Genes, genes made of stone

NEW YORK Here is what we knew about Marko Perkovic before he performed two concerts in Manhattan this weekend:

He's a popular Croatian rock star, accused for years of stoking fascist sentiments among fans in his homeland. Some of these fans show up at concerts wearing T-shirts and symbols that celebrate the Ustase regime, which collaborated with the Nazis during World War II and operated two concentration camps. We know, too, that the Simon Wiesenthal Center denounced Perkovic, who was slated to appear here in a hall attached to a Catholic church, leading to this memorable headline in the New York Daily News: "Jewish Groups Protest Show of Nazi Band at Church Hall."

So what do we know now that the concerts went ahead, as planned?

The man digs British heavy metal, circa 1975.

And he looks good in black.

"Nazi band"? Nuh-uh. Perkovic, 42, did not "sieg heil" nor did he rant against the Serbs, Jews or any other group, according to the many Croatians who were happy to interpret during the show. (Perkovic does not speak English.) Instead, in the community center of the Croatian Church of Sts. Cyril & Methodius in Midtown, he sang a lot of fervently nationalistic, mid-tempo rock songs, most of which sounded like Iron Maiden doing Eastern European folk. And he harped again and again on his favorite themes: love of God, family and Croatia. Especially Croatia, which in his music sounds like a place abused for centuries and still under siege.

"To battle, to battle for your people," he sang at one point -- that's a translation, of course -- and the words briefly turned into a chant for the room of 600 fans. Combat imagery is part of the brand that is Perkovic, a former soldier who fought against Serbian troops in the war that raged between 1991 and 1995 and who sings under the stage name Thompson, which he took from his submachine gun.

But somehow, the show Saturday night felt more like a family get-together than a flag-waving rally. Most of the attendees were in their 30s and 40s -- a younger crowd showed up on Friday night -- and everyone seemed to know one another.

"He's singing about how beautiful Croatia is," said Mary Ann Lakoseljac, who came with her sister and parents. Like a lot of people, she sounded a little offended by the fuss about Perkovic. "Seriously, they don't even call the Germans 'Nazis' anymore. But you hear that about Croatians all the time."

Now, it's quite possible, of course, that Perkovic delivered a bile-free act tailored for this city. You know -- ixnay on the Ascism-fay, or something like that. Certainly, he knew he was under scrutiny. In the lead up to the show, the Wiesenthal Center publicly asked Cardinal Edward Egan to block the event from happening in a church-affiliated venue. "I urge you to take the lead on this issue and to reaffirm the church's commitment against anti-Semitism, intolerance and violence," wrote Mark Weitzman of the center's Task Force Against Hate and Terrorism.

That did it. On Friday, the night of the first show, the controversy had drawn a handful of camera crews from local TV stations, as well as about 10 protesters, who were ushered by cops to the opposite side of the street, where they began chanting slogans like "Nazis out of New York, Nazis out, Nazis out!" You could sense the media and the protesters trying to turn this into a newsworthy spectacle, but it never quite jelled. There weren't quite enough protesters, for one thing, and none of them really had particularly compelling evidence that Perkovic is a Nazi.

"We actually got a call from the Village Voice about this," said Greg Pason, who helped organize the outing. "We got this white supremacist club in Bergen County shut down recently, and so the Voice called us and asked if we were doing anything about the show. We didn't know anything about it till all the papers started covering."

His beef with Perkovic: "We think this is an ultranationalist show and exactly the sort of thing that people should stand up against."

The protesters' chanting, naturally, infuriated the fans who had to wait in line and get jeered at for a good 20 minutes. A few of them offered an obscene gesture or two. Just one -- an immense 20ish guy who would not give his name -- turned up wearing an objectionable shirt, one that had a small "U" on it, under a photo of a former Croatian general who now stands accused of war crimes.

The "U" stands for Ustase.

"You know, this is all overboard, it's all a big hype," he said, with two news cameras filming him. "This guy's no different than Billy Joel or Bruce Springsteen. This is about pride. Nothing but pride."

Uh-huh. What's the U stand for?

"I don't know," he said, adding, "We're done."

But he was the exception. Most fans were eager to offer a lesson in a history that stretches back centuries and involves antipathies that seem fantastically complicated and deep-seated. The danger of a Perkovic show, it turns out, is not that there will be hate speech. It's that there will be lectures.

"Croatia is a very peaceful place," said Kathy Jurac. "We've been occupied by the Turks, by the Austrians, by the Hungarians, by the Italians, and we have for years. That's why our independence means so much to us. And that's why it hurts Thompson that generals he fought with are in jail, accused of atrocities."

For the organizers of the show, all the negative attention put them in a defensive crouch.

"No media are allowed in the show," said promoter George Corluka. "It's not my decision. It's up to the church." Perkovic, he added, was devastated by the terrible hubbub that preceded him in the United States and would not speak to any members of the print media in this country because no one would treat him fairly.

This reporter purchased tickets on Craigslist.com on Saturday afternoon.

"Okay, you're the only media in here," Corluka said, a few songs into the concert. "We'll see if you're fair. We'll see."

The attempted journalist blockade might have raised the expectations bar a little high. No offense, Mr. Corluka, but musically Perkovic and his band are kind of mundane; they sound, at moments, like the Gipsy Kings doing "Dust in the Wind." The charm of songs like "Geni Kameni" is perhaps in the lyrics -- and they don't translate all that well:

Genes, genes made of stone

A fire burns within me

Genes, genes made of stone

That's the way we are born

Take it or leave it.

This, of course, sounds different to Croatian ears. There, Perkovic is considered not just an entertainer but a political phenomenon, says Srdjan Dvornik, executive director of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, who spoke yesterday as he was heading home to Zagreb.

"After the war with the Serbs, there was never a real confronting with the past," he said. "Nobody ever admitted that Croatia, as part of a defensive war, committed acts of ethnic cleansing. So the myth of the Croatians as collective victims is still alive. But now it's just left to people like Thompson to express that myth publicly."

By David Segal

Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 5, 2007

Kosovo Serbs, Balkan Palestinians by Wall Street Journal

Remember Kosovo? "Madeleine's war," Slobodan Milosevic's ethnic cleansers, a million displaced Albanians and NATO's 78 days of bombing? So much history in the eight summers since has pushed this dusty Balkan plot off the map. But a relic of 1990s geopolitics is back in the headlines.

Caught between a pushy Kremlin, weak-kneed Europe and otherwise-occupied Washington, the Kosovars are being denied their happy ending. Unless the U.S. forcefully steps in to usher this province of two million to independence without any messy compromises, Southeast Europe could fall off track again, with nasty repercussions for everyone.

The Kosovo matter should've been closed by now. In the spring, U.N. mediator Martti Ahtisaari proposed internationally "supervised" independence -- the fervent desire of over nine in 10 Kosovars -- and protections for the remaining 100,000 or so Serbs. A year plus of diplomatic efforts went for naught when Russia last month threatened to veto the plan at the Security Council. The Europeans fast got Washington to sign off on 120 days of further talks. This empty concession punted the problem into autumn, encouraging Moscow and its Slavic mini-me cousins in Serbia to dig their heels in.

The U.S. and its allies have put billions in aid, political capital and boots on the ground to bring the former Yugoslav states to the doorstep of the West's elite clubs. Now comes the hitch. When NATO agreed to put its status in limbo at the end of the 1999 war and sent in a U.N. government, no one could know that a future President Vladimir Putin would turn Kosovo into a proxy for his larger fight with the West, along with missile defense and Iran.

Well-laid plans are in jeopardy. "Further progress depends on status. And if we don't get the status issue resolved now," says the U.N. administrator in Kosovo, Joachim Rücker, "there is actually a fair chance that the achievements we've made will start to unravel." Kosovo's Albanian leaders, who have popular legitimacy but limited powers, are sitting tight. This patience may not hold long. Fresh elections are due in November, coinciding with the end of the latest negotiation period. Pressure is on them to declare independence unilaterally.

Among the consequences could be that barely dormant ethnic nationalisms flare up. Kosovo's Serbs may try to cut away the northern sliver of the province, while Albanians feel emboldened to press anew for a "Greater Albania" uniting in a single state a nation currently scattered among four. Violence is a good bet. If it sounds like a recipe for another Cyprus, a 33-year-old frozen conflict to the south, then Moscow envoys have mooted the island as their model for Kosovo's future. The Balkans would then be harder to digest for the West. Which, naturally, suits Russia fine.

A different Europe might unite in response to the Kremlin's provocation. This one is splintering, as in the early 1990s also over the Balkans. Britain wants to push ahead on independence, while the Germans fear antagonizing Moscow. In between, the French claimed the diplomatic lead and pushed the three-month delay. Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister and the U.N.'s first "governor" of Kosovo after the 1999 war, stunned his hosts during a recent visit here by pointedly refusing to rule out a partition of Kosovo. Maps showing what an ethnically divided province might look like have been passed around for years. The Kouchner omission made people wonder how far the EU is willing to go to get a Security Council resolution in order to cover up its own divisions -- divisions that President Putin ably exploits.

Kosovo's Albanian leaders claim to put their faith in America. Prime Minister Agim Ceku tells me that Washington shares his commitment to eventual independence ("Serbs in Kosovo, yes," says Mr. Ceku, "Kosovo in Serbia, never") and no partition of the province. "From my point of view," he says, "nothing has been left to negotiate." But this former military man, who fought for Croatia against the Serbs and then returned home to lead the Kosovo Liberation Army in 1999, isn't naïve enough to think the final decisions have been made. Or that his little province has great control over the outcome.

"Russian resistance blocked the process," Mr. Ceku says. "They're just using Kosovo to prove they are a superpower again." Partition is so sensitive that, at first, Mr. Ceku refuses to talk about it. Pressed, he says, "If we start redrawing borders in the Balkans, the big question is where do we stop? . . . The Europeans have to be more careful."

Kosovo's Albanians aren't the only community held hostage to big power politics. Over the Iber River, around 50,000 Serbs live in their own limbo. In the seven years since I last visited the divided city of Mitrovica, little has changed. Over a bridge from the Albanian quarter, the Serbian dinar is used instead of the euro and all the cars have Serbian license plates. Belgrade insists these Kosovars boycott government institutions in Pristina, and calls all the shots in the U.N. negotiations, with little input from ethnic kin in Kosovo itself.

Kosovo Serbs are the Palestinians of the Balkans -- useful pawns who could soon, if Western will flags, get their own Gaza strip. Oliver Ivanovic, a community leader who right after the war organized special teams to guard the main bridge linking the town, says no Serb can accept independence for Kosovo. But tensions are less visible. What happened to the bridge watchers? "No need anymore." He acknowledges that the promised devolution is a good deal for the Serbs. "We oppose the Ahtisaari plan, but we're not going to say it would be worse. If it is implemented, it would be better than it is now," he says.

Any move to split off the region north of the Iber would be costly for the Kosovo Serbs, too. Just over half the Serbs live in the Albanian-majority regions. Without the Ahtisaari protections, another exodus to refugee camps in Serbia would be likely -- not an image that anyone, save perhaps for Moscow, should welcome.

Such an ending would be uglier still were Albanian separatists in Macedonia and Serb separatists in Bosnia -- two of the most uneasy multi-ethnic constructs in the Balkans -- encouraged to follow Kosovo's lead. Far better, says analyst Dukaghin Gorani in Pristina, to bury "Greater Albania" and other nationalist dreams for good and anchor the southern Balkans in the EU. "Boring Occidental politics" would then take the place of "the old joy of Balkan politics of ethnic cleansings and murders."

International shuttle diplomacy between Belgrade and Pristina planned for the coming weeks is pointless. Absent a sudden regime change in Moscow, America and Europe ought to see the writing on the wall and plan for an orderly, unilateral Kosovar declaration. Giving up hope of a U.N. blessing for independence, Mr. Ceku wants to set a date for "a coordinated declaration with the U.S. and EU, if possible, and key countries in the EU or" -- now bringing his expectations closer in line with reality -- "a significant number of countries in the EU." NATO troops and funds must stay, along with minority protections. Kosovars would, however, be better off with less "supervision" and greater leeway to, in the words of opposition leader Hashim Thaci, "build a new state." After all, the stress in self-determination ought to be on self.

At stake isn't Serbian national sovereignty but liberty for the Kosovars. This province was part of Yugoslavia, a state that no longer exists; Serbia effectively lost its claim in the 1990s.

The EU plays softly-softly with Belgrade, even recently restarting talks toward eventual membership. Instead, Belgrade should be given a stark choice: a future in league with Russia, or the EU and NATO. Kosovo is the test.

From the moment Madeleine Albright pushed for military intervention, Kosovo became an American-led nation-building project. Of the ones currently on the docket, it ought to be the easiest, too. At the command of 2,500 peacekeeping troops in the southeast, Gen. Douglas Earhart says Kosovo is "where we'll like to be in Iraq and Afghanistan." Accepted by both Serbs and Albanians, America's advantage is not to be European. "We don't have a history in the Balkans," he says.

Calm now, Kosovo can blow up unexpectedly. Three years ago in March, Albanian-led riots left 19 dead and forced hundreds of Serbs to flee. The job isn't finished. "This is one of the places," says Gen. Earhart, "you have to see through to the end."

Mr. Kaminski is editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe.

Julia Gorin lies and fabrications

Finally some of US soldiers stationed in Kosovo decided to speak and end Julia Gorin lies once for ever. On their blog called The Liberty Zone they analyze every single lie Julia written regarding situation on Kosovo. So they conclude:

It is difficult to say where Ms. Gorin is getting her erroneous information, or whether she’s simply using her rather fertile imagination as a substitute for checking facts. However, her claims of what, in essence, are NATO-run concentration camps are simply untrue.

And there are more misrepresentations and outright lies. Gorin quotes a 2000 Washington Post article in order to paint the Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, as a continuing influence in the region. She calls the KLA “violent, jihadist, narco-terrorist mafiosos” which “has continued arming itself in the event that the province isn’t granted independence this year.” The truth, according to those actually on the ground – those who know the truth – is quite different.

“[The] KLA is not alive and well. It no longer exists as a military organization,” says Multi-National Task Force (East) Chief of Staff, Col. Damon Igou. “However, there are legitimate government institutions that employ some of the former members of the KLA. The KPS (Kosovo Police Service), and an organization similar to our National Guard, the KPC (Kosovo Protection Corps). These organizations are multi-ethnic, professional and legitimate and employ many former members of the KLA that meet their rigorous standards.”

We are not politicians. We are Soldiers. We do our jobs to the best of our abilities, and we have kept the situation stable and secure in Kosovo on our watch. To claim otherwise … to twist the facts, publish outright lies and accuse our brave troops of turning their backs on genocide that is allegedly going on right under our noses is unforgivable and unacceptable, as well as outrageous and disrespectful to those who serve.

As for Soilder who did write letter to Julia Gorin here is real truth after some investigation:

The Battalion Commander of the Soldier in question had a conversation with the troop upon seeing this letter. According to the conversation account, the Soldier is currently in combat stress counseling - not because of anything he has encountered here, but because of problems back home. "I believe he's a good troop," writes the Battalion Commander, "but was manipulated by Gorin while he is under tremendous amount of stress due to personal tragedy at home." The Soldier also admitted he knew of no U.S. Soldiers killed in Kosovo on our rotation. He further conceded that he knew of no Serbs who were hurt in our area of operations, nor any that have been denied freedom of movement. He told his commander that he had not realized Ms. Gorin was going to "take everything he said seriously and 'word for word'."

UPDATE: Ms. Gorin is quite the liar. Her latest blog entry says the following:

I was just about to publish the third letter from an American soldier in Kosovo when the military command discovered his correspondences with me and now he’s in deep doo-doo because our government doesn’t want you to know what’s going on in Kosovo. But the following excerpt from said letter is relevant here:

If these people are ready for independence, how come they don’t clean up their streets, towns, and cities, and remove the trash that has been sitting on the curb for several weeks to several months (the smell is getting to me)?…A lot of us feel like the Albanians here don’t really care nor give a crap about this place by the way they treat their countryside. Trash, filth — driving out into sector is a plethora of pungent aromas from burning trash, sewage, and God only knows what else. I suppose that’s because they really don’t know if this land will be theirs or go back to Serbia, but still. It doesn’t look good for them to want independence yet do nothing to clean up their community. Granted they are still very poor and don’t have the services we’re used to at home, garbage disposal, a good public health department to ensure that the living conditions are up to par, it still doesn’t give them the reason to just say “screw it”.

Interesting. No one has said this Soldier was in any kind of trouble at all. Did they? Nope. He's getting help from a counselor for his personal issues, but nothing has been said about "deep doo-doo." Hmmmm. Oh yes, there are OPSEC violations in his letters, but as far as I know, talking with your Battalion Commander does not constitute "deep doo-doo." Here's your prime example of how this woman twists the facts to suit her own agenda. Nice, eh?

ADDED IN RETROSPECT: I have to laugh... this woman doesn't have the intestinal fortitude to admit her mistakes. She doesn't have the guts to reply to anything that is posted here or on Brad's blog. She simply fabricates stories and claims "government conspiracy" as an explanation for her lies.

Here's your tinfoil hat, Julia. You've earned it.

Read rest of articles HERE and HERE

Israeli or Kosovo garbage?

Julia Gorin is again shocked by amount of garbage in Tirana Albania in her latest post , but in her post she parallel Tirana garbage situation with some US soldier letter from Kosovo. Looks like both of them forget that Tirana is in Albania and Kosovo is soon to be independent state. But never the less garbage is garbage in any country, but how about Israeli garbage how do they dispose of it? Throw it on Arabs looks like, that must be Israeli great civilization and humanity which they want to show to world.

Only one comment Julia "First clean in front of your house, before you look at other houses"

Israel plans to dispose of garbage on Palestinian land in the West Bank, and a Palestinian official immediately denounced it Monday as violating international law, saying, "We are not a dumping ground."' It will ruin all our groundwater, and it will pollute the air we breathe,' said a resident on the proposed landfill Israel plans to use to dump trash. The dump is to be built in a Palestinian quarry between the Jewish settlement of Kedumim and the West Bank town of Nablus, said Adam Avidan, a spokesman for the military's civil administration. The site is already being used. On Monday, there were thousands of tires, plastic bags full of household trash and plastic beverage bottles mixed in with construction debris in the old quarry.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said the plan violates international law. "We are not the dumping ground for Tel Aviv's garbage," he said, adding the Palestinians would complain to Mideast mediators and the World Health Organization. International law prohibits a state from using occupied territory unless it benefits the local population, experts say. Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan in the 1967 Middle East war.

The law means residents of occupied territories "are supposed to maintain the normal life they had as much as possible," said attorney Reuven Laster.

"If you're talking about trash from Israel and depositing it on the other side of the line, you're certainly reducing their quality of life, and you're doing it as an occupier," he said, and that "doesn't look good under international law."

Avidan said the landfill didn't violate international law because Palestinians would also be allowed to use it. It's not the first time Israel has exported its refuse to areas over its 1967 borders, but this dump is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, Avidan said. Four Palestinian villages stand within one to two miles from the landfill. On a hill about 500 yards away stand thousands of olive trees.

"It's scary what they're doing. It will ruin all our groundwater, and it will pollute the air we breathe," said Nasser Salman, from the nearby village of Kotzin. "They can't build a landfill near the olives and almonds we eat."

Avidan and Environment Ministry spokesman Sharon Achdut said those concerns were unwarranted, because the landfill is to be sealed and is to take only dry waste, and not household refuse that could pollute groundwater.

But an Israeli contractor authorized by the Kedumim council to operate at the site before the landfill was approved dumped household garbage and tires there over the past six months without sealing it first, Avidan said — a fact that calls into question the military's ability, or resolve, to keep environmental hazards out. The civil administration has issued orders to close the landfill until the Israeli contractor, D.S.H., removes the household waste it buried and seals the quarry floor, Avidan said.

D.S.H., the Kedumim Council, and Baron Park, the settler-owned company building the landfill, did not return calls seeking comment.

Kosova is Kosovo

In the last war in Kosova, the Serbian Criminal State killed around 14,000 Albanian people. Near 90% of them were unarmed civilians. The defenseless. Mainly children, women and old-aged men. Around 3.000 people were kidnapped and are still missing.
The overwhelming number of them are in Serbia. Near to 20,000 women were raped. 740,000 people were violently expelled. 120,000 houses were destroyed or damaged by the Serbian Criminal Army.

The distinctive aspect of the war was the destruction of Kosova's economy. The extreme exploitation and robbery of the 1990s culminated with purposeful destruction during the war.

Conclusion:

There is no alternatives to Kosova Independence, never again Kosova under Terrorist State of Serbia

WARNING: This video shows the reality and horror of war and should only be viewed by a mature audience. Parental discretion is advised.
This video was created for the sole purpose of educating those not aware of the horrors that occured in Kosova during the years of 1998-1999.

Janko "half-man" or full time chetnik?

Julia Gorin posted a letter from "half-man" Janko, who actually is full chetnik man. Your brave Janko admitted why he did left Croatia by himself and here is quote:

…By the way…I was in Borovo Selo, which is a Serbian village, when the whole thing started in Croatia.

BY THE WAY ????? By the way he killed 12 policeman there ??? By the way he mutilate their bodies ??? By the way Janko you are fucking war crime fugitive ... you can admit it to your self, and that is main reason why his family in Croatia don't want anything to do with Janko. Here is short introduction for readers what happened in Borovo Selo and why that event actually trigger the war on which orthodox Serbian was prepared with weapons from Yugoslavian army. So for sake of discussion ask Janko one question: WHO ATTACKED? DID CROAT ATTACKED SERBIA or SERBIA ATTACKED CROATIA ?

Learn the facts Janko and Julia even from this short movie


As it was explained in the previous chapter, the nationalistic Serbian policy, led by Slobodan Milosevic, created high tensions between Croats and Serbs in entire Croatia, but especially in Vukovar area, because Serbian nationalists planned to transform Vukovar into the capital of so called "Serb autonomous district Krajina". The center of Serbian rebellion in Vukovar area was in several villages near Vukovar.

One of these villages was Borovo Selo, situated to the northeast of the town. Here, on May 2nd 1991 two Croatian policemen were killed by Serbian rebels. Croatian government immediately sent a convoy of special police to Borovo Selo to disarm the rebels and restore order. The convoy was ambushed as it entered the village; 12 policemen were killed and 21 were wounded. When the Croatian police retreated, Serbian rebels mutilated the dead bodies of Croatian policemen with axes and knives.

Several ambulances from nearby towns came to Borovo Selo to help the wounded. Crews of a most ambulances carried out their duties professionally and took care of the wounded policemen. But the Serbian crews of some ambulances that came from Vukovar hospital started throwing hand grenades on wounded policemen. This was witnessed by Vesna Baumgartner and Marko Mandic, a Croatian ambulance crew that arrived to Borovo Selo shortly after the ambulances with Serbian crews. The following day Croatian Television aired the pictures of dead policemen, some with missing limbs, some with no ears, some with eyes dug out... The road to war was open...
After the massacre in Borovo Selo, the Croats in Vukovar realized how vulnerable they were. Intense fear was felt across the town. The people stopped visiting the surrounding countryside. Everybody stayed at homes. Even the Serbs from Borovo Selo stopped coming to Vukovar. The authorities in Vukovar realized that it was time to start preparing the town's defense.

The events in Borovo Selo and the fact that JNA placed itself on Serbian side showed the Croatian government that it was high time to create military units that would defend the newly formed country. By the end of the month the first units of Croatian National Guard were formed.

Or look on this video from Serbian B92 from where did attacks actualy came:



Then Janko said:

Those that remained live in Zagreb, but we don’t talk to each other, primarily because they consider themselves Croatians now and I can’t stand that coat-turning…and they probably think I am too radical or something, just for fighting for the rights of Serbs of Croatia.

What the fuck should they call themselves??? Serbian ??? What connection they have with Serbia ??? They are born, and their generations was born in Croatia, off course they are Croatians. Would Janko also call Julia Gorin "coat-turning" because she doesn't call herself Russian ... because she was born there? For fuck sake learn that country and religion is different things.

Than our shit-for-brains Julia Gorin jump to opportunity to bring again chetnik ideology and claim that Draza Mihaijlovic is good guy , hell USA give him Legion of Merit and USA cannot be wrong, yea we learned that with supporting Osama Bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and many others... Once for all learn facts Julia Gorin and facts are clear chetniks started war as communist partners and after 6 months they switched to Nazi's as I pointed you many times:

http://juliagorin.blogspot.com/search/label/chetnik

An Open Letter to Bruce Springsteen

After the wife of Croatian rocker Marko Perkovic, a.k.a. Thompson, wrote a letter to Efraim Zuroff (Israel Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center) threatening legal action over his criticisms of the Ustasha enthusiasm displayed by the singer’s fans, the open letter from Zuroff appeared in Globus newspaper.

But let's assume for moment this letter was written by some USA hater group to a singer Bruce Springsteen... how is this different?

11 July 2007 “An Open Letter to Bruce Springsteen”

I am probably the last person you were expecting to hear from these days, but in the wake of the controversy and polemics surrounding your recent concert in USA, I thought that the best way to clarify the important issues being debated would be to turn to you directly. Before I pose my questions, I have to admit that you have inspired the love and support of Americans all over the world, many of whom have rushed to defend you against my criticism. I have received letters from Australia, Canada, Germany and other places as well as from USA. While some were stupid in an abusive way (spelling my family name in small letters with the exception of a big “U”) and a few were simply anti-Semitic (”Born in the USA” and nothing else or “What have you done to stop killing poor Palestinians?”), most were written by reasonably intelligent people who are convinced that you are neither a fascist nor an anti-Semite. They claim that your sole motivation is pure and noble American patriotism and love of family and the Church. They urged me to review all your lyrics to search for any trace of racism and some sent me the words of one of your songs. None of them could explain, however, why so many young people feel that your concerts are an appropriate place to appear in US Army uniforms and display US symbols.

Rather than attempt (without any opportunity to speak to you directly) to analyze your ideological philosophy and psychological make-up, which in my opinion hold the key to unedrstanding who you really are and being able thereby to determine whether you are part of the problem or part of the solution in insuring that USA will be a model democracy and not a proto-fascist state, I decided to share my concerns with you and offer you an opportunity to once and for all make clear where you stand on a number of critical issues.

Let me begin with the song “Born in the USA” Everyone knows that you have sung it in the past, although not at your recent concert in Zagreb (or any town). Do you have any idea how painful its lyrics are to members of minorities living in USA? Can you imagine how a "Yellow man", Muslim, or Arab whose families were decimated by the US must feel hearing someone like you, the most popular singer in USA, a veritable cultural icon, sing of nostalgia for US wars ? Can you understand that one can be a 100% genuine USA patriot and unequivocally reject the War and the US war's ? Or is USA patriotism, in your opinion, one indivisible package which begins with the US and continues to the present with every nationalist included, regardless of whether they behaved dishonorably and/or committed atrocities? That is something that urgently needs clarification.

In this regard, the fact that you have never apologized or expressed regret for singing “Born in the USA” is very telling. It basically means that you stand behind those lyrics which more or less glorify war murderers, call for the elimination of "Yellow man", the replacement of President Bush with an ultranationalist like NSM party and the reestablishment of the Nazi's. I would add that the fact that you have never spoken out against the ubiquitous displays of US symbols at your concerts is another indicator that you personally have no objection to such paraphernalia. This could be for two possible reasons. The first might be that you identify with such symbols and are a “true believer” in the US ideology of US ultranationalism. A more cynical explanation might be that you realize that those sporting US symbols are your greatest supporters and for practical/utilitarian reasons, you do not want to offend them and risk losing their support. Either reason does not put your behavior in a positive light.

Naturally this is simple fiction and have nothing to do with Bruce Springsteen singing, but idea is same. Even mr. Efraim Zuroff admit that Thomson didn't sing "Ustashi" songs he claim that "Everyone knows that you have sung it in the past, although not at your recent concert in Zagreb." again without any proof as some myth over Thompson head. Once again mr. Zuroff look for real issues like current anti-semitism in Serbia leave patriots alone.

Kosher Genocide by Julia Gorin

Great article by By Chris Moore, LibertarianToday.com on Old Right Pundits about Jewish Nationalist problems in USA

Over the course of the Iraq war, most Americans have come to understand that the modern GOP has been co-opted by militant Zionists whose (failing) retail political brand in the US is now widely known as neoconservatism. While it is true that some neocons (like President Bush, Newt Gingrich, and Rudy Guliani) are Christian Zionists, the overwhelming majority of the movement’s intellectual and political movers and shakers are Jewish nationalist Zionists: Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, William Kristol, Scooter Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Elliot Abrams, and Charles Krauthammer, to name just a few. All of these men were instrumental in lying America into the Iraq war.

What is not widely known is that a large percentage national Democratic Party politicians are also Jewish nationalist Zionists, and many of them are in party leadership positions.

For example, Rahm Emanuel, the chairman of the Democratic caucus and the fourth highest ranking Democrat in the House, was a patriotic volunteer during the first Gulf War in 1991 -- for Israel. As chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the 2006 elections, Emanuel hand-picked pro-Iraq war candidates in toss-up races, thus ensuring that the “change” being sold to voters by the Democrats wouldn’t dramatically affect the war status quo.

While Emanuel was celebrated as a genius by the left-liberal cognoscenti following the Democrats’ victory, a post-election analysis showed that Emanuel’s strategy actually cost the Democrats seats they otherwise would have won. Because so many Americans were opposed to the war, Emanuel’s pro-war Democrat candidates discouraged voter turnout in many war-opposed districts across the country.

He was, however, able to help secure a record number of Jewish members (43) into Congress, an accomplishment that excited Doug Bloomfield, the former legislative director for AIPAC.

"It's unprecedented that there have been so many [Jews] in so many positions of leadership in both houses," Bloomfield chortled after the election, perhaps confident in the knowledge that polls show 82% of American Jews identify themselves as supporters of Israel, meaning the increase in Jewish members would make Congress even more pro-Israel than it already was.

These new Jewish members have joined established Democrat Congressional leaders with staunch Jewish nationalist credentials such as Chuck Schumer, Tom Lantos, Gary Ackerman, Joe Lieberman, the notorious war profiteer Diane Feinstein, and many others.

While most on this list have decidedly left-liberals views when it comes to domestic American social policy, nearly all of them suddenly convert to right-wing hawks when it comes to US foreign policy in the Middle East and wars against Muslims. For example, all of the Jewish nationalist Democrat leaders listed in the paragraph above voted in favor of the 2002 Iraq War Resolution authorizing the Iraq war.

In fact, given the crossover of their political positions, it is somewhat unclear why Jewish nationalist Democrats aren’t also labeled neocons like their Jewish nationalist cousins on the right. After all, many components of the neoconservative foreign policy agenda (blind loyalty to Israel, a muscular US presence in the Middle East, massive military budgets) and the neoconservative domestic agenda (lax border control, massive immigration and a powerful central government that extracts wealth from the provinces and redistributes it to Washington-connected cronies), are also embraced by Jewish nationalist Democrats, too.

Regardless, the crossover between parties when it comes to worldviews and their policy manifestations hasn’t been lost on everyone. In 2004, writing for the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion Journal, Julia Gorin noted:

‘As a new staple of mainstream American vocabulary, "neoconservative" warrants a reminder of the term's beginnings, before it became chic newspeak. It originally referred to a movement of largely Jewish liberals who gave leftism an honest and protracted effort, who dutifully reviled every Republican president through Eisenhower, who did their time in inner cities, and who gave peace and social engineering a chance, until the real-world consequences of their good will forced them to acknowledge that what they were doing wasn't working but in fact backfiring. At which point, these men (e.g., Norman Podhoretz, Irving Kristol) underwent a midlife epiphany and became conservative after the 1960s. Today the word applies to anyone who undergoes such a transformation, Jewish or not…With today's "post-9/11 omigod I think I may be Republican" Democrats, what we have in effect are neo-neoconservatives.’

Gorin is right: today’s Democrats do bear a close resemblance to neocons of the right. And not just the Jewish nationalist Democrats. Politicians like the Clintons, and even Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi all have distinctly neocon foreign policy leanings. Hillary voted for the Iraq War Resolution, Pelsoi stripped a provision from the controversial $100 billion Iraq war funding bill that would have made it harder for Bush to go to war against Iran, and Harry Reid recently admitted he wants to keep tens of thousands of US troops in Iraq, even after the mythical ‘withdrawal.”

The sub-text of Gorin’s article for The Wall Street Journal (which was a long-winded complaint about how the word “neocon” had become a coded anti-Semitic epithet) was not just that after 9/11, we’re all “Republican Democrats” now, but that after 9/11, all Americans should adopt the perspective of Zionist victims of Islamic terror as well; after all, aren’t we all united in our common “victimization” at the hands of those evil Muslims?

Gorin may be indulging in a bit wishful thinking about the average American’s willingness to embrace the militant victim mantle (as so many hair-trigger Zionists have) and about Americans’ susceptibility to being manipulated into adopting the siege mentality of Israelis, but judging from the Israel-like policies of the two-party political class in Washington since 9/11, she’s taken a perfect reading of the character of Republican-Democrats of today, who’s post 9/11 policies can best be described as…kosher genocide.

Kosovo: Serbian lies and deceptions

Julia Gorin on her latest blog posts try to use satirical quotes fro other comedians since she is clearly doesn't fit in comedian category, but using quotes like this:

So… it got me to thinking… There are a bunch of Kanadians (proof that this quote was written by Serb) who really like the island of Manhattan… we were thinking of coming down there en masse, breeding up huge families, setting our psycho and sociopaths loose on you, and then applying to the UN to start a new country… you figure it’ll work?

Is again deception for her readers, Albanians from Kosovo DIDN'T "come down" to Kosovo, they live on that land long before 7th century when Serbians came from Karpat mountains, and Kosovo is recognized in history autochthonous Ilyrian. For longer explanation you can look HERE

The Albanian language derives from the language of the Illyrians, the transition from Illyrian to Albanian apparently occurring between the 4th and 6th centuries AD. Ilyrian culture is believed to have evolved from the Stone Age and to have manifested itself in the territory of Albania toward the beginning of the Bronze Age, about 2000 BC. The Ilyrians were not a uniform body of people but a conglomeration of many tribes that inhabited the western part of the Balkans, from what is now Slovenia in the northwest to and including the region of Epirus, which extends about halfway down the mainland of modern Greece. In general, Ilyrians in the highlands of Albania were more isolated than those in the lowlands, and their culture evolved more slowly a distinction that persisted throughout Albania's history.

Kosovo was occupied during Balkan wars (1912-1913) in contradiction with the aspiration of the Albanians, expressed during their national liberation movement 1878-1912. In this manner Serbia, in spite of getting the “international legitimacy” for the occupation of Kosovo, in no way was able to justify the legitimacy of its act. In addition to this, Serbian possessive attitudes towards Kosovo which refer to history are unfounded.

Spain “had conquered all Latin America in the beginning of XVI century. Neither do “Russians ever mention their historic rights over Ukraine”. Historic arguments speak very clearly that “Serbs were placed in Kosovo with their expansion under the rule of Nemanjics’”.

That Kosovo was not part of Serbia can be proven by the following historical and political facts: Kosovo was not part of the independent sovereign state of Serbia with its international personality recognized in the Berlin Congress (1878); Kosovo was not part of Serbia in the Second AVNOJ Congress (1943); Kosovo was not part of Serbia during its establishment as a federal unit in the Anti-Fascist Popular Liberation Council (1944); Kosovo was not part of Serbia in the structure of Constitutional Assembly of Yugoslavia when the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was founded (1945). Kosovo was not included in the sovereign Serbia, except in federal Serbia within federal Yugoslavia, during the military occupation of Kosovo (1945).

The future of Kosovo cannot be compared with secessions in some other parts of the world. The states that remain reserved towards Kosovo independence should be mindful of this fact. They should instead look and find the “common ground” between Kosovo and certain other countries of the world, which have agreed to the removal of sovereignty over other territories. In this regard, the relations between Kosovo and Serbia are comparable with the relations of Indonesia and East Timor. As it is well known, East Timor was occupied and annexed by Indonesia in 1975, contrary to the will of Portugal as the external sovereign, a fact which makes the annexation of Indonesia unlawful. In 1988 Indonesian government recognized the right to self-determination to the East Timor people. Singapore is another example that should be taken under consideration. This country was partitioned from Malaysia in 1965. The example of Eritrea is also meaningful for Kosovo. It was the Ethiopian government that recognized the right to self-determination to Eritrea in 1991. The case of Kosovo is also similar to the case of Namibia. Partition of Namibia from South Africa and its independence occurred in 1991.

At the end here is quote on which I can agree with Julia Gorin satiric comparison of Serbia and basketball:

I’ve read a bit of history and, for the past 10 years or so, I’ve thought that the world’s outrage against Serbia fits the “second foul syndrome” in basketball: Player A repeatedly holds, elbows, and fouls Player B, and gets away with it because the referee doesn’t see him fouling. Finally, Player B refuses to take it anymore, has his Donald Duck moment, and retaliates against Player A. Only problem is, the referee NOW sees Player B’s retaliatory foul, and calls a foul only on him.

But our Julia was in hurry and she forget to remind people that Player A actually is Serbia ...

Lack of Intellect with Guns

Today top story by Julia Gorin is called Intellectuals with Guns about Albanian intellectuals who want to speed up process of Kosovo Independence in which they stated:

“If the resolution of the Kosovo issue keeps being postponed,” Veliu threatened, “very soon, we will join UCK soldiers, first at big protests in order to internationalize the issue and then, if necessary, we will win Kosovo’s independence with weapons.”

Julia is calling them thugs who want Great Albania, but again without any proof at all. Albanian intellectuals simply gathered to speed up the process of Kosovo’s independence and they called all Albanians to gather around this program. Yes they stated they will fight if necessary but that is simply a response to their Serbian neighbors who are preparing to some "holy crusade war".

Serbian nationalists plan to form a paramilitary unit to prevent ethnic-Albanian Kosovo from gaining independence from Serbia, a report said Monday. Zeljko Vasiljevic, president of the Serbian veterans organization, said the nationalists will create a “Christian militia” to fight Kosovo’s ethnic-Albanians, who are mostly Muslim, the Belgrade daily Danas reported.

About 200 people gathered Saturday outside a Serbian Christian Orthodox church at Krusevac, 120 miles south of Belgrade, to set up the Guard of Prince Lazar, named after the leader who lost the 1389 Kosovo battle to the Ottoman Empire. Serbia was under Turkish rule for 500 years.
Vasiljevic said police arrested 27 men dressed in black T-shirts with the insignia of the Serbian Red Berets special police unit, known for its activities in the 1990s Yugoslav ethnic wars. Members of the disbanded Red Berets are currently on trial in Belgrade charged with the assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic in March 2003.

More Srebrenica victims to be buried at massacre anniversary

SARAJEVO (AFP) - Bosnia was to lay to rest on Wednesday the remains of more than 450 Muslims killed 12 years ago in Srebrenica, in Europe's worst massacre since World War II. Up to 30,000 Srebrenica survivors and victims' relatives were expected to attend a solemn religious ceremony and the funeral at the memorial cemetery where the remains of more than 2,400 of those killed are already buried.

They will be joined by the UN chief war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, as well as 2,000 people who set off Sunday on a four-day symbolic march to the eastern town.Among the remains of 465 people to be buried on Wednesday, there were those of one 75-year-old woman, while all the other victims were males, aged between 13 and 77. They were retrieved from mass graves around the eastern town and later identified by DNA analysis.

At the end of Bosnia's 1992-1995 war, Serb forces overran the then UN-protected enclave of Srebrenica, summarily killing some 8,000 Muslim men and boys.

It is the only episode of Bosnia's bloody war that has been ruled a genocide by the UN war crimes tribunal and the International Court of Justice (ICJ), both based in The Hague. The ICJ ruling prompted some Muslim leaders to call for Srebrenica to be given a special status and put under state jurisdiction, fueling tensions in an already worsened political situation in the country.

After the war Srebrenica remained in the Serb-controlled Republika Srpska, which along with the Muslim-Croat Federation makes up the two highly independent entities of Bosnia. Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, the two people considered the most responsible for the massacre, remain at large.

"I'm working to get Karadzic and Mladic. I still hope that I'll get them by the end of my mandate in December," U.N. Chief Prosecutor Carla del Ponte told a group of Srebrenica mothers, who accused her of not doing enough to apprehend the two men.

Serbian President Boris Tadic said in a statement that his country, consistently accused by del Ponte of harboring Mladic, was committed to locate and arrest all war crimes indictees.

"That is not just our international obligation, it is something we owe above all to ourselves and to our neighbors," Tadic said, paying respect to the Srebrenica victims.

The pair face charges of genocide for atrocities committed during the war, which claimed up to 200,000 victims. Karadzic is believed to be hiding in Serb-controlled parts of Bosnia and Serbia, and Mladic is thought to have found refuge in Serbia.

Ahtisaari bribe allegations

Another lies have been published in Julia Gorin blog, and this time she is using "reliable" sources and made-up stories. Funny thing is that all, "reliable" sources came from Serbian side like Serbianna.com she even linked Defense & Foreign Affairs alleged confirmation but link is actually blog called SerbBlog.

In that accusation she mentioned report by By Valentine Spyroglou, GIS Station Chief, South-East Europe and that report came from Alan Peters Newsbrief Exclusive. By checking GIS info and contacting Pamela von Gruber, Director of GIS, by telephone in the US it is confirmed they don't have employee named Valentine Spyroglou, specially in South-East Europe.
By checking more we found that mysterious Spyroglou exist only on Serbian blog's where he is mentioned as source for some questionable reports, but he is regular writer to late war crime accused Slobodan Milosevic website. So this obvious lie is lowest kind of Serbian propaganda machinery. Second lie is actual reporter Alan Peters from Newsbrief Exclusive who also as Valentine Spyroglou is mysterious person, he doesn't exist in any news agency which can be found on Internet, again he only exist on some Serbian blogs like SerbBlog.

Julia Gorin is making another lie which is quite funny she claim:

The Finnish News Agency, STT, published on June 26 and June 27, 2007, two articles stating that the UN Special Envoy for Kosovo was “bought” by the Albanian mafia in order to support independence for Kosovo.

But actually Finnish News Agency, STT published story as "Serbia's Dulic calls for inquiry in Ahtisaari bribe allegations", and agency made clear from who allegations came in first place.

Republican Rape

Unsure how to judge the Bush administration? Read former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr's book on the Clinton administration. Barr is convinced that Clinton did great damage to the country and its security.

However, to anyone who has paid attention to the lies and deception used by the Bush administration to take us to war against Iraq, and to Attorney General John Ashcroft's war against our civil liberties, Clinton's reign seems innocuous.

By helping us revisit Clinton's transgressions, Barr unintentionally enables us to judge the deterioration in Oval Office behavior under Bush. Lying about a sexual affair is just not on the same scale as lying about war. The petty penny ante real estate deal known as Whitewater pales into insignificance compared to the multi-billion dollar fraud of the Iraqi reconstruction contracts.

Republicans should have noted that President John F. Kennedy remains a political icon, although he certainly out-womanized Clinton. The notion of powerful men as womanizers and sexual predators is suspect on its face. The desire for top bragging rights that come from sleeping with powerful men makes women equally responsible. Some years ago a female journalist at the Washington Times told the story of being at a gathering of women journalists during the Kennedy administration. In walked a beaming blond newswoman, who proudly announced, "I've just come from the bed of the president!"

Barr believes that truth matters. If he is correct, George W. Bush is in for a hard time. As for Julia Gorin allegations about Bill Clinton's raping people I won't comment much I will let American people to judge who is raping America from this picture.

Al-Qaeda on Kosovo

A shameful article written by Julia Gorin on American Thinker is accusing Kosovo Albanians as part of Al-Qaeda organization on Kosovo. Without any proof Julia Gorin try to hide real truth that Kosovar's was oppressed by Serbian government and she even try to hide war crimes under some "holy war" against Kosovo Muslims. But truth is opposite, there is no Al-Qaeda on Kosovo only in mind of Serbian propaganda machine which will do anything to grab land which doesn't belong to them historically in any way. Here is some of brave Serbian "holy war" victim's:

A few months old baby was found covered with a blanket in Abri e Epërme Village of Drenica. The baby was one of the members of the Delijaj family that was killed. The Serbian authorities claimed that only terrorists were killed. Does the above victim look like a Al-Qaeda terrorist?








Even this image look like scenes from horror movies it is actual images of Serbian war crimes on Kosovo Albanians.

Below you can find pictures of civilians killed by the serbian troops in 1998 only. Since they are very disturbing, we do not recommend viewing them if you are under 18 and / or sensitive.

Massacre in Rogove Village. January 1999.

Massacre in Reçak, Nerodime. January 1999

Massacre in Abri e Epërme, Drenicë. October, 1998.

Massacre in Lybeniq, Drenicë. Summer, 1998.

Massacre in Prekaz, Drenicë. February, 1998.

You can find additional information on the "Human Rights Watch" page, links listed below:

http://www.hrw.org/hrw/press98/dec/kos1211.htm
http://www.hrw.org/reports98/kosovo2/
http://www.hrw.org/hrw/campaigns/kosovo98/photo_2.htm
http://www.hrw.org/hrw/campaigns/kosovo98/index.htm

Julia Gorin is a poor journalist

The Serbian Unity Congress (SUC) is the largest Serb- nationalist organization in the United States. Based in the San Francisco Bay Area, it is devoted to political lobbying on behalf of the regimes in Belgrade and Pale. The SUC is both a membership organization made up of individuals and an umbrella organization linking a number of Serb-nationalist groups. It represents the interests of Serbian political leaders by:

• lobbying as a political action committee;
• sponsoring a disinformation campaign which targets the media, university campuses and research centers;
• engaging public relations firms to lobby on behalf of the Serbian leadership in Pale and ensure representation during congressional committee hearings;
• purchasing the services and support of journalists and speakers.

A frequent tactic of the Serbian lobby is to begin public debates by arguing that critically-minded people should recognize the existence of political interests behind the production of information and thus should be aware that 'truth' and 'objectivity' lie 'somewhere in the middle.' (Sound familiar Julia?)

By reducing real events to personal interpretations the Serbian lobby has managed to camouflage the actual aggression and the commission of genocide behind supposed 'opinions' which can be neither 'verified' nor 'denied.' Their aim is clearly to present the conflict in the Former Yugoslavia as a civil war rooted in ancient hatreds in order to discourage public opinion from supporting direct U.S. military intervention. To these ends the SUC, Serbnet, SAVA etc. have developed a well organized system of producing propaganda and seemingly credible references.

The Serbian propaganda campaign employs methods similar to Holocaust denial and revisionism Their first line of action is to create an atmosphere of relativism, as discussed above. The seccession of Slovenia and Croatia from the former Yugoslavia and their recognition by Germany is equated with the bombardment of civilian centers such as Sarajevo, Dubrovnik and Vukovar.

The second line of action is then to deny the totality of the destruction in order to downplay the purpose and systematic nature of the aggression. Dubrovnik was barely attacked, they argue. Vukovar was destroyed by Croatian forces...

There is no evidence of a systematic rape policy -- where is the commander who gave the order, they argue? Personal testimonies and eye witness accounts are discarded as 'inadequate evidence.' The third line of action is then to create their own 'facts' and 'references' and it is here where they have been most successful. (again Julia's methods...)

The organized Jewish community has been particularly critical of the Serbian regime and the violence inflicted on the Bosnian people. However, there is a clear counter- offensive being launched by the SUC and Serbnet to co-opt Jewish public opinion. This involves a propaganda campaign which recalls the role of the Ustashe and certain Muslim contingents who supported by the Mufti of Jerusalem during the Second World War.

Their main attack is in the form of articles written by Alfred Lipson, a leader of the community of Holocaust survivors and Sir Alfred Sherman . Through the Serbian Jewish Friendship Society and direct meetings with Jewish organizations, the SUC has conducted an energetic campaign to win over Jewish and Israeli support.

This has included efforts to overturn the position adopted by the National Organization of Jewish Community Relation Councils (NJCRAC), which endorsed a call for air strikes and the lifting of the arms embargo against the Bosnian Government. According to Bosnian and Jewish sources, the Serbian lobby is also engaged in a broader campaign which has targeted the Israeli Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem.

Qoute from another blog:

In addition to James “Ace” Lyons, Jr., and Doug Bandow, the Advisory Board of the American Council for Kosovo includes Ambassador James Bissett, Andrew G. Bostom, Thomas Gambill, Julia Gorin, William J. Murray, the Rev. Canon Keith Roderick, Wanda Schindley, Sir Alfred Sherman, and Robert Spencer. (The community of journalists should investigate whether these advisory board members are paid by the lobby for their publications on its behalf.)

So when we see this explanations I ask again: HOW MUCH ARE THE PAYING YOU JULIA GORIN for cut-and-paste?

Response to Julia Gorin

Article by Patrick Poole on American Thinker

Julia Gorin's hate-shtick is getting old. In fact, it was never funny to begin with, which lends itself to the proposition that professional stand-up comedians (such as Ms. Gorin) shouldn't engage in substantive public policy debates. Gorin's article would otherwise be masterful parody, except she's trying to be serious. Or maybe she's trying out her best Slobodan Milosevic impersonation?

In recent months she has penned a number of articles telling us all how she really, really hates Albanians. Why? Because they're Albanians, and you are supposed to really, really hate Albanians if you are truly opposed to Islamic radicalism! And haven't you heard of the Albanian mafia? They are really, really bad people (apparently unlike those fun-loving Russian mafia types). And the hundred thousand American flag-waving Albanians who greeted President Bush in the Albanian capital last month were all part of Osama bin Laden's sinister plot to fool the West, we are informed. But don't think for a minute that Julia Gorin was fooled - she saw right through their deceptive little "We love America" game!

In her most recent missive here at The American Thinker, she directs her venom at yours truly because I have had the audacity to challenge Ms. Gorin's circular wisdom and loose grip on reality based on the fact that I've actually lived and worked in Albania, I have actually been to Kosova, and I personally know many people in both the Albanian and Kosovar governments. Thus, I have a slight clue regarding what I'm talking about. She also assails Ray Robinson for getting it wrong on this issue as well, even though he served in Kosova with the 101st Airbourne as part of KFOR, and also has first-hand knowledge whereof he speaks. As for Ms. Gorin's personal experience in Albania and Kosova, or anywhere in the Balkans for that matter?
[insert sound of crickets chirping]

But she says quite plainly that my experience and Mr. Robinson's military service should DISQUALIFY us from having anything to say on the subject:

If that's the case, Poole should responsibly recuse himself from the discussion, as he admits to being incapable of impartiality and objectivity on this issue. Both he and Robison are too close to the situation, their regard for a people clouding their vision and causing them to work backwards from a preferred and stale premise rather than follow the information.

Yes, let's leave the real discussion to the weighty thinkers who cut-and-paste from the latest Serbian government press releases and websites, and tell those who are "too close to the situation" to sit this one out. I can't make this stuff up, folks!

As I've said here before, reasonable people can disagree over the issue of Kosovar independence (at least one would hope so). Some of my esteemed colleagues, such as Robert Spencer of JihadWatch, disagree with me. Fair enough. But it is near-impossible to countenance a civil discussion with Ms. Gorin when she is so clearly unbalanced by her rage - a rage that has no basis in facts, reality or personal experience. The best she can do is channel someone else's rage and parrot other people's points. She has absolutely nothing to add to this conversation, no matter how much material she can cut-and-paste into an article. This isn't debate or informed discussion; it's demagoguery.

This reminds me of a famous quip by Sir Winston Churchill: "An extremist is someone who won't change their mind and won't change the subject." It's long past time to change the subject, Julia.

Battle on Kosovo

If a Web site were created just to record the daily lies of world leaders, politicians and quazi bloggers like Julia Gorin, overwork would soon wipe out its staff. But sometimes a week delivers such breathtaking dishonesty that someone has to step in to award them. Here goes:

The liar's medal for the last week in June 2007 goes to Serbian "patriots" who sought to march into Kosovo to remind the world of Belgrade's historical claims to that wretched territory - based on Serbia's defeat by the Ottoman Turks in 1389.

File this one under "What They Don't Tell You." Yes, the Serbs suffered a military calamity at Kosovo Field, where the better-disciplined Turks made short work of them. In the Serbs' national myth, Prince Lazar and his warriors were stalwart defenders of Christianity, embodying a great Serbian tradition that endures to this day.

What those Serb nationalists (who brought the world Srebrenica genocide and still protect war criminals) leave out is that, a mere seven years later, in 1396, the Turkish sultan, Beyazit the Thunderbolt, slaughtered a huge Christian army at Nicopolis. And he did it with Serb help.

Christian knights from France, Burgundy, Flanders, England, Bohemia and Hungary had united in a last crusade to drive the Turks from Europe. The Turks crushed them - as their new Serb allies delivered the coup de grace against their fellow Christians, then chilled out as thousands of prisoners were beheaded.

Nicopolis set the conditions for a Muslim military presence in Europe for the next five centuries. Thanks, Serbia but please don't help us again.

Serbia rehabilitates Chetniks with pensions

ISN SECURITY WATCH (22/12/04) - Serbian parliament has passed a law granting pensions to members of the Serbian Chetnik movement, the followers of the Serbian king who fled to London just before World War II. Bosnian born Chetnik commander Draza Mihajlovic revived the paramilitary units and their trademark long beards to fight the Nazis in World War II, but later changed sides to back the brutal Nazi occupation. The Chetniks’ primary enemies were the partizans, led by Josip Broz Tito, Yugoslavia’s communist leader until his death in the early 1980s. After partizans won the war in 1945, the Chetnik movement was declared criminal. Mihajlovic went into hiding for some time in Eastern Bosnia, but in 1946, the communists caught him and executed him as a war criminal.

“Serbia must not enter 2005, when the world marks the 60th anniversary of the victory against Fascism ... with unpatriotic lies about General Mihajlovic," said the draft bill. "The greater part of Serbia was with Mihajlovic and supported him. A slur on the Serbia of 60 years ago is also a slur on the Serbia of today," it added. The current bill was initialized by groups that view Mihajlovic as a hero demonized by communist propaganda.



Through relatives, many members of the Serbian government have ties to the Chetnik movement. Annually, the Chetnik movement gathers in Ravna Gora, Serbia to commemorate Mihajlovic. High-ranking Serbian officials are also traditionally in attendance, including Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic and Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica. The Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) - the party founded by former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic - opposed granting the pensions. "One cannot deny that a significant part of the Chetnik movement collaborated with fascist Germany. To do so would be to rewrite history," media quoted SPS member Zoran Andjelkovic as saying.

The Chetniks resurfaced once again in the 1990s during the wars that broke up Yugoslavia. Volunteers Serbs from Serbia, Bosnia, and Croatia joined Chetnik paramilitary units and fought against Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Croats in Croatia and Bosnia, committing some of the war’s most heinous crimes. During his recent visit to Bosnia, Serbian President Boris Tadic apologized to the Bosniaks and Croats for crimes committed by Serbs, but hastened to redeem the Chetniks but saying they were not fascists. Until only very recently, some Bosnian cities where Bosnian Serbs are the majority have had statutes of Mihajlovic on public display.




Still, the offices of many Bosnian Serb officials are decorated with portraits of the Chetnik commander. Some refugee returnee organizations have accused the Chetnik movement of torturing Bosniak and Croat returnees to Republika Srpska, Bosnia’s Serb-dominated entity. Last month, Belgrade basketball player Milan Gurovic was banned from playing in Zagreb, Croatia after Croatian authorities threatened to arrest him because of a tattoo of Mihajlovic’s face on his arm. Authorities said they would allow him to play if he covered his tattoo, but Gurovic refused.

Israel a terrorist country?

Who was Draza Mihajlovic ?

Chetnik leader Draza Mihajlovic confers with his men.

Dragoljub Draza Mihajlovic (1893-1946), colonel in the Yugoslav army and leader of the Chetniks. Born in Ivanjica, Serbia, Mihajlovic fought in the Balkan Wars (1912-1913) and World War I. By the time of the German invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, he had obtained the rank of colonel in the Yugoslav army.

After the Yugoslav surrender, Mihajlovic gathered around him a group of Serbian soldiers who were united in their loyalty to the royal house and organized them into a underground militia that became known as the Chetniks. In 1941 Mihajlovic was appointed minister of war by King Peter and the Yugoslav government-in-exile.

In July and August of that year, Mihajlovic and his men took part in the uprising against the Germans, during which he cooperated with the Yugoslav partisans under Josip Broz Tito. The uprising, however, was brutally suppressed by the Germans, leading Mihajlovic to rethink his position. He concluded that there was no point in fighting against the Germans, that his focus should be on the fate of Yugoslavia after the war, and that his true enemy was the communist partisan movement under Tito. As a result, Mihajlovic left off his struggle with the German invaders by the end of 1941 and gradually developed a collaborative relationship with the Italians and Germans against the partisans.

In response, the Allies switched their support to the partisans who were fighting the Germans and came to view the Chetniks as Nazi collaborators. After the occupation of Serbia by the partisans and the Soviet army, the Chetniks were hunted down. Mihajlovic went into hiding, but was captured and arrested on March 13, 1946. Found guilty of treason and collaboration, he was executed in Belgrade in 1946.

[Source: Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, English edition, S.v. "Chetniks."]

Online source US Holocaust Museum

Source 2: Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum download PDF HERE

Date: 1941 - 1945
Locale: [Serbia] Yugoslavia
Credit: USHMM, courtesy of Muzej Revolucije Narodnosti Jugoslavije
Copyright: Public Domain

Roots of Serbian Genocide on Croatia and Bosnia

In the "Instructions" of December 20, 1941, regarding the organization, goals and employment of the Chetnik units, Draza Mihailovic, who was promoted to General and soon became the minister for the army in the emigrant government, removed all doubts. According to him, the goal of the battle of the Chetnik movement under the leadership of King Peter was:

"... To create a Great Yugoslavia and in it a Greater Serbia, ethnically cleansed, within the borders of pre-war Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Srem, Banat and Backa..."

"... To cleanse the state territory of all national minorities and national elements..."

"... To immediately create mutual borders between Serbia and Montenegro, as well as between Serbia and Slovenia, cleansing Sandzak of Muslim inhabitants, and Bosnia and Herzegovina of Muslim and Catholic inhabitants..."

Included was the punishment of all "Ustasas and Muslims" and those guilty of "our April catastrophe" of 1941, primarily Croatians and Muslims, the colonization of Montenegrins in the cleansed territories, as well as the establishment of a "political body" which would ensure all this. The manner in which this was conveyed and explained in the field is seen in a letter by the commander of the Ozren Chetnik corps to the commander of the Zenica military Chetnik unit on February 13, 1943. Along with outline goals of the Chetnik movement according to Draza's "Instructions", the following is stated:

"... Perhaps these goals appear great and unachievable to you and your combatants. Remember the great battles for liberty under the leadership of Karadjordje. Serbia was filled with Turks (Muslims). In Belgrade and other Serbian towns, Muslim minarets were prominent and Turks performed their foul-smelling cleansing in front of mosques as they are now doing in Serbian Bosnia and Herzegovina. At that time our homeland was overflowing with hundreds of thousands of Muslims. Walk through Serbia today. You will not find a Turk (Muslim) anywhere, you will not even find even one of their graves, nor even one Muslim grave stone ...."

"This is the best proof and greatest guarantee that we will succeed in today's holy battle and that we will exterminate every Turk from these, our Serbian lands. Not one Muslim will remain among us.... Peasants and other "little" people will be moved to Turkey. Our government in London, using the English allied and benevolent government, will endeavor to gain the approval of the Turkish government with respect to this (Churchill spoke about this in Ankara with Mr. Ineni). All Catholics who sinned against our people in our tragic days, as well as all intellectuals and those well off, will be destroyed without mercy. We will spare the peasant people as well as the low working class and make real Serbians of them. We will convert them into Orthodox by hook or by crook. There, those are the goals of our great battle and when the crucial moment arrives, they will be achieved. We have already achieved them in some parts of our homeland...."

This document directly shows the sources of Chetnik genocidal crimes against Croatians and Muslims which originated from the creation of the Serbian national state and its expansionist politics. Draza went further than Moljevic regarding territory, asking for more than 90% of Croatia territory for Greater Serbia in which more than 2,500,000 Catholics and over 800,000 Muslims lived, making up 70% of the entire population on that territory, while Serbians comprised almost 30% of the population.

From Draza's "Instructions", all Croatians, Muslims, and other non-Serbians would have to disappear from this territory, either during the war or immediately after it. Croatians were given only about 10% of their territory at that time from Karlovac across Zagreb to Varazdin and approximately 1/5 of the NDH population. Accusations and allegations against Croatians and Muslims for all the evil and sufferings caused to the Serbians during the war existed for the purpose of constantly motivating Chetniks to execute punishments, that is, crimes of genocide against them. This is clearly stated in Draza's "Instructions".

With respect to this, and with the same goal, is the exaggeration of Serbian victims caused by the Ustasa or, according to the Chetniks, by the "Croatians" i.e. the entire Croatian and Muslim peoples, starting with the number of 382,000 at the end of 1941, coming to over 518,000 at the end of February 1942, then 600,000 in October 1942, with 800,000 at the end of 1943 and finally, at the end of the war, arriving at the number of one million Serbians killed on NDH territory. This is absurd to any objective researcher and is shown in the work of the Serb, Dr. B Kocovic.

Draza's threats of revenge against Croats and Muslims as a prerequisite for life and rights in a future state had the same aim. Also, in other program documents of individual Chetnik leaders and units similar arguments and goals are expressed.

The "Elaborat" of the Dinara Chetnik division of March 1942, which was established precisely at that time and encompassed northern Dalmatia, Lika, and the southwestern part of Bosanska Krajina, also presented its aims and arguments. The principle goal was the creation of a "Serbian national state" where "Serbians lived and which Serbians aspire to...", that is, a "Greater Serbia" which would include Bosnia and Herzegovina, a part of Dalmatia, Lika, and other territories with a pure national system and "King Peter at the head" in which "exclusively the Orthodox populace would live".

The rest was to disappear so that on March 25, 1943, the Dinara division gave an order to its units to "cleanse the Croatians and Muslims" from their territory. At the same time, "the establishment of a national corridor along the Dinara Mountain to link Herzegovina with northern Dalmatia and Lika", was assigned as one of the primary tasks of this division and the Chetnik movement, which they attempted to achieve, particularly in 1942 and 1943, through the cleansing of the local Croatian and Muslim population.

Vukasin Marcetic, the commander of the Chetnik unit "Manjaca", stated the following at a conference of the Chetnik units on June 7, 1942: "I believe that Bosnia and Serbia are one nation and I hope that everything that is not Serbian will be cleansed from Bosnia." Milan Santic, a Chetnik leader, was even more direct. In his speech, in Trebinje at the end of July 1942, he stated that the goal of the Chetnik movement was to "establish a Greater Serbia" as stipulated by Draza and then said "Serbian lands must be cleansed of Catholics and Muslims. Only Serbians will live in those lands. The cleansing will be thoroughly executed. We will drive out and destroy them all, without exception and without compassion. This will be the starting point of our liberation". He further stresses that all of this "must be executed quickly and in one revolutionary momentum" and because of this Chetniks will "never formally recognize" the NDH.

All of these documents illustrate that Chetnik crimes of genocide against Croatians and Muslims were deliberate and planned. The Muslims were even in a greater disadvantage than the Croatians. While Croatians were allowed the possibility of living in their own, albeit decreased, territorial units and in a future Yugoslavia, this possibility, according to Chetnik ideology, did not exist for the Muslims. According to the Serbians, Muslims were considered "a non-national element," an "internal enemy," and "Turks", and their destruction was considered to be the "most holy of tasks" to the Chetniks. This depended only on the military and given possibilities of the Chetniks and on the strength of the other military camps, as well as the situation in individual regions of this imaginary Chetnik Greater Serbia. In accordance with this, certain areas were cleansed of Croatians and Muslims.



The organization of Chetnik military units was proposed in order to accomplish the planned genocidal crimes against Croatians and Muslims on the territory of today's republics of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, the then NDH. They were founded on NDH territory (south of the Sava River extending to the Adriatic Sea) with direct support from Italian and German occupying forces. On the basis of contracts, Axis forces provided Chetnik military units not only with weapons, ammunition, provisions, and salaries but were also often initiators and protectors of a great number of mass Chetnik crimes against Croatians and Muslims.

The Chetnik movement did not fulfill its genocidal intentions because it did not possess enough military units. Yet, I personally believe that the main reason was the self-organized defense and armed opposition of the Croatian and Muslim people, which protected them from even more tragic Chetnik crimes in many places and brought about their military defeat. Following the war in 1945, all Chetnik criminals were given the opportunity to answer for their crimes of genocide against the Muslim and Croatians and their historical, sacred and cultural monuments in court. Many were even given the chance to continue with these crimes under a different symbol (the communist red star?) For this reason, it is not coincidental that such genocidal crimes of greater Serbian nationalists and Chetniks occurred in even more appalling forms, with respect to the number of those killed, the number of refugees, and the destruction, against the Croatians and Muslims in the greater Serbian aggression upon the Republic of Croatia in 1991, and then, against the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina until today.