On Sunday, September 15, the Chicago chapter of the Albanian American Civic League, in conjunction with the Albanian community in the State of Illinois, hosted a reception and forum with Senator Joseph Biden at Diplomat West banquet hall in Elmhurst, Illinois. Members of the Civic League chapter in the greater Milwaukee, Wisconsin, area also participated. The event, which was coordinated by Pajazit Murtishi, owner of Illyria Travel in Chicago, with the help of former Congressman and AACL President Joe DioGuardi and Balkan Affairs Adviser Shirley Cloyes DioGuardi in New York, was part of the Civic League’s continuing effort to keep the Albanian dimension of the Balkan conflict at the forefront of U.S. foreign policy concerns.
The Civic League views Senator Biden as the key link for making foreign policy changes in the U.S. government that will impact the future of Albanians in the Balkans in a progressive way—not only because of his position as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee but also because of his in-depth knowledge and appreciation of the Albanian people. For this reason, the Civic League has been making a concerted effort to introduce Senator Biden to Albanian communities across the United States and to demonstrate to him that we do not take for granted his past and present contributions to bringing justice and freedom to all Albanians and to Southeast Europe.
[snip]
In her introduction, Cloyes DioGuardi talked about the Civic League's presentation of the its 2nd annual Balkan Peace Award to Senator Biden (the first was presented to General Wesley Clark) on June 18, 2002, in the presence of Nexhat Daci, Speaker of the Kosova Assembly. Cloyes DioGuardi pointed out that the Civic League created the award to honor people who "do not simply talk about our issues, but who do something to get the job done." Senator Biden, she said, "has consistently and forcefully insisted that the United States must not abandon the Balkans to Europe and that we must not leave the region until there is peace and economic security for all."
In his remarks on June 18, Cloyes DioGuardi said that Biden drew a striking contrast between the vision of Robert Kaplan’s Balkan Ghosts—a book that falsely identified the source of the Balkan conflict in the 1980s and 1990s as centuries of ethnic hatred instead of the consequence of Slobodan Milosevic and his genocidal warfare—and the work of Joe DioGuardi, whom Senator Biden called the "Balkan Beacon," because Joe had kept a contant focus, a "beacon of light," on the possibilities for peace and justice in Southeast Europe since 1986. Cloyes DioGuardi then stated that the same could be said about Senator Biden: "If Joe DioGuardi is the 'Albanian Balkan Beacon,' then Senator Biden is the 'Congressional Balkan Beacon.' For more than fifteen years, he has been disinfecting the problems of the Balkans in his light and insisting on a just solution when others averted their eyes as thousands died. While the Albanian community is quick to credit former President Bill Clinton with dropping the bombs on Serbia, the bombs would never have been dropped and Milosevic's genocidal march across Europe would not have been halted if it had not been for Joe Biden. He has earned our respect and our support."
Would anybody care to guess where this is going?
In McCain's Ties to Islamic Terrorists -- and Heroin Traffickers? and especially in The Balkan Connection, Part 2, I identify the Albanian American Civic League (AACL) and its associated Albanian American Public Affairs Committee (AAPAC) as fronts for Albanian organized crime.
In Kosovo in 1999, Part 3 I touched on the role of Albanian organized crime in the ethnic cleansing of ethnic Albanians -- the KLA was intimidating anyone who was less than eager to support the KLA's criminal agenda.
With that in mind, it is useful to consider AAPAC's contributions to Senator Biden's recent Presidential aspirations:
ALBANIAN AMERICAN PUBLIC AFFAIRS COMMITTEE
10/29/2007: $1000.00
12/03/2007: $1000.00
28039611921
Keep in mind that these legal, declared contributions are only the tiny tip of the iceberg.
From farther down in the article:
Throughout his foreign policy work in the Balkans, Senator Biden said that his aim was "to change five hundred years of history." As long as the Balkans are viewed as "a backwater and an appendage of Europe," Biden observed, "the world will not care if seven million Albanians are being persecuted." As long as the Balkans remain isolated, its peoples will be at the mercy of external powers, adding that the Europeans must stop making Albanians "pawns that can be moved on the chessboard by others." To the extent that the Robert Kaplans of the world can sell the message that the people of the Balkans are "uncivilized, not cultured, and not capable, we will lose," Biden said. He appealed to Albanians in the audience, and through the Civic League, to be the people who move the world’s perspective in a different direction.
Returning to the image of the spotlight, Biden expressed his grave concern that the "light that had shone brightly" during the NATO bombing campaign was "beginning to fade." He emphasized that, "To the degree that the world does not shine light on the plight of Albanians, their condition will become dire." To prevent this fate and to make Albanian freedom a reality, Biden said that Albanians must become part of Europe. Simultaneously, Biden expressed his strong conviction that the U.S. government must remain involved in the Balkans for integration to happen. The United States must have its "arms and rifles and boots on the ground," he said, if there is to be "ultimate security for seven million Albanians through integration into Europe." He added that the kind of functioning multiethnic societies that the West would like to see in the Balkans cannot occur in the absence of physical security and economic growth.
Biden was candid in his criticism of the Bush administration for "exaggerating progress in the Balkans" in order to allow Americans to disengage prematurely from Kosova, Macedonia, and Bosnia. He cited Serbia as an example. While acknowledging that the government of Kostunica and Djindjic was certainly better than the Milosevic regime, Biden said that he and many others in Congress would continue to insist that Serbia, as the "prime mover of the insane genocidal warfare of the 1980s and 1990s," must meet all of the conditions necessary to receive U.S. assistance. Specifically, he said that Belgrade must cease its negative interference in Kosova and Bosnia; that it must end the de facto partition of Mitrovice and let displaced Albanians return to their homes in the north and Serbs to theirs in the south; that it must turn over all of its war criminals to The Hague; and that it must publicly apologize for its genocidal campaigns in Kosova, Bosnia, and Croatia. Like the Germans of the Nazi era, Biden argued that it was important for Serbs to shed the mythology that they are victims—a mythology that has enabled them to justify their acts of aggression against others—so that new generations do not repeat history.
Biden also examined the situation in Macedonia, calling it "an explosion waiting to happen." He said that the United States could ill afford to leave Macedonia to Europe or abandon it before there is genuine peace. For years, the international community overlooked the institutionalized racism and police brutality against Albanians, while Albanians participated in the Macedonian government. Now, the Ohrid agreement has to be fully implemented, Biden insisted, "if we are to have any hope." If Ohrid fails, he expressed his fear that violent extremists on both sides will take over. The "racist, right-wing Interior Minister Boskovski" has recently tortured Albanians in Gostivar and is "itching to turn his goons loose on defenseless Albanians in Macedonia," Biden observed. But, while the Senator deplored the violence of Slavic Macedonian extremists, he expressed his deep disappointment that the "overwhelming small Albanian National Army" has a "siren song." He called AKSH’s approach, in which they denounce as traitors politicians who support the Ohrid agreement and kill policemen, as "sheer insanity." Through their actions, they allow the world to characterize Albanians "as thugs, no different from those who are Slavs."
Of course, as I have previously pointed out, Macedonia and Montenegro are next.
Heroin trafficking works best amid instability and hostilities. The destabilization of legitimate governments in the region facilitates a phenomenon known as "State Capture" (see sidebar), exemplified by the situation in Kosovo, where organized crime takes over an entire nation. Hostilities are good for weapons-trafficking, and the international peacekeepers stationed in the region are the perfect captive clientele for the sex slaves that organized crime traffics to the region for forced prostitution.
As long as Albanian organized crime keeps laundering money to Senator Biden through AAPAC & Co., Senator Biden will keep doing the bidding of AAPAC's associated AACL.
From The Criminalization of the State: "Independent Kosovo", a Territory under US-NATO Military Rule quoted in Kosovo in 1999, Part 3:
The laundering of dirty money
In order to thrive, the criminal syndicates involved in the Balkans narcotics trade need friends in high places. Smuggling rings with alleged links to the Turkish State are said to control the trafficking of heroin through the Balkans "cooperating closely with other groups with which they have political or religious ties" including criminal groups in Albanian and Kosovo.[21] In this new global financial environment, powerful undercover political lobbies connected to organized crime cultivate links to prominent political figures and officials of the military and intelligence establishment.
As I quoted from a January 16, 1997 press release from the United States Senate Republican Policy Committee in McCain's Ties to Islamic Terrorists:
For example, one such group about which details have come to light is the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), a Sudan-based, phoney humanitarian organization which has been a major link in the arms pipeline to Bosnia. ["How Bosnia's Muslims Dodged Arms Embargo: Relief Agency Brokered Aid From Nations, Radical Groups," Washington Post, 9/22/96; see also "Saudis Funded Weapons For Bosnia, Official Says: $300 Million Program Had U.S. 'Stealth Cooperation'," Washington Post, 2/2/96] TWRA is believed to be connected with such fixtures of the Islamic terror network as Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman (the convicted mastermind behind the 1993 World Trade Center bombing) and Osama Binladen, a wealthy Saudi emigre believed to bankroll numerous militant groups. [WP, 9/22/96]
As Sibel Edmonds stated in the context of her own case, which deals with Turkish organized crime and its influence in Washington:
Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds Calls Current 9/11 Investigation Inadequate by Jim Hogue, May 07, 2004
JH: Can you explain more about what money you are talking about?
SE: The most significant information that we were receiving did not come from counter-terrorism investigations, and I want to emphasize this. It came from counter-intelligence, and certain criminal investigations, and issues that have to do with money laundering operations.
You get to a point where it gets very complex, where you have money laundering activities, drug related activities, and terrorist support activities converging at certain points and becoming one. In certain points - and they [the intelligence community] are separating those portions from just the terrorist activities. And, as I said, they are citing "foreign relations" which is not the case, because we are not talking about only governmental levels. And I keep underlining semi-legit organizations and following the money. When you do that the picture gets grim. It gets really ugly.
The Highjacking of a Nation, Part 2: The Auctioning of Former Statesmen & Dime a Dozen Generals by Sibel Edmonds, November 29, 2006
The foreign influence, the lobbyists, the current highly positioned civil servants who are determined future 'wanna be' lobbyists, and the fat cats of the Military Industrial Complex, operate successfully under the radar, with unlimited reach and power, with no scrutiny, while selling your interests, benefiting from your tax money, and serving the highest bidders regardless of what or who they may be. This deep state seems to operate at all levels of our government; from the President's office to Congress, from the military quarters to the civil servants' offices.
Did Speaker Hastert Accept Turkish Bribes to Deny Armenian Genocide and Approve Weapons Sales?, an interview with Amy Goodman, 2005
Sibel Edmonds: [snip] They are not speaking about the link between the narcotics and al Qaeda. Yes, we are hearing about them coming down on some charities as the real funds behind al Qaeda, but most of al Qaeda's funding is not through these charity organizations. It's through narcotics. And have you heard anything to this date, anything about these issues which we have had information since 1997? And as I would again emphasize, we are talking about countries. And they are blocking this information, and also the fact that certain officials in this country are engaged in treason against the United States and its interests and its national security, be it the Department of State or certain elected officials.
Former FBI Translator Sibel Edmonds Calls Current 9/11 Investigation Inadequate by Jim Hogue, May 07, 2004
JH: Here's a question that you might be able to answer: What is al-Qaeda?
SE: This is a very interesting and complex question. When you think of al-Qaeda, you are not thinking of al-Qaeda in terms of one particular country, or one particular organization. You are looking at this massive movement that stretches to tens and tens of countries. And it involves a lot of sub-organizations and sub-sub-organizations and branches and it's extremely complicated. So to just narrow it down and say al-Qaeda and the Saudis, or to say it's what they had at the camp in Afghanistan, is extremely misleading. And we don't hear the extent of the penetration that this organization and the sub-organizations have throughout the world, throughout their networks and throughout their various activities. It's extremely sophisticated. And then you involve a significant amount of money into this equation. Then things start getting a lot of overlap -- money laundering, and drugs and terrorist activities and their support networks converging in several points. That's what I'm trying to convey without being too specific. And this money travels. And you start trying to go to the root of it and it's getting into somebody's political campaign, and somebody's lobbying. And people don't want to be traced back to this money.
2 comments:
Very nice work Mr.Doodle!
;)
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