 |
| Republican
presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., speaks
to a pro Kosovo, pro McCain, rally across the street from
his New York City hotel Friday morning, Feb. 11, 2000.
McCain is in New York for the day to attend fundraisers
and to talk to the press before returning to South Carolina
Friday night. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia) |
WHO
IS JOE DIOGUARDI?
DioGuardi
is an extremist who lost his seat in Congress because his
growing preoccupation with creating a "Greater Albania" did
not exactly fit in with the pothole-fixing skills that must
be the first concern of New York City politicians. Most Albanian-Americans
support independence for Kosovo, and look with disdain and
bewilderment at the US government's official position that
Kosovo is still an "autonomous" province of Yugoslavia. But
DioGuardi goes one step – indeed, several steps
– further, and envisions a "Greater Albania." Visitors
to AACL's website are confronted
with a map of this Albanian Empire, which, as Doug Bandow
of the Cato Institute said in his testimony
before Congress, illustrates "a breathtaking agenda,"
including as it does "Albania, Kosovo, western Macedonia (along
with its capital, Skopje), southeastern Montenegro (along
with its capital, Podgorica), northern Greece, and southern
Serbia (north of Kosovo)." A
comment found in Alexander Cockburn's Counterpunch
newsletter
on this outrageous map hit the nail on the head:
"When
I first saw this map it struck a recollection of something
I had seen before. It occurred to me that it is quite similar
to one I have (printed by the State Department in 1947) of
interim territorial arrangements during World War II. I can
understand that there is an element of hyperbole in critics'
calling NATO's air campaign "Nazi," but fail to see what interest
the United States has in helping to restore the Nazi-imposed
borders of 1943 or how this helps preserve European stability."
THE
KLA: A SHORT HISTORY
It
is well-known that the original straight-arm salute of the
KLA was suppressed, by its CIA and German intelligence handlers,
in favor of a less controversial American-style greeting.
While one wing of the KLA looks to the old-fashioned Stalinism
of Enver Hoxha, the Albanian Communist dictator who aided
the early student organizations that made up the Albanian
separatist movement, the other looks to the "Skanderberg Division"
of the Nazi SS, Albanians recruited by the Germans to fight
for Hitler's cause, for its political antecedents. DioGuardi
has been a vigorous publicist on behalf of the KLA political
commissar, Adem Demaci, a militant who spent years in Yugoslav
prisons. Demaci denounced the Rambouillet agreement as a sellout
and (along with DioGuardi) rejected all negotiations on principle.
DioGuardi even wrote a letter
congratulating his fellow extremist when Demaci was appointed
chief of the KLA's political wing.
FOLLOW
THAT GENIE!
Demaci,
DioGuardi, and the KLA militants are now acting on their dream
of a "Greater Albania": this is the meaning of recent
events in Kosovo. Madeleine Albright is so frightened
by the rising demands of the pan-Albanians that she made a
special trip to Tirana to denounce the idea as "no more viable
than that of a Greater Serbia." But the genie is already out
of the bottle, and the question is: what will the next Administration
do?
A
GREATER ALBANIA
As
the KLA conducts its reign of terror in Kosovo, driving out
the Serbs and marching, in tens of thousands, on the northern
city of Mitrovica in an effort to storm the last Serb bastion,
John McCain is standing alongside a man who is the chief apologist,
organizer, and fundraiser of the KLA in America, a man who
once
declared:
"It
is unfortunate that misguided European politics, overly and
unfairly influenced by Russia and Greece in the early part
of the twentieth century, resulted in a partition of the Albanian
nation so that more than half the Albanians in the Balkans
live outside the state of Albania in hostile Slavic regimes,
especially Serbia and Macedonia. . . . With UDBA in Belgrade
and the Sigurimi in Tirana collaborating to buy, trick or
kill those Albanians with democratic aspirations, it is no
wonder that it has been extremely difficult for seven million.
Albanians to organize themselves as a nation, or even politically
within the five jurisdictions in which they reside. While
there is some cooperation among political parties in certain
areas and across borders, true democratic, independent-minded
Albanian leadership has been lacking and this has contributed
to the divisions, confusion, and betrayal of the Albanian
cause in the Balkans and in America."
CONSPIRACY
THEORY
How's
that for a conspiracy theory? According to DioGuardi, all
the nations of Europe conspired to keep his people disunited.
Naturally it is assumed that every living ethnic Albanian
must live in an Albanian state, since, in the neo-fascist
ideology of the KLA, the State embodies the Race and must
defend its interests irrespective of current national borders.
And, oh yes, that's what we definitely need: more "cooperation
among parties in certain areas and across borders," so as
to spread the rabidly revanchist ideology of the KLA and set
the Balkans aflame.
THE
DIOGUARDI-McCAIN CONNECTION
There
they are, the two of them, DioGuardi and McCain, side by side:
one who would carve an Albanian empire in the midst of the
blood-soaked Balkans, and the other who would be President
of the United States. It is a disturbing juxtaposition, to
say the very least. For if we can accuse poor Dubya of endorsing
the anti-Catholic rhetoric of the Bob Jones fundamentalists
simply by speaking at their auditorium, then what are we to
make of would-be President John McCain appearing with a radical
Albanian nationalist who sees not only Belgrade but also Skopje
and Athens as the enemy? After all, this is perhaps the wrong
signal to the Macedonians, who have so far enjoyed a fragile
peace, and no doubt the Greeks, our NATO allies, would be
less than pleased. And what of the Montenegrins, whose capital
city DioGuardi and the Albanian lobby covet, and whose independence
we are pledged to defend against the alleged threat posed
by Milosevic? If Bush must be called to account for supposedly
aligning himself with the forces of intolerance in the US,
for the sin of appearing at Bob Jones U, then should we not
call McCain to account for sharing the platform with a radical
Albanian extremist and endangering the peace of Europe
TURNING
THE TABLES
Although
the McCain campaign piously denied it, it has since come out
that they were responsible for phone calls during the Michigan
primary, run ostensibly by a group called "Catholic Voter
Alert," which demanded to know why Bush had not disavowed
the rhetoric of Bob Jones and his flock about the church being
"a Satanic cult'! This from the campaign McCain piously
described to his followers as "one you can be proud of"! Well,
then, is it not time to turn the tables, and send out a "Voter
Alert" demanding to know why McCain hasn't repudiated the
rhetoric of Joe DioGuardi and his KLA friends who want to
ignite the Balkan tinderbox with their crazed scheme to create
an Albanian empire? Indeed, this is a lot fairer than the
alleged Bush-Jones connection, because Bush has no history
of anti-Catholicism – the news of his sudden conversion
to the Jonesian doctrine that the Church is "the great Whore"
foretold in the Bible came as a bit of a surprise.
But McCain's apparent conversion to the cause of pan-Albanian
nationalism is far more credible. For McCain was the most
militant and visible supporter of the Kosovo war, who demanded
Clinton pull out all the stops and send in the ground troops
– even going so far as to introduce a Senate resolution
that went down to a well-deserved defeat at the hands of his
Republican colleagues.
THE
KLA CANDIDATE
As
General Wesley Clark, the US commander of our troops in Kosovo,
calls on NATO and Washington to send in more troops –
and I see, as I write this, that the
Marines are practically on the way – the crisis in the
Balkans is approaching critical mass. The NATO-crats are cranking
up the propaganda machine, as the KLA gets ready to complete
the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo and proceed to the next stage
of the ongoing struggle for a "Greater Albania." Ideologues
like Adem Demaci, in Kosovo, and Joe Dioguardi, in America,
want to drag the US into yet another Balkan war, to "finish
the job" and completely dismember the remnants of Yugoslavia
– using the US and NATO as both their sword and their
shield. With a sympathetic President in the White House, who
remembers how much money and political support was raised
on that trip to New York at a crucial time in his campaign,
DioGuardi and the KLA may yet see their expansionist dream
realized. With Serbia finally subjugated, Albania would be
free to expand, absorbing not only Kosovo but also destabilizing
Macedonia and threatening Greece.
HOW
MUCH?
The
last GOP presidential candidate to cash in on the Albanian
connection was Bob Dole: in May 1987, Dole and DioGuardi attended
an Albanian-American fund-raiser in New York City that raised
$1.2 million for Dole's campaign and $50,000 for DioGuardi's,
according to journalist Diana
Johnstone and researcher Benjamin Works. The caption accompanying
the above photo says McCain was in New York doing some fundraising,
and it is fair to ask: how much money did he get from the
Albanian lobby? As the great "reform" candidate who denounces
the influence of "special interests" and the power of money
in politics, McCain had better tell us exactly how much the
Albanian lobby has thrown his way – and to what effect.
Of all the lobbyists in Washington, it is the "special interests"
represented by the agents of foreign powers that pose the
greatest threat to the integrity of the Presidency. Joe DioGuardi,
rabid Albanian nationalist and chief American apologist for
the drug-connected totalitarians of the KLA, has spread the
money from his political action committees far
and wide, and no doubt McCain is also the recipient of
his largess – but at what price to the American people?
The McCain campaign must immediately release the figures,
and give us some "straight talk" about the KLA-McCain connection:
how much did they get-and in return for what? The American
people have a right to know how many American soldiers will
be put at risk in the Balkans in the service of paying off
President McCain's political debts.
ALBANIAN
PANDERFEST
Republicans
are screaming about the panderfest presided over by the Reverend
Al Sharpton, at which Al Gore and Bill Bradley outdid each
other in denouncing "white skin privilege," but what about
McCain's panderfest with the Albanian warmongers, who want
to drag the US even deeper into the Balkan quagmire? At least
Sharpton isn't demanding the that the lives of American soldiers
be put at risk.
THE
BUCHANAN FACTOR
Naturally
the American media, which made itself into the willing instrument
of the War Party during the Kosovo conflict, is reluctant
to uncover the fact of McCain’s connection to Albanian extremists.
The inability or unwillingness of the Bush campaign to call
McCain to account on this question is due in large part to
its own commitment to the Albanian lobby; their foreign policy
advisor, Richard Perle, was also an advisor to the Bosnian
Muslims, who enthusiastically supported the Kosovo war. The
only major candidate who has made opposition to the Kosovo
war – and opposition to the influence of foreign lobbyists
– a campaign issue has been Patrick J. Buchanan, the
likely Reform Party candidate. Buchanan is the specter that
is haunting this primary season, with everyone and his brother
claiming the mantle of "reform" – but scurrying away
from the vital foreign policy issue, which only Buchanan has
addressed. If McCain, the would-be conqueror of the Balkans,
is the GOP nominee, then the Republicans, independents, and
Democrats who opposed that war – and are horrified by
its frightening results – will be driven into the Reform
Party column. Combined with the general distaste for McCain
among conservatives, this is the one factor that those who
prate about the "electability" of the Warrior Candidate never
discuss. Once again, the Bush people are constrained from
making their best argument against McCain, this time for fear
of breaking the embargo on all discussion of Buchanan and
Reform as viable alternatives. The impotence of the Bush campaign
in the face of the McCain insurgency is a function not only
of the shortcomings of their candidate, but of the internationalism
of his Establishment foreign policy advisors and their instinctive
fear of the Right. And that, in the end, will be their undoing.
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