[NYC-L] Antigona, Isa, Al-Qaeda

[Jeton Ademaj]

Hi Antigona

I certainly agree with your main point, but i would add that the Khaled 
Al-Masri account i provided is more clearly related to Balkan Govts playing 
kiss-up to USA spooks. I suspect Boskovski's actions were more related to 
internal Mac politics and a desire to create "wiggle-room" for a hardline 
crackdown from Shkup. from what i know the USA wasn't involved in the 
Boskovski slaughter, and to it's rare credit Shkup seems to be on the ball 
prosecuting Bosko's outrageous blood-sacrifice of innocent migrant 
workers...9/11 will be rippling out for decades i'm afraid. the imperative 
is Ripple-Management.

I'd also add that the Al-Masri fiasco and it's like are stupid precisely 
because they can be used as tools for Salafist-extremists to recruit 
followers in the Balkans. The reason Al Qaeda never gained an Albanian 
foothold to match the one it gained in Bosnia is because those arguments 
that rippled thru State in the early 90's about using the Balkans as a 
bridge to the Islamic world finally bore fruit. it was too late for Bosnia, 
as Clinton's pussying-out over campaign pledges veered into the open-door 
policy for Mujaheddin and Iranian arms shipments to the Bosnians as the 
implications of total inaction really set-in...but NATO's bombing in '99 
combined with it's reported use of the KLA for some targeting applications 
checked the advance of Al Qaeda into Albanian territories. That success 
could easily be lost if the USA chooses to give Al Qaeda propaganda 
victories in Albo territory by using Albos to do evil to innocent muslims. 
Some at Langley may have speculated that any such Al Qaeda foothold would 
give DC additional leverage over Albos, but overall it's contemptuous of the 
War On Terror's stated aims (containment, for instance!)

2nd PS to Isa: THAT point is one i still intend to elaborate in response to 
your May hissyfit about being called a "brownshirt" (aka Nazi is how you 
took it). Besides the fact that i was referring to YOU and not Albos 
generally, and that it was only half-serious (you are MUCH mellower onlist 
than u used to be, but thats not saying too much :) -- I thought it was a 
tad funny to be calling me "irresponsible", with a "slippery pen", when 
chasing down your own links led me to articles and interviews where you 
played up the danger of an Al-Qaeda foothold among katundars. And that our 
whole exchange was based on your criticizing "people onlist" (aka ME, 
mostly) posting State Dept transcripts and not shmoozing State desk officers 
instead. also funny that Josh Black aint responded to my last email relating 
that...he's usually much more responsive! ho-hum...i DO like the idea about 
getting an Albanian Studies chair endowed somewhere cool but otherwise 
thought our exchange had too much inky-cloudy-ness from you (grad school 
habit i'm sure) , and it also sounded like you were too casual about 
dismissing ideas (eg "what NOT to do, as opposed to what TO do")...it 
sounded a bit like Bleron guarding against non-useful actions by AASO and 
the latter's resultant morbidity. Only you lack Bleron's humor and 
tyrranilicious bone-structure, as most of us do! And not to be snippy, but 
it was cute having u dismiss media outreach to larger media outlets, only to 
reference your own articles in outlandishly obscure ones (the *alternative* 
Ottoman review? what, the regular one is too mainstream, too "poppy"?) 
Furthermore, I must echo one of your interviewers who said that your 
dismissals of anti-Serbian abuse as "overstated" sounded insensitive, 
contemptuous and reflexively apologist.

Lastly, i caught some semantic *inklings* of homophobic commentary in your 
earlier posts ("remission/submission/emission") but i must say i got mad at 
the "plumage, prancing around" bullshit; it clarified that your references 
to my gayness would remain ambiguous and shrouded in that 
plausible-deniability-shit thats a by-product of those unfortunate campus 
speech codes. I prefer my encounters with bigotry (however mild) to be more 
obvious, whereas your allusions sounded, well, abstracted in a brown-shirty 
way. Like LeRoi Jones (aka Amiri Baraka) babbling about Bayard Rustin being 
"an untrustworthy Negro...I wanna know when and how he's gonna submit!". 
Just say "man-up, faggot!" and call it a day!

I really should have waited to review/excerpt your last big email b4 writing 
this mini-reply, but i'm procrastinating finishing up a several-thousand 
word piece elsewhere...let this suffice for now, reply at will, but i cant 
reply for a few days cuz procrastination and the attendent 
adrenaline-rush-of-rushing is a weakness of mine.

Best to all :)
J


>Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 15:32:51 -0400
>From: ak2480 at columbia.edu
>Subject: Re: [NYC-L] NYC-L Digest, Vol 61, Issue 23
>To: nyc-l at alb-net.com
>Message-ID: <1122751971.42ebd5e34d9a5 at cubmail.cc.columbia.edu>
>Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
>
>
>Jeton,
>Yes, since 9/11 Albania (remember they are part of the coalition of
>the willing) and plenty of other countries have been much too eager
>and proud to display their government's concerted efforts against
>the "war against terror." See for instance the NYT article below to
>read what the government of Macedonia did in order to impress the
>U.S. and show them that they too were doing their utmost best to
>track the terrorists - or at least pretend that they were.
>
>Kindest Regards,
>Antigona
>
>
>A Fake Macedonia Terror Tale That Led to Deaths
>
>By Nicholas Wood
>
>SKOPJE, Macedonia, May 14 -