My letter published in St. Cloud Times of Minnesota. At the end of my
letter, I included two comments, one made by Col. Matt McClure, who accuses
me of being a "Professional." Were that I were a "Professional," I would be
rich!!!! BTW: There is a place to comment should you choose to do so.
Stella
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St. Cloud Times, Central Minnesota's Home of the Web
<http://callanfurniture.com/>
Letter: The truth about Kosovo needs to be known
By Stella L. Jatras, Camp Hill, Penn.
Published: March 20. 2008 12:30AM - Last updated: March 20. 2008 1:02AM
I would like to address the statement made by retired Col. Matt McClure,
who, according to his view, "We weren't there to pick sides," ("Soldiers say
Kosovo faces challenges," March 6.) If this is the case, then perhaps the
colonel could explain the following:
If the Serbs ethnically cleansed Kosovo Albanians, as has been claimed, then
why are the Kosovo Albanians over 90 percent of the population, and the
Serbs, who were once the majority in their Jerusalem, fewer than 10 percent?
Kosovo Albanians became the majority by crossing illegally from Albania into
Christian Kosovo. Kosovo Albanians already have a country, and that country
is Albania.
Kosovo is to Serbia what the Wailing Wall is to the Jews, what the Vatican
is to Roman Catholics and what Mecca is to the Muslims. Since 1999, about
200 Christian churches and monasteries have been destroyed or desecrated by
Albanian mobs under the noses of KFOR. Hundreds of mosques, including one
named for Osama bin Laden, have been built, mainly with Saudi money.
President Clinton, in violation of International Law, the NATO Charter and
without the approval of Congress, bombed Yugoslavia, which did not have
weapons of mass destruction, never attacked us nor was ever a threat to us.
NATO, comprised of 900 million members, bombed little Yugoslavia, a nation
of 10 million and we thumped our chests like an 800-pound gorilla.
Furthermore, NATO's bombing of the Serbian population was based on
atrocities committed by Bosnian and Kosovo Albanian Muslims. Our soldiers
deserve to know the truth.
Perhaps we were not there to pick sides, but as Major Roland Lavoie, a KFOR
spokesman, said after a particularly nasty incident where Albanian mobs
stoned a Serb man to death: "While NATO has vowed to remain even-handed,
peacekeeping efforts have done little to prevent the exodus of Serbs from
Kosovo."
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Following are two comments in response to my letter. Check them out to get a
laugh. Stella
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Write Now: Letter keeps fight alive
Published: March 24. 2008 12:30AM - Last updated: March 24. 2008 8:09AM
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I read with interest Stella Jatras’ letter to the recent Times article
regarding Kosovo. She took me to task for stating “we weren’t there to pick
sides.”
Jatras is a professional writer and has written extensively about the
Balkans, from a Serbian perspective. As such, she would know that as
officers of the task force assigned to Kosovo we would not be responsible
for formulating policy. That would come from the State Department, NATO and
senior leadership in the Pentagon. Imagine a citizen complaining about a
police officer for enforcing a law, written by the Legislature and signed
into force by the governor.
After the first paragraph the rest of the letter looked very similar to some
of her other letters in other papers. Perhaps the Times will get a similar
response from an Albanian perspective and the arguments can continue much as
they have for hundreds of years. ...
Matthew McClure
Rice
2nd comments:
1.
To Beeman from Rice
Comment Posted: 3/24/2008 9:36:14 AM
Thanks, Matt, for putting the issues in an appropriate context.
