Kosovska nereguralna vlast pripremila tortu za Klintona i time potvrdila sledeće-
KLINTON JE POJEO SAMOGA SEBE....
TO ISTO OČEKUJE SE OD SVIH KOJI SU ATAKOVALI NA SRBIJU ,NJEN NAROD I SRPSKE SVETINJE!
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NATO's Kosovo War, 11 Years Later
The Lord Byron Foundation for Balkan Studies ^ | March 23, 2010 | Ambassador James Bissett
Posted on 24. mart 2010 15:01:56 by Ravnagora
Eleven years ago NATO opened its bombing campaign against Serbia, illegally and without provocation. It started on March 24, 1999, and continued for 78 days and nights. It was the most intensive air offensive suffered by any country since the end of the Second World War.
Over a thousand people were killed and the civilian infrastructure of Serbia was destroyed, but it proved unable to degrade the Serbian military. It caused far more suffering than it prevented. For the first time since its founding the North Atlantic Alliance, led by the United States, acted in violation of its own treaty and the United Nations Charter by using violence to resolve an international dispute. This illegal act marked a historical turning point and was a fatal step in dismantling the framework of peace and security that had governed international relations since the end of the Second World War. It set precedents that will continue to plague international affairs for years. The bombing also revealed a disturbing reality that has continued to haunt us: the ease with which our democratic countries can be led into committing acts of violence and war by political leaders prepared to tell us lies.
President Clinton, Prime Minister Blair and other NATO leaders told their citizens that the bombing of Serbia was a humanitarian intervention to stop President Milosevic of Serbia from committing genocide and the ethnic cleansing of the Albanian majority in Kosovo. This of course was not true: forensic times have found some 2000 victims of the Kosovo conflict so far – Serbian and Albanian, civilian and military – who had been killed prior to NATO’s air war in March 1999. Distressing as this figure may be, it is not genocide. Nevertheless, the accusations that genocide took place in Kosovo continue to be accepted without hesitation by the western media.
The claim about ethnic cleansing was also a falsehood. While it is true that several thousand Albanians had been displaced within Kosovo by the armed conflict between the Serb security forces and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the large-scale exodus of the Albanian population occurred after the bombing started. United Nations figures show that the mass of refugees fled Kosovo after the first bombs began to fall In other words, it was the bombing that caused the flight from Kosovo. Despite the proof of this we continue to hear in the western media that the NATO bombing “stopped ethnic cleansing.”
In reality the bombing of Serbia had nothing to do with genocide or ethnic cleansing. The bombing had everything to do with demonstrating that NATO was still a viable military organization and was needed in Europe. There is ample evidence now to show that the United States and British secret services aided and abetted the KLA in its efforts to use violence to destabilize Kosovo and to create the excuse for NATO intervention.
The Kosovo crisis and the 78 day bombing campaign against Serbia was from the outset a carefully planned fraud. Because bombing people for humanitarian reasons was an obvious contradiction, it had to be portrayed as an urgently needed rescue mission to stop the “genocide” that was allegedly taking place in Kosovo. This was done by a highly organized publicity campaign designed to deceive a compliant media and a gullible public that Milosevic was evil and that the Serbs were barbarians who had to be stopped. Hailed as the man who brought the Bosnian war to a conclusion at Dayton four years earlier, he was now depicted as the “butcher of the Balkans” and conveniently charged by The Hague War Crimes Tribunal as a war criminal. The duplicity and the deception which reached their height during the bombing itself has continued to this day.
The subsequent policies followed by the United States and its NATO allies have not only continued to be based on falsehood and hypocrisy, but also continue to pose a threat to world peace and security.
The heart of the problem has been what appears to be a determination of the United States policy makers, whether Democrat or Republican, to look upon the Western Balkans as their special fiefdom where international rules of conduct do not apply. It is as if they regard these Slavic lands as lesser breeds without the law, and therefore can do with them whatever they deem desirable. This hubris has lead the United States and the obedient but morally bankrupt leaders of Germany, France and Great Britain to follow wrong-headed policies such as the bombing of Serbia and the recognition of Kosovo independence – and to do so without scruples.
Perhaps it is too much to hope for that the critical financial problems faced by the United States and many European countries will curtail their meddling in the affairs of smaller nations and give them pause to reflect that the rule of law applies to all and that international disputes must be resolved without the use of force. This is the hope – however tenuous - expressed by our Foundation's members, friends and associates on the eleventh anniversary of the bombing of Serbia.
*****
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TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bombing; christiangenocide; clintonlegacy; clintonlied; killingformuslims; kosovo; nato; peopledied; serbia; troopshome4xmas; wrongplace; wrongside; wrongwar
1 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:01:57 by Ravnagora
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To: Ravnagora
“It’s just not cool to protest Clinton’s wars” - Janeane Garofalo
2 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:02:58 by dfwgator
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To: Ravnagora
Clinton targeted civilians. He is a War Criminal.
3 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:03:14 by massgopguy (I owe everything to George Bailey)
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To: joan; Smartass; zagor-te-nej; Lion in Winter; Honorary Serb; jb6; Incorrigible; DTA; vooch; ...
4 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:03:34 by Ravnagora
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To: massgopguy
clinton lied and many died.
a war where clinton ordered the bombing of civilians I expect the anti war crowd and the media to be going mad at this and demand him to be put on trial
oh wait silly me he’s a D, he can kill people, lie, cheat, steal according to the media
5 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:04:55 by manc (WILL OBAMA EVER GO TO CHURCH ON A SUNDAY OR WILL HE LET THE MEDIA/THE LEFT BE FOOLED FOR EVER)
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To: Ravnagora
Clintoon helped the islamization of Europe!
Typical libtard
Carter helped the islamization of Iran....
And we are still facing the consequences
6 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:11:10 by Ulysse (a)
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To: Ulysse
Serbia got on the wrong side of a Clinton BJ!
7 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:13:03 by Mr. Right Now
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To: Ulysse
Serbia got on the wrong side of a Clinton BJ!
8 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:13:20 by Mr. Right Now
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To: Ravnagora
The first day in my adult life that I was ashamed to be an American....I’ll never forget what the Klintons and Albright and Company did to this country and my family living there
9 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:14:00 by MadelineZapeezda (Promoted by God to be a mother!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...................Thanks, Susan!)
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To: Ravnagora
Sorry to say this to you but justified or not (i still think it was but anyway...) it´s time that the serbs start
to accept that Kosovo is lost because this is the reality and it will not change, no matter if you don´t like it, think that it was not justified or whatever....
10 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:15:56 by darkside321
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To: darkside321
Justified how?
11 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:20:24 by montyspython ("I don't believe in 'no win' scenarios." - James T. Kirk)
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To: Ravnagora
btt
12 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:20:26 by OldCorps
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To: darkside321
Serbs have already “accepted” way too much over the years.
Would you be telling the Israelis to “accept” that “Jerusalem” was “lost” if Jerusalem were to suffer the same fate as Kosovo?
It’s not that far-fetched of a scenario, considering what has been happening in the Middle East, in the Balkans, and in Europe these last few years.
*****
13 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:21:48 by Ravnagora
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To: darkside321
By your logic, we conservatives should simply give up the fight against the health care scam and accept it and move on.
14 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:27:16 by montyspython ("I don't believe in 'no win' scenarios." - James T. Kirk)
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To: Ravnagora
Serbs have already “accepted” way too much over the years.
Would you be telling the Israelis to “accept” that “Jerusalem” was “lost” if Jerusalem were to suffer the same fate as Kosovo?
It’s not that far-fetched of a scenario, considering what has been happening in the Middle East, in the Balkans, and in Europe these last few years.
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Sorry but what will it help if you don´t accept it? Do you
really believe they will give it back to you some day because you don´t accept/like it? I hope not because this would be a pipe dream. So all it will “help” is that it will close some doors in Europe (or at least prevent opening doors because Serbia has not the best reputation in Europe anyway). OF course if this is what “you” whant and think it´s the best for Serbia, then ok i´m fine with this because its your country. There is a difference (most of Europe does not care about Jerusalem but “they” do care whats happening in their “backyard”) I do admit that nobody would have lifted only a finger if this war would have been fought in Africa but fact is it was fought in Europe so like it our not this are the consequences for the Serbs because of this war. Fair? Don´t know but fact is believe me nobody outside of Serbia (at least in most of Europe) even cares
to think about it if it has been fair or not.
This is the reality and this will not go away.
15 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:37:32 by darkside321
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To: Ravnagora
You might notice the date the bombing started, March 24, 1999.
Just curious, do you know what happened on March 20, 1999 and why Hillary selected that week to begin the bombing?
16 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:39:53 by IMR 4350
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To: Ravnagora
btt
17 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:40:48 by Cacique (quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat ( Islamia Delenda Est ))
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To: darkside321
it´s time that the serbs start to accept that Kosovo is lost because this is the reality and it will not change, no matter if you don´t like it, think that it was not justified or whatever..
It is sad. That land which was fought for by an independent minded Christian country to drive out the Ottoman Turks around 1912 was given to the Muslims by a crappy American president and NATO in violation of the NATO charter.
18 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:41:04 by GWConservative (It's ten forty a.m. in DC. Do you know where your Congress-critter is?)
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To: darkside321
You’ve basically missed several points:
(1) The intent of the article is to highlight that the DEMOCRATIC president lied and the media swallowed his lies hook,line & sinker without raising any questions.
(2) what the DEMOCRATIC president did was ILLEGAL, again without any consequences to him.
(3) those lies and illegal actions are now accepted as “truth” and have set hideous precendent which reverberates in today’s world.
(4) his actions set up the Islamization of the Balkans, which, as a result, is now a major training ground for terrorist training & planning against Europe.
(5) The purpose of the article is to remind us of these truths and to encourage us to standfast to prevent it happening again anywhere else under this current pseudo-Messianic DEMOCRATIC president.
19 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:43:49 by JoyjoyfromNJ (Psalm 121)
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To: montyspython
By your logic, we conservatives should simply give up the fight against the health care scam and accept it and move on.
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No because this are 2 totally different matter of facts.
You can fight against this health care scam because it´s
a domestic thing, There for maybe a court, the next election... can really change something.
But the Serbs have no say about this.
It was taken by force from “foreigners” and believe
me they don´t give a rats a$$ if the serbs like it or not.
This is why i said it makes no sence to still “battle” it.
Because simple there is NO chance that you can win as long as nobody is interessted what you might have to say or if you like it. Just for example would the US hand over some territory back to mexico if the mexicans would write a petition to the US demanding it? I guess not.
20 posted on 24. mart 2010 15:50:11 by darkside321
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To: Ravnagora
Socialism at home and imperial overreach abroad will soon see to it that the US is unable to stick it's nose into the affairs of other nations, like yours.
When the day comes, you guys get Kosovo back, if you want it. My advice? Ethnically-cleanse it of albanian scum for real this time. Don't have to kill them, just send them back to their own country, where they belong.
Many of us Americans were vocal opponents of the criminal US assault on Serbia, and are deeply ashamed of the crimes WE committed against the Serbian people.
21 posted on 24. mart 2010 16:00:19 by LIBERTARIAN JOE (Don't blame me - I voted for Ron Paul!)
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To: massgopguy; dfwgator
One of the best-kept secrets of the Clinton administration’s debacle in the Balkans is that most of the so-called “neo-conservatives” who later polluted the Bush administration were strong supporters of it.
22 posted on 24. mart 2010 16:07:07 by Alberta's Child ("Let the Eastern bastards freeze in the dark.")
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To: Ravnagora
So both sides killed 2000. And then we came in and killed another 1000.
23 posted on 24. mart 2010 16:11:10 by DannyTN
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To: Alberta's Child
“One of the best-kept secrets of the Clinton administration’s debacle in the Balkans is that most of the so-called “neo-conservatives” who later polluted the Bush administration were strong supporters of it.”
You’re right. McCain wanted to put troops on the ground in Kososvo.
24 posted on 24. mart 2010 16:14:26 by AuntB (WE are NOT a nation of immigrants! We're a nation of Americans! http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/)
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To: AuntB
You’re right. McCain wanted to put troops on the ground in Kososvo.
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As far as i know the US still has some troops in Kosovo.
25 posted on 24. mart 2010 16:23:12 by darkside321
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To: darkside321
Yes, there are troops in Kosovo.
McCain wanted a fighting force instead of air bombing.
But then he was getting big bucks from Albanian terrorists.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1970022/posts
26 posted on 24. mart 2010 16:28:35 by AuntB (WE are NOT a nation of immigrants! We're a nation of Americans! http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/)
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To: darkside321
"it´s time that the serbs start to accept that Kosovo is lost because this is the reality and it will not change, no matter if you don´t like it, think that it was not justified or whatever...."
It took the Serbs 400 years to get it back from invading Muslims last time. I'm guessing that it will take a little less than that this time -- but the time will come, make no mistake.
Kosovo was not ours to take or ours to give away.
27 posted on 25. mart 2010 19:53:17 by Bokababe (Save Christian Kosovo! http://www.savekosovo.org)
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December 02nd 2009 05:49:36 PM
“Anti-American” Serbia Still not Giving up on America. Let’s Hope it’s not in Vain
Posted by Julia Gorin
Someone at the Cleveland Plain Dealer is paying attention:
Serbia’s best efforts to please the West go largely unacknowledged (Elizabeth Sullivan, Sep. 27)
The perplexity of Serbia’s leaders is understandable.
More than eight years after they hustled Slobodan Milosevic off to the Hague to face war crimes charges and the end of his life in a jail cell — a middle-of-the-night act with questionable legal authority that met with much applause from the West — Serbia’s “democratic reformers” remain smeared with the tar of Washington’s former policy delusions.
They get no respect, even after holding democratic elections, remaking their economy on a Western model with more vehemence than most of the rest of the Balkans combined and slavishly doing almost all that the West has asked of them.
That disconnect in turn imperils the democratic experiment and makes regional stability all the harder to achieve, Serbia’s president said in an interview last week.
“If I’m going to put something on the table — on Serbia’s political table — without a consensus, that is not going to be our contribution to consensus, that is going to be our contribution to the instability of the future,” President Boris Tadic said in Cleveland last week before traveling to New York for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. “That’s why we need a very careful and very patient policy from the United States.”
What he’s getting instead is a U.S. cold shoulder on Serbs’ biggest issue - the unilateral partition of Serbia last year, spearheaded by the United States, to grant unilateral independence to Kosovo.
Possibly even more troubling, many of the same U.S. policy-makers who mangled policy in the Balkans when Bill Clinton was president now are busily applying to Afghanistan and Pakistan some of the same “tenets” of armed nation-building and nanny statedom as dictated from Foggy Bottom.
And while the challenges and security implications of the Balkans in the 1990s and Central Asia in the 2000s are more dissimilar than alike, it’s troubling to realize how much of Washington still prefers delusion to reality — especially when it can be spun into black-and-white, good-versus-bad terms.
…Serbia’s aggrieved leadership team deserves attention — if only to parse out exactly how deluded policy becomes bad decision-making over time.
Objectively, Serbia has done most everything “right” since 2000, when voters in the most populous and geographically largest of the ex-Yugoslav republics ousted Milosevic. It’s held a string of successful democratic elections largely untainted by fraud; made peace with its neighbors; apologized for Serb atrocities in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo; and prosecuted perpetrators (albeit with mixed results). It’s busy building a shiny, new superhighway into the heart of the rest of Europe — a physical statement about how the majority of Serbs see their future.
Unlike the old Serbia, which stoked the fires of war among fellow Serbs [it did not] as the former Yugoslavia began to dissolve, this Serbia hasn’t gone to war over Kosovo, but continues to advocate dialogue and diplomacy.
“Serbian democracy has reacted to the Kosovo declaration of independence in a way that nobody had ever reacted to anything of that sort in the history of the Balkans,” said Vuk Jeremic, the Serbian foreign minister.
“This is the first time in the history of the Balkans that a thing like this happens and nobody goes to war with anybody,” Jeremic added.
But because Serbia has been unable to capture two of the 46 people wanted by a U.N. tribunal in the Hague for war-crimes prosecutions — the rest were handed over or turned themselves in — the idea that it’s stonewalling continues.
“The United States administration knows very well what we are doing in order to capture Ratko Mladic, because we have cooperation in that,” said Serbian President Tadic. He said the lack of public acknowledgement of that cooperation continues to drive a misperception that Serbia is not doing its best to snare the Bosnian Serbs’ wartime general, accused in the Bosnian war’s worst atrocity [sic], at Srebrenica, where more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys may have been slaughtered. [Not.]
“Why would we avoid arresting Ratko Mladic when we already arrested Milosevic and [Bosnian Serb wartime political leader Radovan] Karadzic?” Tadic asked.
“When you underestimate the nuances and the convoluted history of a complicated place like Bosnia, you pay a certain price,” Jeremic said. […]
A few days earlier, President Tadic gave a very respectable speech at Columbia University, while in New York to address the General Assembly. He exemplifed the measured approach that Ms. Sullivan, above, attributed to him:
Serbian President At UN Balances Outreach To West, Anger On Kosovo (Sep. 25)
…[Tadic expressed] a desire to reengage with the West after so often being isolated by it over conflicts in the former Yugoslavia.
Speaking on September 23 at the World Leaders Forum 2009 hosted by Columbia University, Tadic said U.S. companies, and their investments, play an important role in Serbia’s economic life.
And he said those economic ties could provide a basis for renewed political cooperation with Washington.
“This could set the stage for the formulation of a new American policy towards Serbia and the rest of the western Balkans, one that will hopefully take into account more than at present the interests of Serbia as the central strategic factor of stability in our region,” Tadic told the forum.
But Tadic also stood firm on Kosovo.
“Let me make it clear that Serbia will never, under any circumstances, implicitly or explicitly recognize Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence,” he said.
Repeatedly asked by students whether a partition of Kosovo would be an acceptable solution to Belgrade, Tadic restated his “no” again and again.
“But I am suggesting no partition,” he said. “No partition anymore. We are suffering very much because of attempt of partition, attempt of secession. This is not sustainable solution in the Balkans region [or] everywhere else.”
Tadic’s effort to strike a new balance with the West needs a name to help explain it, and Tadic gave it one. He told the Columbia University forum his approach is cooperation with “divergence” of views.
The question now is whether that approach is enough to bridge the many deep differences between Serbia and the West over Kosovo.
Tadic has told Serbian media he will use his UN address to stress Serbia’s “fundamental political principles and its defense of national interests” regarding Kosovo.
He also said this year’s assembly session is of great importance to help prevent further countries from recognizing Kosovo.
A day earlier, Tadic spoke in Cleveland in similar tones, and one can see that Serbia is not yet ready to give up on the U.S., but at the same time it will not give up its identity in the process:
Serbia not to give up defense of sovereignty
‘Serbia shall continue to lead the policy of peace, understanding and integration with the EU, but shall not give up its legitimate national interests in defending its sovereignty, territorial integrity and identity’, Serbia President Boris Tadic said in Cleveland.
Blic Online | Author: E. B. | 22.09.2009 - 08:34
At [a] reception organized for representatives of [the] Serbian Diaspora attended also by Senator George Voinovich and Ohio National Guard Commander Gregory White, Tadic pointed out that ‘Serbia shall not lead a policy that would expose people to risks’ but ‘a policy that defends national and state interests in a rational and dignified manner’.
‘We want to join the EU with our identity and culture. I see no alternative to such policy’, Tadic added and asked the Diaspora in Ohio to deliver that message to all Serbs living in the US.
‘We are leading a policy of peace and we are defending Kosovo with diplomatic and political means. Today Serbia is a democratic country wanting to become the EU member. Serbia wants to be a strong partner of the USA. We have to solve some problems, but I am positive that we shall be real allies in the end’, Tadic pointed out. […]
My point about Serbs being asked to give up their identity — something I’ve called de-Serbifying in the past — is illustrated by an analogy that Jim Jatras put forward in terms of what we and the EU are asking of Serbia. We’re telling them, “You can join the club. You just have to cut off your right arm and cut out your heart first.”
Another way that the de-Serbification plan works is thus, according to blogger William Markiewicz:
Serbian society today is divided; they follow Europe because they see how well it served their enemies but they don’t understand that now it doesn’t matter any more. They are dispensable. They are brainwashed by the demagogues and don’t understand that once they become part of the European community they will remain pariahs with a poison that penetrates deep into the soul. They already believe too much in Serbian guilt. In the future they may deny their Serbian origins and even stop being Serbs. This is what I meant when I wrote, ”Sixty years later the Second World War brought destruction of Serbia.”
Indeed, a friend who was about to publish a Serb’s Kosovo diary has been asked by his family to hold off. Because his brother has now joined a “pro-Western,” anti-Serb political party. And this is nothing new; all of George Soros’s anti-Serb NGOs, foundations and news organizations in the Balkans are staffed with Serbs who sold out their nationhood.
As I quoted Nebojsa Malic before about Serbia’s “European future”:
No way those Islam-appeasing, welfarite [European] cowards would ever want ornery cusses like the Serbs anywhere near them. Serbia’s territory, yes — but its people? Hell no.” Malic explains that the plan is to figuratively “kill off” the Serbs, that is to “make them stop being Serbs, and become ‘Europeans’ or some such nonsense,” all the while killing off as many as collaterally possible. “Without Kosovo, the whole Serbian history stops making sense. And if one accepts the 1990s lie about the Serbs as genocidal aggressors, then the youth can be indoctrinated in being perpetually ashamed. Give it a decade or two, and the Serbs that remain won’t be any more Serb than their kin who adopted Catholicism or Islam in centuries past.”
As I’ve said before, moving closer to Russia is not where Serbia saw itself being in 2009; it’s not what it ever wanted — it’s what we forced it to do. This is apparent even to those whose mission isn’t to ask why, but to do or die. Herewith, a July 2007 letter that I was forwarded by American Thinker, from a National Guard soldier whom I’ll call “T” (this is a different soldier from the one whose letters I was publishing that year):
I am a Kosovo Veteran and I tried in vain to convey the debacle of Kosovo. But if there is any question in her [Julia’s] mind as to why Kosovo happened, I have boiled it down to this;
A general officer without a war is like a astronaut without a mission patch.
A general who is part of the “cult of Clinton” will get the war he wants.
A war waged under the “cult of Clinton” is always right no matter the cost or failure; witness Somalia, witness the Balkans, witness Tomahawks smashing sand.
It is just politics and in the end, the general got his war and the world became a much more dangerous place.
After I wrote a note to T thanking him, he wrote:
I remember the first time I started having a cognitive disconnect with the party line and reality; I was driving through the province between Urosevac (Farazai) and Pristina and I noticed lots and lots of new mosques. Having just redeployed from Iraq, I was pretty sensitive to the appearance of mosques and I started asking questions and began to hear the other side of the story.
I saw much anger on the part of the Serbian interpreters in Gilane [Gnjilane/Gilan] and their questions for me like, “Don’t you see where this is headed?”, then the realization that the French were actively and aggressively protecting Serbs in Mitrovica. The list goes on and on and on, but what really got to me was the notion that under UN control Kosovo has turned into the largest trans shipment point for drugs, people, guns, gas, wood, cigarettes in Europe. 70% of the province is unemployed but everyone drives a nice car and [can] afford gas??? The Serbs are always bad and the Albanians always good, even when they are trying to kill a couple of little old ladies in Urosevac who then had to seek asylum in the Greek camp for years. The pinnacle of this was the fact that the US KFOR Commander was always afforded an Albanian Cultural Advisor but I never saw a Serbian Cultural advisor.
I started getting very concerned when I actually read UN 1244 and the UN charter and started to realize that there were serious legal implications and perhaps breaches of law if independence were pursued. At that point I began to feel that I was likely party to an illegal action; fortunately final status was not determined before I redeployed. If I were called to return under the same circumstances I might feel very inclined to obtain a US Federal Attorney for review of the lawfulness of the deployment order.
It was far too easy to vilify Milosevic and throw the Serbian baby out with the bath water. If we are to believe the Serbian Orthodox Church then some 150 churches have been destroyed and 300 Mosques built in the time since the war. When I was there it was estimated that to fix the canal system for their agriculture would have cost $40 million USD, we didn’t do that, but we spent $12 million USD on the gravel at Camp Bondsteel alone.
Oh I could go on and on and on. Suffice it to say that I spent every month that I was in Kosovo wishing that I was back in Iraq. Iraq made far more sense to me.
Kosovo left a very poor taste in my mouth as a soldier and an American Taxpayer.
After I emailed the soldier this week, he wrote back that he would like to make it clear that his opinions are his own and that he does not speak for the US Army. He added:
The fact of the matter is that we are living in treacherous times and I would never want to bring shame to my service, my fellow warriors or my nation.
…
I am not a Serbophile but I do see their point of view and the bottom line is that we had an opportunity to open very clear channels into eastern Europe by backing the Serbs in a better fashion. As it is we turned our backs on a nation that wanted to enter NATO’s sphere and sent them packing right back into the arms of the Russians.
Once again, let’s recall that Yugoslavia was known by us to be the most “pro-Western” country in all the Communist bloc, perhaps second to only Poland. But we easily forgot that, just as we forgot its usefulness to us as a buffer against Soviet Russia. Yet another hole in the “traditional allies” oversimplification about Serbo-Russian relations.
I’ll close by quoting a relevant letter intended for the Seattle Times by author Chris Deliso, which he penned in response to some typical hack job the paper printed days after the independence declaration, titled “Europe Must Confront a Thug“:
…Finally, it [has] frequently been stated that the Albanians are the ‘pro-Americans’ of the Balkans. That, however, has never been put to the test. In actual fact, the Albanians love America to the extent to which America will gang up on their own local enemies. [Were] America to suddenly change its policy and oppose Kosovo independence, would the Albanian love affair continue? Would they still wave the [S]tars and [S]tripes and name their streets after American presidents? I think not.
On the other hand, the Serbs, who have suffered since the early 1990s a succession of US-enforced aggressions — crippling economic sanctions, a NATO bombing of mostly civilian targets, and now, the forced seizure of their historic Kosovo province — still remain open to investment, engagement and cooperation. Can one possibly imagine a similar situation, had the shoe been on the other foot and the Albanians been the ones to suffer NATO’s wrath? Highly unlikely.
However, what you have succeeded in doing in this poisonous and ignorant piece is to make sure that unknowing Americans continue to fear and demonize the Serbs. It will be a real pity if such uninformed comment prevents otherwise well-meaning Americans from knowing who their friends in the Balkans, both historically and in the long term, truly are. If you do not believe me, I invite you to visit Serbia and see for yourself. Provided you go with an open mind, you may well be in for a pleasant surprise. In any case, you owe it to your readers to not demonize an entire nation before you have done so.
Sincerely,
Christopher Deliso, Director
www.balkanalysis.com
Skopje, Macedonia
As Chris emailed me further to the point:
I don’t know if you caught a detail that seemed highly revealing to me. A Spanish news crew in Kosovo was turned away by an Albanian because the latter said something like ‘Albanians only talked to people from countries that had recognized them.’ If we apply this to the case of America, and what if American policy was somehow different, we cannot believe that they are truly pro-American deep down, now can we?
The Albanians are not ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ any third party based on that third party’s merits, they are pro or anti based on what that group does for them… So they love America to the extent to which America bombs their enemies (the Serbs). American policy is actually driven by fear (esp. for the guys on the ground), precisely, that they had better keep them happy… we could just as easily end up like those poor Spaniards nobody wanted to talk to because of a decision their government made.
This is the baffling thing: Serbs, like most people, can judge between an individual and a government policy… they might not like US policy, but if I as an American don’t do anything to piss them off, they won’t hate me just for being American. The media presents it as exactly the opposite, of course, because they are suckered by visible external displays of flags and so on.
“Kosovars will love either candidate as long as they continue to love us.” — Shpend Ahmeti, economist with Institute for Advanced Studies, Pristina, on the 2008 U.S. election
Indeed, let’s be honest. Wouldn’t this kind of worship suggest something a little more than “pro-Americanism”?
Clinton wall
Clinton street
Clinton statue
Clinton cake
Clinton eating himself up
Clinton in the palm of Albanian hands
Future battered Albanian wives grateful to the man who’s keepin’ it primitive
Clinton in a burqa
So let’s be honest. Is this really pro-Americanism for Americanism’s sake? Especially given that until Barack Obama, Bill Clinton had been the most anti-American president in history, rivaled only by Jimmy Carter.
Then again, America in the Balkans exhibits decidedly un-American behavior.
Stay tuned for the next chapter: Albanian Town Plans Statue of Bush
TIRANA (Reuters) - The small Albanian town of Fushe-Kruje plans to erect a statue of former U.S. President George W. Bush to commemorate his June 2007 visit, when he was feted as a hero in an outpouring of love for America.
Mayor Ismet Mavriqi said seven Albanian sculptors had entered the competition for the statue he plans to unveil in Bush Square in the town center on June 10 LINK, 2010, the third anniversary of Bush’s visit.
“If [I] had the final say, I would very much like a three-meter statue, probably in bronze, that captures his trademark way of walking with energy,” Mavriqi told Reuters on the phone.
The municipality has already finished the blueprints for rebuilding the square where the statue will stand, he added.
A cafe in Fushe-Kruje and a street in the capital Tirana are already named after Bush.
When Bush visited Fushe-Kruje, he dived into a throng of waiting Albanians and enjoyed a rock-star reception — a stark contrast with the noisy protests that dogged him elsewhere on that European trip.
The bakery and the cafe where Bush stopped to talk with the owners and a barber, a shepherd and a tailor whose businesses were funded by U.S. micro-loans, have become landmarks visited by Albanians, ethnic Albanians from Kosovo and foreigners.
Albanians have a special affection for the United States, which they credit not only with ending their Cold War isolation but also with leading NATO in 1999 to rescue the Kosovo Albanians from ethnic cleansing [sic] by Serbia.
Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia last year, set up a giant statue of former U.S. president Bill Clinton to thank him for his role in NATO’s 1999 air war.
Bush, on the first U.S. presidential visit to post-communist Albania, backed independence for Kosovo and urged Kosovo Albanians to be patient. The United States was one of the first countries to recognize Kosovo’s independence.
FLASHBACK: May 7, 2007:
Text of report by Serbian independent news agency FoNet (via BBC Monitoring)
Strasbourg, 11 May: Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Draskovic today said that threats by the United States of America to unilaterally recognize Kosovo independence in case of Russian veto at the United Nations Security Council were part of “pressure play” and nothing more than that.
Draskovic told a news conference at the Council of Europe that the USA was the greatest democratic country in the world which could not undermine international order and the UN Charter.
“I cannot even imagine that the USA would undermine the foundations of the Statue of Liberty in New York,” Draskovic noted.
He stated that the whole US tradition was against “the law of the jungle”. […]
So much for that.
*Update*
Part of a letter from reader Dragan:
Serbia was never really American enemy. On the contrary. Under communist regime of Tito, Serbs were always eager to adopt the example of American democracy, which once really existed. Even today after the 78 days of NATO bombing there is a great deal of Serbs who prefer USA to Russia. Yes, Serbia is making huge efforts to please the West, showing that way that it is closer to it then to China or East, and yet America prefers those whose leader shook hand with Adolph Hitler, and those who fought Yanks during two World wars.
Archived Entry
• Post Date :
• Wednesday, Dec 2nd, 2009 at 5:49 pm
