[RussianRootCanal]

Hey guys, so I was reading through the Wikipedia article on the Kosovo war and discussing it with several people and I seem to get two different sides of the story. On one band you have Albanians saying they have been treated unfairly and persecuted with genocide even being discussed. On the other hand you have Serbians saying Albanians were terrorists responsible for the whole thing. Does anyone have any insight or books that they recommend on the subject? Then there are people saying America only got involved because Clinton wanted to get the Lewinskiy story off the news. Any insights?

Here's the article if anyone wants a background on the situation: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo_War

[Handsome Creepy Eel]

One of the most positive military interventions ever. Fast, precise, and for a good cause. As Slobodan Milošević's government was faltering after failing in the 91'-95' invasion of Croatia and Bosnia and a terrible economy ravaged by corruption, he tried to shore up support with some good old nationalist action against the usual scapegoats (anyone not Serbian and "ethnically pure", basically). Thus started a long chain of violence in which Albanians, stirred up with deportations and destruction of their property, retaliated against the Serb minority in the area, then the opposite, etc.

I'm not saying that these Albanian rebels should have retaliated but, given that they had no chance after the Serbian army got involved and started cracking down on everyone, it's good that Clinton decided to intervene. I hear that the Albanians thanked him by naming the main boulevard after him and erecting a statue in his honor:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_Boulevard

It's important to know that Kosovo was once a Serb majority territory, and there was a huge amount of anger in the Serbian population at being "outbred" in just a few decades. When Albanians started demanding more autonomy (now being the majority), I'm not surprised that this anger exploded and everything went downhill. I often wonder if the same might happen with Muslims in France or Great Britain.

[Volk]

The only person who could get all these people together was Josip Tito. Without him, they sharpen their knives. It's sad, they are a great bunch.

[DjembaDjemba]

I wasn't too far away from Serbia when America intervened, their intervention was good for the region, but it came way too late.

The root causes for this conflict are far deeper than muslims vs christian, ethnic albanians and ethnic serbs. It would take way too long to write about it, it's one of those events which has its history traced way back to the Ottoman colonization of the region.

However the spark that ignited the conflict was Milosevic's attempt to drum up ethnic nationalism to hold his crumbling mini empire from falling apart.

This is really just an example of a fascist/communist dictatorship appealing to the absolute most basic of human instincts (tribalism), with the purpose of attempting to re-assert control of what they deemed to be slipping away, their political dominance of the region. Which usually came with the perks of enriching their friends, cronies, and corrupt allies.

When totalitarian multiethnic nations crumble, the result is usually always an orgy of violence to settle old tribal scores. This seems to only happen with dictatorships. There wasn't really a good or bad side, just aggrieved nationalists on both sides of the fence looking to assert dominance through jungle justice. A basic smash and grab.

We're lucky we live in democracies and republics where we deal with nationalism using democratic means, with free and fair elections.

[Quintus Curtius]

Don't believe everything you read in the Western media about this. In the official version, the Serbs are all bad guys and the poor, innocent Albanians were just victims. Not so.
I could write pages on this subject, but the bottom line is that the US, Germany, and Britain found it useful to see Yugoslavia fall apart and fragment into a variety of little states. Why? Economics, moneymaking opportunities, oil and gas pipelines, etc.
Albania was and is a basket case of a country. There were groups there being paid by Western intelligence to stir up trouble and agitate for sovereignty in Kosovo. They did the same thing in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro.
I am not saying the Serbs are innocent angels, of course. They were their own worst enemy, and Milosevic's excesses and brutalities gave the West the excuse to bomb them. But the Serbs are a proud, nationalistic people, and don't like to take shit from anyone. I found them to be honorable men who kept their word to us more than any other group in the former Yugoslavia.

The truth is always more complicated than the media makes it.
The Albanians and Kosovars were no innocent, poor little victims. They wanted intervention from the West in order to create an autonomous region for Kosovo. They run big criminal organizations all over Europe and have caused a lot of trouble in Greece.

[Tail Gunner]

There are a vast number of different issues involved, but two of them stand out:

1. The U.S. should never intervene in any conflict unless there is a vital national interest at stake. There was no vital national interest in the Serbian-Croatian-Albanian conflict. None. Typical Democratic warmongering hypocrisy in involving the military in places that have no vital national interest (Clinton = Serbia, Somalia, Haiti, etc.), while complaining about those conflicts in which the U.S. does have a real vital national interest.

Seriously, why intervene in Serbia but then not intervene in the Rwandan Genocide, where a few thousand soldiers could have prevented the death of upwards of a million Tutsis by machete-waving Hutus? Explain that.

2. The Serbs were our staunch allies during WWII and loved Americans because of that historical tie. But we involved ourselves in a conflict where we have no vital national interest at stake and then took the side of people who already hate us (Albanian Muslims), so that we can alienate a traditional ally (the Serbs) and then have both sides hate us. The Serbs stand at the gateway to Europe and were the victims of waves of Islamic invasions into Europe and suffered grievously under the heavy yoke of the Ottoman empire. Historical enmity exists there. We should have stayed out.

[PoosyWrecker]

(11-26-2013 11:02 PM)Quintus Curtius Wrote:  

The truth is always more complicated than the media makes it.
The Albanians and Kosovars were no innocent, poor little victims. They wanted intervention from the West in order to create an autonomous region for Kosovo. They run big criminal organizations all over Europe and have caused a lot of trouble in Greece.

So many recent US foreign interventions involve high value drugs...

[Icarus]

The eXholes at the eXile had a really funny article on this:

• 101 reasons why NATO's war sucks (1999)
  

Here is an excerpt:

Quote:

Trying to bring the Serbs to heel by making them suffer won't work; these people have too much practice at suffering. After their army was slaughtered by the Turks at the Battle of Kosovo Field in 1389, things started getting a little bit rough for the Serbs. Though many Serb uprisings were brutally suppressed, the Serbs slowly drove the Turks out, eventually "liberating" Kosovo in a series of blood-drenched battles. In 1914, the Serbs were overrun by the Central Powers.The Serbs lost one-fourth of their population during the war; two-thirds of its male population between the ages of 15 and 55 perished. World War Two was even worse. After being overrun by a Nazi blitzkrieg, the Serbs found themselves at the mercy of the Nazis' Croat puppet regime, the Ustashe, who killed over a million people in death camps so horrible they repelled even the SS. Meanwhile, the Serbs somehow managed to pin down eight divisions of Nazi infantry, the Italians, a Bosnian Muslim SS Division--and wage a bitter civil war against fellow Serbs. In all, one-fourth of the Serb population died during WW II. Toss in a respectable number of dead Serbs since the wars in Croatia and Bosnia started earlier this decade, and you get the idea: bombing will not scare these people.

The Serbs will wait until the U.S. is weak and Russia is strong. Then, they will take Kosovo back. The U.S. intervention in 1999 only created the conditions necessary for a genocide to occur a few centuries from now.

[funkyzeit]

Albanians are people with... positive attitude towards having 3+ children. They relatively quickly became a majority in Kosovo so the Serbs didn't like it. Also, Kosovo has a cultural significance for Serbs as it was their since like 1389.

So on the one side, you have people who became majority and claimed the territory their, on the other you have people who owned the territory for centuries and wanted outsiders out. Both sides have leaders with extreme nationalist ideologies. A lot of western countries are approaching that stage with all the Arab immigrants.

[Icarus]

(11-27-2013 05:39 AM)funkyzeit Wrote:  

Albanians are people with... positive attitude towards having 3+ children. They relatively quickly became a majority in Kosovo so the Serbs didn't like it. Also, Kosovo has a cultural significance for Serbs as it was their since like 1389.

The Albanians, like the Palestinians, know that demographic warfare (i.e., breeding like rabbits) and playing the role of the underdog victim conquers the hearts & minds of decadent Western Europeans and North Americans.

[bojangles]

(11-27-2013 05:47 AM)Icarus Wrote:  

(11-27-2013 05:39 AM)funkyzeit Wrote:  

Albanians are people with... positive attitude towards having 3+ children. They relatively quickly became a majority in Kosovo so the Serbs didn't like it. Also, Kosovo has a cultural significance for Serbs as it was their since like 1389.

The Albanians, like the Palestinians, know that demographic warfare (i.e., breeding like rabbits) and playing the role of the underdog victim conquers the hearts & minds of decadent Western Europeans and North Americans.

Yep and as Quintus said, Albanians run crime rackets all across Europe, despised in London thoroughly by all, even our European friends.

[Way Cool Jr]

It's a shame that Kosovo isn't part of Serbia, in my opinion it should be, it rightfully belongs to the Serbs.
The Albanians that ruled after the intervention didn't do anything good on that soil, they kicked almost all the remaining Serbs out and now it is one of the poorest and most violent regions of Europe.
How could Serbia defend its soil and its people against a coalition of 18 nations?

[eradicator]

(11-27-2013 12:15 AM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  

There are a vast number of different issues involved, but two of them stand out:

1. The U.S. should never intervene in any conflict unless there is a vital national interest at stake. There was no vital national interest in the Serbian-Croatian-Albanian conflict. None. Typical Democratic warmongering hypocrisy in involving the military in places that have no vital national interest (Clinton = Serbia, Somalia, Haiti, etc.), while complaining about those conflicts in which the U.S. does have a real vital national interest.

Seriously, why intervene in Serbia but then not intervene in the Rwandan Genocide, where a few thousand soldiers could have prevented the death of upwards of a million Tutsis by machete-waving Hutus? Explain that.

2. The Serbs were our staunch allies during WWII and loved Americans because of that historical tie. But we involved ourselves in a conflict where we have no vital national interest at stake and then took the side of people who already hate us (Albanian Muslims), so that we can alienate a traditional ally (the Serbs) and then have both sides hate us. The Serbs stand at the gateway to Europe and were the victims of waves of Islamic invasions into Europe and suffered grievously under the heavy yoke of the Ottoman empire. Historical enmity exists there. We should have stayed out.

Should we have not got involved in world war 2 Europe? The Germans embarked an on ethnic cleansing campaign exterminating millions of jews, slavs and other 'undesirables' in an attempt to build a master race. But we had nothing to gain by getting involved.

[Icarus]

(11-27-2013 09:01 AM)master_thespian Wrote:  

Should we have not got involved in world war 2 Europe?

Difficult question. The U.S. helped the USSR develop its powerful industrial base in the 1930s. The Soviets were becoming a giant. Germany had limits on the size of its army and on its arms production. Germans were getting scared of being overrun by the Red Army. In 1939, Hitler and Stalin decided to occupy Poland to create a buffer zone for both. Two years later, they go to war. The U.S. helped the USSR enormously after the Nazi invasion.

The U.S. was heavily involved in the creation of the Soviet monster. Then the U.S. fought the monster for decades via proxy wars until the Soviet monster went bankrupt and collapsed. This level of folly and stupidity is not unprecedented. All empires in history made tragic mistakes due to lack of perfect information, personal biases of ideological nature, pressure from peers, fear, ego, etc.

(11-27-2013 09:01 AM)master_thespian Wrote:  

The Germans embarked an on ethnic cleansing campaign exterminating millions of jews, slavs and other 'undesirables' in an attempt to build a master race. But we had nothing to gain by getting involved.

True. But it would have been better to support the Soviets just enough to keep things stalled on the eastern front, so that the Nazis and the Soviets would annihilate each other. Realpolitik is a bitch.

This is what the French did after their tragic defeat in the Spring of 1940. The French were very smart. It was not worth it wasting French lives needlessly while the Nazis were strong. Better let the Nazi empire expand too much, stretch too thin, exhaust itself fighting on too many fronts, and then attack the Nazis when they get weak. Which is what they did, after D-Day, when they had the U.S. military on their side.

[PoosyWrecker]

(11-27-2013 09:01 AM)master_thespian Wrote:  

Should we have not got involved in world war 2 Europe? The Germans embarked an on ethnic cleansing campaign exterminating millions of jews, slavs and other 'undesirables' in an attempt to build a master race. But we had nothing to gain by getting involved.

After Korea every American war sold to the public as important moral wars has had hidden interests like oil or drugs. USMC General Smedley Butler (MOH) wrote that his entire career from the turn of the century to 1930 was for the profit of elites. Is there a reason not to think that our involvement in WW2 was for reasons other that what we're taught? Every other war we've been in the last century has been (though I haven't read enough about Korea).

[Sp5]

(11-27-2013 09:26 AM)PoosyWrecker Wrote:  

(11-27-2013 09:01 AM)master_thespian Wrote:  

Should we have not got involved in world war 2 Europe? The Germans embarked an on ethnic cleansing campaign exterminating millions of jews, slavs and other 'undesirables' in an attempt to build a master race. But we had nothing to gain by getting involved.

After Korea every American war sold to the public as important moral wars has had hidden interests like oil or drugs. USMC General Smedley Butler (MOH) wrote that his entire career from the turn of the century to 1930 was for the profit of elites. Is there a reason not to think that our involvement in WW2 was for reasons other that what we're taught? Every other war we've been in the last century has been (though I haven't read enough about Korea).

If you recall, Japan attacked the USA at Pearl Harbor. The USA declared war on Japan in response. Hitler then declared war on the USA. Those bastards really were trying to take over the world.

[Icarus]

(11-27-2013 09:26 AM)PoosyWrecker Wrote:  

After Korea every American war sold to the public as important moral wars has had hidden interests like oil or drugs. USMC General Smedley Butler (MOH) wrote that his entire career from the turn of the century to 1930 was for the profit of elites.

I would go further. I would say that all wars ever fought by the U.S. were fought to increase the power and wealth of the elites. But that which benefits the elites can also benefit citizens of every social class.

While in past wars the U.S. acquired valuable assets, such as beautiful real estate (e.g., California), or superpower status (after WWII), virtually all wars fought by the U.S. after 1945 appear to have been fought for nothing. What did the U.S. benefit from Korea and Vietnam? 100,000s of Asian immigrants that happened to increase "diversity"? Was that worth some 100,000 KIA?

The Gulf War might have been worth it, since Saddam controlling Kuwait and invading Saudi Arabia would have allowed him to control a very significant fraction of the world's oil reserves. And that would not have harmed the elites as much as it would have harmed the average Joe who lives in the suburbs and spends 2 hours per day commuting.

[Tail Gunner]

(11-27-2013 09:01 AM)master_thespian Wrote:  

(11-27-2013 12:15 AM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  

There are a vast number of different issues involved, but two of them stand out:

1. The U.S. should never intervene in any conflict unless there is a vital national interest at stake. There was no vital national interest in the Serbian-Croatian-Albanian conflict. None. Typical Democratic warmongering hypocrisy in involving the military in places that have no vital national interest (Clinton = Serbia, Somalia, Haiti, etc.), while complaining about those conflicts in which the U.S. does have a real vital national interest.

Seriously, why intervene in Serbia but then not intervene in the Rwandan Genocide, where a few thousand soldiers could have prevented the death of upwards of a million Tutsis by machete-waving Hutus? Explain that.

2. The Serbs were our staunch allies during WWII and loved Americans because of that historical tie. But we involved ourselves in a conflict where we have no vital national interest at stake and then took the side of people who already hate us (Albanian Muslims), so that we can alienate a traditional ally (the Serbs) and then have both sides hate us. The Serbs stand at the gateway to Europe and were the victims of waves of Islamic invasions into Europe and suffered grievously under the heavy yoke of the Ottoman empire. Historical enmity exists there. We should have stayed out.

Should we have not got involved in world war 2 Europe? The Germans embarked an on ethnic cleansing campaign exterminating millions of jews, slavs and other 'undesirables' in an attempt to build a master race. But we had nothing to gain by getting involved.

We had nothing to gain by getting involved? Responding to a military attack on the nation is a vital national interest. Defense against a nation that declares war on us (Japan and Germany) is a a vital national interest. Ensuring that Japan and Germany did not divide the world into two spheres of conquest is a vital national interest.

Ensuring that another nation does not control the world's vital natural resources (oil, etc.) through violent aggression is also a vital national interest.

[Icarus]

(11-27-2013 11:01 AM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  

We had nothing to gain by getting involved? Responding to a military attack on the nation is a vital national interest. Defense against a nation that declares war on us (Japan and Germany) is a a vital national interest. Ensuring that Japan and Germany did not divide the world into two spheres of conquest is a vital national interest.

By choosing to fight Germany, the U.S. allowed the USSR to occupy Eastern and Central Europe. So, one problem was eliminated, and an even bigger one was created.

When your enemies are destroying each another, it's better not to intervene.

[Tail Gunner]

(11-27-2013 11:11 AM)Icarus Wrote:  

(11-27-2013 11:01 AM)Tail Gunner Wrote:  

We had nothing to gain by getting involved? Responding to a military attack on the nation is a vital national interest. Defense against a nation that declares war on us (Japan and Germany) is a a vital national interest. Ensuring that Japan and Germany did not divide the world into two spheres of conquest is a vital national interest.

By choosing to fight Germany, the U.S. allowed the USSR to occupy Eastern and Central Europe. So, one problem was eliminated, and an even bigger one was created.

When your enemies are destroying each another, it's better not to intervene.

I agree with that assessment as a general rule. But the U.S. had no choice. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the next day Germany declared war on the U.S. (probably Hitler's greatest blunder of the war). What other choice did the U.S. have at that point? None.

(11-27-2013 11:11 AM)Icarus Wrote:  

When your enemies are destroying each another, it's better not to intervene.

That was Stalin's strategy. To have Germany and the Allies destroy each other and to then invade all of Europe after they had weakened each other. But Hitler realized this fact and struck first, despite the fact that in "Mein Kaumpf" he had declared that it would be suicide for Germany to attack the Soviet Union. Hitler had no choice, especially after the Soviets invaded the Romanian oil fields (probably Stalin's greatest blunder of the war). It is a little-known fact that Stalin actually planned and started WWII in Europe.

http://www.amazon.com/Chief-Culprit-Stal...ef+culprit

[bojangles]

yeah but back to Kosovo man world war 2 has been done to death around here!