Bush Administration and Kosovo
- Thread starter Pat H
- Start date
Wildalaska
Moderator
Psshaw....the West has been fighting Great Russian hegemonical attempts since the 18th century (of course you can draw the historical timeline continuously to the conflict between the Western and eastern roman Empires, which makes this modern portion predate the Christianization of the Empire) and it wont stop until Russia is finally returned to it's natural borders. Irredentist Pan Slavism in Serbia has always been under the Russian umbrella for Russian interests, and this little spitty spat with the Russians again will fade like so many other crisis in the Balkans since Russia will need to continue to focus on their own ethnic enclaves, specifically Chechnya..
WildahthebalkansAlaska TM
rampage841512
New member
The US (under Clinton's orders) stonewalled the UN from taking action in Rwanda in order to avoid having more US troops deployed in some country most US citizens didn't care about. This was right after the incident in Somalia that left a lot of US troops shot up and dead on a UN peace keeping mission (read or watch 'Blackhawk Down'). Clinton wasn't willing to commit more US troops to Africa after pulling out of Somalia because public opinion was against US troops dying for people who weren't US citizens. Nobody else was willing to do anything without US support.
The war to stop the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo was, I believe, a NATO action rather than a UN action.
Look at the history of WWII in the Balkans and you will discover why Serbs and other Chrisitans living in the region hate Muslims. The Muslims living in the region backed Germany in WWII.
The Germans formed two SS divisions made up of Muslims from Yugoslavia. The Handshar division rioted in training in France and the German general in charge of training brought in the exalted mufti of Jerusalem to calm them down.
After training was over the Handshar division was sent back to Yugoslavia to fight Tito and Mihalovich (sp). They refused to fight and proceeded to terrorize their Christian neighbors instead. In the end the German army sent troops into Yugoslavia and disarmed the Handshar division. The other Muslim division never received any training and was dissolved.
Clinton saw a golden opportunity to get even with the Russia for attacking the murdering Muslims in the break away Russian province of Cechnya. The Saudis backed the terrorists in Cechnya and the Balkans.
The Germans formed two SS divisions made up of Muslims from Yugoslavia. The Handshar division rioted in training in France and the German general in charge of training brought in the exalted mufti of Jerusalem to calm them down.
After training was over the Handshar division was sent back to Yugoslavia to fight Tito and Mihalovich (sp). They refused to fight and proceeded to terrorize their Christian neighbors instead. In the end the German army sent troops into Yugoslavia and disarmed the Handshar division. The other Muslim division never received any training and was dissolved.
Clinton saw a golden opportunity to get even with the Russia for attacking the murdering Muslims in the break away Russian province of Cechnya. The Saudis backed the terrorists in Cechnya and the Balkans.
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Marko Kloos
Inactive
thallub,
the Balkans have been Europe's tinderbox for the last fifteen hundred years, and the Christians and Muslims of the region are equally guilty in trying to exterminate the other side, so please don't make it sound like it's an "evil Muslims vs. good Christians" issue. One genocide does not excuse another, and I really don't care for your implication that the Bosnian Muslims somehow deserved what happened to them at places like Srebrenica because some other Muslims joined the SS seventy years ago. I suppose the Dutch and Scandinavians deserve to have a genocide visited upon them because there were Dutch, Flemish, and Scandinavian volunteer SS divisions?
Oh, and the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS ("Handschar Division") was indeed recruited from Bosnian Muslims, but it included Croatian Christians as well. And you have your history wrong--the Mufti of Jerusalem was recruited by the Nazis prior to the formation of the Handschar division to convince the Bosnian Muslims that the proscription imposed against collaboration by the local imams was not valid. The riot in France was an attempt by a few division members to desert to the Allied forces, and the unit imam was the one who assisted with putting down the revolt.
The Handschar division didn't "refuse to fight". They were used to fight both Muslim and Serbian partisans in operations Wegweiser, Save, Osterei, Maibaum, Maiglöckchen, Vollmond, Fliegenfänger, Heidrose and Hackfleisch throughout most of 1944. By all accounts, the division performed well in combat, and fighting armed partisans is hardly "terrorising their Christian neighbors."
Also, the Germans didn't "send troops into Yugoslavia to disarm the Handschar division." They wouldn't have needed to send troops to a place that was already occupied by the German Army anyway (the Handschar was only one of many SS and Wehrmacht divisions in Yugoslavia), and even the most casual research on the unit will show you that the Handschar division fought in the german retreat all the way back to Austria, where its remnant surrendered to the allied forces in May 1945. Your information is not only biased, but also inaccurate.
Half the population of the former Yugoslavia collaborated with Nazi Germany in order to try and wipe out their ethnic Balkan rivals. The Ustasa, for example, was a Croatian militia, and they were in charge of the Jasenovac concentration camp, where they executed Jews, Roma, and mostly Serbs. Croatians and Serbs are both predominantly Christians, by the way--Croats are mostly Catholic, and Serbs are mostly Orthodox.
The fault lines of conflict in the Balkans are ethnic just as much as religious, and Christian has raised hand against Christian just as Muslim has raised hand against Christian and vice versa. There are old ethnic grudges at play here. The issue is far more complex than "Muslims are evil", as disappointing as it may be for some.
the Balkans have been Europe's tinderbox for the last fifteen hundred years, and the Christians and Muslims of the region are equally guilty in trying to exterminate the other side, so please don't make it sound like it's an "evil Muslims vs. good Christians" issue. One genocide does not excuse another, and I really don't care for your implication that the Bosnian Muslims somehow deserved what happened to them at places like Srebrenica because some other Muslims joined the SS seventy years ago. I suppose the Dutch and Scandinavians deserve to have a genocide visited upon them because there were Dutch, Flemish, and Scandinavian volunteer SS divisions?
Oh, and the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS ("Handschar Division") was indeed recruited from Bosnian Muslims, but it included Croatian Christians as well. And you have your history wrong--the Mufti of Jerusalem was recruited by the Nazis prior to the formation of the Handschar division to convince the Bosnian Muslims that the proscription imposed against collaboration by the local imams was not valid. The riot in France was an attempt by a few division members to desert to the Allied forces, and the unit imam was the one who assisted with putting down the revolt.
The Handschar division didn't "refuse to fight". They were used to fight both Muslim and Serbian partisans in operations Wegweiser, Save, Osterei, Maibaum, Maiglöckchen, Vollmond, Fliegenfänger, Heidrose and Hackfleisch throughout most of 1944. By all accounts, the division performed well in combat, and fighting armed partisans is hardly "terrorising their Christian neighbors."
Also, the Germans didn't "send troops into Yugoslavia to disarm the Handschar division." They wouldn't have needed to send troops to a place that was already occupied by the German Army anyway (the Handschar was only one of many SS and Wehrmacht divisions in Yugoslavia), and even the most casual research on the unit will show you that the Handschar division fought in the german retreat all the way back to Austria, where its remnant surrendered to the allied forces in May 1945. Your information is not only biased, but also inaccurate.
Half the population of the former Yugoslavia collaborated with Nazi Germany in order to try and wipe out their ethnic Balkan rivals. The Ustasa, for example, was a Croatian militia, and they were in charge of the Jasenovac concentration camp, where they executed Jews, Roma, and mostly Serbs. Croatians and Serbs are both predominantly Christians, by the way--Croats are mostly Catholic, and Serbs are mostly Orthodox.
The fault lines of conflict in the Balkans are ethnic just as much as religious, and Christian has raised hand against Christian just as Muslim has raised hand against Christian and vice versa. There are old ethnic grudges at play here. The issue is far more complex than "Muslims are evil", as disappointing as it may be for some.
I really do not understand our eastern european and russian policies. It is as if we do everything we can to antagonize the Russians. We put their former satellite states and even former soviet states into NATO. Try telling the American people we are going to war with Russia over a piece of land we never heard of. We even put missile defense systems in these territories. We bankroll revolutions in states that are friendly to them. With a strongman like Putin and his hand picked puppets whipping up nationalism something like this be just the thing they pick to assert themselves. They may not be what they were a couple of decades ago but they look back fondly on when they were an undeniable SUPERPOWER.
I agree this isn't even close to an analogy of recent illegal migration conquest and the province claim of independence is not without merit. I just never understood why the Balkan are our concern. Are the Europeans so weak they can't negotiate with Russia?
I agree this isn't even close to an analogy of recent illegal migration conquest and the province claim of independence is not without merit. I just never understood why the Balkan are our concern. Are the Europeans so weak they can't negotiate with Russia?
"And you have your history wrong--the Mufti of Jerusalem was recruited by the Nazis prior to the formation of the Handschar division to convince the Bosnian Muslims that the proscription imposed against collaboration by the local imams was not valid. The riot in France was an attempt by a few division members to desert to the Allied forces, and the unit imam was the one who assisted with putting down the revolt."
You are wrong. Wikipedia is also wrong. The Mufti personally intervened. See historian John Keegan on this. About 20 Muslims took German officers hostage. Five of those officers were murdered. The Germans executed about 20 members of the Handshar division and sent 800 more to Germany as labor conscripts. 250 of the labor conscripts refused to work and were sent to concentration camps where they died.
In late 1944 the Handshar division was disbanded on the orders of Himmler.
You are wrong. Wikipedia is also wrong. The Mufti personally intervened. See historian John Keegan on this. About 20 Muslims took German officers hostage. Five of those officers were murdered. The Germans executed about 20 members of the Handshar division and sent 800 more to Germany as labor conscripts. 250 of the labor conscripts refused to work and were sent to concentration camps where they died.
In late 1944 the Handshar division was disbanded on the orders of Himmler.
Marko Kloos
Inactive
thallub,
I am not going to debate this with you any further, since you patently refuse to acknowledge the factual errors in your posts, and you're not even trying to address the points I made.
I won't be able to sway you anyway, since your mind is made up on the subject. (Clinton getting even with Russia for fighting the "murderous Muslims" in Chechnya? You could have just reduced all your "historical" contributions to those two words, since that's the message you want to bend the facts around.)
I am not going to debate this with you any further, since you patently refuse to acknowledge the factual errors in your posts, and you're not even trying to address the points I made.
I won't be able to sway you anyway, since your mind is made up on the subject. (Clinton getting even with Russia for fighting the "murderous Muslims" in Chechnya? You could have just reduced all your "historical" contributions to those two words, since that's the message you want to bend the facts around.)