Why bombing Yugoslavia is justified

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I have read all the way through this thred, and decided to go ahead and post my views for all to consider. To begin with, I am a retired US Army infantryman with some combat under my belt. I was in Pamama as a sniper team leader and I was in the gulf as a Bradly Plt Sgt. BTW, yes, the republican guard did fight, just not fast or good enough. I spent a lot of time in Euorpe during my career and married a German lass 19 years ago this May. Needless to say I have rather close ties with her parents and relatives in Germany and Austria, and I can tell you now, they have asked me "Just what in the He** is your pervert Presadent doing". IMHO we should pull out of Euorpe altogather, and let them handle their own problems and while we are at it we might as well pull out of the UN and deprive them of their armed forces, namely our armed forces. I am going to PO a few of you but, Kosovo is none of our business. But then again I am also one of those people who strongly believe we should pull all Euorpein and any other non-native groups out of Africa, close the borders and droup supplies of ammo every 3 weeks at the same local, when the ammo quit being picked up it woud be safe to move back in and clean up the mess. Same with Yugoslovia. If they want to kill each other let them. Oh and by the way my grandfather call it "the war of northen aggression". I guess you could say, in my time since retirement, I have become an isolationist and believe very much in remaining neutral, and CLOSING our southern border. This of course is all just MHO.

SFC (ret) Rew E. Williams
 
Does even one person here understand how these Albanians got into Serbia? Do you care?
Heres how it happened. Albania was allied to Germany during WWII. In return for military help in the Balkans they were given Kosovo. The Albanians marched in with a couple of German divisions and drove the Serbs from their homes. They slaughtered them in the streets, put them in concentration camps and used them as slave labor.
When the war ended there were few Serbs left in Kosovo, the survivors were in Serbia and they were never repaid for the loss of their property and no Albanians were ever tried for the crimes. The Albanians simply kept all the property and good communist Tito shot anybody who complained about it.
Now the Serbs, whose fathers and grandfathers were driven out, want the land back - they want the Albanians to go back to Albania and for the life of me, I can't think of a reason why they shouldn't. The houses and farms they live in belong to Serbian families.
A couple of years ago the Bosnians drove 350,000 Serbs out of Bosnia. NATO supported the Bosnian "ethnic cleansing".
There is a lot more to this than ethnic hatred. There are actual property and nationalist claims that need to be addressed. The Albanians are the invaders and have no business in that country - we are supporting the wrong side for purely political reasons.

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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan
 
Chink,
I'll buy your reasoning that it will take Milosvich time to rebuild his military. But, it won't take as long as you think.
The whole idea of training and arming the Kosovars is ludicrous. If the Kosovars get well armed before the Serbs can rebuild, the ethnic cleansing will simply change sides with Serbs being slaughtered left and right. Make no mistake, there are no good guys here. We will still lose.

DC,
Please refrain from using the word Confederacy in connection to this. Us southerners got enough problems as it is. :)
BTW: It was the War for Southern Independence.
 
grayfox,
I don't know think the Kosovars will continue the ethnic cleansing. They are a community of Farmers, who lived peacefully with the serbs for a little while. The KLA is a small organization that represents the fringe ofthe Kosovar population. As will at people you have the violent sub culture tat ends up being the spokes people in times of conflict, cuz they are the only people fighting.
I don't know. I want to see us out of there, but we can't just let Milosevic have free reign massacring people at will. I thought we learned something from WWII thats just my thoughts though

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It ain't mah fault. did I do dat?
 
What massacres? We believing NATO and the Pentagon (hell, even CNN)? It is simple propaganda. Besides in WAR, don't people get killed. The KLA went to WAR against Yugo. Now NATO (US) has went to WAR against Yugo.

NATO has no business in Yugo, even if there were actually a genocide (I FIRMLY believe there have been none in Yugo) on the scale of WWII. It is not a NATO concern.

Ethnic cleansing: what the KLA was doing, what the Serbs tried to stop, what NATO has almost succeeded in.
 
Chink,

The Kosovar Albanians may be "peaceful farmers" but their farms belong to Serbian families that were killed, put in concentration camps or driven out in the 1940s.

These Serbs want their homes and farms back. This may the last piece of territory that the NAZI's took to be returned. The Albanians were NAZI allies, they took the land and massacred the former owners. Its time they gave it back.

Its really quite simple but its still none of our business.


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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan
 
Somebody mentioned that just prior to NATO deciding we had to go to war,
Clinton was about to be investigated for selling technology to China in return
for personal campaign contributions. The question was raised, “Was Clinton
impeached for the wrong crimes?”

At the time, I felt that was a bit much. After all, like the Senators in
Caesar’s forum, these are honorable men. (gag, choke...)
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Then, thanks to Ipecac, I came across the following quote by H.L. Mencken:

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and
hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of
hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
-------
“alarmed” or “distracted”, “imaginary” or “contrived” - not much difference
in final effectiveness. The sudden outbreak of hostilities in Yugoslavia
(that’s been going on with little disruption for 1200 years) and NATO’s
sudden need to “save Europe” surely have nothing to do with Clinton’s
problems, right? Mere serendipity for the Presidency, right?

Ya know, a woman (Janet Reno) bailed him out of one crisis (Waco). Is it
possible another woman (Albright, what a misnomer!) bailed him out of
“Chinagate”?

Not necessarily, I guess. Madame Albright has been trying to go to war
since she was appointed by Clinton. Just coincidence, huh.....

(or could it be the unapproved-by-AMA Heinylick maneuver?)
 
Keith,
The main problem Milosevic has with the Kosovar Alabanians is that they are muslim. this is a hate to runs deeper than WWI. it goes to the crusades when musilims worked the Christians on they're way to Jeruselum.

Dennis,
If you look at the US track record, We let the Yugoslavians fight for a little while and then we broker a deal, see Bosnia, fought for 4 years, the the Dayton Peace Accords, now US troops are there are a UN peacekeeping force. Kosovo, fought for a little more than a year. tried to make a deal no good, so be are bombing them into a deal.
 
Milosvic's problem and the KLA/Kosovar Albanian problem are the same things then?

Christian vs. Muslim ; Muslim vs. Christian

A religious war among folks who aren't too religious (including the Croat v Serb v Muslim war earlier).

I think that hatreds go back to expansion of the Ottoman Empire more than the Crusades. And even more so with Serbian persecution by Nazis in WWII. Nazis that were made up every side that the Serbs were so mean to during a WAR.

Really though, if the KLA hadn't started murdering Serb police and civillians in Kosovo, then this wouldn't have happened. And if we had kept our noses out of it, all would be over now. I think that they have mopped up the KLA by now anyway. And we wouldn't be wasting our limited supply of munitions and manpower and legitimately pissing off Slavs and Orthodox Christains world wide.

Also, NATO is not and should not be in the business of waging WAR against a certain participant of a civil war so that the opposing sides will get together and sing "we are the world". It is more a mission for the no less disgustingly vile UN.

[This message has been edited by Prichard (edited April 11, 1999).]
 
Chink,

Re: "The main problem Milosevic has with the Kosovar Alabanians is that they are muslim.",
I'm afraid you are falling for the propaganda being put out by our liberal media.
Yes, there are deep-seated religious divisions among these people but the main problem is that these Albanians are foreign invaders who took this land through theft and massacre only 50 some years ago!
The people who own the farms and villages that these Albanians occupy are, in many cases still alive, the rest have descendants who have legal title.
These are the facts. You can accept them or not.
To support the Albanians is to support the holocaust.


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Keith
The Bears and Bear Maulings Page: members.xoom.com/keithrogan
 
>>I don't know think the Kosovars will continue the ethnic cleansing. They are a community of Farmers, who lived peacefully with the serbs for a little while. <<

Chink, you and I agreed not long ago that there were no "angels" in this conflict and that the Albanians were just as much to blame as the Serbs. I wondered then how you could justify saving the KLA and Kosovars if you really believed that; now I'm not sure that you do. The opinion above doesn't sound like it to me.

How about our role in the "Peace Accords" process? Do you remember the ultimatum that led to the initial bombing, Chink? Clinton and Albright actually proclaimed publically that both sides would sign our agreement. If either side did not sign our agreement, EVEN IF THEY SIGNED A BINDING PEACE ACCORD without our say-so, we would bomb them. I'm surprised more people don't hate us. The Serbs could have negotiated a cease-fire that was acceptable to both themselves and the KLA, gotten it signed, and disbanded every paramilitary group in Kosovo and we would still have bombed them if we didn't find the agreement fit OUR interests. I'm sick of the whole thing but I don't dare look away.
 
NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Formed by a treaty, whose primary condition was that an attack by an outsider on one member would be resisted by all members.

What NATO country has been attacked by Milosevic's forces?

The population and GDP of the European members of NATO exceeds ours. Why us? Why are WE spending (so far) two billion tax dollars? "Well, I guess we just can't afford a tax cut", said Klinton...

Genocide is the killing of all or most of an ethnic group. Of 1.6 million Kosovars, some ten thousand have been killed in a well-organized effort to terrorize them and run them out of Kosovo. It's evil, bad-nasty and atrocious, but not genocidal. Let's not copy Klinton and further abuse the language, please.

Had there been open debate in the UN, which I think is the proper forum, and the idea of going to war with Milosevic had not been vetoed but approved, fine. (Obviously, the fear of such a veto is why the subterfuge of using NATO was thought up.)

Nope. It ain't our baby and we hadn't oughta rock it.

Albright tried a bluff, and Milosevic called it. It's painfully obvious that the Klintonistas are in way over their heads in international affairs. He can't play chess worth a damn, and she can't play poker...

"Permissive atmosphere"? In the Balkans? Those folks drove 21 Nazi divisions plumb nuts for five years. They don't need tanks or howitzers--they snipe and snipe and snipe. How many body bags you wanta see, for nothing accomplished?

I'm with Hackworth. I went back through his archives, and I've yet to really argue with his thoughts and opinions. Check him out. I believe his Site is hackworth.com

Gwinnydapooh: Most of the US military has about nine guys supporting one guy fighting. Literate typists rarely wind up in the gun line...Or cooks or supply clerks...
 
Gwinnydapooh
I just think that a majority of the Albanian Kosovars are a peaceful bunch, just like I'm guessing that a Kosovar serbs are primarily peaceful people.
I think we agree that the KLA is for all intends and purposes a terrorist Organization and should be treated as such. The Serbian Military is basically an extremely large, very well funded terrorist organization that is lead by milosevic. If you take these to organizations out of the picture, i think the serbs and the albainians get a long, like palastine and israel. you take the fringe groups out of the picture, and there is little violence between the two groups. The bombings will take the Serbian military out of the picture, and the KLA is a moot point it the Albanians do not support it.

Keith,
I have been lax in my research on this subject, and have based most of my comments on the history of this fight on the small amount on research I did on Kosovo about 3 years ago. it was a cursory view of the region for a high school paper I had to write on the bosnia thing.

art,
I think NATO is trying to avoid the flak it got several years back for letting the Bosnia situation go on for 4 years before they did anything. What both sides are doing in the Kosovo region should not be condoned, but that doesn't mean that we should let it continue.
The GDP of a country means nothing in this case. their are few country that have the capablity to stop the atrocities. they are yugoslavia, any country willing to use Nuclear weapons, the US and Russia.
Russia and Yugoslavia have no intention of stopping this thing.
no country has a leader insane enough to push to button, cuz there is not surviving that,
that leaves the US. but were weren't gonna go into it alone cuz of the whole clinton/wag the dog analogies from early. when NATO said that they would support air strikes, we jumped on it. That is just my thought and they are probably wrong.
 
Chink: Aside from any other factors mentioned by you or others in this too-long thread, I commend to you today's World Net Daily. "A Specter Haunting Europe" in a sense speaks to the wisdome of our course of action; the David Limbaugh column speaks to the motivations and reasoning.

I guess I'm an idealist, believing as I do in the concept of "A government of laws, not of men". I also believe that laws must be consistent in their implementation.

I find it appalling, at best, that those people who for decades shrieked at the evils of meddling in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation are now doing so. We are taking sides in a clear-cut case of a civil war--and one wherein the actual number of fatalities has been rather small. I see no more justification for our behavior than for Mexico or Canada to bomb us because of the brutality of some of our ATF swat-team-style raids on "Oops, wrong address"...

Using the morality of the situation to justify illegal meddling is saying that the ends justify the means; our hearts are pure. This, then, supports Clinton's behavior in his contempt for the Bill of Rights that so many of us have decried in this very forum. You cannot have it both ways.

Have you ever read any of Barbara Tuchman's works concerning the events leading into the First World War? I believe the title is "The Guns of August", although that might be the title of her similar book on WW II. Pardon my failing memory--I read her books some 25-ish years ago.

We have been behaving as foolishly, in this Balkan mess, as the various kings and princes of the 1914-era. We have chosen expediency over common sense and wisdom--which is to be expected with a leadership which neither knows nor understands history. Not merely in Kosovo, but beginning with the original Bosnian affair.

Again, it is my opinion that we cannot attain Clinton/Albright's stated aims, at least not without many troops on the ground for decades. Not without a steady trickle of body bags coming home during those years of "peacekeeping" which could be better termed, "Occupation". It didn't work for the Nazis; why should it work for us? And do we want the recurrence of an active Russian enmity? Or an increase in hostility from the Moslem world, due to the inefficacy of our efforts?

Best regards, Art
 
Art,
As usual, I'm with you 100%.
I notice, however, how carefully you speak of Clinton's and Albright's "stated" aims. I have the continual gnawing at my gut that the "behind-the-scenes" or possible "true" aims of this confrontation are a political attempt to "unite the nation behind our President".
If my fears turn out to be true, he should be forced to walk (I mean on foot), naked, carrying a blacksmith's anvil chained to his waist, to every single home in America who loses a loved one in this misbegotten war.
And the survivors of our dead soldiers should have the right to cane that sumbitch to their satisfaction or exhaustion - whichever comes first.
And let his medical care be the same care promised and not delivered to all our military veterans and retirees.

[This message has been edited by Dennis (edited April 13, 1999).]
 
Great thread, all. Unfortunately it's too slow in loading for many, due to it's length. I'm closing this thread and encourage you to start a new one.
Rich
 
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