Seems we've forgotten about a war or 2

[One Eyed Cat]

Official calls ethnic Albanian neighboring states occupiers

Wednesday, August 29, 2007
SERBIANNA

An influential ethnic Albanian Secretary from the Organization of the Veterans of the Army for the Liberation of Kosovo, Faton Klinaku, has accused Balkan states - Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia and Greece - of being occupying nations and has threatened war on them to take away their land in case Kosovo is separated.

"The Macedonians, Montenegrins and the Serbs from Eastern Kosovo [Southern Serbia] are occupiers and the Albanian people live in the conditions of a classic occupation in their lands. This is also valid for the Albanians in Greece, since Greece refuses to recognize their rights," Klinaku told the Bulgarian news agency Focus.
Veterans of the Army for the Liberation of Kosovo posing with severed Serbian heads when they were fighters.

"We fought for the freedom of the Albanian people. Every other decision different from that would lead to violence for which both the politicians and the international community would be guilty," said Klinaku.

"Where there are more Albanians – there will be Albania. This will happen if they start a separation of Kosovo. At the end of it all, such development is in our benefit, since all Albanians will unite in a single country," Klinaku said.

According to the ethnic Albanian provisional Prime Minister of Kosovo, Agim Ceku, the ethnic Albanians will declare Kosovo independent and seek recognition from its Western backers immediately after the December 10 of this year, the date when the negotiations on the status will end.

Ceku also said that Kosovo will remain stable as long as Western powers recognize that declaration immediately. Ceku did not specify the level of violence ethnic Albanians plan on causing in order to destabilize the region in case they do not get a recognition.

Agim Ceku is a former Croatian commanding officer who took part in a massive ethnic cleansing campaign of Serbian population of Croatia. Kosovo is a UN administered province of Serbia whose ethnic Albanian population has expelled over two thirds of its Christian population in an attempt to make the province a religiously pure extremist Muslim state.

-- We destroyed the infrastructure of a nation for these fine folks. I have no doubt a lot more "fun" will be heard out of these mouths for years to come. - JT

[helcyon]

Seems we've forgotten about a war or 2

yeah you're probably right. it's just such a fucking mess since ever... and I mean since the very proud but bowed serbs had to give their fealty to the sultan Krelkjo Markovich not withstanding (sorry if my spelling wrong but no time to check... just take my assurance that I have done some reading of serb folklore).

Look... those with relevant ethnicity are notoriously touchy about comment on these topics and you will never please everyone but I've started now so if you don't like it (and plenty won't no doubt) just keep in mind that I realise that the world is aware of the horrid cycle of injustice (made even more crazy by U.S. missiles in Belgrade) but I'm well sick of one-sided whining and I have friends on many sides of the "fence" Croat, Serb, Muslim, Athiest, Orthodox, wotever. And if you like you can have a blood-thirsty vocifreous tirade at me and perpetuate the slavic reputation for being a bit mad actually... don't blame me for this... I did not create this world-wide perception. Take it up with my mad blood-thirsty maori ancestors! In the meantime I'll say a couple of words at the risk of missing some points but making others.

It's hard to imagine the serbs being pleased about giving up Kosovo seeing as it's so deeply embedded in their national pride... the field of crows... etc. Sometimes I wonder if maybe there's a way that we can move out of being shackled to the past and into the freedom of the future... doesn't look like it at the moment.

We had a bunch of ethnic Albanian refugees come out to Australia for a while and initially they were quite welcome... until some among them managed to give all of them (unfortunately) the reputation of being ungrateful, untrustworthy, opportunistic, offensive arseholes which probably wasn't fair but that's what happened. In the end everyone was glad to see the back of them and try to forget about the whole embarrassing affair. That was an eye-opener.

One of my friends is a refugee from Sarajevo seeing as someone took over his apartment in an unauthorised epilogue to the winter olymics and he can't go back there. He is actually half serb half croat but wound up fighting in the serb army. One day the croat army surrounded his barracks and the croat commander sent a message in offering the choice of giving up without a fight or fight to the death. The serb commander turned the decision over to his men who unsurprisingly decided that giving up without a fight was probably preferable to being blown and hacked to bits, They then became POW's but were allowed just to remain in their barracks with nothing much changeing. In fact my friend said it was better being a POW as they no longer had to get up at the crack of dawn to do star-jumps and could sleep in instead! Another weird tale of war. Mad.

[Donald Rilea]

Your Bosnian friend's tale is interesting, and I can see where it'd be funny, in an extremely black-humoured way.

As for the Kosovar Albanians, Serbs, and the whole Balkan Wars shooting match, well, have already replied to Jackie's post in two private e-mails to her(they were simply waayy too long and verbose to be posted here), but will say here that I think that Milosevic and the Serbian Government bear the primary responsibility for starting the mess.

However, the Croats, Bosnian Muslims and Kosovar Albanians have their own respective, if only slightly lesser, shares of blame for their policies and acitons during that time.

As for the US, EU, and Russia, well, they all had their own sordid roles to play in this shit-fest, and they did, and that's on them.

Diplomatic and economic pressure on Yugoslavia, and on Milosevic, the Yugoslav League Of Communists(later the Socialist Party of Serbia), and the Croatian and Slovene secessionists in 1988-91, might have delayed, if not stopped, Yugoslavia's disintegration, and given the various parties some breathing room in which they could have possibly brokered a more economically and politically equitable arrangement than existed in Yugoslavia at the time.

But, very few Yugoslav politicians, whether Serb, Croat, Slovene, Montenegrin, Bosnian Muslim, Macedonian, or Kosovo Albanian were all that interested in pursuing such a path as they'd their own agendas to pursue, the European Union was content to follow Germany's, Italy's and Austria's lead in recognising Slovene and Croatian independence in 1990, and the first Bush Administration didn't want to get involved.

Either way, Yugoslavia was destroyed by a combination of greedy-minded beastly little squits(to use a bit of early 20th Century British lingo here)on the local level, and by incompetence, complacency, and sheer indifference on the international level.

As for those who might say that diplomacy and economic pressures are "wimpy" measures to take, I would say, not if done at the appropriate time, and in such a way as to effectively make clear to the various parties that, in the words of Sir Winston Churchill(no stranger to war-making or -mongering, he), "It is better to jaw-jaw than to war-war".

If such measures had been taken by the international community, perhaps Yugoslavia might still be intact to-day, or, if it broke up anyway, it would at least been far less bloodier than it turned out to be.

Enough from me. Next!!!

[helcyon]

private e-mails to her

erm... i might be very confused but you might like to confirm Jackie T's gender and adjust the nature of your "private" e-mails accordingly hehe

easy mistake to make... not very bright lighting in cyberspace... they're all the same in the dark anyway.

i await positive confirmation... JT? what was the status last time you looked

[One Eyed Cat]

Male. I am no fan of Milosevic. I do not, however, believe intervention was completely inappropriate under the War Powers Act of the United States and international law. Further, U.N. Resolution 1244 (the one that ended the "police action") clearly states that Kosovo is to remain a part of Serbia.

I operate from these premises. I could go into subjective viewpoints as to "guilt", but I think the precedent being set will have devastating consequences. For once, I agree with Russia (albeit they will use it to fire up separatist movement should the U.S. recognize Kosovo as a "nation")

FTR: I took International Law from Lead Counsel in Campbell v. Clinton (challenging the legality of the war).

JT

[One Eyed Cat]

Male. I am no fan of Milosevic. I do not, however, believe intervention was completely inappropriate under the War Powers Act of the United States and international law. Further, U.N. Resolution 1244 (the one that ended the "police action") clearly states that Kosovo is to remain a part of Serbia.

I operate from these premises. I could go into subjective viewpoints as to "guilt", but I think the precedent being set will have devastating consequences. For once, I agree with Russia (albeit they will use it to fire up separatist movement should the U.S. recognize Kosovo as a "nation")

FTR: I took International Law from Lead Counsel in Campbell v. Clinton (challenging the legality of the war).

JT

Should Read: I believe intervention was *inappropriate* for the aforementioned reasons. I do, however, support the prosecution of all who committed atrocities during these wars (regardless of ethnicity, nationality)

[Donald Rilea]

Male. I am no fan of Milosevic. I do not, however, believe intervention was completely inappropriate under the War Powers Act of the United States and international law. Further, U.N. Resolution 1244 (the one that ended the "police action") clearly states that Kosovo is to remain a part of Serbia.

I operate from these premises. I could go into subjective viewpoints as to "guilt", but I think the precedent being set will have devastating consequences. For once, I agree with Russia (albeit they will use it to fire up separatist movement should the U.S. recognize Kosovo as a "nation")

FTR: I took International Law from Lead Counsel in Campbell v. Clinton (challenging the legality of the war).

JT

My apologies, Sir.

[One Eyed Cat]

My apologies, Sir.

haha It doesn't bother me. I met up with someone in MPLS who thought I was going to be a 6 Foot Tall Chick with blue bangs (no idea how) We ended up not recognizing each other for half an hour.

JT

[Donald Rilea]

haha It doesn't bother me. I met up with someone in MPLS who thought I was going to be a 6 Foot Tall Chick with blue bangs (no idea how) We ended up not recognizing each other for half an hour.

JT

As I said to Obscure Zan in an e-mail to her I wrote a little while back, as Benny Hill used to say, "When you Assume, you make an Ass out of You and Me!!!", and I assumed.

Silly thing, stupid git, I can be at times.

The airport meeting story is hilarious, though, like most such stories, probably didn't seem that way at the time.

Pleasure debating with a gentleman like yourself, Jackie!!!! Always lovely to have a worthy opponent with whom one can argue politely on a subject.