Nothing in John’s comments factually contradicts my piece.

John asserts a kind of legitimacy as a person of Yugoslav birth, and of mixed ethnic heritage. I respect that. But just as I might disagree quite radically from the guy down my street about the nature of my local society and its history, I respectfully differ with John’s understanding of contemporary reality in Serbia. I have received quite a number of emails from Serbs or Serbian-Americans strongly supporting my piece, the gist of which contests the bullying U.S. imperialist presence in the Balkans (that John apparently eagerly supports). John to his credit acknowledges Serb atrocities against Kosovar Albanians (which I did not deny and indeed acknowledge). But he proceeds to endorse the violation of Yugoslav sovereignty by the biggest mass murderers in history as the appropriate solution to those atrocities (their extent highly exaggerated in the U.S. press as of 1999).

What John contests is my basic assertion that it’s wrong, dangerous and provocative for the U.S. to embrace an independent Kosovo produced through US/NATO aggression. My response is that he’s supporting the wrong people.

I’m down to here, John. And thank you very much for devoting your time and attention to providing readers with this personal-knowledge based information.

You’ve got a bit of George Orwell in you, my friend.

Personally, I don’t recall it’s farcical repetition. And the “genius” behind the Chipmunk….is just a shitty, bushy tail.

Not quite. I was here, in the US, at the time, very carefully watching the evolving mayhem in the Balkans, because I had personal ties. I was very interested in everything related to it and my memory is quite different from what you present here. It wasn’t the US dragging a reluctant Europe into this, it was the other way around. I saw the chaos, the killing over there and how things were spiraling out of control (first with Bosnia/Croatia), the unending massacres, refugees, destruction and how Europe was impotent to do anything to stop this bloodshed and instability in its own midst; but, how, on the other hand, critical it was that the cycle of violence be stopped somehow. How these wars, and especially when it also started in Kosovo, threatened to cause upheaval and export instabilities into other European countries. For example, Greece, a NATO ally, would have been threatened by a large scale exodus of Albanian refugees. (And, at one point, Milosevic uprooted and exiled over one MILLION Kosovo Albanians, simply rousting them from their homes and putting them on trains to surrounding countries – that is all a historic record). You also forget the wanton destruction and burning of property by the security forces, and yes, the killings in Kosovo, as in the previous conflicts.

I saw how Europeans – who didn’t know what to do, who had no power to do anything, were imploring the US to do something. And I could see the agonizing decision making. There were no good alternatives. It looked the only way to do this was to get involved in a protracted, bloody, ground war with Serbia, which would have resulted in widespread destruction and casualties. This is how Iraq had been dealt with, when it invaded Kuwait – but it wouldn’t have been so easy with the Serbs because of the terrain, etc. And I could see that Clinton didn’t want to do anything. For the longest time he kept procrastinating, and I for one did not want to be in his shoes, because any choice would be awful, including not taking any action. Nobody at the time anticipated that this could be done through an air war – and even that was messy, to say the least. And even while the air war was ongoing, it seemed pretty sure that a ground engagement would be necessary.

And particularly laughable is your assertion that Clinton was afraid of … the Germans!!!!! They might have done something rash, like rushed their (nonexistent) troops into the area? What exactly were the Germans going to do? And even if they did, how was that going to affect America, other than taking some weight off its shoulders?

NATO reluctance was only so far that they wanted America to do all the dirty work, and take all the casualties and the blame.

In your eagerness to stick it to Clinton and to the American imperialism — and to have a neat article exposing your neat OPINIONS and THEORIES, you bulldoze your way straight through any inconvenient facts. This is not to say that there aren’t many FACT-based approaches to do that (challenge the empire — as if that’s what you truly, deep down, wanted), so why are you destroying your credibility – because the uneducated, fact-challenged Americans won’t know the difference?

“… it resulted in the aerial bombing of a European capital (Belgrade) for the first time since 1945.”

I guess Sarajevo is not a European capital – it was mercilessly bombed for 3 long years by us Serbs, using heavy artillery, several years prior to this. Oh, I see, it is the “aerial” bombardment that counts (though artillery fire is also technically “aerial”). Notice the little play of words, so, you are technically correct, only a capital counts (not those many smaller European cities which also suffered endless bombardments by the Serbs, including “aerial”, in some of which I had relatives) and only if the bombs were released from an aircraft.

Zagreb, another European capital, had been hit by unguided missiles – but again, this does not fit the “aerial” part. It’s not that the thing explodes, killing and destroying everything, sowing terror, it’s that it has to be delivered by a certain neat method — preferably the one used by the Americans and not by the others.

And, speaking of barbaric destruction of unique, precious, historical artifacts and monuments, this also does not include the off-shore bombardment of Dubrovnik (not a capital, you see), conducted by the Serb-commanded Yugoslav Navy when Croatia first seceded. Dubrovnik is a well-preserved ancient city – it still has the city walls, the old harbor, the old buildings, the art, etc., all dating from roughly the same historical period as those churches you mentioned. The Navy wasn’t aiming for some military objects – there were none, but its goal was wanton destruction of this historical treasure (and they also targeted the New Dubrovnik, where the civilians live), as payback for Croatians wanting to run their own affairs. This all happened way before Kosovo.

I do not approve of anybody being bombed, and I also don’t approve when people are massacred the old-fashioned way – by other people. Or when ANY historic monuments are damaged.

“…which forced Belgrade to obey Washington and withdraw its troops from the heart of the Serbian homeland. That heart, of course, is Kosovo. ”

Again using word-play, you create the impression that Kosovo is in the middle of Serbia. Kosovo is, and has been for a long time, a faraway province at the tip of Serbia. And Serbs, by and large, didn’t even want to live there.

“But Serbian identity was shaped by the Battle of Kosovo Polje (The Field of Blackbirds) against the Ottoman Turks in 1389, in which both Serbian King Lazar and the Ottoman sultan Murad were killed. Modern historians differ about whether this was a draw or heroic defeat of the Serbs; nationalist mythology depicts it as the latter.”

How is that a draw, when immediately after, the whole country of Serbia was occupied by the Turks, and this occupation lasted for over 400 years? I would call that a horrible defeat. Because the Turkish sultan Murat (not Murad) was killed, maybe, but that’s a specious argument. Maybe to historians in armchairs it was a draw, for all practical purposes it was a defeat. I am not going to go into details how, in this instance, the Serbian elite took their internecine bickering and rivalry to be more important than devising a common strategy against the Turks. And, meeting the experienced, motivated, tactically-savvy and large Turkish army at a venue that favored the Turks – an open field, and not having a united strategy and tactics worked out for such an encounter was a recipe for disaster that could surely have been foreseen. But they didn’t want to be bothered with common interest, only with privileges accrued to them in peacetime. (Yes, I am sure there were exceptions, but exceptions were not enough). By the way, most people killed at Kosovo were the commoners, not the gallant knights on horseback. The next 400+ years were hell for the common folk, but not so bad for the elite (they were tasked in administering the territories for the Turks); that’s why it took over 400 years to mount a serious rebellion.

Fast forward to WW2 – the Serbian king and the rest of them split when the Germans attack; again the elite leaving the people in the lurch to face a brutal war (including a concurrent civil war) which would claim 15% of the population. The communists then organize all the peoples of Yugoslavia in effective resistance. Fast forward to the 90s – after the fall of communism, the elites whip up nationalist frenzy in order to foment war, in order to rob the fabulous riches from the victims, etc. (oh, yes, in the meantime they claim that THEY were the ones who liberated the country in WW2). Fast forward to btw. the 90s and now: the elites have: their yachts in Cyprus (since many of them are war criminals and wanted on international warrants, that’s where they prefer to hang out); the most magnificent mansions one can imagine all over the place (built by blood and bones of the war victims); the Swiss bank accounts; private planes; all the industries in their pocket. The Serbian people have: average salary of 100-200 euros per month (if they have a job, and if the elites deign to pay them their salary); escalating prices; occasional sanctions; being painted with the broad brush for what others have done in their name (as devised by the elites); if they want to travel (if they can afford it), having to wait outside in the rain, bitter cold, hellish heat, all day long, and longer, in front of various consulates, with hundreds and thousands of other people, to get a visa.

“During over four centuries of Muslim Turkish rule the Serbs preserved their Orthodox religious identity, maintaining the Gracanica Monastery and at least half a dozen other religious centers which have survived from the fourteenth century to the present day — threatened though they have been in recent years by desecration, vandalization and destruction… ”

I do not believe there were nearly that many churches damaged as you depict. (And conveniently, you don’t mention what preceded the rioting in March of 2004 — ethnic killings by some Serbs). Doesn’t matter – even one is too many, not because it’s a church (as opposed to someone’s home), but because it’s a historical monument. But you fail to mention how the Serb forces had previously willfully destroyed or tried to destroy others’ cultural heirlooms. Dubrovnik was mentioned above, but there were many others. For example there were many, many mosques – in Bosnia and in Kosovo. Even you allude to this in your article (but only allude and later, much later – another word play) when you said that the Saudis have helped in repairing 190 (one hundred and ninety – much greater than the number of churches) “damaged” mosques in Kosovo. (Another word play – the mosques are only “damaged”, but the churches are “destroyed”, “gutted” and “desecrated”; and yes, “smoldering”). And many of these mosques are historical treasures, too.

“Some Albanians claim that they were the original inhabitants of Kosovo, a land four-fifths the size of Connecticut. They claim descent from the ancient Illyrians who inhabited the area from about the fourteenth century BCE. It appears as likely they migrated from what is now Albania during the Ottoman period, coming to outnumber the Serbs.”

They “claim” the Illyrians’ lineage? I was taught that as a historical fact when I attended school in Serbia (not Albania — Serbia). The Illyrians were the original inhabitants of these areas (where the Southern Slavs, among them Serbs, moved into in the VI century), along with other tribes. Gee, what happened to them? Were they subjugated? Were they pushed away? “They came from Albania”, you claim. But where do the Albanians come from? Did they materialize out of thin air and just plopped there on the Balkan peninsula? So, who took whose territory in the end? And the Serbs left Kosovo en masse late in the 17th century, but as a result of that migration, Vojvodina, a much bigger, more fertile, etc. place became part of Serbia (at that time it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire).

“Thereafter the greater Albanian birthrate reduced the Serb population to a mere 10% of the total. Following the ethnic cleansing of the last decade, the figure’s down to maybe 4%.”

Please, we Serbs were the ones who invented and practiced the art of ethnic cleansing much more than anyone else, and that’s true of Kosovo as well. And sometimes the ethnic cleansing wasn’t really that, but happened when people voluntarily left to escape revenge of the opposing forces after war crimes were committed by them or in their name. And no, I don’t approve of any innocent person or family, whatever nationality, losing their home and their property.

“Kosovo was the poorest region in Tito’s Yugoslavia, but it enjoyed the status of an autonomous province and was treated as a de facto republic in accordance with Tito’s philosophy that “Weak Serbia equals strong Yugoslavia.”

Where does this come from, some Hollywood flick? The reality on “weak Serbia” was exactly the opposite. All the government functions – all the federal functions (including the plush jobs) were concentrated in Belgrade and only in Belgrade. 90% of the officer corps in the JNA (Yugoslav People’s Army) was Serb (as evidenced by what the JNA did to the people who dared secede and how various tragedies and massacres were enabled). Tito’s right hand man, the chief of the police, Alexander Rankovic, was a Serb. (And yes, Kosovo was the poorest region, and it stayed dirt poor and backward for 50 years, while Serbia collected vast amounts of money from other republics for its “development”).

I already mentioned that Serbia had 3 votes in the Parliament and the Presidency, while everyone else had one. The three votes were one for Serbia, and one each for the “autonomous” provinces of Kosovo and Vojvodina. But those provinces were not truly autonomous, because they always voted with Serbia (the right people were put in high places there). This was especially evident after Tito’s death, and toward the breakup of Yugoslavia, when the other republics tried to effect some changes for more equitable sharing of power and revenue, but Serbia stalled them at every turn because it effectively had 4 (FOUR) votes – the 3 for Serbia and the 1 for Montenegro which was in Serbia’s pocket and always voted with Serbia. So, no changes could be implemented, because the 4 votes for Serbia equaled the 4 votes of the other republics (Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Macedonia), even if the other 4 could get together on a certain issue.

Since I come from a mixed marriage, I know that the Croats were chaffing under the unequal arrangement in the old Yugoslavia. There was even a time when Croatian leaders tried to get a more equitable arrangement through the Yugoslav Communist Party, in Tito’s time, but they were rebuffed, and they were quietly shuffled out of their leadership positions. Furthermore, after Tito (who was a Croat), there was a rotating presidency, whereby each nation had its representative be the titular president of the country for a year and the head of the common Presidential council. Towards the end of Yugoslavia, when it was a Croatian’s turn, the Serbs blocked him from taking power.

Just before breakup, the other republics tried to negotiate with the Serbian government – tried to avoid an outright secession by having some type of confederacy – a group of relatively independent states under one formal country. But the Serbian leaders didn’t want to negotiate because they had the Army in their hands, and the others were told what would happen if they tried anything.

This — your claim, is part of the Serb victim mythology that played a big part in the massacres because it was played over and over to the susceptible people who didn’t know better. There are other myths, just as untrue, which I won’t go into (such as that the Croats who committed the horrendous atrocities against the Serbs in WW2 weren’t punished). And yes, there was also true suffering and victimizing in the past – in WW2 the Serbs suffered greatly — another fact against Tito ever wanting a “weak Serbia” (along with their military savvy).

So, please, quit fantasizing.

“As president of Serbia, he (foolishly) withdrew Kosovo’s autonomy in 1989, provoking Albanian protests and the formation of the KLA in 1995. ”

Even after that, Serbia CONTINUED to have its 3 votes in the Parliament and the governing council until the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991.

“Accusing Serbian forces of atrocities, NATO bombed Bosnia in August and September 1995…”

In other words, the Serbian forces didn’t commit atrocities, they were just (unfairly) accused of such. I guess, there was no evidence of that, right? Another word play whereby what you say is factually correct, but the intent is to imply something which is factually wrong.

“The “Rambouillet Accords” were signed by all parties — except for Yugoslavia and Russia. The agreement specified that Kosovo would obtain autonomy but remain part of Serbia. That was the one concession to Belgrade, and an initial cause for the KLA representatives to balk. But the separatists were won over, no doubt realizing that they would gain independence in time. (They just declared that, with Washington’s approval, February 17.)”

You know what was going on in their heads at the time? They were all separatists? They were faced with certain destruction by the security forces, how do you know what they were thinking?

“The Accords dictated that Belgrade accept a NATO force with liberty to act throughout the territory of Yugoslavia. ”

No, it was with liberty to act in Kosovo, not throughout Yugoslavia. Not that that could be accepted by any state, either. These accords came when things got to a head and there were no good options left, so, yes, the “agreement” was flawed and impossible, but the reality was also flawed and impossible.

“A top French official accused the U.S. of behaving like a hyper-puissance (“hyper-power”); NATO itself was divided and disturbed by U.S. demands. (The Spaniards, Italians and Greeks in particular were troubled about the NATO bombing of Belgrade.)”

Really? Like I said before, the Europeans were asking (begging) the US to intervene, as something had to be done and they had no power. Of course, yes, they also wanted the US to do all the dirty work for them, suffer all the casualties and get all the blame. And in that, they succeeded. The US did supply 90% of the forces, and the US did get 100% of the blame afterwards (e.g., from the Serbian people). And who exactly was this “top French official”, was he in the government at the time? Yes, as in any large country, some individuals may have had misgivings (but did they have a better plan?). As for the Spanish, a Spaniard (Xavier Solana) was at the head of NATO when this all went down. The Italians provided the launching pads for the aircraft. The Greeks were the original reason for intervention, as explained above. I am sure all of them had misgivings, it was a bad situation with no good solutions.

“Washington was calling for an organization founded to defend Western Europe from Soviet attack to intervene in a friendly, non-threatening country, to force it to accept further dismemberment. ”

More fiction. Per NATO charter, all members must come to aid of the affected member. NATO was trying to prevent chaos from descending on one of its members (Greece and maybe Turkey also). “Force it to accept further dismemberment”. Yes, we should have forced all those other peoples to stay under the Serbian hegemony and unilateral decision making. And who was forced, when all the NATO countries recognized the new countries in record time, sometimes before the US did?

“But had he done nothing, and the violence continued, he would have been criticized for failing to use American power (“to prevent genocide”) and left the door open for other interested parties (Germany) to take unilateral action.”

Please tell us what unilateral German action was being contemplated or threatened, I need a laugh. Yes, Germany was and is an economic powerhouse, but how was that going to help? Everybody was out of options at that time.

“There were horror stories about “ethnic cleansing,” and Yugoslav government forces’ attacks on innocent Kosovar Albanians.”

All those burned houses (reported by many, including the European press), all those people on the trains being forced out of their country, that was all a mirage…..And how did the security forces know exactly which people were innocent and which weren’t?

“But German reports told a different story. Four German court opinions from October 1998 to March 1999; two Foreign Office intelligence reports in January 1999; and one report from the Foreign Office to the Administrative Court in Mainz in March 1999 all challenged such accusations. According to the Opinion of the Upper Administrative Court at Munster (March 11, 1999), “Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo have neither been nor are now exposed to regional or countrywide group persecution in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.” ”

Some courts are respected – when they give “right” opinions (and were there any other opinions from any other courts at the time?), while some other courts are reviled as “kangaroo courts” when they prosecute war crimes that the author knows didn’t happen. Maybe some legal definitions were not met, maybe the Germans didn’t want to be swamped by millions of asylum-seeking refugees, but are you doubting that genuine oppression was going on?

“After the glorious victory of NATO over Yugoslavia, it was discovered that as few as 2,108 people were actually killed in the province during 1998-9 before the bombardment began. Quite likely more Serbs have been killed by Albanians than vice versa since 1998.”

How do you know how many of which were killed? Obviously, you’re making an assumption here, but tell me, mathematically, how can random, sporadic violence lead to the same body count (or more) than an organized push by the security forces against the demonized “others”? I’ve seen much higher numbers than that, but let’s assume it was “only” 2,108 (such precise number), like you say. You say there were 2 million in Kosovo, so one in 1,000 was killed. That would be equivalent to 300,000 people killed in the US — a good size city wiped out, and we made such a fuss about “only” 3,000 on 9-11. And let’s say, that all of these were Serbs, so that would be a much higher proportion (a Chicago wiped out, proportionally). Shouldn’t something be done to end such an unsustainable situation? And what about the number killed AFTER the intervention started – you will blame that on NATO, right?

“Washington got what it wanted, almost. It destroyed the Yugoslav state, hauled Milosevic to a kangaroo court at the Hague (where after enhancing his reputation among Serbs by a spirited defense, he died of a heart attack)”

This sentence tells a lot about you and about some of the Serbs. The ordinary people get the “real”, draconian courts, here in the US and everywhere else. The white-collar criminals, including the war criminals, never get punished. Yes, it was a kangaroo court – for the victims. Oh, yes, the t’s were not always crossed and the i’s were not always dotted — the lawyer protests, just like in any court, especially if you’re an ordinary person. But ordinary people don’t get to present their case over several years (in the face of overwhelming evidence against them), don’t get their pick of expensive lawyers, don’t get to play in a country-club “prison” during the trial, and are not then sentenced to a few years in the same luxury “prison” – for murdering or being involved in murdering hundreds of thousands, for their own enrichment.

And, where is the evidence that Washington planned to destroy the Yugoslav state — it was done and planned by Washington, not by the ones who did all the planning and destroying? And by the way – another part of the Serbian victim mythology busted, most of the prisoners in the Hague were NOT Serbs.

“We who have been invaded many times from the west have legitimate reasons to support our friends in the Balkans, including the Serbs whom you’ve maligned and mistreated disgracefully. ”

Friendship is such a fickle thing. Back during the cold war, the two were not such great friends.

“Yugoslav courts in 1997 and 1998 found him guilty of terrorism charges, including attacks on Serbian policemen, but he was a Kosovar Albanian representative at the Rambouillet talks.”

I trust they weren’t “kangaroo courts” (during Milosevic’s time, no less), since you’re an expert on such. And why was he let go if he was guilty of these charges?

“So there are now, aside from Turkey, two Muslim European countries: Albania and Kosovo. (Bosnia-Hezegovina’s Muslim population is under 50%).”

I should be worried about Muslims (secular ones, no less) in Europe. We should be scared of “the other”. And yes, throw in the al-Qaeda for good measure, to really scare the gullible Americans. Anything to have a neat article, supported by neat, powerful logic. I could care less that one superstition is losing ground to another. And the number of Muslims in Europe would stay the same, no matter how artificial borders are drawn. I am much more worried about the Christian Taliban, which is running – and ruining our lives, right here in the States.

“Meanwhile Vladimir Putin, shrewd and careful, considers how to use this blow to pan-Slavic pride to revive Russian influence in the Balkans.”

This was not a blow to pride of most Slavic countries. Name the Slavic countries (except Serbia, and, possibly Russia (though they are really playing this to their own ends)) which this was a blow to. Except, you’re right, in many Slavic countries – maybe all, racism reigns supreme – it is dangerous to be black or a gypsy Roma in any or maybe all the Slavic countries. (This is true, and I am a Slav myself). So, are you saying that protecting the other against the skinhead mentality is a “blow to pan-Slavic pride”?

“The U.S., deeply bogged down in Southwest Asia, has left the Europeans holding the ball in Bosnia; Germany contributes 800 of the 3000 European Union Force (EUFOR) peacekeeping troops. The 16,000-strong KFOR in Kosovo includes 2,567 Italians, 2,374 Germans and 2,269 French troops (but only 1,456 U.S.)”

Excuse me, why shouldn’t the Europeans be holding the ball in Europe? If it were otherwise, then you’d be bellyaching about the US imperialism.

“A new regime emerges, applauded by its American sponsors and most of the EU (but rejected by Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Slovakia, Spain and Bulgaria). It is wrapped in smoke, in a legacy of smoldering churches. ”

Why are only the churches smoldering in this picture? What happened to the smoldering mosques? And I don’t think the Americans or the EU either sponsored it, or particularly applaud it – it was one of bad choices in an impossible situation. (And, yes, it was a double-cross re resolution 1244). How do you think it would have played out if it stayed as part of Serbia – both for the Albanians and the Serbs? Played out for the next several centuries the same way it’s played out the last several centuries — drenched in blood (Over 100,000 Albanian civilians massacred after one of the Balkan wars, for example)? Would you want to put your family in such a place and be thought of as one of the oppressors, rather than as one of a minority, to be protected? Would the churches and monasteries (and mosques) be better off amid all the violence — or would they fare like other historic monuments in other settled countries (lots of Turkish, Austro-Hungarian, Roman monuments in Serbia (and other countries), for example, which are doing quite OK; Serbian monasteries in Greece which are doing OK)? And what would have happened when the population of Albanians in Kosovo (with their high birth rate) exceeded that of all Serbs in Serbia (with their negative birth rate)? Of course, for Serbian identity and culture, it should remain as part of Serbia, if the culture could be preserved that way. But for the people living there, I am not so sure. I myself do not know or claim that it would have been better or worse than the current “solution”, but I also don’t think there are any good solutions in this mess. However, I would have appreciated a fact-based expose — and the facts fall on both sides of this issue, rather than fitting facts to suit one’s agenda.

http://www.counterpunch.org/whitbeck02202008.html

Let us concede that the Milocevic regime bears responsibility for vicious actions against Kosovar Albanians, although I do not think they constitute genocide (and indeed that accusation dilutes a charge as it is appropriately applied to Nazi mass-murder). That was not the subject of my column.

The U.S. government, responsible for millions of deaths in imperialist wars from the “Philippines Insurrection” of 1899-1902 (in which one-tenth of the Filipino people were killed to suppress their movement for independence) to the Korean and Vietnam Wars, deliberately sowed alarmist disinformation to justify its 1999 war against Yugoslavia, place Kosovo under NATO tutelage, establish the massive Camp Bondsteel military base, and now engineer the severance of an integral part of Serbia in apparent violation of the UN charter and international law. The fact that Serbs attacked Kosovar Albanians—unjustifiably, brutally, wrongly— does not change any of this.

The fact that someone (of any ethnic background) is disgusted by the actions of some Serbs, or even concludes that the Serbs are in general are possessed of some evil ideology, does not change any of this.

The point is that Washington, having once promised to disband NATO as the Soviets disbanded the Warsaw Pact, has instead persistently sought to expand its sphere of influence, rewriting the rules as it goes along, pushing its sometimes hesitant allies while provoking and startling the world with its arrogance and audacity. Now it has said to a gangster regime in Pristina, “We agree, you’re in charge”—knowing that Belgrade has to say in reply, “No, WE remain the legitimate government,” that some sort of partition and further conflict are highly likely, and that Russia will have to side with the Serbs. That’s the issue I explored in my piece, of limited scope (avoiding such issues as the precedent this sets in relation to Abkhazia or South Ossetia).

There is the conflict between (some) Serbs and (some) Albanian Kosovars. It became intense under Milosevic. (I think the Tito regime earlier sought to ameliorate it—that is, it is recent, not an enduring legacy of the past.) There is the far larger ongoing conflict between U.S. imperialism and the people of the world in general. If you merge (appropriate) indignation against national oppression of Kosovars with support of Washington’s global regime-changing agenda, you don’t strike a blow for freedom. You do the precise opposite. You make a Faustian bargain. Let’s watch the results.

by James Bissett

Global Research, February 19, 2008

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Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence should not be recognized by Canada. It has not been authorized by the United Nations and is therefore in violation of international law, the United Nations Charter and the Helsinki Final Accords. In addition, UN resolution 1244, which ended the bombing of Serbia, reaffirms Serbia’s sovereignty over Kosovo.

The basic principles of territorial integrity and state sovereignty have governed the relations between states since the treaty of Westphalia in 1648. While they have been violated many times in the intervening years, usually by acts of aggression by dictators, they remain the essential components of international law.

After the cataclysmic events of two world wars and the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki the framers of the United Nations incorporated the principles of territorial integrity and state sovereignty into the United Nations Charter. The Charter was seen as the primary safeguard of peace and security in a nuclear age. The Helsinki Final Act of 1975 reinforced these principles by adding to them the principle of the inviolability of borders.

These are fundamental principles and they have universal application. They cannot be set aside because of special cases or because they present an obstacle to the policy objectives of a powerful nation. Their message is simple and clear –borders cannot be changed without the consent of the state involved.

etc
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8126

Ironically, this independence is being pushed by the US for personal reasons, while the same US is pushing to end canadian and mexican independence!

Yes, it’s true, in my opinion, based on what I’ve seen firsthand, etc., we Serbs did commit a vast majority of heinous war crimes in the 90s; it’s immoral to say otherwise. And throughout history, there were different perpetrators and victims in the Balkans; the cycle of violence never stops. What many Serbs fail to see — still, is that they were screwed over and victimized not by the Americans, not by the Europeans, not by their neighbors who were actually the victims, but by their own corrupt, greedy elite, who became fabulously rich as a result of these wars.

And yes, it’s true, in election after election in Serbia, the party that advocates violence against others and extreme nationalism (the war-enriched elite from the above), gets a large fraction of the vote.

And yes, it’s true, that all these different nations — the Slovenes, the Croats, the Bosnians, etc., rejected the Serbian hegemony one by one, yet the Serbs maintain that, all these different peoples who have nothing in common with each other, somehow share some common flaw of somehow irrationally hating the Serbs. Not that they have a common grievance about how the country was run (Yugoslavia) — putting to lie your assertion that somehow the Serbs’ concerns were minimized (they — we (I am one of “them” and I lived in Serbia at the time) had THREE votes in the parliament, everybody else had ONE vote). I have traveled in all those countries, and can say that, while there are exceptions, nothing can be further from the truth (the irrational hate of the Serbs) — even now.

This is just a sampling of my comments — there are many things in that article which raise my eyebrows, I don’t know if I have the time to write about them all.

So, discounting all those dead — whole families slaughtered, and I am talking hundreds of thousands of people (yes, some Serbs among them, no question about that), that’s OK, that’s moral, just so you can make some (very shaky) point about your (my — since I live in the US now) own govt. (And yes, there are many REAL points you could make about the US govt., based on REAL, as opposed to imaginary and half-baked, FACTS). But I can’t make a point about my govt (ie., the elite) — over there?

Please read my response before you answer, I said:

“Of course, history does not lack similar evil doers, but in a case of Yugoslavia Milosevic and Serbs like him dismembered it.”

I never said that there are no good Serbs, like nobody can say thet there were no good Germans, or that there are no good Israelis, or that there are no good Americans… But facts prove that percentage of good people in all these cases is very, very, very small.

Almost 50% of those nice Serbs voted for fascist candidate in presidental elections few weeks ago, and you can see in these photos how polite and civilesed they are:
http://www.dnevniavaz.ba/multimedija/foto-galerije/beograd-u-haosu

Or you might want to read articles by Petar LUKOVIĆ, serbian journalist from Belgrade.

Adnan

Stephen Lendman concurs with some of the connections and observations you have made Professor Leupp.

He concurs with some of the connections and observations you have made Professor Leupp.

There are bad Serbs. There are bad Albanians. There are bad people everywhere, but to call an entire group of people “bad” is laughable and a perfect example of why things never change.

Stop hating. Start forgiving. If you, the people, allow this to turn into a centuries long struggle of invisible borders – then it will.

There is no denying the fact that some people were screwed over by NATO, the EU, and the US – and still are everyday – but you cannot beat the United States, the EU, and NATO in a combined force. Won’t happen, might as well preserve your own life.

PS I expect you have viewed Camp B0ndsteel on Google maps. Some of the site is obscured for whatever reason. Perhaps there is something they don’t want us to see. It is absolutely massive .

Is this, in your view, genetic? And how would you like to resolve the issue, Adnan?