RUTHFULLY YOURS

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STUNNING: U.S. takes Serbia’s side over KLA monument; issues “warning” to Albania over NATIONALIST rhetoric as Albanian officials openly call for UNIFICATION of “Albanian lands.” State Dept in bizarre departure from accusing and threatening Serbia over such things….J.G.

Kosovo independence changed Balkans’ status, geopolitical position of [Albanians], says Pandeli Majko (FOCUS News Agency, Feb. 13)

Former Albanian prime minister, Pandeli Majko, said that the independence of Kosovo has changed the status and the geopolitical position of the Albanian nation in the region, KS Reporter informs.

“History is nothing, if nothing is being done. Albanians won independent existence, but they lost half of their territory, while Kosovo is the price that had to be paid: In 1919 Albania was divided by Kosovo and it was like the separation of twins with different fates. In 1999 Albanians’ historical battle for Kosovo was won and today Kosovo is officially recognised country. Soon, when Kosovo joins the UN, the historical process of the formation of the Albanian nation will be finalised,” Pandeli Majko remarked.

Wasn’t it just the other day that Reich spokesman in occupied Serbia was desperately parsing, un-parsing and re-parsing his words about Kosovo and UN membership?

But the bigger point today is that here’s the Albanian former prime minister announcing what Washington is still desperately lying about: that the end game will inevitably be a Greater Albania (a.k.a. “Serbian Myth/Propaganda” No. 426)

A week ago Sunday was the “five-year anniversary” of Kosovo’s self-proclaimed independence. Which is like me congratulating myself for winning a second presidential term. (The first term never happened either.) But check out this latest creative Balkan inversion that was born during the five-year anniversary celebrations last weekend. Al Jazeera’s (purposely?) confused headline to be explained further down:

Kosovo’s Unification Flag Reinforces Division (Al Jazeera, Feb. 16)

Kosovo will on Sunday [Feb. 17] mark five years since it declared independence from Serbia.

Most people are expected to wave the black and red Albanian flag, however, rather than the Kosovar flag during celebrations.

[How surprising!]

The new symbol of multi-ethnic Kosovo, bearing stars representing the six main ethnic groups of the republic, is seen by some as dividing the country. […]

Clever obfuscation. The “division” the Albanians are worried about is between Kosovo and Albania, which is why they wave the Albanian flag — the real “unification flag.” They don’t like the new, six-star flag because it reminds them that there are still non-Albanians in Kosovo, and this apparently is “divisive.” Albanians are the ultimate xenophobes. Knowing this but never admitting it, the EU therefore created the six-star flag to “serve as a consistent reminder of the ethnic groupings here,” as the Jazeera reporter puts it. Precisely to remind Albanians that they’re supposed to keep some non-Albanians around and protect them from the Albanian majority, so as to keep up the charade of “multi-ethnic Kosovo.”

Which brings us back to Al Jazeera’s misleading headline. The blue and yellow six-star flag is not a “unification” flag, since “unification” generally refers to that between Kosovo and Albania. Perhaps the intended word was “unity” flag. As in, unity among the six ethnic groups of Kosovo — the fairy tale that Western political elites tell themselves before bed. As already stated, that unity is indeed something an Albanian would find divisive.

In the video above, Self-Determination party (Vetevendosje) leader Albin Kurti is interviewed. Reporter Paul Brennan says Kurti “sees no difference between campaigning for stronger Kosovo independence and eventual unification with Albania.” (Insert 14-year Duhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! here.) Brennan paraphrases Kurti: “The Kosvoan flag will never be loved,” and Kurti adds, “It will never take a proper place in the hearts of the people.”

That’s because the Kosovo war was never about Kosovo, “freedom”, “liberation” or “independence.” It was always about Albania. The Clintons lied. The Bushes lied. John McCain lied. Madeleine Albright lied. Condoleezza Rice lied. And the rest of the clones.

And, lo and behold, just a few days before the “independence” celebrations, a leaked State Dept. memo is revealed. Notice the unprecedented entrance (unprecedented until December 2012) of the word “nationalist” to describe someone in the Balkans other than the Serbs. Indeed, it’s finally being used to describe our clients, the Serbs’ avowed enemy. But, again, don’t expect any reassessments about whether it was this virulent nationalism that the “nationalist” Serbs were fighting in the first place. Notice also the “danger to regional stability” charge now finally being applied to the actual danger, whereas for the past two decades we’ve been told that not giving Albanians what they want (a.k.a. “Serbian intransigence”) is the “danger to regional stability.”

http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2013/02/28/times-demonizes-hedegaard-lionizes-danish-muslim-instigator-of-murderous-cartoon-riots/ Andrew Higgins’ [2] “inspirational” muse must be the ignoble New York Times reporter Walter Duranty, who deliberately concealed Stalin’s campaign of mass starvation and murder (or “dekulakization”) of 14.5 million in the Ukraine, from 1930-1937 (see Robert Conquest’s magisterial Harvest of Sorrow [3], pp. 299-307). This travesty was compounded when Duranty was awarded a […]

http://www.dianawest.net/Home/tabid/36/EntryId/2430/The-NYT-on-the-Would-Be-Might-Have-Been-Assassination-of-Lars-Hedegaard.aspx The New York Times weighs in today (like a ton of bricks) on the attempted assassination of Lars Hedegaard, editor of Dispatch International. “Danish Critic of Islam Attacked, and Muslims Defend His Right to Speak” (with links from the NYT original) By Andrew Higgins (photo above): COPENHAGEN — When a would-be assassin disguised as […]

http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/02/28/erdogan-piles-up-those-crimes-against-humanity/ I think “crime against humanity” has become a verbal tic for Turkey’s Islamic-supremacist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. In Vienna, at one of the UN’s nauseating “dialogues” between Islam and the West (you know, those conferences where Western leaders explain how much they admire Islam and Islamic leaders reciprocate by explaining how much they, […]

http://nsroundtable.org/as-we-see-it/here-we-go/

Here we go. Further to yesterday’s posting, i.e., Feeding The Enemy, here we go aiding “rebels” again without knowing or understanding WHO they are.

Who exactly make up the so-called Syrian opposition (see below)? Jihactivists, i.e., a mixed bag of activists and jihadists (e.g., al Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra)? Or maybe the folks who declared they’d be willing to work with Hezbollah “because it did a glorious job when it stood against Israel”?

Are these the people the U.S. is preparing to give direct assistance to (as opposed to indirect assistance it has been giving)? Last time we looked, U.S.-supported rebels were (literally) singing the praises of Osama bin Laden (see “US $$ For Ode To Osama”).

America has a history of arming the wrong side (e.g., Mujahideen/Taliban), yet it continues to do the same thing over and over and expects different results. Isn’t that the definition of something?

US Set To Send Direct Aid To Syrian Rebels, Says John Kerry

http://www.wnd.com/2013/02/gops-erratic-confirmation-strategy/

Diana West is the author of “The Death of the Grown-up: How America’s Arrested Development Is Bringing Down Western Civilization,” and blogs at dianawest.net.

One last question about newly confirmed Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel.

Why?

Why for nearly two months (a Washington eternity) did this nominee above all others galvanize GOP Senate opposition?

I ask the question in genuine wonderment. After all, there was John Kerry with that giant bull’s-eye on his record for giving outrageous aid and comfort to America’s enemies by, among other things, entering into negotiations with the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong in 1971. How does a U.S. citizen tapped to lead the State Department not have to answer to U.S. senators for such treasonous behavior while a young but already noted public figure?

He was never asked the question, that’s how. Kerry sailed, or even windsurfed, through his confirmation hearing right into Foggy Bottom with only three little dissenting bumps (no votes from GOP Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz of Texas and James Inhofe of Oklahoma).

Then there’s John Brennan, President Obama’s nominee for CIA director. Sure, the president’s counterterrorism adviser still sits unconfirmed on a hottish seat. But I would bet large sums of money that, whether confirmed (likely) or not, senators will never ask Brennan a single question about the gross misinformation or, worse, disinformation that he regularly disseminates concerning the nature and aims of Islamic jihad. Nor will he be asked about allegations from a credible source – former FBI investigator John Guandolo (whose special expertise is Islam and the Muslim Brotherhood) – that, as CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia, Brennan was successfully targeted for conversion to Islam by a Saudi intelligence operation. And forget about any GOP pooh-bah being bold enough to inquire about the role Brennan might have played in 2008 as CEO of the security company whose employee helped breach the State Department passport records of Hillary Clinton, John McCain and Barack Obama – whose new administration, not incidentally, Brennan would join a few months later. Mum is always the word.

But Hagel drew the heavy fire. Why? Let me explain that, except for sharing with Hagel the goal of bringing home American troops from Iraqi and Afghan hellholes and excusing them from nation-building duties forever, I do not share much of the former senator’s worldview. But when I look at the red flags the GOP seized on and waved, I remain perplexed.

Take GOP concerns over whether Hagel received compensation for speeches or think-tank contributions from freedom-hostile foreign governments – financial ties that do seem to bind. Even a quick perusal of the donors to the Atlantic Council, for example, where Hagel was chairman, reveals troubling tranches of Turkish money coursing through the coffers, as well as donations from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan and other countries.

I believe the appearance of influence-selling – or even simply taking bids – should disqualify all nominees from Cabinet positions. That includes Hillary Clinton when, in 2009, she came up for confirmation to be secretary of state. Hundreds of millions of dollars flooded her husband’s William J. Clinton Foundation, with many millions sluicing in from Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Kuwait, Qatar and elsewhere, creating not just a “conflict” of interest, but total wars of interest for America’s top diplomat. Not to worry, said the U.S. Senate, voting the nomination out of committee 16-1 (Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana voted no) and confirming her 94-2. (Vitter and Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina voted no.) Why was foreign money a confirmation problem only for Hagel?

http://politicalmavens.com/ In the last century, Senator Pat Moynihan coined a term for the creeping erosion of our standards and values – he called it defining deviancy down, and it referred to our escalating acceptance of abnormal behavior in mainstream society. One of the handmaidens of this worsening tendency is the media which exposes us to […]

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/nilegardiner/100204252/a-nasty-brutish-imperial-presidency/ Barack Obama is not amused by growing press criticism Thomas Hobbes wrote that the life of man is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.” Today’s White House definitely isn’t poor, lavishly feeding off the wealth of the American taxpayer, and the current presidency certainly isn’t short, with nearly four more years to run. But […]

http://www.prudenpolitics.com/newsletter

“Sequestration,” which sounds like an impolite stomach ailment that almost nobody can spell and few understand, now gets really interesting. With the sequestration deadline having passed, the White House is under siege by reality.

President Obama and his liege man have been crying from the rooftops for weeks that if he doesn’t get to further plunder taxpayer pockets, airplanes will fall from the sky, classrooms will empty, fire and brimstone will ruin every hearth because there won’t be anybody at the firehouse to answer the telephone, crooks and criminals will roam the land doing all manner of evil because the cops will be on furlough, babies will cry in vain for milk, men will join breadlines like we haven’t seen since the ’30s, and women will weep tears of bitter reproach, tsunamis will rise from the river, bayou and creek, locusts will devour failing crops, and we’ll all be dead by the Fourth of July (if not Memorial Day). Woe is definitely us.

With Judgment Day at hand, the only thing left for the White House to do is to kill, or at least grievously wound, as many bearers of bad news as the president’s men can find. Blaming the press is always popular, because the press deserves whatever abuse it gets. When the president read in the Washington Post, of all places, that he was being called out by the most famous reporter in the land for his fibs and stretchers (a president would never actually tell a lie) about who should be blamed for sequestration hysteria, he could hardly believe it. There, before his very own eyes and in black and white, Bob Woodward was citing chapter and verse with the proof that the sequester originated under Barack Obama’s roof. Truth will out, but it’s not supposed to will out in the president’s own house.

Another Tack: Movie musings It’s not every day that news broadcasts open with a lament for what did not actually happen. But this anomaly is occasionally recurrent in our little insular setting. Periodically at this time of year the top item on our news purveyors’ agenda is likely to be what isn’t new: yet again no […]