The inconvenient Serbs

[Lucas Corso]

The inconvenient Serbs

by Spengler

When the outcome of a tragedy is known in advance, it finds ways of occurring earlier than expected. In this case, the fate of 100,000 Serbian Christians who remain in Kosovo may pre-empt the debate over Europe's eventual absorption into the Muslim world.
A new book on the Islamification of Europe appears almost weekly, adding to the efforts of Ben Wattenberg, Oriana Fallaci, Bat Ye'or, George Weigel, Mark Steyn, Philip Jenkins and a host of others. Scholars debate whether the decline and fall of Europe will occur by mid-century, or might be postponed until 2100. The inconvenient Serbs may force the issue on Europe a great deal sooner.

If Serbia and Russia draw a line in the sand over the independence of Kosovo, we may observe the second occasion in history when a Muslim advance on Europe halted on Serbian soil. The first occurred in 1456, three years after the fall of Constantinople, when Sultan Mehmed II was thrown back from the walls of Belgrade, "The White City", by Hungarian and Serb defenders. The Siege of Belgrade "decided the fate of Christendom", wrote the then Pope Calixtus III. Not for nothing did J R R Tolkien name his fictional stronghold of Minas Tirith "The White City".

While America's attention is riveted on Iraq, Russia is outraged at the American-backed plan for Kosovo's independence, proposed by UN special envoy Martti Ahtisaari. Kosovo comprised the historic Serbian heartland, Christian Serbs comprise less than a tenth of the present population. Perhaps 200,000 Serbs have left the province since the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) made Kosovo a protectorate in 2000.

The Bill Clinton administration, in this writer's considered view, provoked NATO's 1999 bombing war against Serbia with malice of forethought, as a gesture to the Muslim world. The United States in effect was willing to bomb Christians in order to protect Muslims, in this case the Albanian Kosovo majority whom it accused the Serbs of mistreating. That is precisely what the Democrats say. In a January 3 article in the Financial Times, Democratic Senator Joseph Biden contended that Kosovo independence would constitute a "victory for Muslim democracy", and "a much-need example of US-Muslim partnership".

Contrary to American propaganda at the time, no massacres had occurred; the Serbs had shot a few thousand Muslim militants in their efforts to pacify the province. Clinton, then secretary of state Madeleine Albright and UN ambassador Richard Holbrooke deluded themselves that they could cash in the chips earned in Kosovo at the negotiating table in the Middle East. The neo-conservatives cheered the Clinton bombing campaign, believing perhaps that any American show of force was better than no show of force.

Once again Washington's attention is directed toward the Middle East. Washington proposes to sacrifice the remaining Christians in Kosovo in order to earn Muslim support. Serbia has earned little sympathy; its brutality against Bosnian Muslims during the 1990s left an image of Serbian barbarity etched on the mind of the Western public.

Without apologizing for past Serbian misbehavior, I believe that Serbia and Russia are correct to offer partition rather than independence for Kosovo, that is, breaking off the Christian-majority municipalities of the north and attaching them to Serbia proper, while permitting the Muslim majority to determine its own fate.

This is the obvious, humane and commonsense solution; the fact that the State Department refuses to consider it inflames Russia's worst fears about America's intent. To broad Russian opinion, the sacrifice of the Kosovo Serbs seems like yet another prospective humiliation, on top of the deployment of anti-missile systems on Russia's border and the buildup of American forces in the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

I cannot penetrate the cloud of confusion at Foggy Bottom (aka the State Department) , but I suspect that American policy in Kosovo has nothing to do with the encirclement of Russia, and everything to do with America's failing effort to hold together a coalition of friendly Sunni Arab states against Iran's challenge in the Persian Gulf.

Washington does not care about Kosovo. It simply wants to put the issue to rest by the most expeditious means possible, the better to deal with its urgent business at hand. No matter that Washington's objective is chimerical, as M K Bhadrakumar explained April 11 on this site (The chimera of Arab solidarity.)

Former ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the stage-manager of the 1999 war against Serbia, warned in the March 13 Washington Post that war would erupt if Russia attempted to "water down" the Kosovo independence plan. "The Bush administration and the public have paid too little attention to a series of Russian challenges to the stability of Europe ... If [there is] a Russian veto in the Security Council, or an effort to water down or delay Ahtisaari's plan, the fragile peace in Kosovo will evaporate within days, and a new wave of violence - possibly even another war - will erupt."

Holbrooke added, "Moscow 's point about protecting fraternal Slav-Serb feelings is nonsense; everyone who has dealt with the Russians on the Balkans, as I did for several years, knows that their leadership has no feelings whatsoever for the Serbs."

In this instance, Holbrooke is as wrong as one can be. Never mind that Russia entered World War I to defend Serbia against Austria and fought alongside Serbia against Germany in the Second World War. Sentiment is not the only issue. Russia, as I reported in Russia's hudna with the Muslim world (Asia Times Online February 21, 2007) must face the prospect of Islamification far sooner than Western Europe.

There can be no doubt that Europe is resigned to gradual absorption into the umma. Father Richard John Neuhaus, the conservative Catholic writer, quotes an "influential French archbishop" saying, "We hope for [assimilation of Muslim immigrants], while we work at reducing immigration and prepare ourselves for soft Islamicization." Western Europe is a beaten, deracinated rabble with no will to fight. Russia is a different sort of beast. The Kosovo question for Russia is not a sentimental, but an existential matter.

No modern people have proven a greater inconvenience than the Serbs. They threw off two foreign yokes unaided - the Ottomans during the 19th century, and the Germans during the World War II. Out of pride and pig-headedness, Serbia refused to give up the Muslim-majority province of Bosnia to Austria, and the murder of the Austrian Crown Prince Ferdinand by extremists supported by Serbian intelligence sparked World War I.

After initial reverses, Serbia marched its army and a large part of its population over the mountains in mid-winter and regrouped, eventually throwing out the Austrian and German armies, at the cost of 28% of its total population and 58% of its men.

I do not wish to glorify Serbia's history. John Keegan in his History of the First World War argues that if Austria had crushed Serbia immediately after the murder of the heir to its throne, world war might not have been the outcome. The broader interests of humanity might have been served by smacking down the Serbs on other occasions. This is not one of them.

Serbia has had a brutal history which has made its leaders brutal, as the world observed during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. But Serbian demands in the case of Kosovo today are limited and reasonable, namely a partition that serves the interests of the small Christian minority. I do not think Russia will let Washington make a horrible example of them in order to create an example of "US-Muslim partnership".

If Washington does not modify its support for independence, the most likely outcome is a Russian veto of the Ahtisaari plan in the UN Security Council, followed, perhaps, by a unilateral declaration of independence by the Albanian Muslim majority in Kosovo. The aftermath could be quite messy, namely a small shooting war between Christians and Muslims on European soil. "Soft Islamification," in the words of Father Neuhaus' French archbishop, may turn out to be no option at all.

It would be foolish to try to guess the outcome. After all, no one expected the inconvenient Serbs to become the casus belli of 1914. No one wanted the war; the generation of leaders that guided Europe in 1914 had spent a whole generation avoiding a general European war. No-one, least of all Russia, wants an open conflict with Muslims. But there are limits to what the Orthodox Christian world will tolerate, and they may have been reached in Kosovo.



Source: Asia Times Online :: Middle East News - The inconvenient Serbs

[Crvena zvezda]

One thing is certain, there's going to be trouble in Kosovo. The west will support only independence, serbia will not agree to this and Russia seems unlikely to support independence unless it is a precedent for other regions. While China is likely to veto any independence what so ever. If some mebers of the EU try to push independence it won't work as the EU has said it's going to try a unified front and several members have already opposed independence while others support it and the United States has said that if Europe can' agree it will not recognize independence. Not only that but the Albanians will likely start some kind of guerilla war if there is no independence.

Hopefully if they start a guerilla war Serbia will use it as effective propaganda. Too bad to get the Serbian side supported the Albanians will need to become suicide bombers.

[Reltih]

Total Kosovo independance and unity is the only solution of that issue.

[Crvena zvezda]

Originally Posted by Reltih

Total Kosovo independance and unity is the only solution of that issue.

Why give it total independence. It would just send a signal? Hey Muslims come to Europe you can push europe around and the west won't care. The Albanians will just cause problems either way, whether they get independence or not. After Kosovo they're going to look at west FYROM, southern Serbia (specifically at Preševo, Medveđa and Bujanovac), southern Montenegro (specifically Tuzi and Ulcinj) and southern Epirus in Greece.

Even after these areas they're going to look at further. Albanian organizations consistently claim half of FYROM as Albanian, 40% of Montenegro as Albanian. Not only that but they're going to look even further since Albanians have already started showing up settling in other parts of southern Serbia (see posts below). Then may be all of Montenegro sicne it only has 620,000 people and a rising number are Albanians and Muslims.

What's worse is that if Albanians get this they're going to try to linke their territory up with Turkish regions of Bulgaria and Bosnia and Sandzak to create a Green Transversal and recreate the Ottoman empire.

[Crvena zvezda]

Albanians taking over Serbian town outside of Kosovo, from Transitions Online: First Kosovo, Then Prokuplje?.

TRANSITIONS ONLINE: Serbian Press: First Kosovo, Then Prokuplje?
by BBC Monitoring
22 February 2007
One Serbian newspaper delivers the shocking rumor that houses in a southern Serbian town are being bought by Albanians.

PROKUPLJE, Serbia | While Kosmet [Kosovo-Metohija] Serbs are waiting with trepidation the settlement of the province's status, their compatriots on the other side of the "administrative boundary line" are worried about ethnic Albanians' "designs" on the Toplica area. What until recently was only a suspicion expressed in unconfirmed rumours about Albanians buying houses and apartments in this area, primarily in Prokuplje and Kursumlija, has lately grown into increasingly frequent claims by local people, with new details and particulars.

In the competent institutions in the Toplica District they explain that these are practically impossible to prove, because the purchases, if they are in fact occurring, are mostly done in secret; they neither confirm nor deny these claims made by the people.

"I recently parked my car in the Djurevacki Put locality outside a house whose owners are abroad. However, their next-door neighbour cautioned me that 'the house has been sold to an Albanian and that I should be careful lest I should lose my car.' The same thing happened to a few neighbours that could not find parking space elsewhere and so tried to park their cars outside the house in question," an unnamed concerned resident of this locality told Vecernje novosti, speaking on condition of anonymity.

In an effort to learn how far their suspicions were justified and after much asking around, a dozen or so local people that we contacted told us that about 50 houses in Prokuplje have been sold in this manner. They say that real estate transactions between Serb owners and Albanian buyers are handled by a lawyer in Bijelo Polje, Montenegro, who is not here to feel the possible consequences of the local people's dissatisfaction. They say that the owners of the houses, too, are protected, because they "either do not live in Toplica or have no intention of remaining here."

"Although I have no concrete proof, I am almost certain that transactions of this kind do take place. The more so since residents that have done so are hiding it, fearing their fellow residents' ostracism," Prokupac Mayor Vladimir Jovanovic told us. We received similar answers also from competent people in numerous public institutions in Toplica, as well as from local people, who attribute the sale of houses and apartments to the difficult economic situation. They say that years of emigration from the area due to economic collapse and underdevelopment play into the hands of the Albanians and make their job easier; also, that the Albanian purchasers' purpose is served by favourable prices as much as the present moment for attaining their political plans.

"This area is ethnically homogenous and so Albanians are determined to destabilize this area, too, since it is public knowledge that they have been aspiring for centuries to appropriate Toplica," leaders of the Kursumlija and Prokuplje municipalities say, adding that the competent government institutions must take action if the problem is to be solved.

[Lucas Corso]

Originally Posted by Reltih

Total Kosovo independance and unity is the only solution of that issue.

I think the Serbian/Russian proposal is better and honourable for the Serbian people that have suffered a lot to defended for ages Europe from Turks and their Albanian lackeys.
The so-called "Kosovo War" as it is well highlighted in the article was just based on lies since the Serbians were just rightly eleminating CIA-founded UçK terrorists and bandits...

[Crvena zvezda]

Originally Posted by Lucas Corso

I think the Serbian/Russian proposal is better and honourable for the Serbian people that have suffered a lot to defended for ages Europe from Turks and their Albanian lackeys.
The so-called "Kosovo War" as it is well highlighted in the article was just based on lies since the Serbians were just rightly eleminating CIA-founded UçK terrorists and bandits...

I agree 100%. I'd support partition, but I'd also want it to be applied to some other regions (as Russia weants) - specifically to Republika Srpska.

The Kosovo war was based on lies:
- The U.S. claimed that there were 200,000 Albanians dead and missing but the end result was as follows:

• 2,000 dead civilians, guerillas and soldiers in the one year prior to the bominb. This applies to all side and only 60% of the victims were albanians.
• as well there were several dozen civilians killed from 1994-1998 KLA terrorist attacks. they were mostly Serb mailmen.
• 5,700 civilians in Serbia killed by NATO bombing. NATO only acknowledges only 1,500. 1,000 Serbian soldiers killed by bombings.
• Around 2,300 so-called "victims" of Serb aggression died during NATO bombing in Kosovo. Most of these were KLA men. Of this 1,000 were transported from Kosovo to 4 sites in Serbia.
• Over 2,500+ people killed
• So this means that in total about 3,500 Albanians died in Kosovo, 6,700 in Serbia from NATO bombing and 3,700+ non-Albanians in Kosovo died.

- Basically this says more non-albanians died. and that more non-Albanians died in the years of "peace nato brought" then Albanians in the year of war prior to the bombing.
- The Racak massacre was a set up. Read Scott taylor's book. In one of them he mentions that forensics had shown that 44 of the 45 men found had gun powder residue in their hands and that the civilian clothes they were wearing were put on them after their death.
- Claimed atrocities never occured.

• The claim that 1500 Albanians were killed at the Trepca mine has been proven false.
• Not only that but the biggest mass grave containing Albanian bodies found contained 3 people and gthe bigges tone of Serb bodies had 22.
• Not only that there were no mass rapes as the media claimed. There was an incident where a Canadian tv crew went to Kosovo in whcich a female KLA guerilla claimed that her sister was raped and killed. Later when they did a follow up after the bombing it turned out that not only was her sister alive but she was also not raped. The Canadian channel did not air the follow up.

- Serbia did not deport any one. Civilians were given transport on trains to FYROM. And then NATO bombed those trains.
- There was no major refugee crisis until NATO bombing began.
- Albanians did not act like refugees. At a camp near Skopje they refused to eat bread made in Skopje bakeries and demanded (in some cases violently) thatr they be given bread made in barkeris in Tetovo - biggest Albanian town in FYROM.
- In a pralimentary inquest a British official said that the text of the Rambouillet was worded to be rejected by Serbs. specifically he mentioned the Annex B which was included without Serbs being told and the Serbs couldn't accept the proposal with Annex B - the only part they did not agree to.
- The Serbian proposal at Rambouillet wasn't even looked at by the west..
- Not only that an Italian official says that a proposal he gave and that others gave to the Serbs were accepted by Serbia, but rejected by Montenegro.

[Lucas Corso]

I forgot:
UçK terrorists and bandits... and heroin traffickers