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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: the gator who wrote (12927)	6/25/1999 3:25:00 PM
From: jlallen	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

hahahahahaha If you had any semblance of a brain you'd be dangerous gator. JLA

To: the gator who wrote (12927)	6/25/1999 3:29:00 PM
From: Jacalyn Deaner	Respond to of 17770

GATOR: you changed your entire post and this response was to your original outburst wherein you accused me of being religious right, and that the radical right needs to cradle "things" and how rotten the right is, reagonomics vs roosevelt and how the "right" is ruining your life: hardly religious right am I and don't sit in dark rooms cradling johnsons; but I shall be going to the range to improve my glock 19 skills and exercise my 2nd amendment rights. Which roosevelt are you referring to - the one who instituted socialist reform in the US and his "male" wife? the one hillary is trying to emulate HA no it is the left telling everyone else how to run their lives and passing dangerous laws rather like "animal farm" - you got it all mixed up fella. hey, I thought you were leaving the country, just like a clintonista humph enjoy your ball games gator... gator somewhere your post got deleted that this reply goes to, whatever it still suits you.

To: the gator who wrote (12927)	6/25/1999 6:59:00 PM
From: Douglas V. Fant	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

gator, I agree with this analysis- we have blundered into a very big mess.... NATO Learns – Too Late – for Whom It Won a War It is becoming harder by the day to justify NATO's continued collaboration with the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). A front page article in the June 25 New York Times cites KLA commanders, former Albanian government officials, and Western diplomats who claim KLA leader Hashim Thaci and two of his lieutenants led purges of the KLA ranks, to root out and kill potential challengers to Thaci's leadership. No one has come forward to say they witnessed Thaci or his associates, Azem Syla and Xhavit Haliti, personally carrying out the killings, though reports to this effect have circulated for years. Moreover, there have been numerous documented accounts of people killed shortly after criticizing or being threatened by Thaci and his associates, whose reputations for ruthlessness and intimidation are legendary. Among Thaci's alleged victims listed in the New York Times was rebel commander Ilir Konushevci – killed in KLA held territory after accusing Haliti of siphoning a profit off arms sales to the KLA. His death was blamed on the Serbs. Another was Ahmet Krasniqi, a former Yugoslav Army colonel who, sponsored by the administration of moderate Kosovar Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova, brought 600 troops and $4.5 million to assist the KLA against the Serbs. Krasniqi, who Rugova hoped would bring legitimacy to the moderates on the battlefield, was assassinated in Tirana in September 1998, allegedly at the orders of Thaci and with the cooperation of the Albanian government. Two more KLA officers, Agim Ramadani and Sali Ceku, were killed in April of this year after opposing Thaci, and their deaths were blamed on the Serbs. Thaci did publicly threaten Rugova's life, after the moderate leader left for Italy and refused to back Thaci's self-declared for government. However the New York Times' allegations have been denied by Thaci and his associates and challenged by State Department spokesman James Rubin. What Thaci and Rubin have not been able to deny is the wave of reprisals against Serbs carried out by Kosovar Albanians, including members of the KLA. Serbs have been kidnapped, beaten, and killed, their houses and businesses looted and burned, and NATO has been unable to stop the campaign. KLA soldiers were arrested by KFOR after they were discovered with bound, beaten, and dead prisoners in a police station in Kosovo. A Serb professor and two Serb workers were found bound and shot to death at the University of Pristina. KLA troops reportedly overran the Devic monastery, looted and vandalized it, terrorized the priest and nuns with gunfire, and raped at least one nun. KLA officials deny their troops' involvement in the attacks on Serbs, charging that civilian youth and criminals are posing as KLA members and donning the uniforms and insignia of the group. They do not explain why Albanian civilians would want to frame the KLA for such crimes. The Serb press raises more questions about the advisability of cooperating with the KLA in reports that the KLA, unhappy with Italian troops' defense of Serbs in Pec, fired at visiting Italian foreign Minister Lamberto Dini. This report has not been confirmed by other sources. Also, according to a reporter for Jane's Intelligence Review, evidence recovered last December from Osama bin Laden- linked terrorists in Yemen includes video footage of the terrorists training with the KLA in either Kosovo or Albania. While adding these new reports, allegations, and evidence to previous reports of KLA links to Middle East terrorists and drug and gun trafficking, one can only question the willingness and speed with which NATO has come to accept the KLA's de facto leadership role in Kosovo. The problem is, NATO simply has no options. It has so elevated the KLA throughout Operation Allied Force, so marginalized Rugova and the moderates, and so demonized the Serbs, that it can not now tear down Thaci's organization. NATO was successfully manipulated into waging a war on behalf of the KLA and its backers in the Albanian government. NATO is now learning that it is impossible not to take sides in a conflict. Unless it is now willing to combat the KLA and take complete and sole military and political control of the province, it has just handed control of Kosovo to a group no more nor less ethical and humane than Arkan's Tigers. NATO attempted to wage an even-handed humanitarian war to impose a peaceful tie between hostile camps engaged in a very messy, centuries-old blood feud. Now, too late, it learns what it stepped into. info@stratfor.c