Ft. Dix Plot is Milosevic's Fault:
Postcolonial Wars and Terror
The small cell that plotted to attack Ft. Dix was made up of Albanians from Kosovo, along with a Turk and a Jordanian. Note that in the 1980s most Yugoslav Muslims were deracinated and secular. Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian are really the same language, and the only way you could tell if someone was a Muslim was to check their i.d. cards (the Communists recognized Yugoslav Muslims as a national minority). [See my colleague John Fine's When Ethnicity did not Matter.]
When Communism collapsed, Yugoslav politicians cast about for new platforms. Slobodan Milosevic decided to opt for the most chauvinist form of Serbian nationalism one could imagine, setting in motion a vicious and brutal war for territory on the basis of ethnic identity. Muslims in Bosnia were targeted for mass graves. Kosovo autonomy was much reduced, affecting yet another group, the ethnic Muslims of Albanian origin, who are not Slavs and who either were also secular or tended toward Sufism and Muslim traditionalism rather than fundamentalism.
In the aftermath of the Kosovo War of 1999, half of Kosovars lived in poverty and fundamentalist charities started being active among them. Kosovars were most often secular and anti-Islamic or heterodox when religious. Milosevic monstrously attempted to use charges of al-Qaeda presence in Kosovo (unproved) as a pretext for killing Kosovars. In fact, his policies pushed some Kosovars into the arms of the Salafis.
In other words, Kosovo was not about Islam. It was another post-colonial war like many others in the post-Soviet period. If some Kosovars now turn to radical fundamentalism, it is a result of the collapse of the old Communist framework and the attacks on them of the Milosevic fascists.
John Tirman sees the US occupation of Iraq as generating Muslim fundamentalist violence against the US, in a vicious circle.
Labels: al-Qaeda
posted by Juan Cole @ 5/09/2007 12:35:00 AM
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11 Comments:
The media's refusal to note that these terrorists were (except for one) illegal Kosovar Albanians is an example of the bias that characterized the media's presentation of the conflict in the Balkans. It is also engaged in by the government since it is supporting the EU's illegal attempt (in violation of multiple UN resolutions) to separate Kosovo from Serbia.
So the Kosovar ethnic cleansing of non-Albanian Kosovars and destruction of dozens of Serbian Orthodox religious sites is Milosevic's fault? Wow, the immunity of Islam and muslims from any responsiblity for terrorist actions seems to know no bounds--facts and history are no impediment, actual violence is no impediment. Remarkable. And I thought the Catholic Church set the standard for indulgences.
I find it interesting that NONE of the terrrrrs are Iraqis - even though they are the ones supposed to "follow us home"...
Also, the Jordanian, Turkish and Kosovar nationality of the plotters shows that we ought to fear Bushiite's allies more than their enemies - no Iranians among the six either...
This plot, as Keystone Terrrrs as it gets, is still a bad sign that "homegrown" terror, like that in England, is finding roots in the US... Ultimately, the closed borders will not be able to stop the Muslims who are already here from radical action if the Bushiites keep pursuing unnecessary wars against Muslims...
I am sure some talking heads are fuming about how the Yugoslav Muslims should be grateful because the US rescued them from genocide - this is an endearing myth that has persisted among people who don't bother with facts... Truth - the US did not intervene in the Yugoslav War until its third year, by which time thousands of Muslims had been slaughtered.
As always, I welcome commens on my blog.
I knew Albanians and Bosnian Muslims, both post and pre war.
Pre war Bosnian Muslims and Alabanians were known for their lax Islam. They were known for heavy drinking and the like.
It is amazing how a genocidal war can change people.
Thanks Dr. Cole for again offering us useful background information.
About the Fort Dix consipracy, John Tirman asks:
how does ferocious military action in the Middle East--the global front in the long war--deal with this, potentially the most serious threat of violence from Islamic militants since 9/11? Should we bomb Kosovo (again)? Turkey? Jordan?
The Bush/Cheney group would respond to that without batting an eyelid:
Bomb Iran!
Thanks for your sensible and interesting commentary.
I think you're right to downplay the traction of political Islam in Kosovo. Check Steven Schwartz's report on Religion in Kosovo for ICG, back in 2000 when wounds were rawer. It's largely positive about the role of Islam and religion in general as a peacebuilding measure, and detected few of the strains Carla Thorson does.
Who has seen any of the videos or testimony used to arrest the plotters?
Now, if it turns out they were inspired by David Duke, we might call them Klansmen. If they chanted slogans of Mao, would there be any problem in calling them Maoists? What if the Ft. Dix conspirators all vowed to be acting in the name of a religion?
No one labeled psycho assassin Cho a Muslim for the simple reason that he neither claimed nor showed any such affiliation. The popular media did not label T. McVeigh an Islamist. Only L. Mylroie, a Harvard PhD in Mideast Studies, was loony enough to see Arab connections, or convince a Yale PhD in poli-sci (later a World Bank head) of the connection.
Many religious fanatics come from deracinated or alienated roots. Atta was a Europe educated unemployed urban planner. Qtub was a loner in Greeley and a misfit in secularist Nasser's education ministry. OBL found no calling in the construction industry, nor in hang gliding. Why did any of them find a sanction for violence in Islam?
Are any deracinated Hungarians, Croats or Czechs staging bivoacs in the Poconos?
Albanians and Kosovars are clearly not thankful to NATO or the US for "rescuing" them from Milosevic. National identities and resentments stew in strange ways. But any Serb or Albanian will freely admit that religion DOES play in their national legends, hopes, and resentments. It goes back 700 years.
Most troubling is how people can emigrate to the West and hate it.
On some future date, if some deracinated Iraqi is unhappy about exile or disintegration of the formerly proud state, the angst may have nothing to do with Islam, per se, but if that person turns against the US, it should be no surprise if religion is used as the emblem and justification.
Yes, Muslim clerics have denounced violence as "not Islam," but in some of the congregation this is tantamount to denial that professed Muslims had anything to do with acts of violence. Delusions and denials are a two-way street, and Americans have plenty (especially about the Mideast), but it does no good to camoflage things.
I was sorry to see that in your really excellent blog - the only blog I read on a regular daily basis - you have succumbed to the usual anti-Serb and anti-Milosevic rhetoric in your account of the conflict in Kosovo.
Throughout the Communist period Kosovo functioned as an autonomous republic with an Albanian majority government. Theoretically it was part of Serbia - representatives from Kosovo sat in the Serb parliament but the Serb government had no say in the running of Kosovo. Large numbers of Serbs had been forcibly expelled from the area during the Second World War and the Kosovan Serbs complained that this process of ethnic cleansing had continued more discreetly under the Albanian Communist administration. Whatever the reason, the fact was that Serb numbers in the province contiued to decline dramatically throughout the period. Milosevic took the Serb complaints seriously and secured a constitutional change which subjected Kosovo to Serbia. He did this with the agreement of the whole Yugoslav federation, still intact at the time, and of the Kosovan parliament itself, still under Communist discipline.
When Yugoslavia began to fall apart, the Serbs, spread over the whole area with concentrations in Croatia (the Krajina) and in Eastern Bosnia had an interest in preserving the largest degree of unity possible, while the main advocates of disintegration were the Slovenes and Croats. The Bosnian Muslims were in a difficult situation. They were the largest population in Bosnia but not large enough to have an overall majority in opposition to both the Serbs and Croats. Since they were not strong enough to build a Bosnian nation state, their traditional preference would have been to maintain Yugoslav unity but with the departure of Croatia and Slovenia what was left was clearly going to be dominated by the Serbs. Some elements (notably the very interesting political thinker Muhammed Fillipovic and the powerful local boss in Western Bosnia, Fikret Abdic) favoured an alliance with the Serbs. The faction that won out, with a little help from Germany and the US, was the Islamic revivalist faction led by Alija Izetbegovic though even he hesitated to go for full Bosnian independence (and when he did he immediately found himself in a war with the Bosnian Croats as well as with the Serbs).
I don't know if Milosevic accused Izetbegovic of being connected with Al Qaida (which wasn't so much in the public eye at the time) but his thinking was very much related to that of the Muslim Brothers so it wasn't incorrect to characterise him as an 'Islamist' in the broad sense of the term. It is totally misleading to represent him as an old style Yugoslav secularist.
Once Yugoslavia began to disintegrate no Serb leader, least of all one who had been democratically elected, could have refused help to the Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia. Even the West's favourite Serb, Zoran Djindjic, attacked Milosevic for not doing enough to support the Bosnian Serbs.
The Kosovan Albanians meanwhile refused to recognise or cooperate with the Serb government and therefore to take their places in the Kosovan parliament which therefore became a Serb institution. They organised a separate state structure, with its own education and health system. This system received a great deal of support from abroad and was largely tolerated by the Serbs. They used the existing state school buildings and turned to the state hospital system for major operations. It was only with the rise of the Kosova Liberation Army after the Dayton Peace Agreement, that things began to turn very nasty. Milosevic and the Serbs could be accused of using excessive violence in their counter-insurgency operations but that doesn't look so bad now that we can make the comparison with the counter-insurgency methods used in Anbar province in Iraq. The NATO attack on Serbia was launched on the basis of lies about Serb atrocities and plans for ethnic cleansing that were as outrageous as the lies that accompanied the invasion of Iraq.
You have bravely stood up against the view that Muslims are somehow intrinsically terrorist in their inclinations. You could do with a similar sophistication in your understanding of the Serbs.
With utmost deference, I suggest a little shading and tinting here.
First of all, Kosovo was for many centuries a Debateable ground between Albania and upland Serbia. A tangled history that can be explored with much interest, these uplands were inhabited by the fiercest of the Balkans peoples, and property lines and borders were set by stones- stones that could be moved by whoever happened to have the upper hand at any given time.
Second, the greatest weakness of the Tito Yugoslavia was the inability of the Serbs to integrate the Bosnians, Croatians and other minorities into, especially the military, but also other major institutions. This failure was vividly illustrated at the outbreak of the civil war, when local police forces, heavily armed by outside funding, began defeating the Serbian-dominated military in local actions.
Third, between 1992 and 1998 about half the Serbian inhabitants of Kosovo were chased out by Islamic militias. By 1998 only a small fraction of Serbian inhabitants remained. It was not necessary for Milosevic to create a hysterical Serbian nationalism, this reaction had probably already been created by the defeat of the military and the Serbian refugees from Albania arriving in Serbia.
This is an interesting and complex subject and a longstanding authority on the area and dynamics is Dr. Daniel Chirot, who has written several books on these matters and is now, I believe, at the Henry Jackson School at the University of Washington. As an undergrad I was introduced to these matters in the mid-70s by Dr. Chirot and his prescient interest in the region has been amply repaid in the decades that have followed.
Some days ago, I posted a comment about how the French attitude about visitors of various descriptions was indeed one of 'love it or leave it.' Sarkozy is, once more, of immigrant stock from Eastern/Southern Europe, one who should understand the plights and problems of people from other lands.
After making my comments, I pulled a book off of my shelf that was left half-read a couple or so years ago, entitled *Sister Revolutions: French Lightning, American Light,* S Dunn (Faber&Faber, 1999). The distinction that Dunn makes is between the French who tend more toward unification and communitarian government and the Americans who favour the individual.
Where the 'Musulmans' (men from Mosul?) are concerned, they are welcome in France provided that they do nothing to endanger the social harmony that exists for the benefit of all France and French men and women. Among the pertinent articles in the 'Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen' is No. 10, 'No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law.'* Everyone is, therefore, entitled to express themselves so long as they do not imperil the public or societal good. Sarkozy must thus keep this and the other articles in mind when addressing wholly French issues.
*Sister Revolutions* discusses many interesting aspects of the revolutionary minds, French and American, further influencing the likes of Frederick Douglass, Ho Chi Minh, the Algerians, and others. There are references to Machiavelli, a telling one in regard to the events in Iraq, 'Men who will forever deserve the praise of historians, Machiavelli had remarked three hundred years earlier, are "those who establish republics or kingdoms."' (SR, p 122) Given the drive to reshape Iraq (and perhaps other peoples and their nations) and KRove's appreciation of Machiavelli, events are more easily understandable from an historic perspective.
Revolutions tend to get their beginnings from within. The problem with imperialist adventures is that there is no proper ground preparation beforehand, the revolutionary seeds not able to take root. Certainly, with Russia, Iran, now Iraq, and others, there were those who returned from foreign lands to lead the revolts. In the first two cases, the conditions were right for Lenin and the Ayatollah whereas Chalabi and others had misjudged the readiness of the Iraqis to rise up against their previous oppressor, Saddam Hussein. Even so, Russian and Iran were each changed by one of their own, not by the imposition of some foreign force having some long-time exiles drafting in the armies' wakes. The Russian adventures in the Eastern Bloc provide more examples of failed revolution from without.
*Sister Revolutions* is also interesting from the standpoint of how the Americans will attempt to impose their revolutionary ideals on the Middle East. Needless to say, TE Lawrence tried and failed. As Dunn writes (p 99), 'Like Machiavelli, Madison, and Jefferson before him, Tocqueville came to the same sagacious conclusion that the guardian of freedom is tumult.' As has been seen in Iraq, there is a lot of 'tumult,' to the point of 'freedom' becoming 'anarchy.' Only the people themselves will be able to run down and rein in the wild horses of change, given that they have the will and dedication seen in previous revolutionary experiences. How they achieve their own revolution, whether on the American or French models or on one of their own, will therefore have to wait until the dust settles. Without too much thought, other nations in the region should not be too eager or hasty to repeat the Iraqi experiences.
* http://www.constitution.org/fr/fr_drm.htm
The Fort Dix Six criminal complaint.
Its clear from the complaint that the Fort Dix Six (FDS)really wanted to kill US soldiers. What's not so clear is that they had the ability to do it.
The FBI infiltrated two paid informants who worked with the FDS for over a year. The actual arsenal posessed by the FDS was pitifully small, but the lead informant told them not to worry. He could get them just about anything they needed.
I suspect that the informants were a lot more clever than the FDS, and most likely took a leadership role. They gave the FDS the cojones to attack and the promise of weapons needed.
After the FBI got the initial tip in Jan 2006 there was no chance that the FDS could pull anything off. The FBI had them covered like wet blanket and could have disrupted any operation at will.
Its fortunate that the FDS did not take the Cho/Virginia Tech "just do it" approach. Maybe the next bunch that wants to kill Americans will skip the drawn out high exposure planning stage and "just do it". That's scary.
Sherm
It's interesting how everyone assumes the Fort Dix Six are guilty. Not the blogger or the commenters use the word "alleged" in their comments. All of you have tried and convicted them just by reading news reports. And of course, the FBI has never made a mistake or had a political agenda behind an investigation. There are some blessings to the mainstream media. At least they use the word "alleged" and let juries convict.
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