User Panel
Posted: 3/15/2006 8:14:22 PM EDT
I am not posting this to start a argument, and I am sure I do not know all the facts but.
At one time Bosnia was a large majority Christian . Then Muslims over time kept immigrating in very large numbers. Then they declared that this was their country now that they were the majority. So Milosevic's started a war with them. Now Clinton sends troops there to defend the Muslims , and to knock Milosevic's out of power. Question , what would you do if this happened here, would you not pick up arms and stop the muslims from declaring this their country. Were we on the wrong side in that war? |
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I don't have a good answer to the rest of your post, but just wanted to point out the irony of this statement. That sure got us a lot of good-will and warm feeling in the muslim world, didn't it? |
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I said the same basic thing to my dad tonight when discussing ol' Slobo's passing... |
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Solzenytzen thought this about it in 1997:
The bloody Yugoslav tragedy has unfolded before our eyes (and is it over yet?) To be sure, blame for it lies with the Communist coterie of Josip Broz Tito, which imposed an arbitrary pattern of internal borders upon the country, trampling on ethnic common sense, and even relocating ethnic masses by force. Yet blame lies also with the venerable community of Western leaders, who -- with an angelic naiveté -- took those false borders seriously, and then hastened at a moment's notice, in a day or two, to recognize the independence of several breakaway republics whose political formation they apparently found to be advantageous. It was these leaders, then, who nudged Yugoslavia toward many grueling years of civil war; and their position, declared as neutral, was by no means such. Yugoslavia, with its seven estranged peoples, was told to fall apart as soon as possible. But Bosnia, with its three estranged peoples and vivid memories of Hitlerite Croatians slaughtering up to a million Serbs, had to remain united at all costs - the particular insistence of the United States Government. Who can explain the disparity of such an approach? isteve.blogspot.com/2006/03/official-bad-guy-of-balkans-is-dead.html |
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Yes, we were on the wrong side. From what I have read Muslim extremists from all over the world went to Kosovo to fight jihad on the side of the KLA. Al Queda supposedly had many operatives in the area fighting with the KLA. No we are fighting some of those same people.
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I don't think there was any right side in the balkans. We never should have gotten involved. Bunch of savages, the lot of them.
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Slobodan might have been onto something. Just not a 20th century approach.
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I do not condone genocide, but he was fighting for his country. The muslms wanted to establish their own goverment in a country that wasn't their's |
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+1 Although if we were to have chosen a side, we were definatly on the wrong one. We have no business interfering in other countries civil wars, let them sort it out themselves they were all equiped to do the job.
What do you consider genocide? Last I saw the deaths were NO WHERE NEAR close to the number clinton reported (what was it 1 million (later revised to)-> 300,000 -> 10,000 -> ? (I think the final number was a measly 3,000 with not a single mass grave found)). and from what I understand a lot of the worst things he did, didn't start until AFTER the US 'declared war' (we didnt actually declare war NOR did we get approval from the UN, go figure). From what I understand of the actual events that unfolded this was really just a civil war. |
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If we were to have helped any side at all, it should have been the Serbs.
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Thanks for that info , I didn't know that. I remember Clinton using that term alot when he sent our troops there |
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I know |
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I just want to know why Clinton made the Kosovo Campaign Medal so restrictive.
I'd like to have seen those fucking CALCM hang themselves on the CSRLs. Bullshit fucking air war. |
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I had a friend thats Albanian, and we talked about this quite a bit. From what he told me the Serbs were pro soviet, and the Albanians didn't want any part of that. Also theres been bad blood between the two groups since WWII or before. But under the USSR that was kept in check.
Hearing about rape gangs and whole villages being wiped out overnight literally durring the war, makes me sick. Gaz and I sat side by side on 9/11 watching events unfold. I will never forget the anger in his face upon those who did that act. He couldn't get to the .mil for reasons I'm not going to post, but he was able to get a job with a contractor outfit. Last I heard he's still over in the sand box doing support work for the troups. He was very thankfull the US did come to his aid. |
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We were on the wrong side. The Serbs got fucked by us!
But then again, Klinton was in charge at the time...so what do you really expect? |
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I was there in '98 - '99. A lot of bad Juju over there. The Christians and Muslims there have been fighting sonce the battle of Kosovo Field sometime in the 1300's. These people really know how to hold a grudge. Makes racial tensions in the USA look like a church campout kumbayah fest.
-K |
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But...but...the bombs and cruise missiles we dropped on them had "D" on their sides, so it was a just war. The bombs were dropping in Iraq have an "R" on their side, so it is an unjust war... Democrats are so hypocritical. All the Dems I know thick the 90's were just great and there were no wars at all. Word has it that Slobo was going to call Klinton as a witness to his trial. Now Slobo is dead. Go figure. |
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What bothered me about the war is what we did after it was over. The people of Serbia realized Milosevik was a scumbag and arrested him. He was scheduled to be tried in a Serbian court by Serbians. He may well have had a speedy, fair trial in Serbia and spent the rest of his life in a Serbian prison.
But the UN one-worlder types wouldn't stand for it. Letting the Serbians try their own leader would have been a recognition of sovereignty. And if there's one thing a one-worlder likes to do, it is undermine and destroy the sovereign power of a nation. So they blackmailed a war weary nation into turning him over to the U.N. kangaroo court. It serves the U.N. bastards right that he died in prison before a verdict could be reached. Nobody of importance has had the guts to say it, but it illustrates clearly that the idea of a just, speedy trial at the hands of an international court is a bad joke. Galland |
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I was in Kosovo for a year. The Albanians completely ride roughshod over the Serbs left behind, and the NGOs and "government" are corrupt as all hell.
I have 1 Albanian Muslim friend, who I trust, but I have to say that all-in-all, we were on the wrong effin' side, and we still are. A short time ago, there was an Albanian here in the States who was buying up a lot of .50 cals to use against us over there. Thank God he was stopped, but that's the gratitude we get over there. I never had a problem in a Serb village, even at night, but sure as hell had plenty in Gnjilane, which is over 95% Albanian. Reminded me very much of the West Side of Shitcago, for some reason. |
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Here is my opinion on the matter.
Yes we were on the wrong side. The serbs were fighting to keep the break-away states/regions of bosnia and croatia intact within one Yugoslavia. The break-away or rebellous momentum was driven by opportunistic power grabbers within bosnia and croatia but also in Germany and France. The EU wanted Yugoslavia broken up... Germany feared industrial competition from Serbia and France feared another independent and culturally strong Nation competing for influence in europe that with whom it is not alligned. Under Tito, Yugoslavians, particularly in the cities, were very well educated, sophisticated, and had high expectations for living standards... a stark contrast to other parts of east europe and the Soviet Union. Serbs that I have met from Belgrade speak excellent English as well as French, Russian, and German. They are very well read and are urbane. These are traits than in my observation cut accross social-economic lines. The Serbs were detertermined to deny the KLA and Al Queda from establishing a muslim terror-political foothold in Bosnia, ... the French and rest of the EU wanted to keep the muslims in the east. The Croatians (mostly catholic) saw a political oppourtunity and wanted to break-away as well. Remember that in WWII, the bosnian muslims and catholic Croats sided with the Germans... they helped the Germans slaughter thousands of serbs, jews, and gypsies in bosnia and croatia. The serbs, without any material help from the west or Russia, kicked the Germans out. Tito realized early that Roosevelt was going to give half of Europe to Stalin and put in place a strong political and industrial (although socialist) structure to keep stalin out of Yugoslavia... no other country in the Eastern block was able to do this. The serbs have been fighting jihadist and roman catholic influences for centuries while simutaneously striving to limit political domination from Russia. Clinton chose the side that would appease the EU and Russia. In return, the EU and Russia aggreed offer friends of Bill a cut in the booty, i.e. business interests and political influence in the newly divided countries and a newly established political EU friendly Serbian Gov't. But the latter proved much harder to accomplish. Ron Brown's plane "crashed" on one of those "fact finding missions"... the Serbs knew what was going on and weren't going to let Clinton and Co easily poop on them. |
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No matter what side we would have taken it would have been the wrong side. I remember when John Paul II met with Clinton and said "Mr. President, the century began with war in the Balkans, you must not let it end with one." Now, I'm Catholic, but how 'bout making that pitch to the French, or Germans, or the Italians. Why do WE have to keep sending our troops over there? And apparently as soon as we take our troops out they will start shelling each other again. But at least we have the fact that, once again, we are broke as a nation and now have to, once again, raise the dept ceiling from 8.2 to 9 friggen TRILLION dollars for our troubles. And maybe, just maybe, after being in the Balkans for another decade or so, and after we go toe to toe with China, and punch Iran in the nose, and take care of whatever North Korea serves up after we finish in Iraq, we will only leave our children with a debt of, say, 6 trillion bajillion dollars.
The Balkans are not worth the healthy bones of a single Pomeranien grenadier. -Otto von Bismarck |
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Not just that war... |
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David hackworth put out a great book on his reporting years, one chapter covers this area before we come in. It was a very good book cant remeber the name off hand. I gathered from it neither side was a good one to be on.
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Yes! What he said! +1 |
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It started when the Jihad pushed up into the region. The roots run deep.
The "war" was pushed as a NATO operation. Although I don't have a copy of the charter, to my understanding NATO is a defensive organization, formed for the mutual defense of the West against the Soviet threat. The Kosovo/Serb "war" was an offensive operation and no NATO countries were threatened. What was happening in Yugoslavia was internal. |
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Absolute horseshit. My father was over there doing the investigations afterwards. I've seen the pictures of ditches full of dead bodies, warehouses full of bodies etc etc. Everything from little babies to old men and women. Slobo was not there stopping an insurrection. He mercilessly lined innocent people up and shot them all. This wasn't going after Al Qaeda terrorists. I suggest you read up on the story of the wooden rifles too. |
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Points of order:
1) Good Ol' Slobo didn't start anything in Bosnia or Herzegovina. The war there stemmed from the larger breakup of Yugoslavia. Federal Yugoslav involvement in Bosnia proper was pretty minimal. Most of the fighting there was between Bosnian moslems and Serbian 'Republica Srpska' forces, who are Bosnian Serbs. Yugoslav forces mainly operated against Croatia. 2) Bosnia was indeed Christian (Catholic, mostly), until the Ottomans came. Then, the Bosnians converted over in numbers that must have gratified the Turks. Pretty damned gutless of the Bosnian moslems, IMO. 3) The major groups over yon: -Croatia. Catholic. Very close ties to Germany, recieved some covert and overt aid from the West during the war. There were some clashes between UN forces and Croats, but nothing major. -Serbia. Orthodox. Very close ties to Russia. Got some not-so-covert aid from them during the war. We bombed them a few times during the civil war, but nothing like the bombings during Allied Force (Kosovo). -Bosnia. Just under half moslem, about a third Orthodox, remainder Catholic. It is pretty much assumed that once the UN forces leave, the party will get started again, though probably at a lower intensity. -Albania. Mostly moslem. Without violating the CoC, there isn't much to be said about them. -Kosovo. A province of Serbia. This is the province the Allied Force was all about. Historicaly Serbian, then assloads of Albanian moslems moved in, and tried to claim it as their own. Clinton turned over part of a soveriegn nation to a group of violent moslems who were on the State Dept. terrorist watchlist, the Kosovo Liberation Army. Way to go, Bubba! 4) Should we have intervened in Kosovo? FUCK. NO. The moslems of the region are not as tamed as some of their media apologists would have you think. Murdered Serbian preists, raped nuns, burned churches all attest to that. Not to mention the precedent: We handed over a piece of a soveriegn nation just because a lot of illegal immigrants settled there. Gee, I wonder if that could ever bite us in the ass here.... |
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Edited for clarity |
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Go back and read the history, starting with the Jihadist invasion hundreds of years ago. More recently, these parties chose sides in WWII based upon which alliance would better enable them to chop up their opponents. It's gone on like this for centuries. When Willie Clinton said, "One year - in and out", I knew he was either lying or had no understanding of what we were getting into. Now we've sunk a couple fists into the tar baby. Can the stabilization forces ever go home? What would happen the moment they did? Same as it ever was... |
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I know my history. I also know that history did not justify Milosevics mass murder of K-Albs. Of course in a perfect world Europe would have handled this problem itself, but I will not gloss over mass murder, even mass murder of Muslims. Why did I even need to write that last sentence? When we leave Kosovo is another issue, but since it is now a NATO peacekeeping operation, it will not be as difficult as it would have been in, say 2000.
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The conflict in the Balkans dates back to the Ottoman Empire, and WWII exacerbated it. altho the ethnicity of the players is not genetic, it is cultural, and we'd be better off for staying out of it. there are far more parallels between Viet Nam and Jugoslavia than there are between 'Nam and Iraq.
Hack's book was called About Face, one hell of a read about a very controversial man. For further study of the Jugo conflict, I'd suggest "My War Gone By, I Miss It So" available on Amazon. The writer is a bit of an oddball, but then again, so was the mess in the Balkans. It ain't over, over there... Ops |
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not our fight, should have let them sort it out. we would have to if not for the clinton blow job fiasco.
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A large part of the Serb actions in Kosovo were in response to waves of Albanian illegal immigration. Sure, there were already plenty of ethnic Albos in Kosovo, but there was a conscious effort by Albania, through the KLA, to take Kosovo 'by demographics'. The whole 'Greater Albania' bit.
Secular way of life? They may not march in lock-step with Saudi Wahhabism, but that doesn't make their own flavor of islam any safer for the West. I refer you to the 150-some destroyed churches in Kosovo alone as a sign of their 'secular way of life'. No doubt they 'love' America. Billy Boy handed over Kosovo to a gaggle of fucking terrorists; why wouldn't they love us? No offense, but trying to paint Kosovo Albanians as some sort of 'America-loving secular good citizens' is just damned clueless. |
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I am not trying to paint them in any sort of form, as I thought I made clear, I am writing my observations from when I was there. As I said in my original post, show me proof that the K-Albs as a people are a "gaggle of terrorists". Don't let your hate blind you. Churches were burned because they are the most obvious symbol of the Serb presence, not because of any hate for the Christian religion.
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The Serbs have a much longer history of being fucked over by islam than we do here in America. In 1389, the muslim forces of the Ottoman Empire invaded Serbia at Kosovo Polje and defeated the Christian army of Tsar Lazar. The Christian Serbs were, from then on, forced to pay taxes to the Turks and serve in their army. In fact, the Turks had a sweet little tradition of kidnapping Christian boys from places they invaded and training them up as a separate unit of men called Janissaries. They then turned these soldiers around and invaded Christian lands with them.
Is there any wonder the Serbs held a grudge, and didn't care to give up a culturally significant part of their country to another generation of muslim |
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You answer your own question. They burned churches, and still you try to apologize for them. Pathetic. And to clarify for some folks that may not have followed the details of what went on over there, the peace-loving moslems over there didn't simply 'burn' the churches, though that would have been bad enough. They vandalized them in obscene ways, raped and killed nuns on several occassions, killed some priests, and made a show of burning bibles and defacing any artifacts that they could get their rat paws on. |
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Albania may have wanted Kosovo, but the KLA was not a surrogate of Albania. The K-Albs did not want to be a part of Albania, they thought of themselves as a related but distinct group of Albanians. |
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Reading is fundamental. Go calm down, then you may be able to see that I am NOT defending church burning or anything else that happened there. I'm not going to repeat anything else that I have already written. Go back and read my posts, you'll see I am trying to explain why this happened, not justify it. |
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Be they in Kosovo or Albania or Macedonia, they all see themselves as ethnic 'Albanians'. There is no difference about any 'distinct' group or any such garbage. |
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Yes it is. On one hand, you deny that they are terrorists, but on the other hand you admit that they destroyed 150+ churches. Either you are confused, or you don't see the destruction of Christian churches as 'terrorism'. Which is it? |
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Judging from your screen name, you have a dog in this fight. I understand that. For the record, and to satisfy you, the K-Albs did some horrible things. The KLA is on the State Dept. terrorist watch list. That does not mean the KLA or any splinter group is engaged in Al Qaeda style Islamic terrorism. I am not saying that to defend them! My whole point is that this is an ethnic conflict.
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State Dept. rules indicate political correctness above almost anything else .
Of course we were on the wrong side ....... the muzzies were just trying to celebrate "Diversity" |
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It was a mess at the top over there. |
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All the pre war reports (including the UNs own (most likely why they didn't approve and it was a NATO operation)) I have seen had said no mass graves, and no ethnic cleansing were going on. All the timelines that I have read had shown that any of the slaughters that happened, happened AFTER(this is the key word here) the US bombing missions started(well more like after Clinton was putting pressure to go to war). EVERYTHING that I have read seems to say he didn't really turn psycho until we stepped in. Everything that I have read seem to indicate that it was not just the Albanians getting killed, I've read of reports that for years the muslims were commiting terror attacks and blowing up churches, so it is not like the albanians were totally innocent. Everything I have seen seems to indicate civil war gone bad. |
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Yep. I had a Serbian friend in school. On 9/11, his question was: "Why are you fighting for these people against us"? I didn't have a good answer then, and I don't now. |
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Hindsight, hmmmmmmm. We were wrong, again! There is no valor in defending muslims. They say they are a ROP, their own bible (Quran/Koran) preaches differently. Our world will be a safer place if we just cleaned the slate of them all. Slobo was onto something, too bad we are the worlds police force, to bad.
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