I recently learned, to my surprise, that Kejda Gjermani is now employed by Commentary magazine, which is somewhat akin to Josef Goebbels getting a job at the Atlantic Monthly. It reflects poorly upon Commentary, and since her libels about me are circulating widely around the Net, I thought I would go on record demonstrating that her charges are, in fact, false and libelous.
Virtually her entire case, of course, is built on guilt-by-association. Some of it revolves around tedious tales of how posts were posted here and then removed, and then (she falsely claims) put back up, but that is indeed too tedious to parse. So is, of course, the guilt-by-association attacks. She charges, falsely, that Srdja Trifkovic and James Jatras were supporters of genocide against Muslims in the Balkans, and reasons that because they have worked with me at various times over the years, that I must also secretly approve of this.
This is ridiculous and defamatory on its face, but in any case, much of her case is built on the fact that Jatras testified for Milosevic at The Hague — a fact she throws out without further elaboration, so as to create the impression of Jatras on the dock, unapologetically and fiendishly defending the slaughter of innocents. In reality, Jatras recounts:
Yes, I testified as a defense witness in the trial of Slobodan Milosevic at the UN tribunal at The Hague, per the request of the lawyers advising him. As a lawyer I have to comment on the fact that anyone would consider this controversial in a proceeding that supposedly is based on a presumption of innocence.
As is clear from the record of my testimony, which is available on the tribunal’s website, I stated that I could provide no information about the defendant’s actions, having no first-hand knowledge of them.
But what I did testify about, and which I believed then and continue to believe was relevant to the charges, was the policy of the United States, specifically of the Clinton Administration, regarding 1. its “green light” for and complicity in the shipment of Iranian weapons to Islamic forces in Kosovo in violation of the UN arms embargo, and 2. the fact that the Clinton Administration had already decided to attack then-Yugoslavia on behalf of the Albanian Muslims in Kosovo as soon as a suitable pretext could be arranged and months before any supposed “ethnic cleansing” took place.
On cross-examination the prosecutor did not call into question any of the substance of my testimony but did seek to discredit me by reference to my ethnic origins (Greek), my religion (Orthodox), my party affiliation (Republican), and my writings on jihad violence (I’m against it).
I don’t see a problem with Jatras objecting to the shipment of Iranian weapons to Islamic forces in Kosovo.
As to the rest of it — that I am secretly a “religious supremacist,” despite years of publicly defending and explaining the necessity for the First Amendment’s non-establishment clause — are ridiculous on their face. I challenge her or anyone else to establish her charges from what I have actually written, rather than from tea leaves that were read after I was seen standing in a room with someone somewhere.
————
Original Post: “Jihad in Kosovo: a Response to Critics”:
James George Jatras, Director of the American Council for Kosovo, here responds to some of the allegations made about Kosovo and about himself on this LGF thread, about which I commented here.
In a recent posting by Michael Totten on Little Green Footballs (“Totten: An Israeli in Kosovo“), and particularly in a number of the comments following, questions have been raised about assertions by myself and others, such as Jihad Watch director Robert Spencer and commentator Julia Gorin, about the relevance of jihad ideology to the violence committed by Albanian Muslims in the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija against other communities, notably Christian Serbs.
The comments, many of them repetitive, expand the posting to, at my last count, 84 pages, so it will be hard to address all of them. Boiled down to their essence, the criticisms can be summarized as follows:
1. The supposedly “moderate” nature of Islam among secular Kosovo Albanians, and the absence of Islam as an ideological incitement to Kosovo Albanian violence, as opposed to Albanian nationalism;
2. Indigenous Kosovo Albanian resistance to attempts by Saudi Arabia and other external forces to import Wahhabist radicalism into Kosovo;
3. The pro-U.S. (and pro-Israel) sentiments of Albanian Muslims in Kosovo and the merits of U.S. support for a moderate, pro-Western Muslim country; and
4. My purported role as a highly-paid lobbyist for Serbian interests.To take each point in turn:
1. The supposedly “moderate” nature of Islam among secular Kosovo Albanians.
I hesitate to respond in detail to this assertion, mainly because Robert Spencer has done such a fine job of doing so in his comments on LGF. The main point to keep in mind is that there is a world of difference between asserting the existence of “moderate Islam” — which does not now exist, never has existed, and, I suspect, never will exist — and the unquestionable fact that many Muslims around the world are indeed cultural Muslims who are either unaware of or do not agree with Islam’s undeniable mandates of jihad, sharia, and dhimmitude. There is no doubt that many of the Albanians in Kosovo fall into the latter category. Primarily a function of the secularizing influence of communist rule following World War II, particularly in urban areas, the residue of this factor can be confirmed by the liberal attitude Mr. Totten experienced in Kosovo, the fact that many nominally Muslim Albanians in Kosovo do indeed drink the fiery local distillate rakija (but generally do not, as asserted by some, eat pork), and consider themselves Europeans, not Middle Easterners.
That tendency, however, needs to be balanced against a few others. To begin with, as has happened in other former communist areas, as well as places like Turkey, Iraq, and Pakistan where the local secularizing ideology (respectively, Kemalism, Baathism, and militaristic nationalism) has been weakened, there is a counter-tendency of a once-secularized Muslim population to return to its Islamic roots. This is reflected in Kosovo by the boom in mosque-building, which despite the massive aid poured into Kosovo from the United States, the European Union, and other sources, far outstrips other pressing needs. This has been attested to by Paul Andrew Kirk (see the last comment below the main article here), an American who served two tours with the U.S. military in Kosovo. Kirk says:
Islamic extremism is on the rise in Kosovo. KFOR [the NATO-led military mission] soldiers have been attacked in Gjilan [actual name in Serbian: Gnjilane], Ferizaj [UroÅ¡evac], and Prizren when I was there. You just won’t see or hear about it in the news. More mosques have been built in Kosovo in the last five years than schools, roads, health clinics, and all other sanitation projects combined. Compliments of Muslim charities from the Middle East.
Mr. Kirk’s comments point to another factor: that Islamic violence in Kosovo is systematically underreported because the governments, notably that of the United States, have so publicly committed themselves to the Albanian Muslim cause that they don’t want it reported — it complicates their black and white, good (Albanian Muslim) and evil (Serbian Christian) caricature. Neither do the laptop bombadiers in the media, who, as they had in Bosnia, cheered on the great Kosovo “humanitarian intervention” in 1999 to stop a nonexistent “ethnic cleansing” of Albanians — and which led directly to the real eradication of more than two-thirds of the Serbian community, as well as Roma (mostly Muslim, some Orthodox Christian), Croats (Roman Catholic), Jews, and others. This leaves most of the reporting of attacks on Serbs to the Serbs themselves, and as certified genocidal monsters, who cares what they say, or for that matter, what happens to them?
With respect to the nexus in Kosovo between religion (Muslim vs. Christian) and nationalism (Albanian vs. Serb), it needs to be kept in mind that sharia rule under the Ottoman Empire ended less than a century ago, in 1912, when Kosovo (then known as “Old Serbia”) was liberated during the First Balkan War. For the preceding centuries, Muslim Albanians had migrated at will over the mountains from Albania, taking over land from which Serbs had fled from reprisals following repeated unsuccessful revolts against the Ottoman caliphate. (That the Serbs are the original inhabitants in Kosovo is beyond question. There are no pre-Ottoman Albanian structures, no Albanian toponyms. There is not even an Albanian word for Kosovo itself, the Albanian term “Kosova” being merely their rendering of the Serbian name — derived from kos, “blackbird,” in reference to the famous 1389 battle — much as we English-speakers call München “Munich” and Roma “Rome.”) As increasing numbers of Albanians moved into Kosovo, their status as part of the umma was inseparable from their establishing mastery over the declining number of Serbian dhimmis. As was the case with conquered Christians elsewhere, Serbs in Kosovo had little ability to defend their churches, homes, and persons against Muslim abuse.
As in some other areas that were subjected to Islamic rule, over time religious identity became closely associated with nationality — for example, Turks vs. Greeks and Armenians, or Arabs and Berbers vs. Spaniards. Even today, with respect to Israel, with the decline of the supposedly “moderate” and “secular” PLO the “Arab” cause against Jews increasingly is indistinguishable from Islamic jihad. Even Arab secular rulers regarded as apostates by many Muslims, like Saddam Hussein, did not hesitate to conflate Arabism with Islam to invoke jihad against non-Muslim enemies. As noted on a posting on muslimstudent.org.uk (since removed), “Fighting and exterminating Israel is an obligation even if the Muslims fighting are Arab armies loyal to regimes of unbelief, like the Egyptian soldiers when they fought Israel during the Sinai war.” By the same token, the prevailing attitude among Kosovo’s Albanian Muslims, even those with no discernable Islamic piety, reflects their sense of entitlement to mastery over the land and its rayah (essentially, “cattle”) inhabitants. The attitude is hardly different from those of Turks with respect to Constantinople or Arabs to “al-Quds,” no matter how secular they may be: “we” conquered it, and no one can take it back from us.
It should not be thought this is a phenomenon belonging only to the distant past. Less than three decades passed between the lifting of Muslim Albanian supremacy in Kosovo in 1912 and its restoration under Axis occupation. It is specious to compare, as some of the commentators on Mr. Totten’s essay did, the Nazi recruitment of SS units of Dutchmen, Belgians, Frenchmen, Danes, etc., to that of Muslims in Kosovo and Bosnia where Islam, as opposed to National Socialist racial dogma, was a specific factor. (Note the Serbian source for the links. No doubt they forged the photos too.) The role of Haj Mohammed Amin al-Husseini, Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, who was notorious for his hostility to Israel and encouragement of the persistent Nazi-inspired leitmotif in Arab/Muslim anti-Israel propaganda, in encouraging the Muslim SS units in the Balkans as part of the jihad against the Allies is well known. Also of note is the comment of Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger, who boasted that in the Nazi sponsorship of Islamic forces,
” . . . a link is created between Islam and National-Socialism on an open, honest basis. It will be directed in terms of blood and race from the North, and in the ideological-spiritual sphere from the East.”
In the present day, all this means that implementing Albanian control in Kosovo amounts to the restoration of the rule of the umma, regardless of how secular or unobservant of Islamic practice many individual Muslims may be. This is entirely in keeping with the vision of other proponents of Islamic power seeking what is seen as the return of once Muslim-ruled lands (again, from muslimstudent.org.uk):
The uniting of Muslim [lands] includes the land that Muslims lost control of, including, Turkistan, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece and the land that Muslims had lost like Andalous (Spain) . . . Our duty as Muslims . . . [is] to kick the American, British, and Israeli forces from Hijaz (Saudi Arabia) and Palestine, and to overthrow all these non-Islamic regimes in order to establish the Islamic state on their ruins.
It is perhaps something of a digression to point out that this does not mean, as one commentator to Mr. Totten’s column accused Robert Spencer of suggesting, that “all Albanians are Nazis.” Far from it. Indeed, not in Kosovo but in Albania itself all the indigenous Jewish population was sheltered during World War II, according to information at Israel’s Yad Vashem memorial, which I recently visited. The role of those brave Albanians considered by Jews to be “Righteous Gentiles” should not be minimized. But neither should it be exaggerated at the expense of that of the Italian Army and the communist resistance in Albania, which operated as an integral part of the Yugoslav communist movement. (This historical observation should not be inferred as approval of either Italian Fascism or communism.) At the same time, given the vilification of Orthodox Serbs and, in one comment, of Greeks (I am of Greek, specifically Spartan, ethnic origin), it is worthy of note that in the wartime Balkans only those two nations maintained an overwhelming anti-Axis orientation.
Finally, as one of the litmus tests of Islamic intolerance, I would be remiss not to mention the subjugation of Albanian women in Kosovo. Marketed as near-chattels and beaten at whim (per the Qur’an, an-Nisa’ 4:34), the lot of Albanian Muslim women, notably in rural areas, remains familiar to students of women’s condition in other Muslim areas. While wife-beating is hardly confined to Muslims, and while some anti-woman violence considered “Islamic” may simply reflect tribal attitudes (such as female circumcision, which does not exist in Kosovo as far as I know), its prevalence and persistence is maintained by solid Islamic authority.
2. Indigenous Kosovo Albanian resistance to attempts by Saudi Arabia and other external forces to import Wahhabist radicalism into Kosovo.
In view of the foregoing discussion, the question of Saudi-inspired Wahhabism in Kosovo is something of a red herring. As in other places in the Islamic world, there is of course a tension, and sometimes conflict, between efforts to import what locals regard as an alien and unwelcome influence by petrodollar-rich intruders and the locals” traditional observances. However, this is a long way from proving the existence of a “moderate” peaceful Islam in Kosovo that stands in opposition to Wahhabism.
The tradition of Islamic violence against Christians in the Balkans and elsewhere long precedes Wahhabism. Ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab cannot take the rap for the initial Islamic conquest of the Balkans and its attendant massacres, the centuries of subjugation and humiliation, the blood tax, and attempts to revive Muslim mastery during World War II and today. Fingering Wahhabism as the font of the global jihad threat is effectively a ploy to whitewash an indigenous traditions of Islamic violence and to assert a history of tolerance where none exists.
In Kosovo, it is not Wahhabism that has reduced Kosovo from once an entirely Christian Serbian province to one that is edging toward entirely Muslim Albanian. It is not Wahhabism that is responsible for the toll on the Serbian community since the 1999 NATO attack on Serbia. It is not solely Wahhabism that inspires the clearly Islamic animus that focuses on the Holy Cross and icons of Jesus Christ, His Mother, and the saints in attacks on churches, monasteries, and graves that have characterized the Albanians” demand for an independent state. It is not Wahhabism that explains the beheadings of Kosovo Serbs, as seen in other jihad regions and which has a long pedigree in the Balkans.
This does not mean that there has not been since at least the mid-1990s a major element of outside support for the Kosovo Albanian jihad by outside forces, including the involvement of Osama bin Laden personally. There is evidence that the explosives used in the London and Madrid train bombings were networked through Kosovo. That the commentators on Mr. Totten’s essay seem to know nothing about such matters is not my problem. If they wish to educate themselves, they are welcome to peruse the numerous articles on this topic collected on the website of the American Council for Kosovo.
Finally, as with American support for the creation of a Muslim-dominated state in majority Christian (Serbian Orthodox and Croatian Catholic) Bosnia, the attempt to appease Muslim sentiment by separating Kosovo from Serbia needs to be seen for what it is: yet another step in the imposition of Muslim power over the infidel, a way-station in the third invasion of Europe. As the author of the book Hiding Genocide in Kosovo: A Crime Against God and Humanity, published by the American Council for Kosovo, relates from personal experience:
“On my last visit to Vitina in October 2006 I was accompanied by an American photo-journalist. We visited the new mosque which is called the Medina mosque after the city of Medina in Saudi Arabia which is revered by Muslims. This is the first mosque ever built in Vitina town. We met with the Imam Akram Selimi, who explained that he was the mullah of the mosque. He told us how he had studied Islam at the Azhar University in Egypt for three years and was just newly returned to preach to his flock. His new flock, he explained, were very new, as Vitina was a Serbian town up until 1999. He further explained that the Albanians had lived in the villages and only started coming into the town after June 1999. He even elaborated on this point by telling me that they had “˜taken the town from the Serbs.” He also pointed out that all women should be covered up as this is the will of Allah.”
3. The pro-U.S. (and pro-Israel) sentiments of Albanian Muslims in Kosovo and the merits of U.S. support for a moderate, pro-Western Muslim country.
American officials of both parties who support the separation of Kosovo from Serbia in order to create an independent Albanian Muslim state have made no secret that an important part of their motivation is to curry favor with the Islamic world. As part of his insistence that Islam is a “religion of peace and tolerance” and a faith that has “enriched civilization for centuries,” President Bush’s adoption of the State Department’s policy, carried over from the Clinton Administration, must be seen in the context of other pandering, such as his advocacy of for the creation of a Palestinian state (regardless of the accuracy of his claim that he is the first American president to take that position.)
In this regard, he has the support of top congressional Democrats, as well as some Republicans. As stated by the late Democratic chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee in support of the State Department’s policy:
” . . . just a reminder to the predominantly Muslim-led governments in this world that here is yet another example that the United States leads the way for the creation of a predominantly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe. This should be noted by both responsible leaders of Islamic governments, such as Indonesia, and also for jihadists of all color and hue. . . . the United States stands foursquare for the creation of an overwhelmingly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe.” [Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), hearing on Kosovo, April 17, 2007]
Not to be outdone, Mr. Lantos” Senate counterpart holds the same view in support of the Bush policy:
” . . . adroit diplomacy to secure Kosovo’s independence could yield a victory for Muslim democracy, . . . a much-needed example of a successful US-Muslim partnership . . .” [Former Presidential candidate and Senator Joseph Biden (D-DE), Financial Times, 1/3/07]
The problem is that there is no evidence that any of this has worked. One can search the web in vain for Muslim commentary praising U.S. support for Muslims in Kosovo, or Bosnia for that matter. To the contrary, the one-sided narrative that underlies western support for the Kosovo Albanians actually works against us:
“Most Muslims were simply not interested in hearing that the US government had been a staunch supporter of Bosnian Muslims. By the time I added that prominent American Jews — among them Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz — were leading protagonists of intervention on behalf of the Bosnain Muslims, they had switched off. Bosnia and Kosovo were simply subsumed into their broader narrative of Muslim victimhood. My interlocutors were neither stupid nor insincere; it was just that they were wired in such a way that precluded them from seeing the United States as anything other than the global foe of Muslims, and the catspaw of Israel.”
The expectation that support for Muslims in Kosovo, or elsewhere, will lead to pro-U.S. attitudes — and the uncomprehending disappointment when it doesn’t — is simply further evidence of Washington’s (and London’s, Paris”s, etc.) utter incomprehension of the nature of the jihad ideology. For all our fawning, Kosovo instead registers in the Islamic mind alongside “Palestine,” Kashmir, Iraq, Chechnya, Mindanao, Bosnia, Xinjiang, etc., in a litany of persecution by an undifferentiated conspiracy of Jews, Americans, Russians, Indians, Chinese, Filipinos, and anybody and everybody else. The simple fact is that offering the umma a chunk of kaffir land and sacrificing its inhabitants does not assuage them. It incites them. That doesn’t mean, however, that proponents of policy of appeasement will cease trying, in a textbook case of fanaticism as “redoubling your effort after you”ve forgotten your aim.”
There is perhaps no better proof of Albanian Muslim “gratitude” than the jihad terror plot against Ft. Dix, New Jersey, by six Muslims, four of them Albanians from Kosovo and the adjoining area of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, also a target of irredentist claims. It is interesting that none of the commentators on Mr. Totten’s essay made reference to this matter.
In Kosovo, as elsewhere, the western advocates of adoption of Muslim causes as a path to “getting the Islamic world on our side” in order to defeat the “tiny handful of extremists” will not be successful. Their pursuit of “moderate Islam” and “tolerant Islamic democracy” will be as fruitless as Diogenes” vain quest for an honest man.
4. My purported role as a highly-paid lobbyist for Serbian interests.
Guilty as charged.
This is hardly a matter for detective work. By law, all items distributed by the American Council for Kosovo include the following disclaimer:
“The American Council for Kosovo is an activity of Squire Sanders Public Advocacy, LLC, and Global Strategic Communications Group, which are registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as agents for the Serbian National Council of Kosovo and Metohija, under the spiritual guidance of His Grace, Bishop ARTEMIJE of Ras and Prizren. Additional information with respect to this matter is on file with the Foreign Agents Registration Unit of the Department of Justice in Washington DC.”
The work of the American Council for Kosovo is compensated by the Bishop and his community, reported at rates consistent with Washington lobbying activities, which are not inexpensive. At the same time, it should be understood that we are battling the full weight of the Administration, much of Congress, a well-funded Albanian lobby that has been entrenched of decades, almost all think tanks, NGOs, and the media and — without naming names — a lot of people who pontificate on the matter based on superficial impressions and biased information. Our job is to provide American opinion-makers and the American people the other side of the story, which we began very late, only in the spring of 2006. On behalf of Bishop Artemije and his suffering community we are grateful to stalwarts on our advisory board, including Robert Spencer and Julia Gorin, who without remuneration (as some have falsely alleged they receive) have been unafraid to stand up to the barbs directed against them by know-nothings.
ADDENDUM: Kejda Gjermani, a frequent poster at Charles Johnson’s Little Green Footballs site, has penned a libelous “exposé” of Jatras and me, in which there is hardly a single true statement. Much of her case hinges upon this assertion:
“The deceptively named American Council for Kosovo is in fact a front group for the Serbian National Council of Kosovo and Metohija, whose president Milan Ivanovic was arrested by the UN administration (he took his sweet time to turn himself in after initially going into hiding) on charges of attempted murder (later dropped) and of leading a violent demonstration, during which at least one hand-grenade was thrown at the police (Ivanovic has been personally accused of this act but evidence was inconclusive for a conviction, hence the dropped charge of attempted murder), and 22 mainly Polish peacekeepers were injured. […]
Mr. Ivanovic is a hard-line nationalist by anyone’s definition, a staunch supporter of the neo-fascist Serbian Radical Party”” an ultra-nationalists”˜ melting crackpot of greater scale and proportion than even its name suggests. For starters, the Party organized the recent rallies in Serbia to protest Radovan Karadzic’s arrest, in which the same Ivanovic was visibly involved…
The only problem with this is that her basic assertion, that the American Council for Kosovo is a front group for Ivanovic’s group, is false, and she provides no evidence to establish it. Jatras explains:
With respect to the Serbian National Council of Kosovo and Metohija as identified in the American Council for Kosovo’s disclaimer, and the suggested relationship with Dr. Milan Ivanovic: in Kosovo today there is more than one organization operating under the name “Serbian National Council,” or some variant of that name. These groups, some of them quite small, have differing political perspectives — though all categorically reject separation of the province from Serbia — and accordingly may align themselves with different Serbian political parties. As already noted, the American Council for Kosovo reflects the views of the Kosovo Serbian community as voiced by Bishop Artemije. I am unaware of Dr. Ivanovic’s affiliation with any organization connected with the Bishop. If the implication of the comment is that the American Council for Kosovo is somehow controlled or directed by Dr. Ivanovic, that absolutely is not the case. However, I have met Dr. Ivanovic in the course of my visits to Kosovo and believe the aspersions cast against him are unwarranted. There is nothing “radical” or “anti-American,” much less “supremacist,” about him as far as I am aware, unless one regards opposition to Washington’s illegal, pro-jihad anti-Serbian policy as being anti-American.
Kejda Gjermani is an accomplished liar, but in the final analysis that is all that she is: a liar.
UPDATE November 8, 2008: This just in from James Jatras, on the latest from Kejda Gjermani (and whomever is feeding her information):
I’m beginning to think the person referred to on Michael Totten’s site as “our resident Albanian Kejda” — let’s call her Al-Kejda for short — has nothing better to do than finding ways to defame me, and by extension Robert Spencer. Al-Kejda’s latest “smoking gun” consists of the earth-shattering discovery that SNC and SNV are initials for the name “Serbian National Council (of Kosovo and Metohija),” in the English and Serbian languages respectively; and a photo in which Dr. Milan Ivanovic is shown with Bishop Artemije, the spiritual leader of Kosovo’s Orthodox Christian Serbs and leader of their defense against Albanian Muslim separatists, together with other SNV leaders. To the extent I can follow her bizarre path of illogic she seems to be claiming that:
1. Dr. Ivanovic is a nationalist, fascist (pick your favorite adjective).
2. He is part of the SNV, for which I work.
3. I therefore work for a fascist.
4. I have tried to conceal that fact, so I am a liar, and Robert Spencer is too.It would be a gross understatement to say that dealing with Al-Kejda’s ravings has gone from annoying to just silly. But for the record, the fact that SNV and SNC mean the same thing has nothing to do with there being more than one organization of that name or something similar. The photo (which I don’t recall ever having seen) was evidently taken in 2003. I started working for the Bishop in March 2006. At that time, Rada Trajkovic, also in the photo, was with the SNV working with the Bishop. She since has started her own organization that I believe has the same or similar name.
In any case, in all my work with the Bishop I never had any contact with Dr. Ivanovic until I met him for the first time last year in a meeting with community leaders in Northern Mitrovica, in the part of nothern Kosovo not under Albanian Muslim control. If he is or was affiliated at any time with any SNV connected to Bishop Artemije is a matter about which I have no knowledge and, frankly, no interest.
In any case, as far as I know there’s nothing fascist about Dr. Ivanovic at all, and in fact everything I know about him leads me to the opposite opinion of him — that he is a courageous, dedicated, and responsible community leader. But of course anyone who dismisses people resisting jihad as “crusaders” and “jewhadists” no doubt takes a dim view of a leader of a Christian community that is determined not to become extinct.
Again, whatever SNV he might have been with, I never had any contact with him till I met him in another context, as noted above. Whoever may be leaders at any given time in any organization called SNV, I take my instructions from Bishop Artemije and only from Bishop Artemije. And as far the charge that Robert Spencer and I are “liars” — so what’s to lie about?
With all the ample time Al-Kejda seems to have on her hands, instead of trying to discredit those who struggle against jihad, maybe she could take note of the real state of affairs in Kosovo. For example, the leaders of Kosovo’s illegal Muslim Albanian separatist administration are stonewalling efforts by Serbian prosecutors and organizations like Human Rights Watch to find out what happened to 300 Serbs kidnapped by the so-called “Kosovo Liberation Army” (KLA) and, according to reliable information from former Hague prosecutor Carla Del Ponte (hardly a Serbophile), had their organs removed while they were still alive (they were later killed of course) for the illegal transplant trade. Given that the administration is itself headed by KLA commanders, who double as kingpins in the Albanian Mafia’s drug, slave, and weapons rackets, I’m not holding my breath. Who cares about a few livers and kidneys ripped from Christians, who after all are only Serbs? But I’m sure the intrepid Al-Kejda, with her keen interest in the region, will soon dig up a smoking gun on that one too.