The New Haven Register in Connecticut was the latest victim to fall for the Albania-Saving-Jews-during-WWII PR that’s been on a big push since 2005. While I’ve explained before what the problem is with this approach — namely, the end goal of getting Israel on board with Kosovo independence — there were a couple points I neglected to make. First, let’s remember that far more Germans saved Jews than did Albanians, so Albanian Jew-saves don’t say anything about the Albanians as a people. Second, the propaganda has the reader assuming that the individual Albanian efforts on Jews’ behalf was somehow unique to the region. A contrast to Serbia and Serbs is assumed. Retired Air Force Colonel George Jatras injected the following monkey wrench into this “contrast.” It’s from a July 7, 1997 letter in the Washington Times, in response to a letter by a typical Croatian. Mr. Jatras reveals what the Serbs went through to save not only Jews, but Americans. In return we bombed them on behalf of those who not only declared war on America, but who also turned Americans and Jews in to the Nazis.

…Rather than collaborating with the Nazis as claimed by Mr. Udbinac, Serbian forces under Gen. Mihailovich were loyal to the Allies in WW II and rescued over 500 downed American pilots while at the same time Croats and Muslims were turning our airmen over to the Nazis. Due to disgracefull politics (we did not want to offend our Communist friend, Josef Tito — himself a Croat), our State Department denied the efforts by American pilots to have a monument erected to honor those brave Serbians who sacrificed their lives to rescue them. In his account of the rescue, Major Richard Felman, an American Jew from Tucson, Arizona, recalls, “I watched in horror with binoculars as the Germans executed the entire village of Serbians who refused to disclose my hideaway with Draza Mihailovich’s forces.”

On June 9, 1994, The Times carried an open letter to President Clinton from Major Felman and his fellow survivors deploring the bombing in Bosnia where Americans were killing “ the very Serbian people who saved our lives while at the same time helping some of the people who were shooting at us and turning us over to the Germans.”

Mr. Udbinac’s accusation of Serbian anti-Semitism is even more egregious considering Serbian families took in Jewish children as their own in order to protect them from the horrors of Croatia’s death camps. Upon being discovered protecting these children, entire Serbian families were executed.

John Ranz, Chairman of the Survivors of Buchenwald, USA writes, “In the Serbian mountains Jews were welcomed by the Serbian partisans with open arms, and the 5,000 that survived in Yugoslavia survived among the partisans. The Serbs protected them until the end of the war at the risk of endangering their own lives.” […]

Reader Frank Zavisca, of Shreveport, Louisiana, has his own problems with the Albanian approach:

I am always suspect when people bring up past atrocities, or past good deeds, to support an agenda.

There are MANY stories (mostly untold) about Europeans of all nations risking their life to save those targeted by the Nazis, with great risk to themselves. I am certain Albanians did this — why would a few not? Not everyone lost their moral courage under gunfire.

Aside from sentimental value, it has no value in the present. Most of the “players” have long since gone, and those living there presently have no virtue passed on from past good deeds. It is not relevant. It’s just “spin.”
…
When people still love the past, there isn’t much future. Likely many of the old farts in Kosovo would feel the same about the “good old days” when the Nazis were in charge.

In January 2009, the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle became the latest of the Jewish sucker press to swallow and print the propaganda:

…Although there were not too many Jews living in Albania at the time, many Jews fled to Albania in search of safety. During World War II, there were only two countries in Europe “that actively refused to cooperate with the Nazis: Denmark and Albania,” said Gershman…[O]ne Albanian told him earnestly, ‘“I would sooner have my son killed than break my besa.’ It’s more than strong.” …The honor of helping someone in need is so prized, Gershman explained, the Albanian people actually fought over who would take the Jews in. [Indeed, they probably had shootouts over it, resulting in blood feuds, which are linked to besa.] And, Gershman continued, there is no evidence of any Jew ever being turned over to the Nazis by an Albanian.

Actually, 10-12 Jews were turned over in Albania itself, and several hundred were rounded up and turned over by Albanians in Kosovo. So that last sentence, along with the claim that Albania was one of only two European countries that actively refused to cooperate with the Nazis, ignores the enthusiasm with which Albania greeted the Italian-fascist invasion as opposed to any kind of resistance — because in return for cooperating Albania was promised Kosovo and western Macedonia. Albanians were so grateful that they created the SS Skanderbeg Division for the Germans. Also being brushed under the rug is the Albanian participation in the invasion of Greece and the Fascist organization that exists in Kosovo to this day, Balli Kombetar, which ran the north while the Communists ran the south. Many of the northern Albanians switched sides when they saw that the Fascists weren’t going to win. Historian Carl Savich described one of the roles of the Balli Kombetar in WWII:

Christopher Simpson, in Blowback: America’s Recruitment of Nazis and its Effects on the Cold War, noted that relatively few [Albanian] Jews were captured and killed but “not for lack of trying by the Balli Kombetar organization and the Albanian SS” which had orchestrated “a series of anti-Semitic purges that rounded up about 800 people, the majority of whom were deported and murdered.”

In closing, it’s worth pointing out that all these newspapers writing about the beauty of the Albanian honor code “Besa” are irresponsibly omitting the fact that Besa is actually this: “[A] murderer must request security from the victim’s family — in the form of a word of honour known as “besa” — that he will not be shot if he steps outside his home.” That is to say, Besa is linked to the violent blood code that accounts for there being thousands of children in Albania and Kosovo who are confined to their fort-like houses, unable to go outside for either school or play, because the relative of someone whom their relative killed is waiting for an opportunity to take a life in return, as per the Besa-dictated revenge.

It’s not an easy task for any ethnicity to do, and you may take offense at how he does it, but this Catholic Albanian priest in Detroit makes some important and difficult points for Albanians to take. Four days after a plot against soldiers at Ft. Dix was revealed in May, 2007 — one that included four Albanians — Father Anton Kcira said the following, in a video that only became available last week. Thanks to Mickey at Serbianna:

1. Kosovo Albanians do a disservice in representing Albanians.
2. Kosovo did not/does not deserve independence from Belgrade. (Here people start exiting the room immediately.)
3. “America, with its kind heart” was wrong to support this.
4. There are many more like the Ft. Dix jihadists, “including here in Detroit.”
5. Not enough Muslims or Albanians condemned the plot.
6. If you don’t like what you’re hearing, get out.

May God protect him.

UPDATE:

The video below has been removed, no doubt because viewers weren’t taking it the way the person who posted it intended — that is, they weren’t coming away critical of the priest. Mickey managed to download the video in time, so his appears below the defunct youtube version:

Instead of all hell breaking loose and the editors being threatened with firing and I being unofficially banned from the paper — as usually happens when I write on the Balkans from a non anti-Serb perspective — there were just some mostly supportive comments posted under my piece, titled “The Blackmail of America.” The last line of my article quoted a Hungarian member of the European parliament saying that the reason we were rewarding Albanians with state power was that “we’re afraid of them.” Here are two semi-related comments to that line, from people who apparently have a little more of an inside view of our Kosovo machinations:

Posted by “lightdivision”:

I am a member of AFIO [Association of Former Intelligence Officers]. A couple of years ago the retired director of operations of the Hungarian Intelligence Service addressed our group. I asked about the kosovars. He said Hungary views them as a criminal tribe and that Hungary was adding new border police as fast as possible to protect the country from them. This is just another example of American ignorance getting us into a heap of garbage that is none of our business.

Note: Hungary recognized an independent Kosovo a month after the unilateral declaration, so picture this cartoon of European nations: feverishly promoting Kosovo independence, recognizing it almost immediately, then immediately running to reinforce their country’s borders to protect from the empowered Albanians. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

Posted by Radem12:

…As mentioned by “lightdivision” and the Hungarian Intelligence Officer the Albanians are a criminal tribe. The countries bordering/near Albania/Kosovo have experienced this criminal tribe like noone else, Hungary, Italy and even in the USA. The FBI has recently announced that ethnic Albanian gangs, including immigrants from Kosovo, are replacing the Italian La Cosa Nostra mafia as the leading mafia in the USA. Noone seems to realise that the Albanians won’t stop at Kosovo, this is just a stepping stone, next will be Southern Serbia, Greece, Macedonia etc… It seems that the Albanians don’t value life like the rest of us, they multiply like rabbits literally, have no discipline and don’t really care. Who in the world allows their children to stone the elderly and attack graves/churches? The Western support will back fire, as mentioned by Julia once the Albanians don’t get what they want they will turn. This day is coming very soon, especially when the ICJ votes in Serbia’s favour!

One of the six arrested in Ireland as part of Jihad Jane’s group to kill Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks is from Croatia. Note the paragraph below from this AP report:

Irish authorities said Wednesday those arrested there were two Algerians, two Libyans, a Palestinian, a Croatian and an American woman married to one of the Algerian suspects. They were not identified by name.

UPDATE:
It is unclear if the Croatian national involved is a Muslim or not. It appears that he does not come from a Muslim family, so he may have converted — or we may have simply another case of Nazis and Muslims making common cause, true to their histories.

Since Kosovo “independence” two years ago, I’ve been meaning to post the most damning parts of a good article that appeared shortly after in Der Spiegel magazine. Below is an excerpt, with emphasis added.

Confusion and Corruption in Kosovo by Walter Mayr (April 24, 2008)

Two months after Kosovo declared independence, thousands of foreign experts have descended on its capital to shape Europe’s youngest republic into a constitutional state — although its status is still disputed. Soon the EU will take over, and its team can expect a country ruled by corruption and organized crime.
….
Under UN Resolution 1244, adopted in 1999…makes no mention of Kosovo’s right to secede from Serbia.
…
The UN has spent an estimated €33 billion ($53 billion) for its mission in Kosovo since 1999, when a NATO bombing campaign drove out former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic’s murderous [sic] troops. This corresponds to €1,750 ($2,800) per capita, annually — or 160 times the average yearly per capita aid for all developing countries combined.

Nevertheless, UNMIK isn’t wanted by everyone here. The streets to UNMIK headquarters in Pristina have been known to be blocked by protest banners reading: “No access. Criminal zone.” Stickers are affixed to some traffic lights in the city, displaying “No to EUMIK” when the lights are red and “Independence” when they turn green. At the Strip Depot café, a politician and philosopher called Shkelzen Maliqi, surrounded by disciples lounging on couches, jokes: “Kosovo is a bastard country. You fathered it, and now it’s your job to care for it.”

Officially, close to half of Kosovo’s residents live on less than €3 ($4.80) a day. Kosovo’s per capita gross national product is lower than that of North Korea or Papua New Guinea. It has one of the worst balances of trade worldwide and Europe’s highest fertility rate. Youth unemployment hovers at 75 percent.
…
Kosovo analysts have one thing in common: They paint a picture of a clan-based society in which a handful of criminal leaders controls the population — and are tolerated by bureaucrats from Europe and the rest of the world, who have come here under the guise of enlightening the Kosovars.

The international community and its representatives in Kosovo bear a significant share of responsibility for the alarming proliferation of Mafia-like structures in Kosovo. As a result of their open support for leading political and criminal figures, they have harmed the credibility of international institutions in numerous ways. (From a study by the Institute for European Politics in Berlin, completed for the German military, the Bundeswehr, in 2007)

[Former] UN special envoy [Joachim] Rücker wants nothing to do with “leading political and criminal figures,” at least not as long as they’ve been convicted by a court of law. But not one of the former heroes of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) guerilla force — who liberated Kosovo in their battle with Serbian troops — has so far been sentenced. Now they control Kosovo’s politics and economy.

Ramush Haradinaj is a former KLA commander who later became prime minister of UN-administered Kosovo. His indictment in The Hague consisted of 37 charges, including murder, torture, rape and the expulsion of Serbs, Albanians and gypsies in the weeks following the end of the war in 1999. Carla Del Ponte, former chief prosecutor of the UN War Crimes Tribunal, called him a “gangster in uniform.” He returned to Kosovo this spring, after his acquittal on April 3.

Haradinaj received a hero’s welcome, complete with pistol shots and motorcades through a sea of Albanian flags. But there was also an announcement from UNMIK referring to reservations from The Hague: “The court was under the strong impression that witnesses in this trial did not feel safe.”

Steven Schook, Rücker’s American deputy at UNMIK’s fortress-like headquarters in Pristina, was already out of office by then…Schook’s contract was officially “not extended” after the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) investigated his administration and looked into (unproven) reports that the American had revealed the whereabouts of a man who had testified against Haradinaj. The man was living under a UN witness protection program.

Even before that, though, Schook’s boss at UNMIK — Rücker — had given Haradinaj an exceptional private audience before his departure to a prison cell in The Hague. Rücker still insists this treatment was justified for a political alpha dog. “It’s a completely normal order of business for a former prime minister and party chairman to pay me a visit before embarking on a longer journey.”

As a result of his suspended sentence, Haradinaj’s “longer journey” ended up being shorter than expected. During the trial he was even permitted to run as a candidate in the elections for the Kosovar parliament — with UNMIK’s blessing. Because of Haradinaj’s background, this attracted attention far beyond the borders of his native region.

The family clan structure in the Decani region from which Haradinaj derives his power is involved in a wide range of criminal, political and military activities that greatly influence the security situation throughout Kosovo. The group consists of about 100 members, and deals in the drug and weapons smuggling business, as well as in the illegal trade in dutiable goods. (From a 2005 report by the Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany’s foreign intelligence agency)

These charges weren’t brought up in The Hague. But now that Haradinaj, dressed in a suit and tie, has returned to the political arena, he can call for new elections and consider himself officially confirmed as the guiding figure of an independent Kosovo. The demand for politicians with an untarnished name has grown considerably. Yet according to a study completed last year, “mafia boss” is the most commonly cited dream profession among children in and around Pristina.

It is assumed that a corporate structure of organized crime and corruption is behind every political party in Kosovo. (The UN’s Directorate of Organized Crime) The UN special investigators for organized crime work in a dilapidated collection of trailers on the edge of Kosovo Field (Kosovo Polje), the historic site of the 1389 Battle of Kosovo between Serbs and the Ottoman Empire. Rain echoes on the corrugated metal roofs of the trailers while the officials inside drink thin coffee. Their weary faces reflect doubt in the purpose of their assignment.

“We are fighting with wooden swords against an extremely well-armed opponent,” says one of the investigators, who prefers to remain anonymous. “In 2005 and 2006, when the first locals were admitted into the Kosovo police, we suddenly found not a single gram of heroin. Our undercover investigators and informants disappeared. We know literally nothing since then.” [What was that — again– about Camp Bondsteel fearing infiltration from Serbs?]

According to law enforcement agencies, Kosovo is the most important interim destination for opiates and heroin coming from Afghanistan. It is believed that up to four or five tons of heroin are brought across Kosovo’s borders every month. The drug then reaches the EU countries through Albanian distribution rings. (Rastislav Báchora, Notes from Southeastern Europe, 2008)

The central Balkans’ drug smuggling route, under observation of police worldwide since 1999, runs through Kosovo. According to Europol, ethnic Albanian organized crime groups now control 80 percent of heroin smuggling in some northern European countries, and 40 percent in Western Europe. Officials at UNMIK in Pristina are familiar with the reports, as well as the warnings of a “further aggravation of the security situation” — now that the tiny republic’s independence facilitates access to government business for the ruling clans.
…
[Ethem Ceku, CEO of the electricity monopoly and cousin of former Prime Minister Agim Ceku] and his lot, together with UNMIK leaders, form “a sort of Cosa Nostra for Kosovo,” says Avni Zogiani, who heads the anti-corruption NGO called ÇOHU! (”Wake Up!”), despite risks to life and limb. He has received threats because he prepares dossiers on the sins of members of parliament, and because he, to the dissatisfaction of Western ambassadors of democracy, utters sentences like: “So far, UNMIK has worked primarily with criminals and made deals with the devil, merely for the sake of stability in the country.”
…
In early April, Zogiani’s organization filed a complaint with the special prosecutor in Pristina alleging favoritism within Kosovo’s privatization agency. The accused is 39-year-old Hashim Thaçi, who, as one of the KLA commanders in the guerilla war against the Serbian army, was known by his combat name, “Snake.” He is now Kosovo’s prime minister.

Will his past matter? German author Jürgen Roth cites a 2005 intelligence study (from the Bundesnachrichtendienst) which asserts that as far back as 1999, at the time of the Serb-Albanian peace negotiations, Thaçi controlled “a criminal network active throughout Kosovo.” According to the report, he is also suspected of having hired a “professional killer.”
…
A multiethnic Kosovo does not exist, except in the written pronouncements of the international community. (From a study by the International Commission on the Balkans)
…
Experts from the Institute for European Politics consider the dreams of a multiethnic Kosovo a “grotesque denial of reality in the international community,” triggered by a “politically mandated pressure to succeed.” It is not difficult to reconstruct the source of this pressure.

Washington’s influence has been decisive, from the NATO attack on Serbian targets in 1999 to its leadership role in the peace negotiations in Rambouillet, France, and the road map for Kosovo’s declaration of independence. “The Spaniards didn’t want a decision before March 2008, because of their upcoming elections, but the Americans wanted February,” says a UNMIK employee. “So February 17 it was.”
…
The Americans have reaped the rewards of their commitment to Kosovo: the Camp Bondsteel military base, arms deliveries for the future Kosovo army and a loyal community of fans among the Albanian majority.

On the very date that, 10 years earlier, we waged war on their behalf, a news item was published about how nicely our Albanian clients are thriving wherever they are. This stirs such naches (Yiddish for familial pride):

London Mafia Controlled by Albanians with Bulgaria Ties
Posted March 24, 2009 by The Boss

The Albanian mafia that runs the largest criminal gangs in London has ties to the Bulgarian mafia, according to The London Daily News.

In a report Monday the London newspaper revealed that the Drenica group whose main profit is drugs, weapons, stolen automobiles, white slavery, cigarettes and alcohol has links with the Albanian, Macedonian, Bulgarian and Czech mafias.

In an under cover investigation into criminal gangs operating in north London Albanians who fought in the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) during the bloody Balkans conflict against Serbia, now have now established themselves as formidable figures in the London’s underworld.

One leading Albanian gangster who spoke to the London Daily News said: “We can use guns, we control the prostitutes in Soho and we are investing in London heavily. We fear no one and the law cannot do anything to stop us.”

STOP them? Who’s trying to stop them? Do like America does: If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em!

The newspaper discovered that to have someone “taken out” according to the unwritten laws in London’s criminal underworld, the going rate is around GBP 5 000 with Albanian’s using either guns or knives to eliminate the target.

German company accused of drug smuggling in Afghanistan

Allegations date back to Kosovo war

Ecolog is employed by ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] to handle laundry services at various locations in Kabul as well as garbage disposal at the military airport and ISAF headquarters in the Afghan capital. The company had been in charge of fuel deliveries to NATO troops in the past.

According to NDR [North German Broadcasting], initial allegations against Ecolog and the Macedonian-Albanian family behind the company date back to the war in Kosovo. Then NATO-led KFOR troops had already suggested there may have been links between the Destani family and organized crime.

NDR quoted a current confidential KFOR report as saying that “the Destani family from Tetovo controls crime and smuggling activities at the Kosovar-Macedonian border.”

So it didn’t matter that NATO knew back in ‘99 what these people were. We took their side in the war and therefore continued to have all kinds of collaborative and working relationships with whatever it is that they are, compromising ourselves in the process. What was that again about Camp Bondsteel’s fear of Serbian infiltration?

And people are surprised that U.S. troops in Macedonia protect the KLA’s heroin factories from international investigation.

Meanwhile, isn’t there something ironic about an Albanian company cleaning up trash?

In December I blogged about the contaminated camps in Kosovo, to which the Roma population was displaced in 1999. I noted that the writer of the UK Sun piece about it used the passive tense, not assigning a culprit to the “ethnic cleansing” in June, 1999 that forced the Roma from their homes, for example, in Kosovska Mitrovica. So readers naturally would assume it was the Serbs who cleansed the Roma and are responsible for their current predicament. At the time, I merely stated — based on numerous sources I’ve accumulated over the years — that the Roma were cleansed by Albanians, but a mainstream foreign source just this month said it outright. A Feb. 16 item in B92 about the halting by the European Council Human Rights Commissioner of forcible Roma returns to Kosovo closed with the following paragraphs:

In a report published last summer, Human Rights Watch said that the Roma district in the northern city of Kosovska Mitrovica was attacked by ethnic Albanians in June 1999.

“By June 24, the district had been looted and burned to the ground, and its 8,000 inhabitants had fled. Many were resettled by the UN in camps in a heavily contaminated area located near a defunct lead mine. The move was originally intended to be temporary, yet about 670 Roma still live in camps near the site, with damaging consequences for their health,” said the report.

Note that June, 1999 was already after the Albanians won their war. So why did the gypsies, of all people, still need to be cleansed? What was the real goal of that war?

On Jan. 23rd an article written by Dan Diker, a senior foreign policy analyst at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, appeared in The Jerusalem Post. It was “based on the Jerusalem Viewpoints that was published at the Institute for Contemporary Affairs at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.” The piece was titled “Is Abbas Ignoring Israel and Eyeing Kosovo?” I wrote a letter to the editor at the Jerusalem Post, but probably too late, as it had been almost two weeks since the article ran. So here is what my letter said:

Dear Editor:

It’s a shame that in reaching for distinctions between the Israel and Kosovo cases Dan Diker writes that “there is no legal or historical comparison,” adding that a Palestinian unilateral declaration of independence would “violate internationally sanctioned agreements” between the two sides. As if UN Resolution 1244 reaffirming Serbian sovereignty over its Jerusalem (Kosovo) wasn’t violated by the Kosovo secession — a resolution that Kosovo-Albanians and their U.S. benefactors would dearly like everyone to forget indeed.

The example of Res. 1244 is in addition to the numerous 1998-99 internationally-mediated agreements that Serbia abided by while the Kosovo Liberation Army, now the “legitimate government” of Kosovo, reinforced its positions and proceeded with the violence, now with an upper hand gained by Serbian withdrawals.

Mr. Diker also writes that “mindful of Serbia’s indicted leaders Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic who had slaughtered thousands,” the Palestinians are delegitimizing Israel “as a lever to criminalize and isolate it in the international community.”

Precisely what the Bosnian-Muslims, Albanians, and Croatian Nazi-nostalgists successfully did to Serbia. Lamentably, Mr. Diker appears entirely credulous of the Muslim-originated Western narrative of Karadzic and Milosevic as butchers. In worrying about the petitions seeking the arrest of senior Israeli officials, Mr. Diker never stops to consider that perhaps Milosevic and Karadzic were similarly victims of propaganda that made its way directly from the Bosnian and Croatian Ministries of Information into our newspapers. Which allowed a replay in 1999 Kosovo, as the late Wall St. Journal reporter Daniel Pearl uncovered by the end of that year.

When it comes to the countless manufactured “Serbian crimes” — the reality behind which pales in comparison to the never-printed Albanian, Bosnian and Croatian crimes against Serbs — if Jews had maintained the healthy dose of skepticism they ask the world to maintain in hearing about the real and imagined “Israeli crimes against Palestinians,” Israel would not be in as dire a position as it finds itself today. A position from which otherwise vigilant people like Mr. Diker now have to work doubly hard to dig us out of.

Good relations between Serbia, US (Government of Serbia via Balkans.com Business News)

Belgrade, 18 Feb 2010 – Serbian Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic met today with US senators George Voinovich and Jeanne Shaheen and agreed with them that Serbia and the United States have developed good bilateral relations after US Vice President Joseph Biden’s successful visit to Serbia. […]

Actually, Serbia and the U.S. can’t have good relations until a high-level Serbian official declares that Joe Biden and his family all “should be placed into Nazi-style concentration camps.” Then, there can be good relations.

Since I’ve been keeping an informal log of evidence that Serbia remains open to friendship with the U.S. even as we keep kicking her, I’ll just link to a March 1999 NY Times piece titled “On Killing Serbs” by A.M. Rosenthal, where he wrote: “[I]f the air bombardment goes on, it will occur to [Americans] that down there on the ground getting killed are people called Serbs who never raised a finger against us, were once our allies and long to be allies again.”

Well, that never did occur to Americans, but the Serbs did — and all too much still do — long to be our allies.