The Brawler thought La McBride's previous post about how we were on the wrong side of the Balkans was a one-off, something she wrote while thinking even less than she normally does.
The Brawler is saddened to report he was wrong.
Jessica returns to the 1990s conflict in the Balkans in her latest Waukesha Freeman column, where Jessica apparently feels free to let it all hang out as the Freeman was the forum in which she said Michael McGee's reelection showed "Thugs vote for thugs."
The history of the Balkans in the 1990s was tragedy and Jessica's telling of it is a travesty. Using the fact that some of the dopes who had a half-assed plan to take on Fort Dix were Albanian Muslims from Kosovo as a jumping off point, Jessica accuses Clinton of aiding "Islamists" in the Balkans who are now directing al Qaida's war against the West.
Think the Brawler is exaggerating Jessica's trademark ignorance for dramatic effect? Read on.
Several of the men were Albanian Muslims from the former Yugoslavia, the site of Mr. Clinton’s war. President Clinton intervened in a sectarian civil war in the Balkans, and it had nothing to do with our national security. And no one had a problem with it.
* The last thing Clinton wants right now with his wife seeking the presidency is an examination of terror’s nexus with the Balkans. Terror cells in Bosnia and Kosovo plotted the Madrid and London bombings. In 2001, two years after the NATO bombings, the Wall Street Journal reported that al-Qaida was using the former Yugoslavia as a base and that "the Clinton administration had been briefed extensively by the State Department in 1993 on the growing Islamist threat in former Yugoslavia ... little was done to follow through ...." Instead, Clinton bombed the former Yugoslavia to protect Islamists. The Wall Street Journal also wrote: "For the past 10 years, the most senior leaders of al Qaeda have visited the Balkans, including bin Laden himself on three occasions between 1994 and 1996."
* Why did Clinton use military force to assist the Islamists and not to ever aggressively go after al-Qaida? Was he too politically correct? And why did the mass genocide stories never pan out?
* Since some of the Muslim terrorists hailed from the Balkans, where one had already been a trained sniper, George Bush didn’t create all terrorists in the world, right?
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* Since the Muslim terrorists hailed from the Balkans, where we went to war to protect Muslims, our policies against the Muslim world couldn’t be the cause of fanatical Muslims’ terrorism, right?
* In fact, fanatical Muslims are fueled by their religion, Islam, the "religion of peace." One lawyer who defends detainees told the media it’s wrong for the government to label the Fort Dix terrorists Islamic militants because that equates terrorism with religion. Meanwhile, the terrorists were shouting "Allahu Akbar" in the Pocono Mountains on videotape.
Calling Milosevic's war against Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo a "sectarian civil war" is like calling the Nazi invasion of Poland a border dispute. In Bosnia, the Yugoslavia National Army, and then its heavily armed proxies, slaughtered civilians and faced barely armed opposition. Jessica certainly is old enough to recall the footage of Serb artillery pounding the people of Sarajevo. In Kosovo, Milosevic's forces expelled hundreds of thousands of civilians from their homes -- which is a war crime.
Yes, in Kosovo the "mass genocide stories" never panned out and were exaggerations, as happens in every war (or in the case of WMD, every run up to an unnecessary war). But still thousands of people -- not all of them KLA (Kosovar guerillas fighting the Serbs who were no stranger to atrocity though not on the scale of the Serbs) -- were killed. And Jessica, hundreds of thousands of people don't get up and leave their homes for nothing.
But in Bosnia, they're still counting and tripping over their dead. Kids get killed in minefields. In the supposed safe area of Srebrenica, the Serbs killed 8,000 men and boys who were hiding in the woods because they knew they would be killed when the town was overrun. Yes, Jessica, in Bosnia the "mass genocide stories" panned out, insofar as I understand your term.
And yes, thousands of Islamic fighters who killed Russians in Afghanistan went to Bosnia to kill Serbs. That can't surprise anybody. Most, if not the vast majority, were not Al Qaida (just as all Afghanis are not Taliban). (Jessica, deliberately or inadvertently, conflates "Islamists' with "Al Qaida" when they are not one and the same.) Thing is, this group of fighters was unpopular with most Bosnians, who were a thoroughly secular people. Indeed, calling the conflict in the Balkans a sectarian conflict is a misnomer as only the Serbs (or the Croats in some cases) were advancing sectarian interests and the Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) were just trying to defend their country. The Serbs and Croats are, of course, Christians. Which complicates Jessica's narrative a bit.
And yes, not surprisingly, the experience of having friends and family murdered because they were Muslim probably radicalized some Bosnians and Kosovars. And obviously Bosnia has elements of a failed state, which makes it conducive for Al Qaida to operate in. But to depict Bosnia as some sort of command center for Al Qaida -- particularly given the Bosnian government has been arresting extremists -- is rubbish. Should we bomb Germany because some of the 9/11 perpetrators met there?
Instead, Clinton bombed the former Yugoslavia to protect Islamists.
It's tough to pick the most offensive sentence in this column, but this has to go near the top of the list. Jessica sometimes likes to get all epistemological and talk about how the notion of truly objective journalism is rubbish because we all see the world through different "prisms." It's a complicated topic and one way over Jessica's head. But let's be clear: There's a difference between subjective perception and telling a lie. And Jessica's column, my friends is a lie. Clinton bombed Serb forces after they overran Srebrenica and embarked on an orgy of slaughter that lasted for days and filled mass graves with thousands of people. Clinton bombed "the former Yugoslavia" when it seemed apparent Milosevic was willing to do the same thing in Kosovo.
Saying Clinton was "protecting Islamists" is a slander against the dead and a slander against Clinton. Jessica obviously doesn't care about the latter and, frankly, the Brawler wonders if she has the basic humanity to care about the former.
The Brawler frequently signs off his columns asking why is Jessica McBride teaching journalism. But this time he asks: Does UW-M have no shame? Why is UW-M employing a journalism instructor who lies about history -- who lies about the massacre of innocents -- in order to press a partisan agenda? Or if she's not lying, she's grossly ignorant of the material she's writing about. And why does UW-M continue to employ a journalism instructor who loves to smirk that Islam is "the religion of peace"? I'm assuming a couple Muslims attend UW-M.
Does UW-M have no shame?
Thousands of Serbian civilians, not soldiers, were killed by Bosnian Moslems, Kosovo Albanians and NATO bombs. What about bombing of radiostation in Belgrade that killed journalists? Wnat about bombing water supplies? It was approved by Clinton. Is it a war crime or what? Why Clinton didn't interfere when Serbs were ethnically cleaned from Croatia? Because it was done with his tacit approval. Some Croatian generals were charged with war crimes for that. NATO was bombing the shit out of Kosovo. Who wouldn't flee? Why NATO didn't protect Serbs and Gypsies from KLA when it took over Kosovo? Do you want to see picture of a Bosnian muslem holding severed heads of Serbs? I can send it to you. I don't see much of a difference between you and Jessica.You both can be right about one issue and be biased and stupid in in your opinion about something else.
Posted by: Alex | May 28, 2007 at 02:51 PM