say that the
surviving boy had told his parents that they had entered
the river alone and that three of his friends had been
swept away by the current. Admiral Gregory Johnson, the
overall NATO commander, further stated that the ensuing
clashes were "orchestrated and well-planned ethnic
cleansing" by the Kosovo-Albanians. Those Serbs forced to
leave joined the 200,000 who had been cleansed from the
province since NATO's "humanitarian" bombing in 1999. The
'"cleansees" have become very effective
"cleansers."
In the same week a number of
individuals posing as Serbs ambushed and killed a UN
policeman and his local police partner. During the
firefight one of them was wounded which caused an
immediate switch from Serbian to Albanian as he screamed,
"I've been hit"! The UN pursued the attackers and tracked
them to an Albanian-run farm where they discovered
weapons and the wounded Albanian who had died from his
wounds. Four Albanians were arrested. Once again, the
ambush had been reported in the United States but not the
follow-up which clearly indicated yet another
orchestrated provocation by the Albanian
terrorists.
Kosovo is administered by the UN,
the very organization many Canadians have indicated they
would like to see take over from the United States in
Iraq. The fact the UN cannot order its civilian employees
to go or stay anywhere -- they have to volunteer --
combined with recent history that saw the UN abandon Iraq
after a single brutal attack on their compound in Baghdad
and the reality that Kosovo, under the organization's
administration, is a basket case, disqualifies it from
consideration for such a role.
Since the NATO/UN intervention in
1999, Kosovo has become the crime capital of Europe. The
sex slave trade is flourishing. The province has become
an invaluable transit point for drugs en route to Europe
and North America. Ironically, the majority of the drugs
come from another state "liberated" by the West,
Afghanistan. Members of the demobilized, but not
eliminated, KLA are intimately involved in organized
crime and the government. The UN police arrest a small
percentage of those involved in criminal activities and
turn them over to a judiciary with a revolving door that
responds to bribes and coercion.
The objective of the Albanians is
to purge all non-Albanians, including the international
community's representatives, from Kosovo and ultimately
link up with mother Albania thereby achieving the goal of
"Greater Albania." The campaign started with their
attacks on Serbian security forces in the early 1990s and
they were successful in turning Milosevic's heavy-handed
response into worldwide sympathy for their cause. There
was no genocide as claimed by the West -- the 100,000
allegedly buried in mass graves turned out to be around
2,000, of all ethnic origins, including those killed in
combat during the war itself.
The Kosovo-Albanians have played us
like a Stradivarius. We have subsidized and indirectly
supported their violent campaign for an ethnically pure
and independent Kosovo. We have never blamed them for
being the perpetrators of the violence in the early '90s
and we continue to portray them as the designated victim
today in spite of evidence to the contrary. When they
achieve independence with the help of our tax dollars
combined with those of bin Laden and al-Qaeda, just
consider the message of encouragement this sends to other
terrorist-supported independence movements around the
world.
Funny how we just keep digging the
hole deeper!
Maj-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie, now
retired, commanded UN troops during the Bosnian civil war
of 1992.
©
2004 National Post. All Rights Reserved.
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