June 22, 1999

Kosovo is KLA country now

Following the well established pattern of
lie with a headline, retract with a back of
the paper story, NATO and the AP reported
that a "Serb booby-trap" killed two UK
peacekeepers and two "civilians" who were
clearing a school complex. This led a
senior UK military official to say it
will be "at least five years" before all
the Yugoslav mines and booby-traps are 
cleared from Kosovo.

One problem with the story: the device
was not a "Serb booby-trap" but a
US-made, NATO-dropped cluster bomb. The 
AP finally got around to accurately reporting
this today.

And the "civilians?" They turned out to be
KLA members - working alongside UK troops.
And no one yet has commented on the fact
that there were US-made cluster bombs littering
a school yard. Too common to be considered news
any more? 

The KLA, on whose behalf it now appears NATO fought the war,
is showing its stripes. Declared a terrorist organization
by the US State Department in 1998, the group has long been known
to be an equal opportunity criminal organization, killing 
Serbians, Gypsies, and fellow Albanians without discrimination.

I guess when the KLA kills fellow Albanians, it's not "ethnic
cleansing" and therefore nothing for Clinton & Co. to be 
concerned with. No racial or ethnic hatred involved. Just 
pure murder. KLA "peacetime" atrocities are occurring with 
such frequency now that even the AP is compelled to report 
the more ghastly incidents (quietly) Here's one you may 
not have seen:    

June 18, 1999

PRIZREN, Yugoslavia (AP) - German soldiers detained 25 
ethnic Albanian rebels today after finding one elderly man
dead and more than 15 others hurt in a police station that 
had been under control of the Kosovo Liberation Army since
early this week. 

Most of the victims seemed to be ethnic Albanians or Gypsies
between the ages of 50 and 60, said Lt. Col. Dietmar Jeserich,
a spokesman for the German army serving in the Kosovo peace
force in the region. 

During the Kosovo conflict that started February 1998 and 
ended in a peace deal last week, the KLA had assassinated 
not only Serbs but also ethnic Albanians and Gyspies believed 
loyal to the Belgrade regime of Slobodan Milosevic. 

(Editor's note: "Loyal to the regime?" Is that like the "regime"
of Bill Clinton or Tony Blair. Appalling as he may be, Milosevic
is an elected official of a sovereign country. Is it possible that
the latest victims of KLA terror are merely law abiding
citizens who refused to support criminals and criminals 
acts?)

One man in his 70s was found dead, chained to a chair. He 
appeared to have died shortly before the German soldiers 
arrived, Jeserich said.

Most of the injured had bloody wounds and bruises, many 
on their faces. One man had huge purple welts across his
back. Two or three others had what appeared to be stab 
wounds in their legs...  

German troops found a stash of weapons, including grenades, 
machine guns, mortars and shells. They also found heavy 
wooden sticks and spikes with nails that they said appeared 
to be ``instruments of torture.''

The New York Times showed some of the victims with 
massive welts on their backs and faces with a caption
 cautiously stating they "appear to have been beaten."

The 25 KLA detainees were permitted to go free after
being held a short time. From a US military source:
"NATO has no authority to detain KLA members."

So, let's get this straight. No police, a few thousand
NATO troops muddling around trying to find their
way, black uniformed terrorists in control of
scores of villages and key economic infrastructure, 
torturing and murdering at will - and no one in the 
province has the authority to do anything other
than disarm them. 

None of this is enough to deter the New York Times
and other US news media from giving the KLA front page 
legitimacy. After all, now that the province has been 
torn away by bombardment from the country of which is 
was legally part, who else is going to run the country? 

And to make sure they do it right...

"Just one week after President Clinton explained that 
he authorized a  military attack to enforce ethnic amity
in the Balkans, the Senate Appropriations Committee 
last Thursday quietly and unanimously voted $20 million
in start-up money to equip a Kosovo "self-defense force." 
It definitely will not be in the business of promoting good
feelings between Albanian and Serb.

The Clinton administration made no objection to the 
appropriation pressed by Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). 
While insisting it was not a continuation of his long 
crusade to arm the Kosovo Liberation Army, McConnell 
told me "some of those folks" in the new U.S.-trained 
police force will be KLA guerrilla fighters."

Robert Novak - June 21, 1999
http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/novak21.html

Just plain "folks"...

Note that when KLA members commit atrocities, it's
"rogue elements" who are responsible, but when Yugoslavian 
forces are involved (and oddly, hard documentation of 
KLA atrocities is still, at this late date,  much, much 
easier to come by), the orders must always have come 
directly from the top government officials in Belgrade.
Does this make Bill Clinton responsible for the
anti-war protestor in Santa Cruz, California who was 
recently  assaulted with near deadly force by uniformed 
police officers of his "regime." 

More on KLA as a military power in Kosovo from a Reuters 
report (6/22/99):

"The Serb-dominated civil administration has completely 
collapsed, the police are gone, and nothing has been 
established to replace their functions apart from the 
NATO peacekeeping force, which is being stretched in all 
directions...

In remote parts of Kosovo, its black-uniformed military 
police are now the only law, and its soldiers guard factories 
and other valuable installations. They are trusted by Kosovo 
Albanians and it would be counter-productive to remove them
from the scene before NATO is able to take over the 
responsibilities."

Note: The last people to wear black uniforms in this
part of the world were associates of Adolph Hitler. 

And this war which killed so many civilians, and has
created a terrorist-controlled state policed by black 
uniformed thugs who are subject to no authority, how 
well did it succeed in damaging the Yugoslavian forces in 
Kosovo? 

"Nato officers have been astonished that thousands of Yugoslav 
tanks, missile launchers, artillery batteries, personnel carriers
and trucks have been withdrawn from the province with barely
a scratch on them."
- The Independent (UK) 6/21/99 
http://www.independent.co.uk/stories/B2106902.html

Astonished? Why? Brasscheck readers knew NATO
was hitting nothing but civilians nearly a month 
ago and *why* - and NATO knew it too.

"Why such an abysmal performance by NATO?
Because tanks, artillery, and ACV's are the easiest
things in the world to hide. They can be put in
caves, barns, warehouses, truck trailers, underground
parking lots, covered with camouflage and
stashed in the woods, or just put under tarps.
Hiding equipment is basic military procedure.
NATO knew this going into this "war"

Destroyed or damaged (so far):

70 tanks (out of 1,025)
130 ACVs (out of 850)
130 artillery (out of 3,750)
80 planes (out of 155)"

Source: http://www.brasscheck.com/yugoslavia/directory/52699a.html
"The stats NATO doesn't want you to see" - May 26, 1999