James George Jatras
'Independent' Kosovo: A threat, not a country
Abraham Lincoln was fond of asking the rhetorical question: "If you call a
tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? Five? No, calling a tail a leg
don't make it a leg."
That pretty much sums up the recent unilateral declaration of independence
by Albanian Muslims in the Serbian province of Kosovo. Several countries,
disgracefully led by the United States, have recognized Kosovo. Major media
have hailed creation of the "world's newest country." But calling Kosovo a
country doesn't make it one.
Serbia has denounced the move as the illegal creation of a "separatist
entity" on its sovereign territory and has handed down criminal indictments against several of the top Albanian Muslim leaders. Now under way is a sharp
global competition to see which governments will recognize Kosovo and which
will not. Under heavy pressure from the U.S. State Department, most European
countries will meekly comply. Some, like Cyprus with its Turkish-occupied
north and Spain with its Basque separatist movement, will not.
In short, an action State Department bureaucrats touted as "settling
Kosovo's status" has resulted in anything but. Outside of Europe, the
picture is even fuzzier. Russia will reject Kosovo's independence, and
expected to take the same line are China, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, South
Africa, Brazil and many others. Russia will veto any effort to extend Kosovo membership in the United Nations.
Any sovereign state with restive ethnic or religious minorities would
recognize Kosovo at its own peril. What Washington seeks to inflict on
Serbia today could be the fate of the American southwest tomorrow. Israel, in particular, is closely pondering its next move. While loath to anger
Washington, Jerusalem must consider that a Kosovo precedent could, absent
any negotiated agreement, prompt proclamation of a Palestinian state, to be
recognized by Arab and Muslim regimes. The same precedent could apply to
heavily Muslim areas such as Galilee and the Negev within Israel's formal
borders.
At a special press briefing, outgoing Under Secretary of State for Political
Affairs Nicholas Burns - who is often mentioned as a possible secretary of
state under a Democratic administration - hailed support for Kosovo from the
Organization of the Islamic Conference and Muslim governments. Happily
claiming that a "vastly majority Muslim state" has been carved out of
Serbia, a European Christian country, Burns said: "We think it is a very
positive step that this Muslim state, Muslim majority state, has been
created today."
Burns' remarks reflect a desperate hope by the Bush administration that
displays of American pro-Islamic favoritism in the Balkans and support for a
Palestinian state (its domination by Hamas notwithstanding) will buy the
good will of hostile devotees of the "religion of peace and tolerance."
Their gratitude is manifest in the jihad terror plot to attack Fort Dix,
N.J., where four of the six defendants are Albanian Muslims from the Kosovo
region. The offenders' presence in the United States - three of them illegal
aliens and one brought to the U.S. by the Clinton administration as a
refugee, another example of "gratitude" - stems from the fact that a broadly
based support network for the terrorist "Kosovo Liberation Army," KLA, has
been allowed to operate with impunity in the New York-New
Jersey-Pennsylvania area, raising funds and collecting weapons, not to
mention peddling influence with American politicians.
Meanwhile, Christian Serbs in Kosovo are bracing for the worst. "We are all
expecting something difficult and horrible," said Bishop Artemije, pastor of
Kosovo's Orthodox Christians. "Our message to you, all Serbs in Kosovo, is
to remain in your homes and around your monasteries, regardless of what God
allows or our enemies do."
The bishop's flock has good reason to fear. Far from the usual claims that
NATO stopped a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo in 1999, the past nine
years have seen a slow-motion genocide in progress against the province's
Christian Serbian population under the nose of the U.N. and NATO, and at
times with their facilitation. Two-thirds of the Serbian population already
has been expelled and have not been able to return safely to their homes,
along with similar proportions of other groups (Roma, Gorani, Croats and all
the Jews). Over 150 churches and monasteries have been destroyed, with
crosses and icons of Christ attracting particular vandalistic rage, a
testament to Kosovo Albanians' supposed secularism and pro-Western
orientation.
Hundreds of new Saudi-funded mosques fomenting the extreme Wahhabi doctrine
have sprung up. Kosovo is visibly morphing from part of Europe into part of
the Middle East. In contrast to Under Secretary Burns' cheerleading, former
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. John Bolton has warned: "Kosovo will be a weak
state susceptible to radical Islamist influence from outside the region,
with the support from some Albanians, in other words, a potential gate for
radicalism to enter Europe." If allowed to consolidate, an independent
Kosovo would become a way station toward an anti-American, anti-Israel,
anti-Christian "Eurabia."
Around the world, jihad terror usually goes hand-in-hand with organized
crime. Kosovo is the perfect case in point. The supposed authorities of the
would-be state are themselves kingpins in the Albanians Mafia, whose network
extends throughout Europe and has a significant presence in New York City.
Besides all the international aid dumped down the Kosovo rat hole, or carted
off by corrupt officials, the only real "industry" is crime: drugs (heroin
from Afghan opium), slaves (kidnapped women and children from Moldova,
Ukraine and other countries brought in for local "service" - there are lot
of lonely international bureaucrats in Kosovo - or shipped off into Europe),
and weapons (the missile that hit the U.S. Embassy in Athens in 2006 and the
explosives used in the London and Madrid train bombings came through
Kosovo).
What will happen now in Kosovo? It would be up to the KLA and their
supporters to decide whether to kick off a new cycle of violence by
attacking Serbs who refuse to submit to their "authority." Serbia in fact
has been beefing up its legitimate state institutions in areas where Serbs
are concentrated, which the Albanians have threatened to shut down as -
believe it or not - illegal separatist structures. We will see if the
political violence unleashed by the act of recognition will be matched by
physical violence on the ground. Meanwhile, Serbia will undertake
undisclosed countermeasures to undermine the illegally declared KLA- and
Mafia-ruled entity and force resumption of negotiations to achieve a valid
settlement. Let us hope they succeed.
With a stoke of his pen, President Bush, by heeding the State Department's
bad advice to recognize a supposedly independent Kosovo, has triggered the
perfect international storm: shattering the principle of the territorial
integrity of sovereign nations, encouraging violent separatists worldwide,
provoking a needless confrontation with Russia and other countries, boosting
the jihad terrorist and organized crime threat to Europe and America, and
creating conditions for a human rights and religious freedom nightmare. In
terms of far-reaching consequences, it may the worst blunder of his
presidency. Which is saying a lot.
http://www.worldnet daily.com/ ?pageId=56836
WORLD NET DAILY (USA)
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