Kosovo and Iraq... What is the difference

[springhill]

between the civilians being killed in each of these instances? Were the babies, women and children justifiable collatoral damage in Kosovo, but not Iraq? And trust me, I'm not trying to cause any trouble. I just begain thinking about it recently, and I wonder, was bombing the only alternative in the Kosovo situation? I really have a hard time with the justification of bombing when you know innocents will be killed. I just can't believe war is the only answer.

[mrstick]

1. Actions in Kosovo saved more lives than it cost

Kosovo was a volatile situation that could have destabilized Europe; furthermore outright ethnic genocide was being committed. Also it should be noted that American bombing in Kosovo lasted a matter of days afterwards a truly multinational force came in to provide peacekeeping.

[radwriter0555]

30. There is no similiarity between Kosovo and Iraq... they have nothing in

common at all.

Why do you ask?

[newyawker99]

46. Hi mrstick!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[dkofos]

63. Hey mrstick

Welcome

how's mr hat

[InvisibleBallots]

90. really?

Kosovo could have destablized Europe? How many did the Serbs kill vs. the Alibanians vs. NATO I wonder?

It certainly was a more international effort than Iraq and over much quicker.

[cavanaghjam]

2. Unfortunately,

without the will to battle, there is no chance for peace.

The differences, as I see it, are the number of dead; though it hardly matters when one dear to you is killed. The genocide, and I think that's what it was, in the former Yugoslavia was going on at the time of intercession. Saddam was a thug, but he was greatly weakened. He'd already done his worst by the time Rummy was shaking his hand.

[serryjw]

10. Agree with you BUT...........

Why are we doing NOTHING in Sudan?

[cavanaghjam]

14. We got nothing to do it with.

We've got all our deployable assets in central Iraq. Then again,

Sudan has no oil.
Most Americans have no idea what's going on in Darfur.
It's only genocide.
The corporate power structure hasn't figured out how to profit from interceding.
I'm somewhat sure the skin color of the victims has a bit to do with the giant yawn coming from American media and Washington.

The Economist has been covering this story for at least two years, but then again, it's actually a newsmagazine, not a mental suppository.

[serryjw]

16. I'm sorry I asked........

I knew the answer:puke:

[cavanaghjam]

19. Somehow

I knew you did.

[sandnsea]

65. There IS oil in Sudan

France and the US have been in there for years. There's Christian/Muslim and oil power struggles. We aren't doing anything either because we don't have the troops or because the ones being wiped out are the ones we want to be wiped out, I haven't studied it enough to say for sure.

[sandnsea]

66. TRUTH, for one thing

Clinton didn't make up excuses about WMD to go into Kosovo. It was a NATO effort for another. The Republican solution was to put more guns into the area and let them kill each other. :crazy:

On edit:

I don't know why some days my posts don't go where they're supposed to. Bad DU, bad, bad. :spank:

[Tom Rinaldo]

128. I recently saw a brief news report that there are still 17,000

people officially missing in Bosnia from that war. That's the one that went on for the most part without NATO bombing. Milosevic was a mini Hitler sacking to dominate that entire region. Innocents died during World War II also, and some innocents would have been killed if the United Nations intervened to stop the genocide in Rwanda too.

[Warpy]

3. Over 1240 dead US servicemen

and 25,000 wounded servicemen.

The "collateral damage" in Kosovo was in the hundreds. It may be over a hundred thousand in Iraq.

Yes, civilians suffer and die in war. That is why we should make damned full well there is no alternative. Going to war for an old man's vanity, a younger man's folly, and a corporate feeding frenzy should be punished by the civilised world.

I'm afraid it will be, and soon.

[Massacure]

4. Entire cities didn't get destroyed because of Clinton's decision though

And 100,000 people didn't die either.

I was for the Iraq war until King George II screwed the entire thing up.

edit: Oh, and Clinton didn't jump on an aircraft carrier and sceam "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!" when the job wasn't even half done like King George II did.

[private_ryan]

77. dresden was destroyed too

and I am happy for it. Milosevic wouldn't have done that if the people didn't support it. It's fitting that people paid for it by getting a small taste of their own medicine.

If a thug attacks you have to attack back, when "please stop" doesn't work.

[katusha]

5. it's a tough question

but i think the heart of the matter can be put to an analogy. if someone were about to shoot your mother/daughter/spouse and you had a gun in your hand what do you do? if you try to talk them out of it and they shoot your loved one did you do the right thing?

if you shoot them and save your loved one you may never know if you could have talked them out of it and saved all lives involved.

if you shoot them and save your loved one but the bullet kills the attacker and also continues on and kills an innocent did you do the right thing?

so many questions and i wish i had the answers for you, but noone really does.

[Minstrel Boy]

6. There is a difference, but to me neither were justified.

For instance, for what the UN and NATO are worth, Kosovo had the sanction of both.

From an interesting piece by Michael Parenti, "The Rational Destruction of Yugoslavia":

The dismemberment and mutilation of Yugoslavia was part of a concerted policy initiated by the United States and the other Western powers in 1989. Yugoslavia was the one country in Eastern Europe that would not voluntarily overthrow what remained of its socialist system and install a free-market economic order. In fact, Yugoslavs were proud of their postwar economic development and of their independence from both the Warsaw Pact and NATO. The U.S. goal has been to transform the Yugoslav nation into a Third-World region, a cluster of weak right-wing principalities....

...

U.S. policymakers also want to abolish Yugoslavia's public sector services and social programs -- for the same reason they want to abolish our public sector services and social programs. The ultimate goal is the privatization and Third Worldization of Yugoslavia, as it is the Third Worldization of the United States and every other nation. In some respects, the fury of the West's destruction of Yugoslavia is a backhanded tribute to that nation's success as an alternative form of development, and to the pull it exerted on neighboring populations both East and West.

...

That U.S. leaders have consciously sought to dismember Yugoslavia is not a matter of speculation but of public record. In November 1990, the Bush administration pressured Congress into passing the 1991 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, which provided that any part of Yugoslavia failing to declare independence within six months would lose U.S. financial support. The law demanded separate elections in each of the six Yugoslav republics, and mandated U.S. State Department approval of both election procedures and results as a condition for any future aid. Aid would go only to the separate republics, not to the Yugoslav government, and only to those forces whom Washington defined as "democratic," meaning right-wing, free-market, separatist parties.

...

One of the great deceptions, notes Joan Phillips, is that "those who are mainly responsible for the bloodshed in Yugoslavia -- not the Serbs, Croats or Muslims, but the Western powers -- are depicted as saviors." While pretending to work for harmony, U.S. leaders supported the most divisive, reactionary forces from Croatia to Kosovo.

In Croatia, the West's man-of-the-hour was Franjo Tudjman, who claimed in a book he authored in 1989, that "the establishment of Hitler's new European order can be justified by the need to be rid of the Jews," and that only 900,000 Jews, not six million, were killed in the Holocaust. Tudjman's government adopted the fascist Ustasha checkered flag and anthem. Tudjman presided over the forced evacuation of over half a million Serbs from Croatia between 1991 and 1995, replete with rapes and summary executions. This included the 200,000 from Krajina in 1995, whose expulsion was facilitated by attacks from NATO war planes and missiles. Needless to say, U.S. leaders did nothing to stop and much to assist these atrocities, while the U.S. media looked the other way. Tudjman and his cronies now reside in obscene wealth while the people of Croatia are suffering the afflictions of the free market paradise. Tight controls have been imposed on Croatian media, and anyone who criticizes President Tudjman's government risks incarceration. Yet the White House hails Croatia as a new democracy.

http://www.michaelparenti.org/yugoslavia.html

[rfkrfk]

24. Kosovo UNSCR # ?

>For instance, for what the UN and NATO are worth, Kosovo had the sanction of both.<
.
What was the number of the United Nations S.C. resolution,
on Kosovo? If force was authorized, I need to know that.
Thanks

[wuushew]

43. It wasn't

The U.S. feared a veto by Serb friendly Russia. Why we didn't use such an event to bring human rights to the forefront is beyond me. Instead we took the easy and illegal NATO justification route.

[sangh0]

70. Not only that, Clinton started bombing

while the UNSC was debating whether or not to vote on a resolution.

[Adelante]

109. That's true, but

It seems the bombing was sanctioned by the UN once it started.

(I agree with you on the missed human rights focus.)


This is from the History Channel:

Kofi Annan, U.N. secretary-general

Endorses NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia

"It is indeed tragic that diplomacy has failed, but there are times when the use of force may be legitimate in the pursuit of peace." (March 24, 1999)


-snip-

International diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict failed, and the United Nations sanctioned a NATO-led military operation against Yugoslavia to force it to comply with U.N. resolutions. On June 10, after 78 days, the NATO bombardment ended when Serbia agreed to a peace agreement calling for the withdrawal of Serb forces from Kosovo and their replacement by NATO peacekeeping troops.

-more-

http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/archive/speech_460.html

[reorg]

110. "Rewriting History" Channel? Annan's statement verbatim:

(emphasis added)

" ...
In help and maintain international peace and security, Chapter 7 of the United Nations charter assigns an important role to regional organisations. BUT, as Secretary General, I have many times pointed out, not just in relation to Kosovo, that under the charter, the Security Council has primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security and this is explicitly acknowledged in the North Atlantic Treaty. Therefore, the Council SHOULD be involved in any decision to resort to force. Thank you very much."

http://www.historychannel.com/speeches/archive/speech_460.html


This is Annan's famous criticism directed on March 24 at NATO when they acted WITHOUT UN sanction. Your highlighted sentence from the History Channel summary of events is simply false. There was a SC resolution in September 98 to sanction the OSCE mission, and the next resolution came in June 99, after the end of the bombing. The Russians never agreed with the NATO aggression and would have vetoed any UN resolution calling for it.

[Adelante]

118. Not arguing with you

I was surprised to see this, too, as we all know the Russians did not and would not have approved the bombing. However, do you have a link to the text as opposed to the audio? I would like to read it.

[reorg]

119. Annan comment

I am surprised you could not find it yourself, took me about 2 minutes ...

" ... In helping maintain international peace and security, Chapter VIII of the United Nations Charter assigns an important role to regional organizations. But as Secretary-General I have many times pointed out, not just in relation to Kosovo, that under the Charter the Security Council has primary responsibility for maintaining international peace and security -- and this is explicitly acknowledged in the North Atlantic Treaty. Therefore the Council should be involved in any decision to resort to the use of force."

(here it says "Chapter VIII", whereas Annan clearly says "seven" -- didn't look it up but I think it's a typo)

http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/kosovo2.htm


and (without last sentence)

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/europe/9903/24/kosovo.reax/


In your message it looks as if the quoted text is something Annan said. This is not the case, of course. From Annan's announcement, History Channel only took one sentence and added a summary of events of their own, with the false claim that the UN sanctioned the NATO intervention ... thus completely misleading their readers who did not follow the events at the time and do not listen VERY carefully to what Annan says in the audio.

Interestingly, a similar spin was already being applied by those responsible for breaching international law on the very day Annan made his comments:

Albright with Jim Lehrer on March 24, 1999:

>> JIM LEHRER: So whatever the U.N. security council does, it's irrelevant?

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, I think that in this case the majority of the security council members do understand how this problem was created and I think if you parse Kofi Annan's statement very carefully, he also says that diplomacy has failed and that force at this stage needs to be used.

JIM LEHRER: But he said that the U.N. should have a role in this. Do you dispute that?

MADELEINE ALBRIGHT: Well, I think that the U.N. has spoken on it and the reality here is if you hear what the Russians are saying and they're at the U.N., they would probably object to an operation like this and then the killing would go on. So I think that we are doing the right thing. All the NATO allies believe that. Secretary General Solana has been very strong on that and there are two security council resolutions already in existence under Chapter 7 and I think we need to move forward here. I hate to ever say that the United Nations does not have a role because, as you know, I served there, but I think we need to go forward. ...

<<

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/europe/jan-june99/albright_3-24.html


Comment: yes, there were SC resolutions, and they criticized Serbian policies, but they did not sanction the bombings or any other aggressive action.

[Adelante]

120. It was described as a "speech"

I was looking to read an entire speech and not a clip. However, it turns out to have been a "statement" and not a speech. Thanks for the two minutes of your time.

[Sterling]

122. HC is Ruppert Murdoch.

Everyone should know this, I think it is important info.

[reorg]

131. this explains at lot, thanks, wasn't aware of that n/t

[reorg]

112. the answer is very simple

"We" didn't bring human rights to the forefront, because we only do so when it suits "our" real purposes.

[knight_of_the_star]

39. Where is his proof

Like for this:

One of the great deceptions, notes Joan Phillips, is that "those who are mainly responsible for the bloodshed in Yugoslavia -- not the Serbs, Croats or Muslims, but the Western powers -- are depicted as saviors." While pretending to work for harmony, U.S. leaders supported the most divisive, reactionary forces from Croatia to Kosovo.

and this:

That U.S. leaders have consciously sought to dismember Yugoslavia is not a matter of speculation but of public record. In November 1990, the Bush administration pressured Congress into passing the 1991 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, which provided that any part of Yugoslavia failing to declare independence within six months would lose U.S. financial support. The law demanded separate elections in each of the six Yugoslav republics, and mandated U.S. State Department approval of both election procedures and results as a condition for any future aid. Aid would go only to the separate republics, not to the Yugoslav government, and only to those forces whom Washington defined as "democratic," meaning right-wing, free-market, separatist parties.

Just because he published it doesn't make it true. And in case you didn't notice, Milosevic came into power after Tito in the mid 80s by playing up racism and Serb nationalism, and that was BEFORE Yugoslavia broke up, not after. And the speratist movements gained a good deal of steam BECAUSE of his stances and policies, all of this article ignoring that it was Tito's iron fist that kept the ethnic groups who had a history of conflict from killing eachother. Then again, it's easy to see conspiracy theories in every corner if you are willing to look.

[reorg]

56. how about that

re: the 1991 Foreign Operations Appropriations Act, which provided that any part of Yugoslavia failing to declare independence within six months would lose U.S. financial support


"Sec. 599A. Six months after the date of enactment of this Act, (1) none of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available pursuant to this Act shall be obligated or expended to provide any direct assistance to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and (2) the Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the United States Executive Director of each international financial institution to use the voice and vote of the United States to oppose any assistance of the respective institutions to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: Provided, That this section shall not apply to assistance intended to support democratic parties or movements, emergency or humanitarian assistance, or the furtherance of human rights: Provided further, That this section shall not apply if all six of the individual Republics of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia have held free and fair multiparty elections and are not engaged in a pattern of systematic gross violations of human rights: Provided further, That notwithstanding the failure of the individual Republics of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to have held free and fair multiparty elections within six months of the enactment of this Act, this section shall not apply if the Secretary of State certifies that the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is making significant strides toward complying with the obligations of the Helsinki Accords and is encouraging any Republic which has not held free and fair multiparty elections to do so."

http://www.iacenter.org/bosnia/publaw.htm


Interesting summary here:

>> ...

Our intervention in the Balkans began in the late 1980’s at the instigation of our financial and industrial interests. Quietly our government set about destabilizing the relatively good economy of Yugoslavia. On November 5, 1990, Congress passed the 1991 Foreign Operations Appropreations Act which became law when President Bush signed it. One section of that law stopped all financial assistance from the US to Yugoslavia within six months. Its provisions were so stringent that it has been referred to by the CIA as a signed death warrant and was also cited in their analysis stating that a bloody civil war would ensue in Yugoslavia..

Other provisions of that law required a cessation of financial activity favorable to Yugoslavia on the part of the Word Bank and International Monetary Fund. We also promoted secession of the various Yugoslav Republics by requiring separate elections within each of those republics and demanding US State Department approval of election procedures and returns before any further aid could be resumed to individual republics..

As time passed, and it did not take long, the Yugoslavian economy deteriorated, industries failed, unemployment vastly increased, and old ethnic tensions which had lain dormant for fifty years began to emerge once more. Hastening the demise of the Yugoslav Federation, sanctions and embargoes were instituted by the US, the European Community (EC) and the UN. In January, 1992, Slovenian and Croatian independence was recognized by the EC and US, stirring up further secessionist hopes by groups within Bosnia-Herzegovinia and Macedonia..

Despite the sanctions which barred the furnishing of military assistance and weaponry to Yugoslavia, in 1993 arms and military intelligence were furnished to Croatia by the US. That same year, Croatia was given military advisors from the corporation titled Military Professional Resources, Inc. (MRPI), a group of US retired high ranking military personnel with close ties to the Pentagon. With their assistance, the Croatian Army, in July, 1995, was judged combat ready. That month the US Secretary of State and the German Foreign Minister at a meeting in London approved a plan for Croatian military action against Serbs living in Bosnia and Croatia. On August 4, 1995, with air cover provided by NATO aircraft, the Croatian forces attacked the Serbs who were long time residents in the Krajina area of Croatia, displacing somewhat in excess of 350,000 Serbs and murdering about 14, 000. The US ambassador to Croatia hastened to state that this action was not ethnic cleansing since that was done only by Serbs. In the meantime, our government was actively courting the Albanians to grant us bases within their territory for which we would, and did, provide arms and assistance to their offspring, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA)..

We and our principal allies in the EC avoided bringing the UN into the negotiations with Yugoslavia prior to our military campaign because we knew that humanitarian means would be invoked to solve the conflict. We and our allies were intent on imposing our military prowess over Yugoslavia to the extent that we were willing to profane the defensive mission of NATO by using its aircraft to destroy the cultural, economic, and industrial infrastructure of a nation with whom we were not at war ... <<

http://www.veteransforpeace.org/interstatement.htm


And with regard to your ill-informed claims about Milosevic I would recommend you study the latest transcripts (as soon as they are available) or the videos from the currently ongoing Milosevic defence case in the Hague, which are available here:

http://www.domovina.net/tribunal/page_001.php

With live testimony from Mihailo Marcovic (co-author of the "Memorandum"), former Russian prime ministers Primakov and Ryshkov, and other interesting witnesses.

[robbedvoter]

58. Love your IAC links. ramsey loves Milosevic - raised money

for his defense fund. In fact he loves all dictators somehow ....just wait till W gets official.

[reorg]

62. that is factual, regardless of who finds the facts n/t

[Sparkly]

59. Perspective

It seems to me it takes some reaching and revision to absolve Milosevic and blame his actions on any other circumstances or people.

Here is another concise history.

http://www.friendsofbosnia.org/edu_kos.html

Slobodan Milosevic came to power in 1987 with the rise of Serbian nationalism following the fall of the Berlin Wall and Soviet communism. He became a hero overnight in Serbia when in 1987 he went to Kosovo to qualm the fears of local Serbs amid a strike by Kosovar Albanian miners that was paralyzing the province. In a famous speech televised throughout Serbia, he told the waiting crowd of angry Serbs, "You will not be beaten again." Few Serbs were either beaten or oppressed in Kosovo (a few incidents were blown way out of proportion), but this did not matter to 8 million Serbs who felt deep historical grievances and welcomed a strong figure, such as Milosevic, who might restore their place in history.

By 1989, Milosevic was firmly in control of the Serbian republic and embarked on a campaign to consolidate his power throughout Yugoslavia. On the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo¤where the medieval Serb kingdom was defeated by Ottoman forces¤Milosevic presided over a massive rally attended by more than a million Serbs at Kosovo Polje, the exact location of the historic battle fought on June 28, 1389.

One of his first acts following this historic event was to rescind the autonomy enjoyed by Kosovo and institute draconian martial law in the province. Kosovar Albanians were fired from their jobs, their schools were closed, they were denied access to state-run health care, and they lost administrative control of the province. The situation also effectively gave Milosevic additional votes in the federal legislature.

This ushered in a decade of hell for the south Balkans. Milosevic and other Serb ultra-nationalists embarked on a campaign to create a Greater Serbia, unifying under one nation all areas where Serbs lived and driving out all minorities through a genocidal process euphemistically called œethnic cleansing.”

[reorg]

64. bullshit propaganda

We have had enough of this already, really.

As to the speech of Milosevich given in Kosovo, I would refer you to the impartial analysis by Gil-White:

http://emperors-clothes.com/milo/gw.htm


And to the developments in Kosovo throughout the eighties watch this:

http://www.domovina.net/tribunal/ictytv/041201_milosevic_eng.ram
http://www.domovina.net/tribunal/ictytv/041202_milosevic_eng.ram


at http://www.domovina.net/tribunal/page_001.php


(Testimony of top Kosovo administration official, cross-examination)


The "Greater Serbia" conspiracy theory, propounded through such tomes as the one of right-wing journalist and former Economist editor Tim Judah, and propagated through the very same media channels that were then and later just as willing to participate in the propagandistic assault on Iraq, requires a lot of "deep hermeneutics", IOW reading stuff into speeches and texts that plainly isn't there ... I'd rather go with historical-political analysis and facts, thank you very much.

[Sparkly]

68. That's your perspective

And I consider your references one-sided, as well. Parsing and re-parsing what somebody said about what somebody else said about a Milosevic speech in 1989 really doesn't change that.

[reorg]

86. no, I'm sorry, this won't get you off the hook

It is not a matter of perspective. You quoted:

"Milosevic and other Serb ultra-nationalists embarked on a campaign to create a Greater Serbia, unifying under one nation all areas where Serbs lived and driving out all minorities through a genocidal process euphemistically called œethnic cleansing.”"

This purports to be a statement of fact, but is the BIG lie and I challenge you to prove ANY of it. There is nothing (zero, nada) evidence to support this shit. It is simply war propaganda by those forces who were in the process of expanding their field of operations into Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, and they are still at it.

To quote Brzezinski: "... a massive engagement in a huge swathe of Eurasia ranging from the Suez Canal to the western frontier of Xinjang in China, from the southern frontier of Russia to the Pakistani littoral and the Arabian Sea. 550 million people, religiously, ethnically, politically and territorially conflicted, with a great deal of percolating and also, in some places, escalating violence, with religious fundamentalism in some places on the rise, (...) it's a huge engagement, which is going to last many years, which is going to cost a lot of lives, which is costing a lot of money, and we're just beginning to see the scale of that undertaking. ...

http://www.loc.gov/locvideo/brzezinski/

[Sparkly]

88. There are people who don't believe the holocaust happened, either

I do not believe that the notion of a campaign to drive ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo is all a hoax. Sorry. You are free to believe that puts me on some "hook," just as I'm free to believe that your one-sided perspective on the conflict borders on bizarre, to be polite about it.

The evidence has been examined by many nations over many years in many venues; the UN, NATO, international news sources, and victims/witnesses to the events are enough proof for me. If you want to believe that Serbs, under Milosevic, did NOT drive ethnic Albanians out of Kosovo and kill many of them in order to "ethnically cleanse" the region, no amount of evidence or testimony can possibly convince you otherwise.

[reorg]

91. I do not believe that you are a holocaust denier

But couldn't care less what else you believe or not.

I think it is much more useful to base political decisions on facts rather than on beliefs.

My assessments on the situation in Kosovo stem from many years of studying facts -- and the media. Not only with respect to the Balkans but also to political affairs in general. What's more, I may be somewhat closer to the place, having actually been there and living in Germany.

But so what, this alone does not mean much. Feel free to quote any legitimate source as proof for whatever it is you are claiming -- but sorry, holocaust denier style BS won't count. No propaganda web sites, please.

You will find nothing that would prove an attempt to "cleanse" Kosovo of Albanians prior to the bombings. Keep in mind that I have closely followed the prosecution case at the ITCY, they, of all people, should have offered such proof if it exists, but haven't.

You can read up on it, they have all the transcripts available.

Current ongoings (defence case) on video:

http://www.domovina.net/tribunal/page_001.php

or

http://hague.bard.edu/video.html

[Sparkly]

96. You're not dissimilar from them if you deny what happened in Kosovo

Your only sources seem to be quotes out of context, obscure pro-Serb websites and the words of Milosevic himself. Despite the accounts from victims, witnesses, NATO, and the UN, you seem to be looking for some pronouncement or announcement from Milosevic himself along the lines of "I now declare my intent to remove Albanians from Kosovo" -- and without that, you can't believe it happened.

This is so absolutly, patently ridiculous I can't even believe we're having this discussion!!

[reorg]

98. I resent this arrogant insult by someone who cannot support his claims

other than by his "belief" and very general musings.

The sources I have quoted yet in this thread include:

- The ICTY (this is an international institution that you obviously have never heard of, recordings of the trials are provided by domovina.net via xs4all, that you also don't seem to have a clue about)

- The UN (also an international institution - but maybe you think they are an obscure pro-Serb website?)

- Veterans for Peace (admittedly partisan, but I agree with these folks and the article had substance)

- the web site of anit-war Jared Israel for an analysis of a speech that has been often cited, but never read - now we could discuss this analysis, or the speech itself - if you were up to this task, that is.

- the web site of the IAC for A VERBATIM QUOTE of The Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1991, Public Law 101-513, appropriated funds for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1991, that someone else asked for.

- the Library of Congress for an interestingly candid speech of imperial chess player Brzezinski.



You, OTOH, have quoted an obscure "friends of Bosnia" site with non-factual, non-analytical generalities that were never proven but churned out over and over again throughout the nineties by every Western propaganda outlet one can find.

So, to claim we have had a "discussion" seems to be somewhat conceited on your part, don't you think?

[Sparkly]

99. You are sadly unaware of what you're quoting, it seems

Do you know the difference between words supplied TO the ICTY and conclusions drawn BY them?

Do you know the difference between testimony from Milosevic and the truth as confirmed by a tribunal?

Do you know the difference between a letter TO the UN General Assembly and a document FROM them?

Do you know the difference between the opinions of an "imperial chess player" and the first-hand accounts of witnesses?

Do you know the difference between sanctions, Milosevic's actions, and claims that one caused the other?

I'm sorry if what I'm saying to you interferes with the rhetorical house of cards you've built out of these sites, but they do not amount to proof of what you're claiming whatsoever. The Serbs, under Milosevic, did indeed oust ethnic Albanians from Kosovo in brutal fashion. There is nothing in what you're citing that credibly disputes that. Sorry.

[reorg]

115. You don't feel the need to support your bogus claims?

I guess if you did, you would have provided some by now.


Or at least looked up the sources I provided.

The prosecution case in The Hague did not substantiate the "ethnic cleansing" in Kosovo prior to the NATO aggression. You can look it up -- a plethora of witness statements (from the spook Walker to NATO commanders and countless boorish Albanian separatists) -- but all inconsequential and in the case of the latter predictably unreliable. The closest they came to something like proof was a "statistical analysis" by some young up-and-comer from HRW, the (N)GO that is mostly funded by certain private interests and is constantly meddling in internal affairs of numerous states that do sometimes not totally comply with the Corporate Agenda (Venezuela, Cuba, Sudan etc.).

Nevertheless, these ongoing court procedures provide interesting insights, I guess this is why you'll be hard put to find anything about them in the media.

http://www.domovina.net/tribunal/page_001.php


What was reported at the time, but quickly swept under the rug, were documents from the Germany Foreign Office with statements such as the following:

"Even in Kosovo an explicit political persecution linked to Albanian ethnicity is not verifiable. The East of Kosovo is still not involved in armed conflict. Public life in cities like Pristina, Urosevac, Gnjilan, etc. has, in the entire conflict period, continued on a relatively normal basis." The "actions of the security forces (were) not directed against the Kosovo-Albanians as an ethnically defined group, but against the military opponent and its actual or alleged supporters."

Intelligence report from the Foreign Office, January 12, 1999 to the Administrative Court of Trier (Az: 514-516.80/32 426)

http://www.transnational.org/features/germandoc.html

TFF refers to the published documents in the German press: "Junge Welt", a left wing newspaper funded by the PDS, as far as I know. The existence of these reports was not denied - however, following the publication shortly after the Kosovo invasion began, the findings and assessments were "withdrawn" and the Secretary of State in the Foreign Office at the time, Ludger Vollmer, "explained" that they now took a different view of things. Umhm. Prominent German members of the Kosovo verification mission disagreed - then and later. See e. g. Heinz Loquai: Der Kosovo-Konflikt - Wege in einen vermeidbaren Krieg, Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2000.

[eridani]

123. But what was this in response to?

The ethnic cleansing in Kosovo started in WW II, when the Albanians enthusiastically took on the German project of eliminating Jews, Gypsies and Serbians, which is how Serbs came to be a small minority there in the first place. The Al Qaeda-linked KLA is finishing the job under the watchful eyes of NATO.

Milosevic may best be compared to Ariel Sharon, using this very legitimate security concern to perpetrate brutal, stupid and counterproductive countermeasures. The Serbian parliament (2/3 opposed to Milosevic, but they couldn't unify enough to beat him)realized this and actually passed a resolution to turn Kosovo over to the UN on the grounds that they could no longer handle the situation.

Clinton did not regard this as a basis for negotiation, but insisted instead, before a very destructive bombing campaign that precipitated the very reprisals it was supposed to have prevented, on surrender terms that required NATO occupation of all of Serbia and the dismantling and privatisation of worker-owned businesses.

Unnecessary and a war crime? You bet, though nowhere near as bloody and stupid as the Iraq war.

[reorg]

61. you are in error

"for what the UN and NATO are worth, Kosovo had the sanction of both"

- no, they had neither. It wasn't sanctioned by the UN nor was it within the scope of NATO's tasks laid out in its own charter.

It was just as illegal as the Iraq invasion.

The only difference is that the coalition of the willing (liars) was even more brazen, that they expected more booty. The whole thing, the American conquest of Eurasia, simply went one step further.

Uni-lateralism? Well, the US are calling the shots anyway. The Europeans will get back into the boat (to the extent that they are not already in) as soon as it is politically convenient - the German right-wingers can't wait to do just that and take up any opportunity that offers itself to make that clear.

[Downtown Hound]

7. Well for one thing

We didn't invade Yugoslavia and declare all of its natural resources ours to do with as we please. And in the case of Kosovo, there were clear crimes against humanity occurring there at the time of our intervention. Saddam had committed horrendous crimes in the past, many of them either supported or ignored by us. But at the time we decided to invade and do something about it, not really.

It's mainly a matter of perspective. In the case of Iraq, you have a situation where you have a brutal dictator that was installed and supported by us for many years. Then he invades Kuwait and we have a falling out. So we bomb the living hell out of his country and reduce his military to scrap metal in a matter of weeks, and the peasants revolt and beg for our help. But we deny it to them. We then continue sanctions on them for a decade, killing over a million of them and bombing them on a weekly basis. And then, all of a sudden, we decide to invade, to help the Iraqi people supposedly. And if we just happen to control their oil fields, well, consider it the American entrepreneurial spirit at its finest.

In the case of Kosovo, we really didn't have a whole lot to gain except the cessation of Milosevic's massacre. I'm not necessarily saying I support what we did there, I have very mixed feelings about it too. But I do think our motivations were much better there than in Iraq.

[lenidog]

8. Not much

We just turned the government over to the KLA one of the worlds largest heroin smuggling rings and instead of Kosovars being killed and driven out its Serbs now. Then there is the whole bit about whether there was anything really going on and if there was did it start after or before the start of the NATO bombing campaign.

[melnjones]

12. what?

"Then there is the whole bit about whether there was anything really going on and if there was did it start after or before the start of the NATO bombing campaign."

Yes, let's ignore what basically amounts to ethnic cleansing, pretend it didn't exist.

I don't get it. No military operation is perfect, but we take one that was actually a beneficial use of our troops and was multinational, and we compare it to Iraq?

[lenidog]

18. Well there are some people

on both the far left and the far right that believe that the US and NATO was set up. That the KLA raised some hell and began to get their buts kicked by the Serb military. They realized that the Serbs were not as weak as they thought and the only way to get rid of them was to get someone stronger to move in. So the KLA starts spreading the word about ethnic cleansing and attrocities and we along with NATO have visions of Bosnia dancing in our heads. So we rush to save the Kosovars who aren't really being attacked and are only ditching their homes because they believe NATO troops are going to be coming soon to fight the Serbs and NATO is bombing the hell out of everything. So by the end of the whole deal by a little playing on the guilt of the West the KLA gets to run Kosovo without having to fight for it. There is some evidence to support this like the fact that all the forensic teams sent there couldn't find any mass graves like in Bosnia. Very few horror stories like the ones from Bosnia and the only dead Kosovars they seemed to find in any great numbers were either dead KLA or killed by us by accident.

[private_ryan]

80. spin spin spin

and KLA spread the rumors with Croatia, Bosnia...the person you seem to be defending started four wars in a decade.

[bhikkhu]

20. Are we certain about that ethnic cleansing?

I am sure this is an irritating question, but I recall the immediate event precipitating the war to be a raid on a separatist cell in which nineteen individuals were reported to have been slain. I don't know wheter this event was ever substantiated, or whether evidence of atrocities surfaced which rendered it inconsequential. I have read less than I would like on the subject, but have doubts on both sides of the argument.

Any good or definitive information out there?

[private_ryan]

79. and no americans sell drugs, right?

every country has it's bad apples.

[ConsAreLiars]

9. Easy -- How many innocents were slaughtered ...

Before the war
During the war
After the war

in the former Yugoslavia versus Iraq.

Maybe a better question is "What is similar?"

[melnjones]

13. exactly. nt

[FrenchieCat]

47. Casualty Figures....in 78 days of bombing

In its report, Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign, Human Rights Watch documented some 500 civilian deaths in 90 separate incidents. It concluded: "on the basis available on these ninety incidents that as few as 488 and as many as 527 Yugoslav civilians were killed as a result of NATO bombing. Between 62 and 66 percent of the total registered civilian deaths occurred in just twelve incidents. These twelve incidents accounted for 303 to 352 civilian deaths. These were the only incidents among the ninety documented in which ten or more civilian deaths were confirmed." Ten of these twelve incidents were included among the incidents which were reviewed with considerable care by the committee (see para. 9 above) and our estimate was that between 273 and 317 civilians were killed in these ten incidents. Human Rights Watch also found the FRY Ministry of Foreign Affairs publication NATO Crimes in Yugoslavia to be largely credible on the basis of its own filed research and correlation with other sources. A review of this publication indicates it provides an estimated total of approximately 495 civilians killed and 820 civilians wounded in specific documented instances. For the purposes of this report, the committee operates on the basis of the number of persons allegedly killed as found in both publications. It appears that a figure similar to both publications would be in the range of 500 civilians killed.
http://www.un.org/icty/pressreal/nato061300.htm#IVA5

[FrenchieCat]

48. Casualty figures for U.S. Armed Forces....in Kosovo War

Zero.

[sangh0]

71. You think the ONLY difference is how many AMERICANS died?

that's just sick

[Crunchy Frog]

106. You apparently only read her post #48,

not her post #47. That's just blind.

[Minstrel Boy]

11. For supporters of the Kosovo war. Kosovo and Rwanda:

What is the difference?

Why could atrocities justify intervention in the former, and yet atrocities many times the magnitude in the latter warranted worse than inaction: the active frustration of the requests for help from the Canadian General leading UN peacekeepers?


Gen. Romeo Dallaire defied U.N. orders to withdraw from Rwanda. Without the authority, manpower, or equipment to stop the slaughter, he saved the lives he could but nearly lost his sanity. In an indifferent world, Gen. Romeo Dallaire and a few thousand ill-equipped U.N. peacekeepers were all that stood between Rwandans and genocide. The Canadian commander did what he could-did more than anyone else-but he sees his mission as a terrible failure and counts himself among its casualties.

After a 100-day reign of terror, some 800,000 Rwandan civilians were dead, most killed by their machete-wielding neighbors. Dallaire had sounded the alarm. He'd begged. He'd bellowed. He'd even disobeyed orders. "l was ordered to withdraw...by Boutros Ghali about seven, eight days into it. .. and I said to him, 'I can't, I've got thousands' -by then we had over 20,000 people-'in areas under our control,"' Dallaire said in a recent interview with Amnesty Now. The general's hands, always moving, rose beside his face as if to block the memories. "The situation was going to shit....And, I said, 'No, I can't leave."'

...

Dallaire and his troops were about to become spectators to genocide. As bodies filled the streets and rivers, the general, backed by a U.N. mandate that didn't even allow him to disarm the militias, pleaded with his U.N. superiors for additional troops, ammunition, and the authority to seize Hutu arms caches. In an assessment that military experts now accept as realistic, Dallaire argued that with 5,000 well-equipped soldiers and a free hand to fight Hutu power, he could bring the genocide to a rapid halt.

The U.N. turned him down. He asked the U.S. to block the Hutu radio transmissions. The Clinton administration refused to do even that. Gun-shy after a humiliating retreat from Somalia, Washington saw nothing to gain from another intervention in Africa, and the Defense Department, according to a memo, assessed the cost of jamming the Hutu hate broadcasts at $8,500 per flight-hour.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Heroes/Gen_Romeo_Dallaire.html

[RafterMan]

22. Obviously

what happened in Rwanda greatly influenced the decision to act in Kosovo.

[Darranar]

26. I highly doubt it. Clinton didn't care about Rwanda...

in fact the US took an active stance to prevent intervention there. Similar things happened in regard to Turkey's treatment of its Kurdish population.

Empires don't have consciences, they have interests. The US attacked Serbia because it was a useful way to remind the world that the US was still willing to intervene when it suited them, and because they wanted to avert criticism regarding lack of concern over human rights.

[Killarney]

27. Clinton wrote an editorial in the NYT last year

where he said his greatest regret in his entire life is that he didn't act on Rwanda.

[rfkrfk]

33. did anyone else offer to help?

I would think that, Clinton would have helped
with transport ships and aircraft, if asked.
The US can't be expected to do everything.

[Menshevik]

53. Yes

If I remember correctly, Spain and NZ wanted to send in a peacekeeping force. The U.S. agreed to lease armored personnel carriers to the UN for a few million $.

[Darranar]

35. Sure, he can say that. But it is a bit late. n/t

[radwriter0555]

31. What bush done about liberia and somalia and Mugabe?

**nuthin**

[Darranar]

34. I am not a fan of Bush, hence my participation on this website. n/t

[knight_of_the_star]

40. Here's a similarity

Gen. Clark was shouting at the top of his lungs for intervention in both places and he got it in Kosovo because he went over the Sec. of Defense's head and went right to Clinton and made his case directly, which one one of the factors of why he was "retired" before his tour was over.

[Imperialism Inc.]

121. Exactly.

Why the different response?
And heck look at Turkey at the same exact time. Killings and destruction of Kurd villages on a scale that would make Milosevich look like a boy scout even if you believe the largest numbers reported (pre-bombing). What was Clinton doing about that humanitarian crisis in Turkey? That genocide? Well he was dumping money and arms in to the Turks as fast as he could.
Most of the killing that took place took place after the bombing not before (as noted by reorg above). The bombings exacerbated the situation . That is not to excuse the Serbs it is not excusable.
The idea that it was some kind of humanitarian intervention is simply laughable. The cognitive dissonance with these other conflicts at the same time shows that quite clearly there were other motives involved. But , one has to be willing to look past the absurd "humanitarian" spin to see what the many reasons might be.
As to the original poster's question I would say there are many differences as well as similarities. One similarity is that they were both illegal in regards to international law. Another is the similarity between the CPA (in Iraq's) orders and the ultimatum issued called the Rambouillet Accords. Both of which essentially spell out handing over control of a country to a foreign power. Both places are still a wreck today. Differences are in the number of casualties on both sides and the number of civilians being harmed. Clinton certainly did his job much better.

[Taxloss]

15. The difference was clear.

1. Kosovo was an immediate, recent and localised crisis brought on by the Milosevic regime.

2. Kosovo threatened to destabilise neighbouring countries.

3. Intervention by NATO in Kosovo was being called for by the Kosovans and their neighbours.

4. There was no risk of the citizens of neighbouring countries becoming involved in the struggle.

5. There was no global movement against the West that would be given a casus belli by intervention in Kosovo.

6. Kosovo is very small. Military action would be contained and limited. Policing would be easy.

7. The takeover of Kosovo would not mean the destruction of its civil society and its armed and police forces.

8. The UN was ready to take over an administrative role in Kosovo.

9. Kosovo could be saved and controlled while leaving the Serbian regime intact.

10. Kosovo could be subdued without ground troops and with the assistance of a local armed force already in the field - ground troops would only be needed when the battle was won.

11. The battle was against a relatively sophisticated and informed European nation, which had a fully fledged domestic opposition movement, and which would not collapse into anarchy.

None of these factors apply to Iraq, and I can think of more, but the list is long enough. All Clinton and the UK did was give air support to an existing rebel movement and destroy certain targets - bridges and govt buildings - inside Serbia. The cleansing of Kosovo became impossible. There was no invasion. We had been invited. Now Serbia is a democracy too. Civilian casualties were tiny. My father visited Belgrade soon after the "war" and remember seeing a square that had housed the central police HQ - that building had been flattened, but the buildings immediately next to it were fine. His opinion of American weaponry rose.

But you used up the working arsenal of smart bombs in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now it't back to dumb bombs. No more surgical strikes.

[Donna Zen]

17. Last resort

We negotiated with Serbia at Dayton.

We negotiated with Serbia about Kosova at Rambouillet, France for about a year, offering Serbia the option of keeping 1,200 of troops in Kosova. At the time, iirc, Milosovic had 25,000 troops in the country.

Until 1989, Kosova was autonomous. Milosovic changed that status when he decided to pursue the dream of a greater Serbia.

Not one American soldier died.

There really were flowers in the street.

No oil.

The object of the exercise was to save Muslims.

We didn't make them sign over unlimited contracts for the rights to their country.

We didn't try to create a Milton Friedman wet dream.

We didn't torture the citizens.

BTW, I am a Serbian American...and I approve this message.

[bhikkhu]

21. Last resort and proportionate response

Both Augustinian war virtues. If the beginnings were as they have been scripted to be (and I am lacking many facts I would like to have) then the war may be called just.

We might keep in mind that even this just and nearly ideal war cost thousands of lives, polluted a country with depleted uranium, and has been followed by a low level campaign of reprisals, particularly the systematic destruction of all christian churches in Kosovo.

[sangh0]

72. It wasn't a last resort

The ethnic cleansing in Kosovo hadn't even begun when we started bombing the Serbs in Kosovo. The UN was still debating a resolution on Kosovo. The US wouldn't wait

[bhikkhu]

100. "If the beginnings were as scripted"

And I don't think they were by any means, agreeing with you that there were abundant other means than dropping bombs. I

[Sparkly]

101. No and yes

Albanians were indeed being driven from their homes and killed before March 1999, so unless you have a different definition of "ethnic cleansing," I don't understand how you can say it hadn't happened.

NATO didn't have approval of the UN, but whether or not they required it is a different argument.

[sangh0]

102. unless you have a different definition of "ethnic cleansing,"

I use the one that generally accepted by the international comunity, and what was going on in Kosovo at the time we started bombing had not yet risen to the level of ethnic cleansing. I have little doubt that if we hadn't intervened, it would have become ethnic cleansing, but it's inaccurate to say that ethnic cleansing had already begun.

[reorg]

116. got a link?

Why do you have "little doubt that if we hadn't intervened, it would have become ethnic cleansing"?

There is nothing to support this claim. The securing of border regions was done in anticipation of the aggression, and to stop the flow of insurgents and weapons from Albania. Had nothing at all to do with "cleansing".

However, when NATO were finished with the bombing and killing and Kosovo became a NATO protectorate, the ethnic cleansing truly began. Churches and houses were being torched, neighbors being killed, until practically all non-Serbs had left.

And prior to the entire mess, throughout the eighties, there was a systematic campaign to buy, pressure and force non-Albanians out in order to make Kosovo ethnically "clean". The stated goal of Kosovo Albanians at the time was to become a republic - instead of an autonomous province, with the only difference being that they would have had the constitutional right to secede entirely, and merge into Greater Albania. The Serb minority was clearly an obstacle to be done away with in order to reach this goal.

See e. g. Slobodan Milošević defence case (December 1 and 2):

http://www.domovina.net/tribunal/page_001.php

[barb162]

105. Actually it had already begun and I remember I kept hoping

the Europeans would deal with it (solve it, stop it) before we got involved.

[deminflorida]

23. I was there. Genocide was being committed.

I have friends who are Bosnian. If you'd like I'll have them Email you and express how thankful they are for our intervention as a member of NATO.

Your right, War is horrible and Europe could not stand by and watch what was unfolding in the former Yugoslavia. I watched if for years before NATO intervened.

They don't coverup shit in the cat-box on European T.V. like our media does. When you come home everynight for years and watch people being slaughtered next door to you, you decide that something has to be done. Children were laying in pieces on the streets almost every night on T.V. and the Serbs had no intention of stoping the Genocide of another ethnic race, after many, and I assure you MANY warnings from Europe and NATO something HAD to be done.

Let me ask you this, do you think it would be O.K. for that type of killing to be continuing today? That's what would have happened if NATO had not run them out of there.

[Wright Patman]

25. Bosnia and Kosovo

were two different operations separated by about four years in time.

Bosnia was just some surgical air strikes, while Kosovo went on for 78 days and about 3,000 Serb civilians were "collaterally damaged" before it was finally called off.

Then there was that bizarre attempted move at the end by Gen. Wesley Clark to mow down the Russian paratroopers who were coming to secure the Slatina airfield near Pristina. NATO Gen. Michael Jackson of the UK refused the direct order of the SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander in Europe) Clark and said, "I am not going to start World War III for you, Gen. Clark!"

I remember Bosnia only because of some doofus who was shot down, probably because of his own incompetence, named O'Grady. It always amazes me that it is often the incompetents who get taken captive for a time and are later released that wind up being the most memorable personalities from this or that war. Other examples are John McCain from Vietnam and Jessica Lynch in Iraq.

McCain crashed several planes while trying to learn to fly and Lynch's convoy took a wrong turn somewhere.

[Crunchy Frog]

37. Could you provide some documentation

of any intention on the part of General Clark to "mow down" Russian paratroopers? I've only seen references to his wanting to occupy the airfield. I would appreciate the info, as I am continually trying to update my information to be as accurate as possible.

I believe that Michael Jackson has since admitted to engaging in some degree of hyperbole in that statement.

[knight_of_the_star]

42. Proof please

"Then there was that bizarre attempted move at the end by Gen. Wesley Clark to mow down the Russian paratroopers who were coming to secure the Slatina airfield near Pristina."

Proof for that would be nice, from how I understand it he was refusing to give access to the airfield to the Russians for reasons like mission security and he wouldn't be sure what they were up to.

"NATO Gen. Michael Jackson of the UK refused the direct order of the SACEUR (Supreme Allied Commander in Europe) Clark and said, "I am not going to start World War III for you, Gen. Clark!""

Oh yeah that guy, he had a nickname among his own troops of being called, "The Dark Prince," and a reputation for melodrama, and by the way due to diplomatic pressure and other factors I don't think the Russians ended up occupying the base anyway, although I could be wrong on that.

If you are going to smear the ONLY man in the Pentagon who was calling for intervention in Rwanda and went over his boss's head to get the problem of the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo handled, not to mention the ONLY candidate who actually talked about things like the PNAC and defended Michael Moore when Moore made the desertion charge, as well as being a genuinely anti-war candidate, unlike Edwards OR Kerry, then you should think long and hard about what you are saying and had better make DAMN sure that you can back it up. Trust me, I've heard the BS you are pushing many times before, and it has been debunked every time. I'm not going to sit and watch while you try to peddle your sludge about a good man who gave everything he had for 34 years for his country and was nearly paralyzed fighting for it in Vietnam and only ran in the past election cycle because he was drafted into it.

[Donna Zen]

55. note: same people

If we had sat by and done nothing while Milosevic had completed his plan for genocide, I would bet that these same people would be accusing the US of not caring unless oil was involved.

Also, it should be pointed out that the Russian move to station 200 hundred troops at the Pristina airport was curious because Russia kept saying that the troops were not there. Nevertheless, it was meant as a finger-in-the-eye of NATO. Russia wanted to test the resolve of the alliance. Jackson, also known for his role in "Bloody Sunday" blinked. Fucking Shelton and Cohen were all too glad to stab a few backs, and Russia took our measure. On to Chechneya!

May the dead of Chechneya someday rise up to thank Gen. Jackson, who would go on to take up his sword as he led British forces in Iraq.

So now Jackson is a hero; it is wrong to stop genocide; and spreading rightwing smears is a virtue. Who needs the "liberal" media when the dedicated are so willing to eat our own?

[reorg]

69. could you please give me a hint

as to where I can find documentation or any kind of proof of that "plan for genocide" of Milosevich's?

And while you're at it - could you please provide this information to the prosecution in the ITCY? They are desperate, biting their nails, to pin him down!! Really. Go watch it at:

http://www.domovina.net/tribunal/page_001.php

No plan of genocide (yet). No proof. Poop.

[melnjones]

60. amen. nt

[Sparkly]

45. "mow down?"

That story gets wackier everytime it's repeated. I can't wait to hear the next version. :eyes:

[FrenchieCat]

49. Your casualty figures are too high....see post #9 (n/t)

[FrenchieCat]

50. The Unappreciated General.....

More presciently, Clark was right about the Russians. When fewer than 200 lightly armed Russian peacekeepers barnstormed from Bosnia to the Pristina airport in Kosovo to upstage the arrival of NATO peacekeepers, Clark was rightly outraged. Russians did not win the war, and he did not want them to win the peace.

Clark asked NATO helicopters and ground troops to seize the airport before the Russians could arrive. But a British general, absurdly saying he feared World War III (in truth the Russians had no cards to play), appealed to London and Washington to delay the order.

The result was a humiliation for NATO, a tonic for the Russian military and an important lesson for the then-obscure head of the Russian national security council, Vladimir Putin. As later Russian press reports showed, Putin knew far more about the Pristina operation than did the Russian defense or foreign ministers. It was no coincidence that a few weeks afterward, Russian bombers buzzed NATO member Iceland for the first time in a decade. A few weeks after that, with Putin as prime minister, Russian troops invaded Chechnya. Putin learned the value of boldness in the face of Western hesitation. Clark learned that he had no backup in Washington.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A51403-2000May1¬Found=true

[The Traveler]

54. Yeah right

Michael Jackson is a sadistic coward whose military accomplishments include the Bloody Sunday massacre. He seems to do best when deployed against unarmed folk.

The Russian paratroopers were deployed in close proximity to NATO forces without consultation or coordination with NATO. Their intentions were unclear. They weren't unarmed. Going up against them would have been inconsistent with Jackson's career. Clark had been ordered to secure the airfield. After Jackson's chicken crap tantrum, the White House changed the orders. By then there had been some chance to back channel with the Russians. Apparently, there was some confusion as to just how the hell the paratroops got deployed in the first place. Or maybe they were just embarrassed.

The air campaign successfully forced Milosovec (sp?) to back off. (Now there's another sadistic coward for ya.) The "collateral damage" was significant, but actually rather modest given the magnitude of the conflict the action was intended to stop. War sucks and there really is no away to avoid that.

It would have been nice if Milosovec had accepted political overtures to end the bloodshed in NATO's back yard but he didn't. The fact that he held out for 78 days of bombing indicates how committed he was to the purpose of ethnic cleansing. Nice guy.

[Djinn]

125. you were there and have Bosnian friends

but think the two are one in the same?

[ElsewheresDaughter]

28. Kosovo we were ASKED by NATO for help. ..Iraq we unilaterally invaded!

[rfkrfk]

32. Nato...jurisdiction?

Nato is a military alliance.
What is their jurisdiction,
to order some non-member to be bombed?
.
I don't understand why Nato does not need the
permission of the UN to bomb somebody.

[wuushew]

41. It was blatantly illegal in any sense of the word

But since the Western world was happy with results we strayed from the generally stabilizing force of legalism with impunity.

Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia didn't at the time touch any NATO members. How one can practice self-defense outside one's borders is beyond me.

[Donna Zen]

57. By your rules

We were correct to let Rhowanda happen. Okay. At least your consistent.

[wuushew]

67. No the U.N. can take action and ask member states to violate sovereignty

in the case of genocide. This is also an area that is being addressed by ongoing U.N. reform. The ultimate arbiter of legal authority in international affairs is the U.N. not NATO which is a outdated bloated global cop which is being used to skirt international law.

Also don't underestimate the power of racism in American foreign policy. In Somalia people shit a brick when a single black hawk went down. Thirteen hundred dead G.I.s in Iraq is getting less attention.
With NATO the U.S. has more power to dictate when and where we engage in conflict. A more international approach would no doubt be less biased and beholden to American political interest and bigotry.

[sangh0]

74. Bizarre hyperbole

The post you responded said nothing about the morality of the bombing. He merely pointed out that according to internation law, the bombing of Kosovo was illegal.

I agree. It was illegal, and I support it anyway.

[JVS]

113. Yeah. That's like justifying Purdue University being involved in...

an invasion of Notre Dame just because the rest of the Big Ten wanted Purdue to be part of the invasion

[radwriter0555]

29. Been listening to hate radio, have ya?

well since bosnia wasn't bombed or invaded by the USA, there is NO comparison.

Turn that hate radio off, it'll rot your brain and turn you into a republican freeper.

[sangh0]

75. Bosnia wasn't bombed by the US?

In which universe?

Why do you think the Serbs left Bosnia?

[robbedvoter]

36. Kosovo: crimes against humanity WERE ONGOING, not 12 years old

as in Iraq. Nice freeper talking point.

[sangh0]

76. What crimes?

.

[robbedvoter]

124. Ethnic cleansing for one.

Depriving an ethnic group of civil rights. passing laws to do it, not just factual discrimination.

[Radical Activist]

38. Some good articles against the bombings

They also present some interesting dissenting views on why the bombings were carried out. It isn't clear at all that the bombings were the only way to stop the suffering of innocent people.

Here's a good article by Noam Chomsky written one year after.
http://www.commondreams.org/views/031400-107.htm

Here is a list of popular opinion pieces from people who were against the bombings at the time.
http://www.commondreams.org/kosovo/views/topten.htm

[FrenchieCat]

51. In reference to the bombing....

General Wes Clark understood that bombing without Ground troops would lead to more civilian casualties than neccessary. However, the Pantagon was deathly afraid of experiencing any American casualties...and so they fought Clark who was not in favor of the arial bombing at high altitutes........

Clark still won the war...but his way would have been quicker, less deadly and more effective.

Recent events in Kosovo show that Clark's bosses in the Pentagon and White House still don't get it. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Henry Shelton, rebuked Clark in February for using 350 American soldiers to reinforce French troops who were unable to quell violence between Albanians and Serbs.
After the American reinforcements were pelted with rocks and bottles, Shelton and the White House, panicky about potential casualties, told Clark not to volunteer U.S. troops again.

But Clark was right to act. He understood the value of using force quickly and early to show who was in control, and to demonstrate to the European allies that the United States is willing to put lives at risk too.

Both Desert Storm and Kosovo were imperfect victories because the despots who caused them were left in power. But the military fought them well. The thousands of Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps pilots and support troops who quietly rejoined their squadrons when the Kosovo war ended deserve more than a historical footnote. And Clark deserves more than a pink slip.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A51403-2000May1¬Found=true

[Hippo_Tron]

44. Show me RECENT pictures of Saddam marching thousands into death camps...

And I will change my stance into 100% support of the Iraq war.

[knight_of_the_star]

52. Tell me about it

There are mass graves that have been found, but many of them are quite OLD, like circa 1991 when we did nothing and let Saddam slaughter an uprising we goaded the rebels into participating in.

[private_ryan]

73. one can argue that our policies are killing americans here

police brutality, work accidents and all that crap. The same can be said for China, Russia, Saudis, Jordan etc. etc.

The difference was that an ENTIRE segment/race of the population was being killed, raped and removed for their ancestral lands. It was being down with the full force of the state, tanks, airplanes, helicopters and their only crime was that they were born Albanians.

Nice try to equate them though. If we had gone in Iraq as he (or right before) was attacking Kurds with gas or Shiites a few years ago, I would've approved it, as long as we were honest about why. But then he was our best friend.

[sangh0]

78. Not true

Though ethnic cleansing had been taking place in Bosnia and Croatia, it hadn't started in Kosovo yet when we started bombing the Serbs there.

In addition, the Kosovans are guilty of ethnic cleansing themselves. The engaged in genocide against Kosovan Serbs. They killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs.

[private_ryan]

82. killed hundreds of thousands of Serbs

when and where?

[Djinn]

126. If there was a group

taking actions in the US similar to the actions of the KLA in Kosovo (who's can lay claim to it as an "ancestral" land is a little difficult to ascertain now - the history of ethnic squabbling and/or fighting goes back atleast 700+ years) the retaliation would be supoprted by the vast majority of Americans liberal and otherwise.

Serbian homes were raided, teenagers kidnapped, houses/farms razed to the ground.

There can certainly be an argument made that the KLA had been forced into this position by draconian and bigoted laws but it's interesting to note these laws weren't anywhere near as opppresive as those under which Palestinians live yet the Israeli reaction to Palestinian violence is generally accepted in the US.

There's also a disturbing trend to view the KLA as some kind of leftie freedom fighters - they have a couple of factions but mostly they're about as progressive as Hamas.

More people have died in Iraq but I don't know where you draw the line - is it OK to kill 100 but appalling to kill 101?

There's a lot I don't know about the Albanian/Kosovar/Serbian conflict but it was definetly NOT as clear cut as was made out at the time and I think there was nowhere near enough scrutiny of the decision to bomb.

[Sparkly]

83. Are you saying Albanians were NOT being pushed out of Kosovo

before March 1999?

[private_ryan]

85. it's a battle you will not win

with him I guess. All the Albanians were fired from state jobs, albanian schools were closed and students couldn't learn in their native language, which happened to be the oldest (at least one of the) Indo-European language.
http://www.lajmet.com/English/Oldest_language.htm

it wouldn't be still spoken if they had bent over to the many Milosevics during their entire history.

[reorg]

89. hm ...

http://www.un.org/documents/ga/docs/51/plenary/a51-203.htm

Letter dated 3 July 1996 from the Charge' d'affaires a.i.
of the Permanent Mission of Yugoslavia to the United
Nations addressed to the Secretary-General

...

ANNEX



REPORT

on the state of affairs and the exercise of national minority rights
in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia

...


Education in FR Yugoslavia is available to all under equal
conditions and elementary eight-year education is compulsory. Regular
education in any of the languages that are in equal official use, in
primary, secondary and higher schools, is free

The constitutional right of persons belonging to national
minorities to be taught in their language has been elaborated in a
number of republic laws and other regulations The educational process
in minority languages is organized at pre-school level up to
university level.

Under the Law on elementary schools and the Law on secondary
schools of the Republic of Serbia, persons belonging to national
minorities will follow the curricula in their native language provided
at least 5 pupils enrol in the first grade and even fewer subject to
the educational minister's approval. The Law also provides for the
possibility of bilingual schooling or additional classes of minority
language with elements of national culture as an elective subject.

...

Teaching and education in national minority languages in secondary
school facilities takes place under the Law on secondary schools,
which, similarly to the Law on elementary schools, stipulates that at
least 15 students in the first form of Iycee, vocational and art
schools are required for the following of the curriculum in their
national minority language. Instruction in a minority language in
cases where the 15 requirement has not been fulfilled is subject to
approval by the Education Minister. The schools which provide
instruction in national minority languages alone are likewise obliged
to create the conditions for the following of the Serbian language
curriculum and in areas where bilingual instruction takes place or
children are taught in several minority languages, the school must
provide conditions for the following of the curriculum in the subject
of native language with elements of national culture. Instruction in a
national minority language - Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian and Ruthenian
- is conducted in 18 of Vojvodina's townships, in 12 Iycees, and in 20
vocational schools, involving 290 classes and 7,240 students. In
elementary and secondary schools where pupils and students are taught
in minority languages, the Law stipulates the requirement for teachers
to also keep records in minority languages, and the public school
report is issued in those languages as well.

Under the provisions of the Law on higher schools and the Law on
the university of the Republic of Serbia, instruction is conducted in
Serbian, but may also be conducted in a minority language, subject to
a decision taken by the founder of that school and the procured
approval from the University.

...

A similar education arrangement is applied in Autonomous Province
of Kosovo and Metohija, but ethnic Albanians are boycotting the legal
educational system from elementary to high education facilities, which
provide the instruction in Albanian. Prior to the boycott, there were
904 Albanian schools with 315,000 pupils, 69 secondary schools with
73,000 students, and the University in Pristina which was attended by
37,000 students, 80% of which were Albanians studying in the Albanian
language. 98% of education-related costs was financed by the Republic
of Serbia. By the number of students, Autonomous Province of Kosovo
and Metohija was the fourth in the world (behind US, Canada, and the
Netherlands), while at the same time no more than 19,000 students were
receiving their schooling at the University in Tirana.

The present state of affairs in education is characterized by the
fact that persons belonging to the Albanian minority are taught in
their native language at state-owned buildings and the Republic of
Serbia has secured all that is necessary for the normal operation of
schools, observing the principles enshrined in the relevant
international documents There are currently in Kosovo and Metohija
1,400 elementary schools in operation, 60 secondary schools and
education centres and the University with 14 faculties. Teachers
belonging to the Albanian minority use state-owned classrooms and
teaching aids, teach in Albanian and only refuse to receive salaries
from the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Serbia because that
act would mean their recognition of the state of Serbia. At the
University in Pristina, there are both professors and students
belonging to the Albanian national minority

It is solely for political reasons that the Albanians are refusing
to accept a uniform educational system which applies to the territory
of the Republic of Serbia, the curricula adopted by the competent
government agencies, as well as a uniform certificates and diplomas
system. Differences between the curricula are not numerous as no more
than four subjects are a matter of dispute: language, history,
geography and musical culture. All attempts to reach agreement, even
with the aid of intemational mediators in Geneva, have failed due to
the obstructive attitude of the representatives of the Albanian
minority. Albanian separatists refused to submit their curricula to
the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Serbia for verification.
Nevertheless, the Republic of Serbia has been allocating substantial
funds for the maintenance of instruction for the Albanian minority
members.

In Kosovo and Metohija the parallel education of pupils and
students is taking place under illegal curricula and criteria and with
the use of illegal textbooks. The diplomas that are issued are not
recognized nor can be recognized in either FR Yugoslavia or abroad.

The Republic of Serbia and FR Yugoslavia have SQ far demonstrated
a high degree of willingness to make concessions so that Albanian
children may not suffer the consequences of this unreasonable policy.
The authorities have shown their willingness to recognize the school
years completed in the illegal school system provided that diplomas be
issued by the competent bodies of the Republic of Serbia: yet, not
even this offer was accepted. The Albanian separatists have repeatedly
insisted on the certificates and diplomas being issued by the illegal
bodies of the non-existent and unrecognized "Republic of Kosovo".

In 1992, the Government of FR Yugoslavia made the following
proposal within the framework of the Geneva Conference on Yugoslavia
for the settlement of educational problems in Kosovo and Metohija:

1. to reach agreement for the maximum guarantees, preservation and
development of the cultural identity of persons belonging to Albanian
national minority in FR Yugoslavia,

2. to re-employ all Albanian teachers who have wilfully abandoned
their work posts (except for a small number of teachers who have
committed criminal offenses),

3. to recognize, in favour of Albanian pupils, the two years they
completed in the parallel and illegal educational system,

4. to ensure that instruction at all levels is conducted in the
existing state-owned school buildings, and

5. to recognize the 1990 curriculum of the Republic of Serbia This
proposal by the Government of FR Yugoslavia continues to be valid, but
the secessionist Albanian leaders in Kosovo and Metohija have
persistently turned it down

...

[private_ryan]

94. the good ol' Milosevic government issuing a fair and balanced report

http://www.osce.org/kosovo/documents/reports/hr/part1/ch1.htm
"Of greater real significance than this political manoeuvring within the Presidency were the withdrawal or closure of publicly funded Albanian language media in 1989, the publication in 1990 of a new schools curriculum for Kosovo to bring Albanian-language teaching into line with that in the rest of Serbia, the ending of teaching in Albanian in most secondary schools in 1992, and the cutting of Albanian-language teaching at Pristina University at the same time. Kosovo Albanians responded with a schools boycott and attempts to maintain a "parallel" system of Albanian-language education, often provided by teachers who had lost their jobs.

Periods of particularly acute tension in the continuing unrest included violent rioting over the 1989 constitutional amendments and the arrest of popular local political leader Azem Vlasi; disturbances in Pristina in early 1990, quelled by the temporary imposition of a state of emergency, after Milosevic had issued a call for Serbs to begin a campaign of mass settlement to reverse the decline in their numbers in Kosovo; protests over the dissolution of the provincial assembly that July; and a general strike in September 1990 over mass dismissals of Kosovo Albanian officials. A state of emergency, backed by a strong Serbian police and security presence, was in force in Kosovo from late 1989 until the latter part of 1992."

Here's one more:
http://web.aegee.org/efd/background/kosovo.html
"By the end of 1990, the Serbian parliament had ruled that of secondary schools should be closed down and that only 28% of eligible Albanian primary school graduates should be allowed to proceed to secondary school. Many teachers were sacked, and in May of 1991, a law was passed stating that the enrolment into University must be at a 1Serb:1Albanian ratio (despite there being nine eligible Albanians for every Serbian secondary graduate). Albanian students were denied access to libraries, dormitories and sporting halls and all Albanian academics at Prishtina University were sacked and replaced with Serbians.

On 16 October 1991, the University of Prishtina was closed to Albanian students and Serbian students from surrounding countries were offered incentives to study at the University. Meanwhile, books for Albanians school children had to be smuggled in and the wages of Albanian teachers were cut. "

[reorg]

117. since you seem to be an expert in bilingual education

Could you please point me to studies on the benefits and drawbacks (if any) of teaching in secondary schools and university in other languages than the official language of a country?

What is the legal situation in the US for those schools attended by a majority or significant minority of Hispanics and Blacks (remember Ebonics)?

The quote I provided is from 96, a report mainly concerned with legal provisions on bilingual education. I think it is remarkably liberal.

As to the real situation in 1990, you probably know that following the constitutional changes and the abandonment of the autonomous status of Kosovo, a concerted effort was immediately made by Kosovo Albanians to resist the new Serbian curriculum, and an illegal "parallel system" was introduced. It seems only logical that personnel particpating in these illegal activities were sacked, and that schools were closed that no longer were attented by Albanians who refused to accept the Serbian curriculum.

These measures were certainly repressive, and were meant to be, since they were part of an attempt to reverse the trend of the preceding years throughout which Albanian chauvinism was on the rise and Serbs were leaving Kosovo in increasing numbers. It was an attempt to prevent a violent secession and to reassert the authority of the state.

At about the same time we had a public discussion in Germany on bilingual education for the increasing number of immigrant children. I think the most far-reaching proposals were to allow two hours of extra classes per week in the native language of certain groups, or some such measure. I cannot imagine the outcry of all our Kosovo invasion apologists if the Turks in Berlin would claim a right to speak their native language in school! Or have the curriculum changed in order to comply with Islamic priorities! I think the specter of downfall of the occident would be looming on the horizon.

[Sparkly]

97. Well if Vladislav Jovanovic said it, it MUST be true!!

By the way, you didn't mention who Vladislav Jovanovic is or what his relationship to Milosevic might be.

Or is it true simply because it's on the internet? A quick Google search turned up these:

http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9710/29/yugo.kosovo/
http://www.alb-net.com/freekosova/education/
http://www.muslimedia.com/archives/world98/ironserb.htm
http://web.aegee.org/efd/background/kosovo.html
http://www.advocacynet.org/cpage_view/kosovo_repression_3_41.html
http://www.teenwire.com/index.asp?taStrona=http://www.teenwire.com/views/articles/wv_20000218p025.asp
http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/Kosovo/Kosovo-chronology2.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1082931.stm

[Djinn]

127. so you if a nation oppresses

an ethnic/religious group the US (and other nations) should bomb them, would you make this case for Saudi? or Israel?

there has NEVER been any military action undertaken for humanitarian reason - EVER, strategic goals may coincide with humanitarian objectives but that is never the reason, it's really worrying so many people beleive otherwise.

[private_ryan]

84. ahhhh....

we should've waited till they had the killing started and then mobilize the troops and hopefully be ready just in time to bury the dead civilians.

If someone who already pucnhed three people, gets ready to do the same to you, what do you do, wait?

[sangh0]

93. Keep talking Einstein

but if you had a brain, you'd see that I've already said that I supported our intervention in Kosovo.

So keep telling lies about how I opposed it.

[private_ryan]

95. I'm Einstein and I have a brain

I didn't say you opposed it. I was making fun of the "he hadn't started yet so..."

also, where are the hundreds of thousands of the dead serbs?

[Name removed]

103. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[CarbonDate]

81. Apples and oranges...

...black and white.... Republican and Democrat.... sausage and bacon.... water and wine.... what's the difference?

[tabasco]

87. Big difference:

Misson actually accomplished in Bosnia/Kosovo.

[reorg]

92. Sure

the pipeline is being built now.

[barb162]

104. Can you suggest what should have been done...diplomacy

wasn't working as I recall the Kosovo situation. Nothing peaceful was working

"I just can't believe war is the only answer"

[Tinoire]

107. None. Absolutely none

except that one was our war and the other was the Republican's a very joint venture.

For all the people spouting moral superiority about how we didn't appropriate the resources in Yugoslavia, please explain to me how Yugoslavia's most valuable resources were appropriated by none other than the great friend of the neo<-s>conservatives-liberals, Carlyle buddy and investor, George Soros?

====

(snip)

“Soros has made money in every country he has helped to prise ‘open’. In Kosovo, for example, he has invested $50 million in an attempt to gain control of the Trepca mine complex, where there are vast reserves of gold, silver, lead and other minerals estimated to be worth in the region of $5 billion. He thus copied a pattern he has deployed to great effect over the whole of eastern Europe of advocating ‘shocking therapy’ and ‘economic reform’, then swooping in with his associate to buy valuable state assets at knock-down prices,” according to Clark.*

In Hungary, Soros is the benefactor of the Free Democrats party “which has pursued the classic Soros agenda of privatization and economic liberalization---leading to a widening gap between rich and poor,” says Clark.

“The Soros strategy for extending Pax Americana differs from the Bush model, particularly in its subtlety. But it is just as ambitious and just as deadly,” Clark concludes.

Of course, in the case of Yugoslavia, ultimately the Soros approach was not enough so the overwhelming might of the U.S. military was brought into play.*

(snip)

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/TAL307A.html
===

(snip)0
"Yes, I do have a foreign policy...my goal is to become the conscience of the world."'

This is not a case of narcissistic personality disorder; this is how George Soros exercises the authority of United States hegemony in the world today. Soros foundations and financial machinations are partly responsible for the destruction of socialism in Eastern Europe and the former USSR. He has set his sights on China. He was part of the full court press that dismantled Yugoslavia. Calling himself a philanthropist, billionaire George Soros' role is to tighten the ideological stranglehold of globalization and the New World Order while promoting his own financial gain. Soros' commercial and "philanthropic" operations are clandestine, contradictory and coactive. And as far as his economic activities are concerned, by his own admission, he is without conscience; a capitalist who functions with absolute amorality.

(snip)

George Soros has been blamed for the destruction of the Thai economy in 1997.10 One Thai activist said, "We regard George Soros as a kind of Dracula. He sucks the blood from the people." 11 The Chinese call him "the crocodile," because his economic and ideological efforts in China were so insatiate, and because his financial speculation created millions of dollars in profits as it ravished the Thai and Malaysian economies.

(snip)

It was Soros who saved George W. Bush's bacon when his management of an oil exploration company was ending in failure. Soros was the owner of Harken Energy Corporation, and it was he who bought the rapidly depreciating stocks just prior to the company's collapse. The future president cashed out at almost one million dollars. Soros said he did it to buy "political influence." Soros is also a partner in the infamous Carlyle Group. Organized in 1987, "the world's largest private equity firm" with over twelve billion dollars under management, is run by "a veritable who's who of former Republican leaders," from CIA man Frank Carlucci to CIA head George Bush, Sr. The Carlyle Group makes most of its money from weapons expenditures.

(snip)

After 1990, Soros funds targeted the Russian educational system, providing the entire nation with textbooks. In effect, Soros ensured the indoctrination of an entire generation of Russian youth with OSI propaganda. Soros foundations were accused of engineering a strategy to take control of the Russian financial system, privatization schemes, and the process of foreign investment in that country. Russians reacted angrily to Soros' legislative meddlings. Critics of Soros and other U.S. foundations said the goal of these maneuvers was to "thwart Russia as a state, which has the potential to compete with the world's only superpower." Russians began to suspect Soros and the CIA were interconnected. Business tycoon Boris Berezovsky said, "I nearly fainted when I heard a couple of years ago that George Soros was a CIA agent." Berezovsky's opinion was that Soros, and the West, were "afraid of Russian capital becoming strong."

If the economic and political establishment in the United States fear an economic rivalry from Russia, what better way to control it than to dominate Russian media, education, research centers and science? After spending $250 million for the "transformation of education of humanities and economics at the high school and university levels," Soros created the International Science Foundation for another $100 million. The Russian Federal Counterintelligence Service (FSK) accused Soros foundations in Russia of "espionage." They noted that Soros was not operating alone; he was part of a full court press that included financing from the Ford and Heritage Foundations; Harvard, Duke, and Columbia universities, and assistance from the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence services. The FSK criticized Soros' payouts to 50,000 Russian scientists, saying that Soros advanced his own interests by gaining control of thousands of Russian scientific discoveries and new technologies to collect state and commercial secrets.

(reluctant snip)

http://www.canadiandimension.mb.ca/extra/d1207hc.htm

==========

George Soros: “The billionaire trader has become eastern Europe’s uncrowned king and the prophet of “the open society”. But open to what? by Neil Clark, New Statesman, June 2, 2003
A review by Karen Talbot

(snip)

But generally the sad conclusion is that for all his liberal quoting of Popper, Soros deems a society "open" not if it respects human rights and basic freedoms, but if it is "open" for him and his associates to make money. And, indeed, Soros has made money in every country he has helped to prise "open". In Kosovo, for example, he has invested $50m in an attempt to gain control of the Trepca mine complex, where there are vast reserves of gold, silver, lead and other minerals estimated to be worth in the region of $5bn. He thus copied a pattern he has deployed to great effect over the whole of eastern Europe: of advocating "shock therapy" and "economic reform", then swooping in with his associates to buy valuable state assets at knock-down prices.

(snip)

Asked about the havoc his currency speculation caused to Far Eastern economies in the crash of 1997, Soros replied:

"As a market participant, I don't need to be concerned with the consequences of my actions."

Strange words from a man who likes to be regarded as the saviour of civil society and who rails in print against "market fundamentalism".

(snip)

http://www.mindfully.org/WTO/2003/George-Soros-Statesman2jun03.htm


===

(snip)

How does this play out where Soros is concerned? As Clark points out, “Soros is angry not at Bush’s aims---of expanding Pax Americana and making the world safe for global capitalists like himself—but with the crass and blundering way Bush is going about it. By making U.S. ambitions so clear, the Bush gang has committed the cardinal sin of giving the game away. For years, Soros and his NGOs have gone about their work extending the boundaries of the ‘free world’ so skillfully that hardly anyone noticed. Now a Texan redneck and a gang of overzealous neo-cons have blown it”

http://www.mindfully.org/WTO/2003/George-Soros-Statesman2jun03.htm

====

NATO troops seize mining complex
By Sara Flounders

August 24, 2000.

Claiming they were concerned about controlling air pollution, some 3,000 NATO soldiers stormed a lead smelting plant in Zvecan at 4:30 in the morning of Aug. 14. The plant was the only functioning industry in the vast Trepca mining complex in northern Kosovo, a few miles from the city of Mitrovica.

At 6:30 a.m., in a further attack that had nothing to do with air pollution, NATO soldiers closed down and confiscated the equipment of Zvecan's Radio S--the only station that dared to report information critical of NATO.

(snip)

The mines, with their smelting, refining and power centers, once constituted one of Yugoslavia's leading export industries and a main source of hard currency. It was the major source of jobs in the region.

(snip)

'Most valuable piece of real estate'

On July 8, 1998, New York Times reporter Chrisopher Hedges wrote, "The sprawling state-owned Trepca mining complex is the most valuable piece of real estate in the Balkans." Hedges described glittering veins of lead, cadmium, zinc, gold and silver.

The Stari Trg mine is ringed with smelting plants, 17 metal treatment sites, warehouses, freight yards, railroad lines, a power plant and the country's largest battery plant. It is the richest lead and zinc mine in Europe. There are also 17 billion tons of coal.

It was George Soros, the multi-billionaire financier, who wrote Kouchner's script.

Paris-based journalist Diana Johnstone, in a Feb. 28 report, described a policy paper by the International Crisis Group. This is a think tank set up by Soros to provide guidance in the NATO-led reshaping of the Balkans.

(snip)

Proving once again that NATO is the military arm to insure primarily U.S. corporate control, the first move after seizing the complex was to turn it over to a consortium of private mining companies. This consortium--ITT Kosovo Ltd.--is a joint venture of U.S., French and Swedish companies.

The most interesting partner in this deal to control Trepca is the U.S. company Morrison Knudsen International. On July 7 Morrison Knudsen merged with Raytheon Engineers and Constructors, a major military contractor that makes Patriot missiles and radar equipment for the Pentagon.

(snip)

Skimming the profits

With the seizure of the smelting plant in Zvenca, NATO will control the entire Trepca complex.

Proving once again that NATO is the military arm to insure primarily U.S. corporate control, the first move after seizing the complex was to turn it over to a consortium of private mining companies. This consortium--ITT Kosovo Ltd.--is a joint venture of U.S., French and Swedish companies.

The most interesting partner in this deal to control Trepca is the U.S. company Morrison Knudsen International. On July 7 Morrison Knudsen merged with Raytheon Engineers and Constructors, a major military contractor that makes Patriot missiles and radar equipment for the Pentagon.

This is an enormously lucrative deal. ITT Kosovo Ltd. will administer Trepca, appoint executives and a board of directors, develop the investment strategy and skim the greatest profits from every possible deal.

Those in the Albanian population who hold illusions that control by these corporations will mean the return of the thousands of well-paid, secure jobs with benefits that existed before the war should read the plans multi-billionaire Soros has in store.

Once NATO has control of the whole industrial complex, according to the International Crisis Group, foreign investors will develop a very modern, highly profitable facility with a small workforce.

In this outright theft of an industry that was built by the efforts of all the peoples of Yugoslavia, Soros's think tank recommends that the management and administration be made up of foreign executives "in order to prevent corruption"!


Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited

http://changingplanet.supremalex.org/minwars/kosovomines2.htm


More resources for those who care and are brave enough to brave the stench:

August 16, 2000

WHY KOSOVO? FOLLOW THE MONEY!

When the Kosovo war broke out, and the "Allies" took up the cause of that Albanian terrorist gang known as the Kosovo Liberation Army, Antiwar.com received a lot of email from baffled readers who wondered: "Why Kosovo?" Here was an impoverished and isolated country in a notoriously unstable region of the world, without any strategic or military value to the US, the conquest of which could only add to our burdens. Virtually none of my correspondents believed the official explanation – that the Milosevic regime was slaughtering tens of thousands of ethnic Albanians in the province, and was determined to "cleanse" Kosovo so that it would be ethnically Serb. Since the inhabitants of Kosovo were then more than 90 percent Albanians, this would have meant the complete depopulation of the province – a policy that made absolutely no economic or political sense. The supposedly "humanitarian" motives of the NATO-crats were a fraud from the very beginning, it was clear, and in any case their fraudulence was proved after the war when UN forensic experts went in and recovered and identified a little over 2,000 bodies (including Serbs). But this only deepened the mystery, and the question went unanswered: why Kosovo, of all places, the closest thing to a Third World country in all of Europe? Over a year after the "humanitarians" bombed Belgrade and reduced much of Yugoslavia to rubble, the answer is beginning to take shape. . . .

THE $5 BILLION DOOR PRIZE

Yesterday 900 http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,354451,00.html">British, Danish, and French troops moved in to take over the Trepca complex of mines in the northern city of Mitrovice – and were met with determined resistance by hundreds of mine workers. Hurling rocks, sticks, and stones, and wielding the tools of their trade as weapons, Serbs downed four Brits, shouting their defiance at this escalation of NATO's war on the last Serbs left in Kosovo. For the Trepca mining complex is an ancient treasure, mined by the Greeks, the Romans, the Turks, and is the richest source of lead and zinc in Europe. There is enough lignite deposits in those mines to last for the next 13 centuries. The capacity of Trepca's refineries ranks third worldwide. The now-deposed mine director reported that "in the last three years we have mined 2,538,124 tons of lead and zinc crude ore and produced 286,502 tons of lead and zinc and 139,789 tons of pure lead, zinc, cadmium, silver and gold." We don't need to ask why this action was taken: we have only to note Trepca's estimated value – over $5 billion. What else do we need to know?

(snip)

THE SOROS CONNECTION
When George Soros invested $150 million in the region – most of it backed up by fail-safe US government guarantees ((July 2000)) – he declared that this was not strictly a humanitarian effort. While known for his philanthropy, Soros said that in the case of his Balkan investments he would be guided by the concept of "tough love" and insisted that the new enterprise must be "driven purely by profit." With $100 million of the US taxpayers' money in his pocket, Soros and his gang are swooping down on the prostrate body of the Serbian nation like vultures feeding on the liver of Prometheus – the Titan of Greek mythology who stole fire from the depths of the earth and gave it to mankind. The Titans, a subterranean race, were the first miners, who taught their metal-smelting techniques to mortal men and were punished for the sin of such extravagant gift-giving, were obliterated by the gods of Olympus. Our own Olympians seem determined to visit a similar fate on the Serbs – who, for their part, seem to be guilty only of getting between George Soros and $5 billion. ((kind of like the Iraqis who got between Bush and billions of dollars worth of oil))

(snip)

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j081600.html

Totally disgusting stuff. Damn both neoconservatives AND neoliberals!!! Screw their NEO World Order!

[Adelante]

108. Leftist-Interventionist Viewpoint

I find this article interesting because it is not pro-Serb, and reading DU one would think all leftists were and are.

Kosovo/a Discussion: A Left-Interventionist View
Manuela Dobos


-snip-

For the Albanians in Kosovo/a, the carefully planned and executed expulsion of almost a million of them was the culmination of Serbian state practice that reached back to its conquest of Kosovo/a in 1913. This policy was designed to correct the demographic imbalance in favor of Serbs. It consisted in making life miserable for Albanians by killing and robbing them and destroying their livelihood so that they would leave, thereby making Serbs a majority. Tito's Yugoslavia, in which Kosovo/a was autonomous, had made this goal impossible. But it was renewed with the military dictatorship imposed by Milosevic in 1989. As Helsinki Human Rights Watch reports from 1992 attest, "cleansing" was already occurring in northern towns of Kosovo, and Albanian emigration was precisely the aim of the apartheid laws of that regime. The ethnic cleansing of March to June, 1999, threw out over half the population. (The opposition in Serbia, supposedly marginalized by the bombing but which actually had sidelined itself in 1997, has as its outstanding characteristic the inability to face any of these facts and convince the Serb public that they happened. Until the opposition does this, it is meaningless.)

-snip-

The anti-interventionists point to Washington's violation of international law by avoiding going through the UN; but they fail to take note of the violation of the UN Charter that the U.S. and Europe committed when they did not come to the aid of a member state, Bosnia, and sent in UN peacekeepers instead. And they overlook American disregard for the Genocide Convention to which the U.S. is a signatory, when those peacekeepers failed to prevent genocide, and even collaborated with Serb forces. Indeed, the arms embargo on Bosnia was illegal, particularly after three votes of the General Assembly to lift it. In fact, the UN has all along been the instrument of U.S. policy toward the successor states of Yugoslavia: it was supposed to go in and "stabilize" by treating both aggressor and victim equally. As a vehicle for American agendas, the UN has not been that different from NATO, in which there are also other nations with which the U.S. has to contend: last May, for example, Britain wanted ground troops, and Germany wanted to stop the bombing.

Obviously, U.S. intervention to stop genocide is only going to happen in special circumstances, and it will probably not turn out the way we want it to. Thus today, the refugees are back, but Milosevic remains in power; the Serb military is intact and now threatens Montenegro. And the real work is helping to strengthen a multi-ethnic, region- wide, authentic democratic opposition representing working people and civil society. We also need to construct a better UN, with a global police force. Only then can we start preventing situations that impel urgent and desperate responses. Meanwhile, we need not shrink from calling on the U.S. to take arms against killers.


http://www.wpunj.edu/~newpol/issue28/dobos28.htm

[212demop]

111. Wes Clark for one thing n/t

[JVS]

114. He's so dreamy!

:loveya:

[Jack_DeLeon]

129. The difference was that Serbia gave into our demands....

and the Iraqis did not.

We also had the support of the people in the region we choose to occupy.

If Serbia didnt cave into our demands, and if the people we were occupying didnt want us there then it would have been just like Iraq.

[eridani]

133. Their support was due to the fact that we supported their own ethnic--

--cleansing of Jews, Serbs and Gypsies. That Milosevic tried to stop that using Ariel Sharon tactics does not mean that the problem didn't exist. Most of the Kosovar Albanians aren't directly doing this of course, any more than they are dealing drugs with the Al Qaeda-linked KLA--it's just that they don't mind and would rather not see it going on.

[durutti]

130. Kosovo was also unjust.

The reasons given for it -- and the reasons many if not most DUers will give you -- are absurd. One must remember in these circumstances that we're in the domain of Clinton-as-God.

Chomsky's a good writer to start with regarding this issue.

[GreenPartyVoter]

132. Yep

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