At least five ethnic Serbian civilians and two NATO soldiers were wounded today when NATO forces moved against protesters who had set up a roadblock in northern Kosovo. NATO started with tear gas and rubber bullets, and eventually resorted to live rounds against the protesters, who responded with pistol fire.
The roadblocks issue has been going on since last fall, when the Kosovo government banned all trade with neighboring Serbia and sent NATO troops to the border to ensure that ethnic Serbs were no longer able to ship goods out of the nation. The Serbs responded with roadblocks along the supply routes in protest, and have rebuilt as fast as NATO could destroy them.
This has apparently convinced NATO that instead of simply removing the roadblocks, they also have to attack any protests they see, and officials insisted that today’s attack was “in self-defense,” adding that they “have the authority to use deadly force on anyone who throws a stone.”
Kosovar Serbs have overwhelmingly rejected the NATO-backed regime, and have sought to rejoin Serbia. NATO has insisted that they will never allow this, and that Kosovo, which they carved out of Serbia in an invasion, would retain its “territorial integrity” irrespective of popular opinion.
"Self Defence" -foreign troops on occupied land shoot protesters with live fire for trowing rocks. NSTO are the new Nazis.
"Kosovo government"?
The south Serbian province is first and foremost occupied by the biggest USA military camp and torture gulag since Vietnam, Camp Bondsteel. The puppet "government" is the former KLA terrorist narco-organ- trafficking mafia. The worlds first NATO state…
the albanian drug mafia became KLA and than a state with TOP-Killer Hashom Thaci (called "SNAKE") as president.
Guess how many military planes fly between Afghanistan opium airports and the the only drug mafia who can deliver opium worldwide in diplomatic luggage !
Afghanistan has 90 percent of world opium production ! I guess we speak about trillions.
CIA needs black money and drugs, since the massacre actions they organize just now in Syria can not be paid by congress.
And what else is the "drug war" all about? It is about taking over in clandestine manner the wealth of drug trade. NATO does not destroy poppy fields, other then for a show. It happened only once, when Russia pressed NATO to do something about the flood of drugs spreading accross Central Asia and into Russia. Presumably, NATO does not want to elimnate the "livelihood" of peasants raising poppies! As Afghanistan has only a few functioning mountain passes accross forbidding landscape — the question arises how are large quantities of drugs transported. With NATO controlling the air, the only explanation is that NATO is protecting/participating in the trasport of drugs. KLA's drug smuggling families had connection with Afghan heroin dealers for decades. Afghanistan was the FIRST state to recognize Kosovo, a territory in an ideal position to trade in heroin, live humans and human organs. The money comes in handy in funding the masked gunmen with pickup trucks — our heros on heroin that "liberated" Libya and are now being supported in Syria with all the might of our political-military-industrial-media cartel!
NATO actions against a civil protest is illegal and a war crime the Serbs have my support always
"territorial integrity” irrespective of popular opinion… Uh, huh. As if they ever cared about that unless it benefited them. Seems that if they create something out of whole cloth then it MUST remain while anyone who disagrees will be put to the sword.
This is one of the greatest headlines Jason Ditz ever had !
Read it again:
Troops Attacked Civilian Protesters 'in Self-Defense'
Attacked in Self-defense is already good,
but that it is between military and civilians makes it really funny.
But the situation of the Serbs there is really not funny. 300,000 other Serbs were expelled trough murder, violence, rape and burning their houses – made by NATO that actualy in teh treaty guaranteed peaceful living for all people in a demilitarized Kosovo – but they did make the KLA-terrorists to police (!) and did this way provide THE FIRST REAL ETHNIC CLEANSING IN KOSOVO !!
The treaty also did contain, that Kosovo will remain to Serbia – a right the Serbs there insist of course.
Did Jason Ditz mention this background ?
sorry – mistake of mine, he did put selfdefense in quotes – I did not see it before.
I must say I am not a friend of irony, that states or repeats stupid things and justify it with some quotes. Thinking or speaking in the ideology of others makes no sense, also when you let anyhow show that you do not take it for good.
The best article I have read in a long time. This one event, a small piece of tragedy illustrates vividly that we are an Empire. And Empires are run by self-centered, narcissoid individuals — flattered by those that make profit out of imperial adventures. Empires always bring ruin and poverty on population of nations that go down that path.
I always wondered why I felt somehow conflicted with the Antiwar title of the site. This nation may have been antiwar in the sixties — but the notion of war has since morphed into imperial dominance ambitions. Empire first has to subdue its own population, before it can freely pursue its ambitions around the globe. This is why we still have "humanitarian" narratives being used heavily to placate the populace at home. But as laws are passed relentlessly curbing the freedoms at home — we are entering an era of bare fangs imperial ambitions.
This site is really anti-empire and its perverted mutations.