By: Mary Mostert, Analyst, Original Sources, www.originalsources.com
March 11, 1999
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright urged Congress Wednesday to delay votes on a resolution on sending troops to Kosovo until peace talks are completed, suggesting the warring sides would interpret a lack of U.S. resolve as "a green light to resume fighting."
Of course, Clinton, without asking Congress, has already said he would send troops to Kosovo. There is far from overwhelming agreement in Congress that US troops be sent as part of a force of 28,000 to enforce an agreement which neither side wants. This does not really make it a peacekeeping mission, although that is what the Administration keeps calling it. There is no "peace" in Kosovo to keep. Rep. Tom Campbell called it a "bloody civil war" but not "genocide.
"Given that this use of force against a sovereign in their own territory, which has not attacked us, is unprecedented, are the circumstances of genocide present here?" asked Rep. Tom Campbell, R-Calif. "I have received briefings, as all the members have, and what I have been led to believe is that we have a bloody civil war; we do not have a systematic attempt by the government in Serbia to exterminate the Albanian population."
One of the problems in having a president which everyone on both sides of the aisle knows is a liar is having to sift through the messages coming from the White House and his cabinet to find what, if anything being said on any subject is true or false. When we went into Vietnam, we thought we knew what the issues were. North Vietnam was controlled by the Communists. South Vietnam was controlled by a government friendly to the United States.
North Vietnam began trying to take over South Vietnam in 1954. We learned in the Pentagon Papers, which the New York Times started publishing in 1971, in spite of their being classified, that it was Harry Truman who decided to give military aid to France in her colonial war against the Communist led Vietminh which first involved the United States in the wars of Indochina. President Eisenhower made the decision to "rescue a fledgling South Vietnam from a Communist takeover." President Kennedy made the first "broad commitment" which left President Johnson with the choice of more war or withdrawal.
Whatever the Monday Morning quarterbacking on America getting involved in Vietnam, at the time we started trying to help the South Vietnamese ward off take-over efforts by the North Vietnamese Communists it seemed like a good idea to most Americans. By the time it was all over, and the Communists of the North took control of South Vietnam in 1975, the Vietnam conflict had caused the death of 47,369 Americans, 200,000 South Vietnamese soldiers and Airforce, and over 1 million Vietnamese.
In Kosovo, we are not dealing with two sovereign nations, in which one attacked the other. We are dealing with a situation quite similar to our own Civil War in which several states decided they wanted to secede from the Union. Kosovo, which is about half the size of New Jersey, wants to break away from Yugoslavia, which is the size of Kentucky. To accomplish this the Kosovars, who are 90% Albanian, having driven out or killed most of the Serb population of Kosovar during World War II, organized the Kosovo Liberation Army which is either (1) a rebel army; (2) a guerrilla organization; (3) a terrorist organization or (4) a criminal gang pushing illegal drugs - depending on which group you want to believe. There is no doubt that the present conflict was created because of the number of Serbian police and citizens the Kosovars were killing. The Kosovar Albanians are supported by Albania, which just pulled itself out of anarchy in the last couple of years.
Elizabeth Becker reported in the New York Times this morning that "Members of Congress from both parties are openly suspicious about the proposed NATO peacekeeping mission to end the fighting in Kosovo between rebel ethnic Albanians and the Serbian government. Some say they fear the mission is so flawed that it could turn into a nightmare along the lines of the Vietnam War."
Members of Congress are probably right about their worries. In fact, Dr. Henry Kissinger, national security adviser to President Richard Nixon during the Vietnam War, "raised that specter in testimony on Wednesday before the House Committee on International Relations when he questioned the wisdom of forcing the sovereign nation of Yugoslavia, under the threat of bombing, to sign an agreement to allow foreign troops to intervene in a civil war," the New York Times article says.
"Under what circumstances should American military forces be used to pursue national objectives, and what should these objectives be?" Kissinger asked, saying he was "especially sensitive" to this question since he had to negotiate the American withdrawal from Vietnam. "The forces were placed there with great unanimity at the time, and wound up dividing the country," Kissinger said. "So this is a special concern I have."
It’s a legitimate concern and one that every citizen should share. The issues are not at all clear in Kosovo. A very large part of the conflict is religious in nature. Most of the Albanians are Muslims, having chosen conversion to Islam during the Ottoman Turk occupation, rather than suffer the discrimination afforded Christians. The Muslims have tried for at least 100 year to drive the Eastern Orthodox Serbs out of the Kosovo area. In the early part of the 20th century, about 150,000 people fled Kosovo and Metohia, a third of the overall Serbian population in those parts. Despite the persecution and the steady outflow of people. Serbs still accounted for almost half the population in Kosovo and Metohia in 1912.
The serfdom system was abolished in the region only after the Turks were forced to relinquish the area after World War I. According to one historian of the region, "The ethnic Albanian and Turkish population in Kosovo and Metohia were reluctant to reconcile with living in a European -organized state where, instead of the status of the absolutely privileged class they had enjoyed during the Turkish rule, they acquired only civil equality with what had previously been the infidel masses." Class warfare was added to religious conflict and land conflict.
How is it, then, that today 90%of the people of Kosovo are Albanian? Historian Dusan Batakovic wrote that after the German occupation of Yugoslavia, "Serbia came under direct German occupation, and its individual parts divided among the allies of the Third Reich. During the April war, armed groups of ethnic Albanians attacked the army, unarmed settlers and native Serbs. … Kosovo along with Macedonia and parts of Montenegro and Macedonia were annexed to Greater Albania under Italian protectorship. Almost all settlers houses were set afire within just a few days, their owners and families killed or forced to leave for Montenegro and Serbia. Forced migration is believed to have encompassed some 100,000 Serbs from Kosovo and Metohia. From 1941 to 1944, ethnic Albanians serving the Italian and German occupation authorities killed some 10,000 Serbs; the worst of suffer were Serbs in Pec and Vitomirica where ethnic Albanian volunteers formations wrought terror: be fore executing their victims they gouged out their eyes, sliced off their ears and severed other parts of their bodies. Dozens of Orthodox churches were destroyed, set afire and looted, priests and monks were arrested and killed and many Orthodox cemeteries desecrated. Divided up into several police and paramilitary formations, ethnic Albanians were in the forefront of the massacres, and the German command was forced to intervene to stop them. Ethnic Albanians used various forms of intimidation in an effort to drive away the remaining Serbs from Kosovo. After the collapse of Italy in 1943, Kosovo and Metohia came under German administration."
Somehow, the media of America has totally ignored the 20th Century suffering of the Serb people. Their side of the conflict is literally almost never told. In the current situation, while the KLA leaders have not yet signed the so-called "peace" document, no threats have been reported to force them to sign. Yet, Clinton seems anxious and determined to bomb the Serbs. Why no threats to bomb the KLA if THEY don’t sign?
Kosovo is part of Serbia. Only under Axis power occupation during World War II was Kosovo "part of Albania." Only by driving out or killing thousands of Serbs in Kosovo did the Albanians Muslims become the dominant group in Kosovo. Where are the Albanians getting their military weapons and financial support? They are using sophisticated modern weapons and are dressed, in recent pictures, in camouflage uniforms that look American to me.
Today there will be a debate in the House on sending American troops into the middle of this incredible mess. There is a growing concern among both Republicans and Democrats in the House that sending troops into the middle of a civil war which does not impact our national security could very well prolong the problems there.
The New York Times observed, "The doubts about Kosovo are not confined to Republicans. The bipartisan doubts are reflected in support for another resolution against sending troops, this one proposed by Rep. Tillie Fowler, R-Fla. Backers of that resolution include Reps. Barney Frank, D-Mass., and John Kasich, R- Ohio. That Resolution H. Con Res 29 says:
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION Expressing the opposition of Congress to any deployment of United States ground forces in Kosovo , a province in the Republic of Serbia, for peacemaking or peacekeeping purposes.
Whereas President Clinton is contemplating the introduction of United States ground forces into Kosovo as part of a larger North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) operation to conduct peacemaking or peacekeeping between hostile parties in Kosovo , and these United States ground forces may be subject to foreign command; Whereas Kosovo , unlike Bosnia, is a province in the Republic of Serbia, a sovereign state; Whereas United States national security interests in Kosovo do not rise to a level that warrants the introduction of United States ground forces;
Whereas an Act of Congress is necessary for the introduction of the Armed Forces of the United States into hostilities or situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, when such action is not required for the defense of the United States, its Armed Forces, or its nationals; Whereas the Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, has opposed the deployment of ground forces in Kosovo , as reflected in his testimony before Congress on October 6, 1998;
Whereas the lessons of United States military involvement in Bosnia clearly argue that the costs and duration of any such deployment for peacekeeping purposes will be much heavier and much longer than initially foreseen; and Whereas the substantial drain on military readiness of a deployment in Kosovo would be inconsistent with the need, recently acknowledged by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to reverse the trends which are decimating the ability of the Armed Forces of the United States to carry out the basic National Military Strategy of the United States: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That Congress hereby expresses its opposition to any deployment of United States ground forces into the Serbian province of Kosovo for peacemaking or peacekeeping purposes.While Speaker Dennis Hastert said in a letter to his colleagues that he has "reservations regarding the wisdom of deploying additional U.S. troops to the former Yugoslavia," the resolution that will be debated today (Thursday March 11) declares that "the President is authorized to deploy United States Armed Forces personnel to Kosovo as part of a NATO peacekeeping operation implementing a Kosovo peace agreement." Former Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, who was enlisted by Clinton to try to convince rival Albanian factions to sign the accord, was reported yesterday as saying to the House International Relations Committee after reports Holbrooke's mission had failed to get Milosevic to sign it, "Why should Milosevic sign it? The Albanians haven't signed it."
If troops are sent to Kosovo, America had better be prepared for casualties. They will not be dealing with an organized government among the Kosovo Albanians. They are a collection of factions with a history of kidnapping and torture to gain control.
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