Kosovo’s recognition by the United States and other European allies like Britain, Germany and France has handed to Islam a victory it has been denied for the last millennium – an Islamic foothold in Europe.

Anyone who has read my articles on John McCain will know that I have an intense dislike of the man. So what could he do to change my view of him, and get my support?

He could reverse the Bush Administration’s recognition of Kosovo. Should he do that, I would certainly take another look at him, and even regard him as a man with some insight into what we are really facing from the Islamic threat.

Why Kosovo, many will wonder?

Historically, The Balkans and Andalucia in Spain have been the front lines in the battle between Western civilization and Islamic civilization. The Islamic onslaught against the West was halted in Spain and the Balkans, then, over time, reversed.

But unlike the Spanish, the peoples of the Balkans did not expunge Islam from their territories entirely. They were more tolerant of a residual Islamic presence. Hence small, but not insignificant, Muslim populations remained in Bosnia, Albania and Kosovo.

So Kosovo’s recognition by the United States and other European "allies" like Britain, Germany and France have handed to Islam a victory it has been denied for the last millennium – an Islamic foothold in Europe (although Bosnia beat them to it, its Muslim majority is less comprehensive).

Spain and Greece, on the other hand, who have been on the front line of the battle against Islamic expansion into the West, have to date refused recognition (although I expect that pressure from the US and other European powers may yet cause them to relent).

Russia has also refused, and I expect will continue to resist recognition. Like Spain and the Balkans, Russia also has a frontier dominated by Islamic countries, and has been plagued by Islamic Extremism in Chechnya; Islamic Extremism, I should add, that the United States and Europe have helped ferment, and have supported.

So why have the United States and "old" Europe been so eager to concede a victory to Islam that has been denied it for so long? And is Kosovo really such a benign Islamic stronghold as to present no real threat to the West?

Regarding the former, it is often easy to think that Islamic Extremism is something of a recent phenomenon which made its debut on 9/11, with only the occasional hint of its ugly intentions in previous terror attacks like the Cobalt Towers and the USS Cole. But that would be a revisionist account of history.
The United States supported the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan in their war against the Soviet Union. The US worked alongside Islamic Extremists and the Pakistanis. Once the Soviets left Afghanistan, the Pakistani Intelligence Services went on to create the Taliban and help them gain control of Afghanistan, which in turn, provided a safe haven for al Qaeda.

Thereafter, the US and old Europe supported Islamic Extremists (including Arab Mujahedeen) in Chechnya. These were the remnants of the Extremist friends of the United States from Afghanistan.

In 1992, there was an influx of Mujahedeen to Bosnia where they formed a special unit called the El Mujahid. Some of their leaders were convicted of war crimes against the Serbs and Croats, but many remain in Bosnia to this day despite the more "extreme" elements having been deprived of citizenship because of pressure from the United States. The elements that remained established a group known as the Active Islamic Youth (AIY), which is an Extremist Islamic group in the Wahabi mould, receiving backing from Saudi extremists.

After having established an Islamic foothold in Bosnia, the Mujahedeen moved to Kosovo and were joined by more foreign Mujahedeen from the Middle East and other Islamic countries. They found their home in the Kosova Liberation Army (KLA) which had committed terrorist acts against Serbs in Kosovo. The KLA were also drug traffickers and common criminals.

Yet, the KLA managed to provoke conflict with the Serbs through their terror activities (reported by the BBC October 12, 2004). Furthermore, they themselves provoked, under threat of death, a Muslim exodus from Kosovo which invoked an illusion in the West of a genocide against Muslims in that province.

The likes of Tony Blair, desperate to display his Liberal Fundamentalist Islamic sympathies, eagerly succumbed to this deceit and persuaded Clinton and other Europeans to go to the aid of the KLA by bombing Serbia (which posed absolutely no threat to the United States or Europe). Blair said that we needed to bomb the Serbs “because it is right!”

Witnesses at the Milosevic trial testified to the forced "exodus" of Muslims by the KLA and their Mujahedeen accomplices.

Andy Wilcoxson, in an article titled “Rewarding Terrorism; Deception in Kosovo” (January 15, 2008), summarizes some of the testimony at Milosevic’s trial. He reports that Eve-Ann Prentice, a British journalist, testified during Milosevic's trial that rather than being driven out by the Serbs, "The KLA told ethnic Albanian civilians that it was their patriotic duty to leave because the world was watching." Likewise, he says that Alice Mahon, a British MP and a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly in Brussels, testified that, "The KLA definitely encouraged the exodus."

Wilcoxson also reports that, “Muharem Ibraj and Saban Fazliu, two ethnic Albanian witnesses from Kosovo, testified that Serbian security forces encouraged civilians to remain in their homes, and that it was the KLA who made the civilian population leave the province.”

And, according to Wilcoxson, “Fazliu testified that the KLA would kill anybody who disobeyed its orders. He said, ‘The order was to leave Kosovo in later stages, to go to Albania, Macedonia, so that the world could see for themselves that the Albanians are leaving because of the harm caused by the Serbs. This was the aim. This was the KLA order.’”

During his trial, Milosevic claimed to have come into possession of an FBI report that showed that the FBI knew of an al Qaeda presence in Kosovo (BBC March 8, 2002).

We could of course dismiss all the evidence that Kosovo and Bosnia are rife with Islamic Fundamentalism, and that the KLA, supported by Mujahedeen (and even possibly al Qaeda), engineered the perception of "genocide" against the Muslims by the Serbs (and undoubtedly atrocities occurred on both sides), but that would require a denial of the evidence (of which the instances I have cited are only a tiny proportion).

In my view, such denial would compound the growing delusion gripping Western leaders. As their military strategy to fight Islamic Extremism falls into disarray, they have resorted to appeasement. As it becomes clear that they have become victims of an Islamic trap to embroil them in Iraq, while al Qaeda and the Taliban (together with an expanded and consolidated Islamic front) regroup in their new “safe haven” in Pakistan, Western leaders capitulate on the Islamic front in Europe. As I reported in my article “Obama v McCain”, even the Director of National Intelligence, Mike McConnell, has admitted that al Qaeda and the Taliban have created a de facto safe haven in the border regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Now they have a second in Europe.

Those recognizing this new Islamic state claim that they are only honoring the provisions of UN Resolution 1244. But that Resolution does not call for, nor suggest, independence for Kosovo. It refers to “self-government” while recognizing the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Yugoslavia.

This is what it calls for at Annex 2, clause 8: “A political process towards the establishment of an interim political framework agreement providing for substantial self-government for Kosovo, taking full account of the Rambouillet accords and the principles of sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the other countries of the region, and the demilitarization of UCK (KLA).”

The process called for by Resolution 1244 was akin to a judge postponing a trial while the parties resolve matters under a form of arbitration. What those recognizing Kosovo’s Declaration of Independence are thus arguing is that because that arbitration has not been to the satisfaction of one of the parties (Kosovo), that the matter is simply resolved by giving that party whatever it wants, even though that goes well beyond the intended objective of the arbitration. It would be like simply declaring that one party be given everything it wants when an arbitration fails (or as the Serbs have argued, not yet concluded), rather than the matter being referred back to the judge.

So will this new Kosovo be a benign Islamic state? Well, in support of that contention, a new form of benevolent Muslims has emerged from the rhetoric – the “secular Muslim.” Although I have myself used that phrase occasionally in different circumstances, it is a contradiction in terms – Islam means “submission to Allah,” which is the opposite of secularism. A “secular Muslim” would be an apostate, punishable by death.

But just because some Muslims dress differently than other Muslims does not change the fact that they are Muslims. Muslims adhere to the teachings of the Koran, it is for them the actual and literal word of Allah. The “secular Muslims” of Kosovo do not subscribe to some other brand of Islam.

And their principal leaders are mostly former KLA members.

To believe that such people are going to live in some kind of bubble while the conflict between Islam and the West rages around them is simply delusional.

The Terrorists who planned the Fort Dix attack heralded from this area – some were "refugees," saved from "persecution" by the very people they were planning to massacre. As Churchill would have said, that was only the “first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year,” and I would say, little by little.

Now I doubt that Kosovo’s new leaders would be so stupid initially as to present a Constitution that subjects the new Kosovo to Islamic Law, but that should not deceive us into believing that their sympathies do not, and will not, lie with Islam, and its struggle with the West. Even Muslims in old Europe make no secret of their allegiance to the Islamic cause.

As Mohammed said, “war is deception.”

And right now the leadership in the West is simply lapping up every deception that comes its way. Yet, considering their almost total incompetence in dealing with the threat thus far, that should not be surprising. They have nothing else to offer.

So, getting back to McCain, irrespective of his considerable shortcomings, if he now did a Winston Churchill and demonstrated a “supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigour” by pledging to reverse America’s recognition of Kosovo, I would certainly view the man with different eyes. I may even regard him as a man of insight and principle.

But I won’t hold my breath!