FTR#‘s 1431, 1432, 1433: “Back To The Future”: The Balkans Wars, Parts 1, 2 and 3

Intro­duc­tion: These broad­casts are tak­en from a lec­ture Dave gave in July of 1999.

This talk sets forth back­ground to the wars in the for­mer Yugoslavia. Par­tic­u­lar empha­sis is on the rela­tion­ship between the Mus­lim and Serb minori­ties in that unfor­tu­nate nation, and the devel­op­ment of the 1999 NATO cam­paign in Koso­vo. Begin­ning with dis­cus­sion of the oppres­sion of Serbs in the Ottoman empire, the lec­ture dis­cuss­es the priv­i­leged sta­tus of Slove­nia and Croa­t­ia dur­ing the Aus­tro-Hun­gar­i­an empire’s occu­pa­tion of what is now Yugoslavia. The divi­sions that stemmed from the two empires’ occu­pa­tion of the Balka­ns had much to do with set­ting the stage for the cur­rent con­flicts.

The talk then out­lines the his­to­ry of Yugoslavia dur­ing World War II, with par­tic­u­lar empha­sis on the Axis nations’ use of eth­nic Alba­ni­ans and Bosn­ian Mus­lims. Koso­vo was grant­ed nom­i­nal auton­o­my dur­ing the Axis occu­pa­tion of the Balka­ns, and the Trep­ca min­ing com­plex (in Koso­vo) pro­vid­ed the Ger­mans with min­er­al resources that were essen­tial to the Ger­man war effort. (The Trep­ca min­ing com­plex is the most valu­able piece of eco­nom­ic real estate in the for­mer Yugoslavia.)

Though large­ly ignored in most his­to­ries of World War II, Nazi Ger­many’s use of eth­nic Mus­lim pop­u­la­tions sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect­ed the course of events dur­ing World War II in a num­ber of areas, the Balka­ns in par­tic­u­lar. The Nazis formed and oper­at­ed Mus­lim Waf­fen SS divi­sions in the for­mer Yugoslavia. Uti­liz­ing the ver­sa­tile Haj Amin Al-Hus­sei­ni (self-styled “Grand Mufti of Jerusalem,” Nazi espi­onage agent, SS Major Gen­er­al, Pales­tin­ian nation­al­ist leader), the Waf­fen SS suc­cess­ful­ly recruit­ed from among Mus­lim pop­u­la­tions in the Balka­ns, Mid­dle East and Sovi­et Union. In the for­mer Yugoslavia, the Nazis formed a Bosn­ian Mus­lim divi­sion, the 13th Waf­fen SS Divi­sion (named Han­jar or Handzar.) Recruit­ing for the divi­sion from among the ranks of the Young Mus­lims, was none oth­er than Ali­ja Izetbe­gov­ic, the first Pres­i­dent of Bosnia.

Next, the lec­ture focus­es on his res­ur­rec­tion of the Han­jar divi­sion after becom­ing Pres­i­dent of Bosnia! Trained by vet­er­ans of the Afghan con­flict and com­posed large­ly of eth­nic Alba­ni­ans, the new Han­jar divi­sion was explic­it­ly named after, and specif­i­cal­ly and overt­ly pat­terned on, the 13th Waf­fen SS divi­sion of Izetbe­gov­ic’s youth. In addi­tion to serv­ing as a Prae­to­ri­an guard, admin­is­ter­ing to the per­son­al secu­ri­ty of Izetbe­gov­ic and oth­er mem­bers of the lead­er­ship in Sara­je­vo, Han­jar func­tions as a “spe­cial forces” divi­sion, back­ing up oth­er units and work­ing close­ly with Muja­hadeen for­ma­tions.

The dis­cus­sion high­lights obser­va­tions by UN per­son­nel serv­ing with peace­keep­ing forces in areas where the Han­jar oper­at­ed. Not­ing the large eth­nic Alban­ian rep­re­sen­ta­tion in Han­jar, one observ­er expressed the fear in 1993 that the fight­ing might very well spread to Koso­vo. (Sub­se­quent events have borne out his fears.) By 1995, ele­ments of Han­jar were infil­trat­ing into Koso­vo, Alba­nia and Mace­do­nia.

The lec­ture high­lights the Skan­der­beg Divi­sion, a Waf­fen SS divi­sion com­posed of eth­nic Alba­ni­ans, large­ly from Koso­vo. Many mem­bers of the KLA are the sons and grand­sons of men who fought with the 21st Waf­fen SS or Skan­der­beg Divi­sion, and the KLA has sus­tained much of its fas­cist her­itage. Nev­er much of a fight­ing unit, Skan­der­beg helped round up Kosovo’s Jew­ish pop­u­la­tion, fought against the Yugosla­vian Par­ti­sans, and helped safe­guard the suc­cess­ful Ger­man retreat from Greece and Alba­nia. In light of the fact that Ger­man intel­li­gence active­ly sup­port­ed the KLA in the mid-to late 90’s, it is not irrel­e­vant to ask whether some of the Waf­fen SS con­nec­tions to the area may have fig­ured in the shap­ing of events there.

In this con­text, one should bear in mind that the Waf­fen SS has its own branch of the ODESSA net­work, abbre­vi­at­ed HIAG. (The ODESSA is the post-World II SS under­ground, inex­tri­ca­bly linked with U.S. and Ger­man intel­li­gence, as well as the dead­ly Bor­mann Orga­ni­za­tion.) In addi­tion to the 13th (Han­jar) and 21st (Skan­der­beg) Divi­sions, the Ger­mans also formed the 23rd (Kama) Divi­sion from Balkan Mus­lim pop­u­la­tions.

Lec­ture High­lights Include: The KLA’s involve­ment in orga­nized crime activ­i­ties (drug smug­gling in par­tic­u­lar); col­lab­o­ra­tion between Ger­many and Croa­t­ian fas­cists, dat­ing from the time of World War II; West­ern de-sta­bi­liza­tion efforts against Yugoslavia dur­ing the 1980s; the func­tion­al auton­o­my grant­ed to eth­nic Alba­ni­ans in Koso­vo under the Tito gov­ern­ment; the eth­nic Alba­ni­ans’ use of this auton­o­my to oppress the Ser­bian minor­i­ty in the province; Milo­se­vic’s rise in the Yugosla­vian Com­mu­nist par­ty; Milo­se­vic’s retrac­tion of Alban­ian auton­o­my in Koso­vo; a secret trip to Ger­many in the 1980s by Fran­jo Tudj­man (pres­i­dent of Croa­t­ia), in order to lay the ground­work for Croa­t­ian seces­sion from Yugoslavia; a syn­op­tic his­to­ry of the Croa­t­ian fas­cist move­ment, its alliance with Ger­many, and its mur­der­ous per­se­cu­tion of Serbs dur­ing World War II; a 2 bil­lion-dol­lar, inter­est-free loan to finance Croa­t­ian inde­pen­dence (arranged by the Amer­i­can branch of the Knights of Mal­ta); the Vat­i­can’s role in estab­lish­ing the myth of the Serbs as the last bas­tion of hard-line, Sovi­et-style com­mu­nism in Europe; Ger­man par­rot­ing and dis­sem­i­na­tion of the Vat­i­can pro­pa­gan­da line about Yugoslavia; Vat­i­can endorse­ment of Croa­t­ian and Sloven­ian inde­pen­dence from Yugoslavia; Croa­t­i­a’s human rights abus­es against Serbs liv­ing in Croa­t­ia (they were fired from gov­ern­ment jobs, denied employ­ment in the media, sub­ject­ed to heavy tax­a­tion, forced to car­ry iden­ti­ty cards iden­ti­fy­ing them as Serbs and, final­ly, eth­ni­cal­ly cleansed); the Croa­t­ian cler­gy’s bless­ing of the eth­nic cleans­ing of 250,000 Serbs in 1991 and 92; the Islam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ism and anti-demo­c­ra­t­ic ori­en­ta­tion of Bosn­ian pres­i­dent Ali­ja Izetbe­gov­ic; the over­rid­ing and extreme bias against the Serbs in West­ern diplo­mat­ic and mil­i­tary pol­i­cy; the exag­ger­a­tion and/or fab­ri­ca­tion of war crimes evi­dence against the Serbs dur­ing the var­i­ous Balka­ns wars; Ger­many’s arm­ing of the Croa­t­ian armed forces in the ear­ly 90s; how Ger­many blud­geoned the rest of the Euro­pean Union into endors­ing the breakup of Yugoslavia (the EU ini­tial­ly vot­ed 11 to 1 in favor of main­tain­ing the uni­ty of the Yugoslav Fed­er­a­tion.) (Record­ed at Foothill Col­lege in July of 1999.)

FTR #837 Cauldron: Update on Ukraine

With the pos­si­bil­i­ty of nuclear war lurk­ing over the polit­i­cal hori­zon, the tra­gi-com­ic nature of West­ern and U.S. jour­nal­is­tic cov­er­age of Ukraine con­tin­ues to appall. Cit­ing pho­ny pho­tographs pro­vid­ed by asso­ciates of the Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment, as well as “evi­dence” pro­vid­ed by Cold War spin-off com­pa­ny Dig­i­tal­Globe, the U.S. is leav­ing itself vul­ner­a­ble to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of provo­ca­tion by the OUN/B heirs it has sup­port­ed in Kiev. As the halt­ing inves­ti­ga­tion into the Maid­an coup and the sniper attacks that pre­cip­i­tat­ed it gen­er­ates more infor­ma­tion, it is becom­ing clear­er that sniper fire at the Maid­an demon­stra­tions may well have orig­i­nat­ed with the anti-gov­ern­ment forces con­trolled by the Nazi Svo­bo­da and sim­i­lar orga­ni­za­tions. Major points of dis­cus­sion in this pro­gram include: the con­tin­ued influx of for­eign nation­als to run the “Ukrain­ian” gov­ern­ment; the crim­i­nal record of for­mer Geor­gian pres­i­dent Mikheil Saakashvili, a new­ly appoint­ed advis­er to Poroshenko; con­tin­ued por­tray­al of Ukrain­ian Nazi storm troop­ers as cred­i­ble jour­nal­is­tic sources; slips by Ukrain­ian media per­son­nel indi­cat­ing the false nature of reports of Russ­ian inva­sion; nuclear saber rat­tling by a high-rank­ing Ukrain­ian gov­ern­ment offi­cial; a plan to shoot desert­ers from the Ukrain­ian army.

German Economic Colonization of Ukraine

With the U.S. and Ger­many respec­tive­ly play­ing Bad Cop (mil­i­tary aid and sanc­tions) and Good Cop (eco­nom­ic aid and resis­tance to fur­ther sanc­tions at the behest of key Ger­man cor­po­ra­tions invest­ed in Rus­sia), the fol­low-up to the covert oper­a­tion result­ing in the coup d’e­tat of ear­ly 2014 is pro­ceed­ing apace. Ger­man industry–surprise, surprise–plans to mod­ern­ize Ukrain­ian indus­tries and estab­lish sub­con­tract­ing arrange­ments to build auto­mo­biles in that cheap labor mar­ket. This will be cou­pled by the aus­ter­i­ty doc­trine we have termed “Von Clause­witz­ian eco­nom­ics.”

What Has General Wesley Clark Been Doing since His Retirement?

I.G. Far­ben’s Fis­ch­er-Trop­sch process is expe­ri­enc­ing an indus­tri­al renais­sance. In Koso­vo, for­mer NATO com­man­der Gen­er­al Wes­ley Clark is chair­man of a com­pa­ny using it to pro­duce syn­thet­ic fuel from Kosovo’s coal deposits. Coin­ci­den­tal­ly (?) the head of NATO peace­keep­ing forces in Koso­vo was the son of Nazi war crmi­nal and Third Reich finance min­istry offi­cial Fritz Rein­hardt.

Germany and the Fragmenting of the United Kingdom

So-called “pro­gres­sive” ele­ments with­in the EU are advanc­ing the Ger­man agen­da of work­ing to frag­ment larg­er nations. In addi­tion to the Greens, the Euro­pean Free Alliance is mov­ing to redraw the map of Europe, with a great­ly expand­ed Ger­many. Ger­man NGO’s are sup­port­ing the seces­sion of parts of the Unit­ed King­dom. Some of those same NGO’s have also been sup­port­ive of terrorist/Muslim Broth­er­hood ele­ments dur­ing the so-called Arab Spring.

Austerity as a Vehicle for Breaking Up Nations

Over the years, we have cov­ered the Hapsburg/Thyssen UNPO and its cham­pi­oning of eth­nic minori­ties as a vehi­cle for break­ing up large nations into small­er, more pli­able states. Using the human suf­fer­ing and social dis­lo­ca­tion brought about by its “aus­ter­i­ty” pro­gram to frag­ment large nations, Ger­many is active­ly sup­port­ing the seces­sion of Cat­alo­nia from Spain and, in coop­er­a­tion its Aus­tri­an part­ner, the South Tyrol from Italy. Man­i­fest­ing what, for lack of a bet­ter term, might be called “eth­nic impe­ri­al­ism,” Ger­many is using far-right, neo-Nazi ele­ments as foot sol­diers to assist the ver­triebene groups in pro­mot­ing the seces­sion of Ger­man-speak­ing minori­ties in Poland and oth­er parts of East­ern Europe. Tar­get­ing Chi­na, Ger­many con­tin­ues its equiv­o­cal sup­port for indi­vid­u­als and eth­nic groups seek­ing to frag­ment that nation. As we have seen in past dis­cus­sion, the Unit­ed States is also tar­get­ed for Balka­niza­tion and sub­ver­sion.

Horror Show in the Balkans

The NATO-installed regime of Hasim Thaci man­i­fests per­va­sive polit­i­cal and social crim­i­nal­i­ty. Thaci is alleged to main­tain a harem of more than 50 sex slaves, held in bondage by his body­guards and report­ed­ly offer­ing their favors to KFOR and EULEX per­son­nel. Suc­ces­sors to the 21st Waf­fen SS (“Skan­der­beg”) Divi­sion and oth­er fas­cist fight­ing for­ma­tions from World War II, the Koso­vo Lib­er­a­tion Army has turned that for­mer Ser­bian province into lit­tle more than a Ger­man colony. Much of the inter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty con­tin­ues to view Koso­vo as a crim­i­nal enti­ty oper­at­ing out­side the enve­lope of inter­na­tion­al law.

Kosovo PM Accused of Trafficking in Human Organs

COMMENT: Koso­var Prime Min­is­ter Hashim Thaci has been accused by Coun­cil of Europe inquiry of traf­fick­ing in human organs, as well as drugs. The KLA is the suc­ces­sor to the fas­cist fight­ing for­ma­tions of the World War II peri­od, the 21st Waf­fen SS or Skan­der­beg Divi­sion in par­tic­u­lar. FTR #701 presents this line of inquiry […]

America ‘Yearning for Fascism’?

Com­ment: For­mer New York Times writer Chris Hedges weighs in on the Tea Par­ty milieu. Although there is much more to the Balka­ns con­flict than indi­cat­ed in this inci­sive col­umn, the fact that a “Times” writer is catch­ing on is sig­nif­i­cant. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, he sees fit to quote Green Par­ty can­di­date Cyn­thia McK­in­ney, a Mus­lim Broth­er­hood […]

Saudis Funding Islamofascism in Balkans

Com­ment: This is to be seen against the back­ground of the revival of the Han­jar (13th Waf­fen SS) Divi­sion in Bosnia, the growth of the Nazi Bosni­ak Union in that same state, and the res­ur­rec­tion of fas­cist fight­ing for­ma­tions in Koso­vo. “Saud­is Fund Balkan Mus­lims Spread­ing Hate of the West” by Bojan Pancevs­ki; timeson­line; 3/28/2010. […]