Billy Ocean

A Massacre in Kosovo
A member of the United Nations police force murders his American colleagues.
by Stephen Schwartz
04/29/2004 12:00:00 AM
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ON APRIL 17, as reported in THE WEEKLY STANDARD, two American women and an American man were slain in Kosovo, and eleven people were injured when they came under armed attack by a Palestinian from Jordan. The killer was a member of the same body in which they served: the United Nations police force in the territory.

The male American, who died of his wounds, was Gary Weston, of Vienna, Illinois. The Palestinian, Sergeant Major Ahmed Mustafa Ibrahim Ali, was killed when members of the contingent in which the Americans were traveling returned fire.

In the days since the first reports of the crime were received, more details have emerged, which make what was already a scandal for the United Nations in Kosovo even more alarming. First and most disturbing is that the dead assailant, Ali, is being investigated for connections with Hamas, the Palestinian terror organization. Second is that the same Ali had visited the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, home of the Wahhabi Islamic sect that produced al Qaeda, only a month before he was sent to Kosovo in March.

More thorough descriptions of the incident are horrendous. The group of Americans, along with some Turkish personnel, were leaving a prison in the northern Kosovo town of Mitrovica when the attack began. It was their first day on the job. According to the Associated Press, they were "trapped between a locked gate and Ali's assault rifle."

The Palestinian carried an M-16, from which he apparently discharged 400 rounds, leading NATO investigators
to examine whether his four colleagues in a Jordanian detachment assigned to guard the prison had helped him by feeding his weapon as he fired. All four were detained after the bloody events, but three have now been released, while one of them, whose name has not been disclosed, remains under arrest as a possible accomplice, and his immunity from prosecution has been revoked.

The Americans shot back with pistols. An Austrian guard heard the noise and ran to the scene, but was wounded in the legs by the Palestinian.

The Associated Press account states chillingly, "When he had shot all those he could see, Ali paced around the vans [in which the Americans had been riding], searching for more victims."

The carnage continued until Ali's weapon jammed. The surviving Americans then stormed the Jordanians' guard shack, where they found his four comrades hiding. The Americans grabbed their weapons from them and killed the assailant, firing 16 bullets into his body.

Because Kosovo media operates under heavy U.N. censorship, the whole truth about this atrocity may not be known for some time. But terrorism expert Dan Pipes warned this week, "If the Hamas connection does materialize, it could mean that the organization has in fact begun in earnest its war with the United States."


Stephen Schwartz, a frequent contributor, worked in Kosovo for most of 2000.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Conten...4/024rjfgr.asp

__________________
"To live outside the law you must be honest." - Bob Dylan

Mojo_PeiPei

That is some crazy shit, I am baffled and almost upset that I haven't heard anything about this until now.

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To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

Billy Ocean

It's been kept pretty quiet in the US media for reasons I don't understand. These picture of US troops are getting tons of press.

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"To live outside the law you must be honest." - Bob Dylan

OFKU0

Well if that is Dan Pipes from the Middle East Forum that is endorsing this article, you can be sure of a healthy anti- Arab bias.

And the term massacre. Unforunate incident yes, 3 dead, many injured,.. but massacre?

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" In Canada, you can tell the most blatant lie in a calm voice, and people will believe you over someone who's a little passionate about the truth." David Warren, Western Standard.

Mojo_PeiPei

Dude its shady as hell if he was a member of the UN task force and opened on friendly coalition members with the aid of jordianian troops.

__________________
To win a war you must serve no master but your ambition.

Billy Ocean

Massacre- To kill indiscriminately and wantonly; slaughter.


I didn't title the article but with 3 dead and an attempt to kill more then 10 others I'd say the title is valid.


Dan Pipes didn't write the story and there is no debating the fact that American's were killed in Kosovo. I don't really see how you can put an anti- Arab bias on the facts of the story.

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"To live outside the law you must be honest." - Bob Dylan

djtestudo

Personally, I think this man needs to have his genitals removed, replaced with those of a pig, and then be buried with ham and bacon wrapped around him. He deserves no better.

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"Final thought: I just rented Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Frankly, it was the worst sports movie I've ever seen."
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Lebell

Hmmm,

At face value, this could be very ugly.

I'll have to look this up later.


edit:

Ah, I just noticed Billy Ocean needs to add some sort of commentary to this post.

(Not picking on you, but that is how we try to do things around here )

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"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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pan6467

All the more reason to get the fuck out of the UN. I truly cannot understand why we support countries and entities that would love to see us destroyed.

I may have issues with policies and feel the political climate is bad, but I love this nation and think that supporting and having trade deficits with countries that hate us (China, Taiwan, all of the fucking OPEC countries) is suicide. And yet we keep sending jobs and our money over there. And we pour BILLIONS into the UN only to have them tell us how to run our country, yet allow countries like China, Syria, Nigeria, and any other dictatorship that cares nothing about human rights cry and demand retributions from us for things we haven't done....... wtf is that about.

I understand trade and all that but you can never have a trade deficit to the extent we do, especially with ones that hate us and want to destroy us.

Aw well, noone listens to me the mad heretic, cause noone wants to see the hole we are digging to bury our children in.

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I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

onetime2

Damn Pan we agree on something. Not the trade deficit part since the deficits are minor in comparison to our economy, but the UN and our disgusting need to "help" all these countries who despise us. In some cases there are reasons to have relationships with countries but there are far too many who we should cut all ties with.

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

Seaver

The UN is a relic of the post-WWII hope to bring an end to all war. It didnt work then, it sure as hell doesnt work now, stop pouring billions of dollars into it and pull out.

Pour billions in aid to countries that wish nothing more than for us to die? No thanks, I'll use it to fund our schools thanks.

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"Smite the rocks with the rod of knowledge, and fountains of unstinted wealth will gush forth." - Ashbel Smith as he laid the first cornerstone of the University of Texas

Kadath

Isolationism rocks!
Guys, if you're interested in purely selfish reasons, we need to help other countries because they buy our products and we buy theirs. The US doesn't make everything it needs and doesn't consume everything it makes.

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onetime2

Umm, yeah we were calling for isolationism that's it.

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

Kadath

Oh, I'm sorry. You guys were saying "Fuck those other countries that don't like us, let's stop giving them money!"

First of all, "countries" aren't entities that like or dislike us. We should punish all the people because a vocal component of the population is against US policy? So right back atcha.

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it's quiet in here

Seaver

No I'm not arguing for isolationism. I'm arguing that we aid those that actually have friendly relations with us, and telling those that dont to fuck off.

Lets say you have 8 candy bars, and are willing to give away 4 of them. Everyone on the block comes asking for one, do you give as much candy to the dickhead who always throws rocks at you or tries to throw broomsticks in your bike-spokes? Or do you give them to the nice kid who happens to live in a trailor home cause his parents dont make much money?

It's as simple as that, fuck those countries who wish us ill. I'm not saying stop foreign aid, but a revision on how its done.

And about your comment to punishing all of the people, the government of Palestine is democratically elected. Thus it is not a "vocal component" but the majority of those involved.

Kadath

How much money do we give to Palestine? 1/3 of the ENTIRE US foreign aid budget goes to Israel!! We might as well be slashing Palestine's tires. I'm just suggesting maybe you don't know as much as you think you do about how foreign aid really works. It's not as if the US is cutting free checks made out to "cash" to every country with its hand out and then half of them take the check with one hand and give us the finger with the other. We provide money for specific things, like fighting AIDS, tuberculosis & malaria, or antidrug initiatives in South America, or what have you.

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Billy Ocean

Kadath you have a link to where that info comes from? It's not that I don't believe you, I'd just like to see how the breakdown goes.

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"To live outside the law you must be honest." - Bob Dylan

Kadath

Well, I pulled that number from a couple of articles. Here is one:
http://www.wrmea.com/html/us_aid_to_israel.htm

Admittedly, many of the places I found this number (30%) are Palestinian or pro-peace or whatever, but the numbers are there.

The directory for the 2004 FY US Internation Affairs request is here:
http://fas.org/asmp/profiles/aid/fy2004/

I can dig up some other stuff too if you want.

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Zeld2.0

Politics is a fickle thing and you know why the country hasn't pulled out?

Because the leaders know the benefits of staying in outweight those of getting out

As Kadath said, its not simple black and white, you can't like and hate those you have relations with - sometimes you have to bite the bullet but if the benefits outweight the costs... who cares?

Sparhawk

We cut a check of a billion plus every year to Egypt and Israel. Evidence suggests that it has stopped Arab-Israeli wars from re-occuring. Maybe another billion dollar check to Palestine would solve our/their problems...

By the by, 75% of our (non-Iraq) foreign aid goes to the two countries listed above plus one more. Snaps to the guy who figures it out (Your hint is that we aren't giving it out of the goodness of our hearts).

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"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

irateplatypus

Columbia

http://cfrterrorism.org/policy/foreignaid2.html

::greedily eyes his massive "snaps" collection::

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If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

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onetime2

There are what 210 countries or so in the world? There are certain countries that have agendas that are blatantly against us yet we have a need to send money to them and it inevitably goes to the groups who oppose us. Not dealing with a few countries is far from isolationism but hey whatever floats your boat.

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

Kadath

I understand if you don't have time to check this board often, but try to address all the things that have happened in your absence.

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Sparhawk

His name is Snaps

__________________
"In Iraq, no doubt about it, it's tough. It's hard work. It's incredibly hard. It's - and it's hard work. I understand how hard it is. I get the casualty reports every day. I see on the TV screens how hard it is. But it's necessary work. We're making progress. It is hard work."

pan6467

So countries like China and Iran and Syria and so on have no desire to watch the US fail? And the 60 minutes episode that showed N. Koreans teaching kids that the US is evil is not only propaganda but no country truly teaches their citizens to hate us?

I'm left and liberal but come on to say countries aren't entities and cannot hate people is ridiculous. Countries governments all over the world take our aid and then blame us for their human rights violations.

That's what the Red Cross and the WHO (World Health Organization) are for. I say pay them the aid and let them distribute the medical supplies. The money our government gives very rarely sees its way to the people of those dictatorships and countries that hate us.

Iraq was a great example. Sure we embargoed and sent humanitarian aid but did not Saddam pretty much keep anything that went into that country while his citizens starved and were told to hate the US cause it was all our fault? But that example like the 60 Minutes N.Korea run was isolated and doesn't truly exist anywhere. It's all rightist propaganda and the press bias.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Kadath

I'm struggling to convey this without resorting to a strawman. How about this: If you really are leftist and liberal, do you like the way to US appears to the world right now? Do you think the government represents your opinion? Are you an "average American"?

Yeah, I'm going to say it for the third time: You don't understand how foreign aid works. It's not a pile of money that we hand over and never ask after again. A lot of US foreign aid is military aid; money that they use to buy US weapons from us.

That was a little garbled. I'm not exactly sure what you were arguing there. Maybe that was supposed to be sarcasm?

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onetime2

I made the points I wanted to make and have no need to address every assertion that comes along. Thanks.

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Strive to be more curious than ignorant.

pan6467

No, I personally believe that we are burning bridges with allies and looking a bit imperialistic. If it were up to me NO COUNTRY would recieve aid until this country and our government were financially sound.

To give anyone Millions upon millions while the government runs great deficits is suicide and if you can't see that then..... It's like saying you are rich but it's all on paper and your spending exceeds your income but you continue to pay neighbors to behave, while others you give nothing to. Eventually your credit runs out and they start repoing everything, and the neighbors you paid sit there laughing, while the neighbors you gave nothing to are helping load the repo trucks.

No the government does not reflect any of my views. Especially domestic.

No, there is nothing average about me, never has been never will be.

Ok so first you are saying we give for medical and humanitarian reasons and now it's military and it's so they buy weapons from us? Talk about double talk. Ok so we give lots and lots of money to Isreal for military and yet we have no idea why the Arabs hate us. We sent money to Iraq so he could buy the very weapons technologies that we invaded him for (supposedly).

Look I truly have no problem giving countries humanitarian aid UNDER the banner of a legitimate agency that will disperse it and keep out of politics (Red Cross, WHO, etc.) But to give money for any other reason and to governments that have no concern for human rights is wrong and has come back to haunt us everytime. NOT ONCE HAVE WE GIVEN MONEY TO A COUNTRY'S DICTATOR AND THE COUNTRY GOTTEN BETTER AND THEY THANKED THE US. NOT ONE FUCKING TIME THAT I KNOW OF. Most of those countries have seen revolutions and a hatred and attacks against the US. Examples... present and past:
Iran's Shah, Marcos in the Phillipines, the Saud family, Chevallier in Haiti, take your pick in Central and South America, Khaddafi, Saddam, the guy in Equatorial Guinea, and on and on and on.

We truly want to help Isreal and the Middle East? We stop sending Isreal money. No .... buts, no.....ifs. Plain and simple we shut down the war machine money to Isreal. If the then work for peace, once peace is achieved they get money again, but not until.

My last paragraph, was to again to call you on your crap about how a "country" cannot hate us. I'll try and restate it.

We embargo Iraq after Desert Storm part 1

We say only humanitarian aid and medical supplies get through.

Yet Saddam hoards it all and blames us for his citizens suffering and many believe we were to blame.

Much like N. Korea teaches all their problems are because of the US and their schoolkids are taught to hate the US. 60 Minutes did a huge piece on it.

But according to you, the countries can't hate us. (True the very land can't hate us BUT when I say country I mean the populace.) Yet these countries are educating their youth and have been for the past 20-30 years to hate us. So to sit there and say the countries don't hate us is flat out ridiculous.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Kadath

Okay. You are isolationist, onetime2 is not. Noted.


There is a global economy. You need to see beyond the borders of your country.


This was good for a chuckle.

Not so much double talk as ennumerating another of the many categories for which we give aid. I didn't intend to go back on my previous statement; I was expanding it. I apologize for confusing you.


I'm not going to go through all that line by line, but I will say this. STOP EATING WHAT THE MEDIA FEEDS YOU. What you think you know about other countries is what they want you to believe. I'm not talking about conspiracy. I'm talking about seeing things for yourself and questioning what you're told.

I absolutely grant that helping dictators has never worked out for us. I don't think the answer is to turtle up until things are better outside.

Now. You're getting pretty hostile at me and I'm feeling hostile toward you. Let's let this cool off.

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