-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Fw: Special to My Serbian Readers -Mary Mostert ] Date: Tue, 20 Feb 2007 10:19:35 -0800 From: cffkale <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Special to my Serbian Readers from: Mary Mostert, Analyst www.bannerofliberty.com <http://www.bannerofliberty.com/> February 20, 2007 Today, because of my most recent article, which many of you commented on, (Should We Worry About a Bosnian Muslim Massacring People in Trolley Square? <http://www.bannerofliberty.com/BOL-2007MQC/2-15-2007.1.html>) I was on a Salt Lake City radio talk show. The host, Kyal at KTKK ([EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>) had read my article on Alan Keyes’ Renew America website and was surprised to find that I lived in Utah, and wanted to pursue on air some of the points I made in the article. The overall response to that article among my non-Serb readers has been very interesting. Many people, in fact the majority of the people commenting about my article, have thanked me for presenting a view that they realized had been squelched as soon as the identity of the killer changed from being “a “white male, in his 20s, about 6 feet tall, with brown hair”to being “Sulejeman Talovic , 18, who came to Utah in 1998 as a Muslim Refugee from Bosnia.” Suddenly it was no longer a “massacre” by a “Utah madman,” a description that conjures up “Mormons” in a state in which 79% are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the “madman” became a poor Muslim lad who had been mistreated by evil Serbs at Srebrenica. Utah people, it is reported, have brought flowers to the parents of Sulejeman Talovic. Naturally, I have also heard from people who are really angry that I have suggested that this was a terrorist attack. On the show today I pointed out several things: 1. I do not know whether it was a terrorist attack or not. However,, until it has been proven to NOT be a terrorist attack, since it certainly LOOKS like a terrorist attack, we should assume it WAS a terrorist attack until a full investigation proves otherwise. (Kyal really liked that – and pointed out that while I was right, NO ONE had said that – because it was not “politically correct.” 2. It certainly was obviously patterned after terrorist attacks that have taken place in Israel, in Iraq, in Bali, and, in the past 48 hours, the 49 separate terrorist attacks in Bangkok, Thailand consisting of * *bombings, shootings and arson attacks late Sunday and early Monday, targeting mainly homes and businesses owned by Buddhists or ethnic Chinese, that took place in Bangkok 3. Suljo Talovic, the father of Sulejeman Talovic, said on Friday on KSL radio that he believed something or someone was controlling his son's mind.” When asked who he thought that might be, Suljo said, rather vaguely, it might be “someone in a camp…” A Camp? Do we have somewhere in the hills of Utah a camp, perhaps like those that exist in Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, and the West Bank that is teaching teenagers how to kill non-believers? Would it be a good idea to check that out …perhaps starting with the Mosque in Salt Lake City? We know, for example, based on news reports (see: http://www.aina.org/news/20050817121245.htm) that Jihadist camps, such as Juljo appeared to be referring to, were and evidently still ARE available in Muslim Bosnia – the referenced report, written in 2005, stated: “We know that the mujahadeen in Bosnia were al Qaeda and Iranian-sponsored, and they are still there today. "We have terrorist operatives who have targeted the U.S. back in a relatively un-policed region that offers one-stop shopping in conventional arms and open spaces for training, ideological support, recruitment drives and funding. It's a very disturbing phenomenon." Is there, perchance, such a camp in the un-policed mountains in Utah? 4. The Talovic family, as reported, consisted of the mother and the father, 18 year old Sulejeman and three younger sisters. They live in a small, older house, probably 1000-1200 square feet, in Salt Lake City. Sulejeman’s bedroom was in the basement. They have said that they had no idea that Sulejeman has a gun. After the massacre, it was reported that he had a 38-caliber pistol, a shotgun, a bandolier of shotgun shells and backpack full of ammunition. Frankly, as the mother of 3 adult sons and 3 adult daughters and 25 grandchildren, many of them teenagers, I find it very hard to believe that two parents and three sisters living in the same small house would not know that the only son and brother had a shotgun and a bandolier of shotgun shells. How could an 18 year old hide that large an arsenal without someone in the house seeing it – and where DID he learn how to shoot the guns? 5. The argument that somehow an event that supposedly took place in Srebrenica – when apparently Sulejeman wasn’t even there, and had he been there would have been 5-6 years old, is somehow an excuse for gunning down Americans in a shopping Mall makes absolutely no sense at all. If victims of massive persecution have an acceptable excuse for gunning down other people – who had nothing to do with their persecution – where does that leave the real victims of persecution? For example, 6 million Jews were slaughtered by the Nazis during the Holocaust. That is well documents. The second largest group of people slaughtered during WWII in the Holocaust were 1.5 million Serbs – who were killed mostly by in such Concentration camps as Jasenovic in Croatia – which was the 3^rd largest murder factory in Europe. If the murderer had been a Jew or a Serb and the dead had been Muslims – would we be sending flowers to the parents of the killers? I don’t think so. Many of you Serbs have expressed a feeling of hopelessness at what you believe is determination on the part of the international community to turn Kosovo over to the Albanian Muslims. I have written to a number of you personally about this. Let me just repeat what I have said to those who have personally expressed this view to all of you. One reader asked me if I thought the United States had a foreign policy to “destabilize the Balkans.” I don’t think there is a deliberate policy to do that. I might add that I believe the time is NOW for the worldwide Serbian Diaspora to start TALKING. Now is not the time to give up! Now is the time for you to contact every news outlet and talk show you can think of to give the world your input. See below for how I responded: Let me know what you think and send me copies when you DO contact newspapers, political or religious leaders, talk show hosts, etc. The talk show host on the show today, Kyal, called me after the show to tell me he didn’t know ANY of the things I talked about and wants to have me on to “teach” what I know about these issues to his listeners. I am not a Serb – something I establish immediately. Nor have I any ethnic connection with any other group in the Balkans. I got interested in this subject because I am a curious journalist who is old enough to remember that Draza Mihailovich, not the Communists, were the ones who saved the lives of over 500 American airmen in WWII. I mentioned on air that I got curious, during the Bosnian war, as to why CNN NEVER interviewed a Serb to get the other side of the story – and understood why only after I learned that the CNN reporter, Christiane Amanpour, was Muslim. RESPONSE: I think it would be easier problem to solve if the US actually had a foreign policy to destabilize the Balkans in place. I don’t think that is the problem. I think the problem is that going back to World War II there has been a very successful campaign to deceive the Americans and others about the issues involved. What seems to be happening now is only a continuation of some happenings in WWII – when America and the Office pf Strategic Services (OSS – predecessor of the CIA) under Bill Donovan was strongly behind Draza Mihailovic – and the British Intelligence Service was being fed lies by a double agent in Egypt about what was going on in the resistance movement in Yugoslavia. Winston Churchill was told that Mihailovic was helping the Germans and that Communist Tito was on the Allied side. However, American airmen who were being shot down over Yugoslavia were coming back with stories about being saved by Mihailovic and his men – not Tito. Churchill believed his Egyptian British Intelligence office – and at a critical point, Mihailovic’s staunch supporter – President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who supported the exiled King Peter, suddenly died. The new president, Harry S. Truman, had not even be told, prior to suddenly becoming president, that we even HAD a nuclear program going on – much less an atomic bomb. He also did not know anything about what was happening in Yugoslavia and simply took Winston Churchhill’s word about the situation. The result was the death of Mihailovic and 60 years of communist rule in Yugoslavia. The American people, of course, were and still are totally oblivious as to what the real story was and is. If you haven’t read some of my articles on this subject, you might find them interesting and I would value your input. They can be found in my archives at http://www.bannerofliberty.com/Serbs,BosniaKosovo/OSKosovo-MasterTOC.html The second contributing factor is the apparent habit of Serbs to not talk very much to outsiders. It has taken me 10 years to become sufficiently trusted by Serbs to begin to get letters like yours. After years of getting almost NO information from Serbs – even when I asked pointed questions – I concluded that the only way the Serbs had somehow managed to save their culture and religion and Orthodox churches through nearly 700 years of Muslim and then Communist persecution was through NOT talking to “outsiders” but maintaining their faith within the walls of their homes and their church. In an interview last year with Father Benedict, Abbot of Holy Archangels Monastery in Kosovo, (See: http://www.bannerofliberty.com/BOL-06MQC/8-13-2006.1.html) I asked some specific questions and for the first time got answers I’d never had before. For example, my first question was: /Could you briefly tell our readers what was going on in Kosovo back in 1343 and why King Dusan built the monastery? / Father Benedict answered: *Father Benedict:* In the XIV century Kosovo was the central part of the Serbian state and Christian spirituality. Like all rulers of his time (the Middle Ages), Tsar Dusan also wished to have his own endowment, that is, to build a monastery in which God would be praised by the end of the time and *in which the name of the founder would be mentioned on Holy Liturgies until the second arrival of Christ.* He did that by founding a place near river Bistrica, two and a half kilometers away from Prizren. This brought me a flood of very angry comments from Albanian Muslims – who claimed the monastery had actually once been a Mosque. Of course, the monastery was built before the Turks took control. Some years ago, after being a non-believing agnostic humanist for most of my life, at age 46 I joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which currently has 52,000 missionaries worldwide teaching people that we are actually IN the latter days and have been since about 1829. During that time period many ancient prophecies have been fulfilled. The restoration promised in the New Testament is taking place and a prophet of God is on the earth. The gathering promised prior to Christ’s second coming is underway. The Jews have had their own nation on the soil of their ancient homeland and the forces are certainly gathering around them to destroy them. So, the prophecy about the Jews gathering is well underway. We are also told that the gathering of the latter days will include the lost 10 tribes of Israel – which became scattered about 720 BC. Jerusalem was destroyed about 596 BC. So, if we are actually in the latter days, looking forward to the Second Coming, what might we expect? First, the House of Israel Must Be Gathered The Lord promised that the Israelites, his covenant people, would someday be gathered: “I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all countries whither I have driven them” (Jeremiah 23:3 <http://scriptures.lds.org/jer/23/3#3>). The Lord has some important reasons for gathering the Israelites. The people of Israel need to learn the teachings of the gospel and prepare themselves to meet the Savior when he comes again. The Israelites have the responsibility of building temples and performing sacred ordinances for ancestors who died without having this opportunity. The covenant people of God must take the gospel to all nations. They must fulfill the covenant to be a blessing to all the world. The Latter-day Saints teach that the power and authority to direct the work of gathering the house of Israel was given to Joseph Smith by the prophet Moses, who appeared in 1836 in the Kirtland Temple (see D&C 110:11 <http://scriptures.lds.org/dc/110/11#11>). Since that time, each prophet has held the keys for the gathering of the house of Israel, and this gathering has been an important part of the Church’s work. The house of Israel is now being gathered as they accept the restored gospel and serve the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (see Deuteronomy 30:1–5 <http://scriptures.lds.org/deut/30/1-5#1>). While I of course have no special knowledge on this subject, my study of the Serbs, with whom I have no connection whatever, in the past 10 years has made me wonder if they are not, indeed, remnants of one of the lost 10 tribes of Israel. Serbs, for example, seem to have been seemingly targeted by both Catholics and Muslims for hundreds of years to either convert or be slaves or die. Then Serbs faced 60 years of communism. And, what do we see now? Young Serb men re-opening and defending monasteries in Kosovo – as Kosovo is apparently about ready to be turned over to the Muslims. You asked: “Why is that happening? Is that some magnum plan of the U.S. foreign policy to destabilize the Balkans? I know that Yugoslavia was a communist state. That is why I left as a young graduate student to study at the University of Chicago. With the fall of Iron curtain it was probably imperative to eliminate the remaining communist country in Europe-Yugoslavia. But to continue and assail the Serbs is deplorable. We were once faithful allies in WWI and II, The Albanians, and Croats and also Muslims were on the German side. Has all of this been forgotten? “That does not promote love and sympathy for America on the part of Serbian people.” Now, if we put these little pieces of apparently disconnected information together, what IS the problem? Who really IS the enemy of the Serbs? Why IS this all happening? The Serbs at this point in history COULD teach the entire world what it is like to live under Muslim rule for hundreds of years. I suspect that never crosses the average Serb’s mind. People write to me constantly asking, in effect, what is WRONG with you Americans? That’s not hard to answer. Americans have no idea of what is really going on and are too busy with working or playing to think it is important to find out. Even with an obvious terrorist attack taking place in the favorite mall in Utah’s largest city taking place – most people want to ignore what happened as quickly as possible and get back to important stuff – like did the BYU Cougars win this week’s game or what do I want for dinner tonight? On the other hand, Serbs who write to me seem to think their problems would be solved if they could only join the European Union or if the Americans would remember what happened 60 years ago when the Serbs, managed to postpone the eventual German victory long enough to delay Hitler’s invasion of the USSR. That caused the Germans to get caught in Russian snow drifts in the winter of 1941. By the time Spring came, Pearl Harbor had been bombed, the Americans had waked up and were angry, and the rest is history. I have a neighbor who was in the invasion of Normandy. More Americans died in the first 3 hours of the Invasion of Normandy than have died in 4 years in trying to defeat the terrorist forces in Iraq. Yet, we just had Congress vote to cut and run from the battle – 4 days after a terrorist in Salt Lake City brought the latest message from the Islamic Fascist movement. Today’s Americans can’t remember what happened the earlier part of this week at Trolley Square in Salt Lake City. They are not going to be motivated by what the Serbs did 60 years ago in World War II that most of them have never heard about. I strongly suspect that the Serbian people have some sort of major role to play in the coming years. For whatever reason, it appears that most of Europe long ago gave up any real notion about the return of Jesus Christ for a second time. Yet – we have a young Serb Abbot mentioning the subject. The new Pope, Benedict, has made what to me are some of the most surprising statements about issues – such as getting along with Muslims. He has publicly urged the response of the French Philosophers – to sit down and “reason” with Muslims. Both the Catholics and the Muslims claim to worship the same God that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob worshipped. But, they are not going to PRAY together to find revelation or inspiration to solve their problems? They are going to REASON about it? How do you reason with people who want you dead? I hear from Serbs their heartfelt anguish at losing Kosovo – yet, I have not heard any Serb recommending that the worldwide Serb community fast and PRAY about the subject. I don’t think the answer for the Serbs is going to come from a commentator, like me, or from the American government or from membership in the European Union. I sort of think that the Lord is waiting to HEAR from the Serbs so he might actually guide you to the next step. I don’t know what is actually in the Lord’s mind about Kosovo – but it has struck me that a gathering of Serb Christians is taking place in Serbia, and a gathering of Muslim Bosniacs is taking place in Bosnia and a gathering of Muslim Albanians is taking place in Kosovo, Albania and parts of Montenegro .and certainly a gathering of Jews, including the last Jews from Kosovo, has taken place in Israel. One major earthquake in Kosovo, for example, might eliminate the whole issue. Not only the people – but all its structures – old and new –could disappear. If that happened, the Albanians would lose their lives and the old Churches and monasteries of the Serbs who had fled before the earthquake - would be gone. Would that destroy the Christian faith of Serbs? Is their faith in Jesus Christ in those structures ….or in their hearts? It their faith in Jesus Christ really only a “cultural thing” as one Serb told me, or is it real and alive? It struck me in my interview with Father Benedict that the Orthodox Church has much truth. Do Orthodox Christians want any MORE truth, as revealed in the restitution of all things – as in Acts 3:20–21 <http://scriptures.lds.org/acts/3/20-21#20>? Or is their only interest in the past words of God, and they don’t want to hear what He would say today to them ? I know this is a lengthy comment to a short question. Sorry about that! Best wishes, Mary Mostert -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.441 / Virus Database: 268.18.3/693 - Release Date: 19.2.2007 17:01 =============== Group Moderator: [EMAIL PROTECTED] page at http://magazine.sorabia.net for more informations about current situation in Serbia http://www.sorabia.net Slusajte GLAS SORABIJE nas talk internet-radio (Serbian Only) http://radio.sorabia.net Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sorabia/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sorabia/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
