We bombed the wrong side

Lewis MacKenzie

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.

(c) 2004 National Post . All Rights Reserved. Reposted for fair use.