Nick,

I now see your point. Albainians are killing their own or just staging and acting out these massacres to gain the world sympathy through video tape. See the albainians will kill thier own women and children to gain our sympathy. Brilliant! What a great idea. Oh wait now you'll tell me that the video is from some other massacre, or their not really dead just sleeping. Now it's just starting to sound stupid. Admit that there are deaths of innocent albainian civilians not only innocent serb victims. By the way what about the families of the 88 missing or dead? Wouldn't they say something. Wouldn't they be upset and go to the media. Or does NATO shut them up or out? It's hard to believe that isn't it?

"There was a loooooot of civilian damage. You can even see it on CNN, Brent Sadler reports. Just for example. They hit a street with only civil buildings and a hospital. NATO said, such
mistake would happen."

Morning Maja. I guess your alluding to the errant warhead that hit Aleksinac. I would ventrue to say most of the images seen on Serbian State TV that are of damaged 'civilian' structures is from collateral damage. Pictures from Aleksinac represent a direct albiet unintended hit. Quite a bit of difference between the two.

Better yet, recall the hits of the Ministry buildings in Belgrade. Particularly the one next to the Embassy buildings. The image I'm referring to is the shot with the Embassy building on the left with the Ministry building beyon. What struck me was the fact that none of the windows on the street side of the Embassy building were damaged. Yet the Ministry building was in rubble. The straight-on shot of the building revealed that the blast was directed Up/Down and not sideways.

When looking at images of damage, ask yourself is the shot wide or tight? A wide shot helps place the image in better context and gives one a lot more information to evaluate. If a tight shot, what's on the edge of the shot and what does it tell you?

"I don't know why this war is viewed us a religion war. I myself don't see it at such. And for all the people who hate people of different religion."

Maja, very few wars are motivated solely by economics. The wars may be fought over 'stuff,' but one has to 'go after' another's self image, demeaning and culturally degrading his enemy to get the backing of the general public who must believe the war-makers assertions. The easiest distinction to make is between forms of worship, belief and culture. The enemy has to be seen as deserving destruction otherwise the war-maker has no support for his efforts. The easiest way to trash one's enemy it to claim that his religion and culture is somehow defective or not righteous (or as righteous as one's) and that because of these imperfections or defects, god is really on one's side and one have every right to feel as one does and take what ever action one wants.

And so what do we have here between the Serbians and Kosovar Albanians? I think you can figure it out for yourself. It's really not too difficult. Painful, but not difficult.

phil

THE BOSTON HERALD

Clinton, Albright lit Kosovo's fire by Don Feder

Sunday, April 4, 1999

President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright set the stage for the catastrophe in Kosovo. If there were a Nobel Prize for ineptitude in diplomacy, they would be its joint recipients.

Doing a bad imitation of Vito Corleone at Rambouillet, Albright told the Serbs she would have either their signatures or their brains on the peace accord. The deal they were told to accept, or else, involved immediate autonomy for Kosovo and a three-year transition toward unspecified goals, supervised by NATO troops. It didn't take a genius to see that the transition
would be to independence.

That's fine for ethnic Albanians, 90 percent of the population, but tough luck for Serbs, who consider the land the cradle of Serbian nationalism and their Orthodox faith (it contains more than 500 monasteries and other monuments) - a combination of Philadelphia and Canterbury.

Interesting how the media coins a phrase that's repeated by rote. Even worse is the segue from ethnic cleansing to genocide - verbal overkill bordering on absurdity. If forcible population transfers are cruel and unfair, cruelty and unfairness are nothing new. During the fighting in Bosnia, Croat forces drove an estimated 300,000 Serbs from the Krajina region of Croatia. The aged and infirm who couldn't move were shot.

There were no expressions of international outrage over this ethnic sanitation, let alone cruise missiles and stealth bombers.

When India and Pakistan gained their independence in 1948, Muslims and Hindus each tidied up their respective territories,with 10 million pushed across borders. After the establishment of Israel, 950,000 Jews were ethnically cleansed from the
Arab world.

Like the Serbs, Turkey is fighting a war against terrorist secessionists. Since 1992, the Turkish army has razed more than 3,000 Kurdish villages, to deny guerrillas a base of support. In the process, hundreds of thousands have been left homeless.Turkey is a NATO member.

Prior to Milosevic's major deployment in Kosovo, the Kosovo Liberation Army ``encouraged'' Serbs in the province to relocate.

Serbian police and government officials were assassinated (this was also intended to provoke Belgrade),villagers were kidnapped and murdered - about what you'd expect from a cutthroat gang tied to both terrorist kingpin Osama bin Laden and
Albanian crime syndicates.

A March 4 article in The New York Times mentions the village of Velika Hoca, where five Serbian women said their homes were invaded one night last July and 16 men were marched away at gunpoint never to return.

None of this justifies the expulsion of ethnic Albanians (Belgrade says they're fleeing NATO bombing), but why selective reprisals from the West? Why bomb a people who have done us no harm and were our allies in two world wars? How far
will Clinton go to keep the burgeoning Chinese spy scandal off the front pages?

I never thought of myself as an isolationist. Unlike our president, I supported every Cold War intervention from Asia to Central America. Soviet communism was at war with us, and we were forced to defend ourselves on distant fronts. Likewise,
I supported the Gulf War. Saddam Hussein with the region's oil wealth, armed with nuclear and biological weapons, would have ignited the Middle East.

But Serbia? There is no logic here.

There is no international Serbian conspiracy, no Serb sponsorship of subversion and insurrection. Serb panzers will not roll across Europe in pursuit of a continental empire. Serbia seeks only to keep what was its from time immemorial.

While America should try to contain or punish tyrants through diplomatic isolation and sanctions, the decision to intervene militarily cannot be based on altruism. Humanitarian rescue missions will inevitably lead to the overextension of American power.

The military will be so exhausted by doing social work with bombs and troops that resources won't be there to defend the United States when our vital interests are at stake. (Cruise missiles and laser-targeted bombs don't come in Cracker Jack
boxes.) When China confronts us in Asia, we can tell our allies there that we spent all of our missiles in the Balkans.

Kosovo was an avoidable tragedy. Clinton and Albright should toast marshmallows over the flames. They lit the fire.

To GEORGE-YO-PITTAS,

...or should I say armchair politician! If only you where in command of the world...everyone would live in peace and harmony forever. You seem to have all the answers, and you have obviously researched this crisis very thoroughly!!??!!

We all know that making you President of planet earth would end all death, famine and war...but we would not dare drag you away from your busy beer drinking, channel surfing existence!

You should avoid embarrassing yourself by getting your facts correct before you comment!

NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The member nations are charged with ensuring the security of the region in which all NATO countries exist, nowhere else.

NATO's most eastern member is Turkey. Turkey is a fully voluntary member of NATO with the same rights within NATO as the UK and the US. If a malicious, unstable military exists within the Balkans then this poses a threat to stability of the region. Irrespective of your political views (i.e. whether you support the Serbs or not), there is no argument that the Balkans have become extremely politically and economically unstable. This is an indirect threat towards any country in the region. And if some of those countries happen to part of NATO, then NATO has an obligation to try and resolve the problem.

Just as if a violent genocide based conflict started in Western Europe (France or UK), then NATO would be obligated to protect the interests of any NATO countries within that region.

This does not make them "International Police", it just means that they are honoring the agreement they have made.
I do not actually support NATO in this case...but I think it is really misleading when uneducated peasants like you get on the Internet and spread misinformation and half-truths. This has the potential to influence people who do not know any better.

Everyone is entitled to an opinion...but for God sake! If you are going to voice an opinion please do a little more research than watching a 5-minute report on CNN before shouting off at the mouth!

Regards,

Sarah

Athens magazine Athinaiki, no. 599, page 9, 7th april 1999

"At the moment NATO is refusing Yugoslav ceasefire proposal , Athinaiki discovers 100% correct information from the NATO HQ resources that current Alliance loses are 88 death and missing soldiers and 32 airplanes and hellicopters. In order to punish Yugoslavia, small town of Aleksinac was heavily bombed resulting 12 dead and 30 wounded.

Informations obtained from highest level in Brussel are exposing Alliance`s anger and fear because of current losses without eaven starting any ground operation.
Number of "missing " (most likely dead) collected by NATO officers in Kosovo reached the number of 88. Meanwhile, the number of lost airplanes and
helicopters reached 32 so far. NATO hope that not all of 88 missing are dead and claim that Serbs don`t want to go with real number! According to NATO sources,44 are Americans, 11 are Germans, 7 are Brittish 18 are of miscellaneous nationalities. Those facts, still unpublished in those countries, combined with reported aircraft losses, caused anger to NATO generals who actually vote for different solution of crisis, There is also an oppinion that action was headed wrong
from the beginning. Due to all the mentioned facts here, NATO is claiming political deal under the current law in Yugoslavia without any changes of borders."

THE BOSTON HERALD

Clinton, Albright lit Kosovo's fire by Don Feder

Sunday, April 4, 1999

President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright set the stage for the catastrophe in Kosovo. If there were a Nobel Prize for ineptitude in diplomacy, they would be its joint recipients.

(A vacuous cheap shot.)

Doing a bad imitation of Vito Corleone at Rambouillet, Albright told the Serbs she would have either their signatures or their brains on the peace accord.

(This is a specious accusation.)

The deal they were told to accept, or else, involved immediate autonomy for Kosovo and a three-year transition toward unspecified goals, supervised by NATO troops. It didn't take a genius ( something this writer is definitely not) to see that the transition would be to independence.

That's fine for ethnic Albanians, 90 percent of the population, but tough luck for Serbs, who consider the land the cradle of Serbian nationalism and their Orthodox faith( it contains more than 500 monasteries and other monuments) - a combination of Philadelphia and Canterbury( not to mention was stolen form the ethnic Albanians back in 600-700 A.D who were there since Illyrian times, but whose worried about small details anyway?).

Interesting how the media coins a phrase that's repeated by rote. Even worse is the segue from ethnic cleansing to genocide - verbal overkill bordering on absurdity. If forcible population transfers are cruel and unfair, cruelty and unfairness are nothing new( and by all means should be continued whatever the cost). During the fighting in Bosnia, Croat forces drove an estimated 300,000 Serbs from the Krajina region of Croatia. The aged and infirm who couldn't move were shot( which makes what Milosevic's goons are doing now just too cool).

There were no expressions of international outrage over this ethnic sanitation, let alone cruise missiles and stealth bombers ( this goof severly limits his reading to avoid facing reality)

When India and Pakistan gained their independence in 1948, Muslims and Hindus each tidied up their respective territories,with 10 million pushed across borders. After the establishment of Israel, 950,000 Jews were ethnically cleansed from the
Arab world (as above, this makes Milosevic's clensing almost admirable) .

Like the Serbs, Turkey is fighting a war against terrorist secessionists. Since 1992, the Turkish army has razed more than 3,000 Kurdish villages, to deny guerrillas a base of support. In the process, hundreds of thousands have been left homeless.Turkey is a NATO member ( what can I say without being redundant).

Prior to Milosevic's major deployment in Kosovo, the Kosovo Liberation Army ``encouraged'' Serbs in the province to relocate( and murdered their men, took their valuables and pass ports too?).

Serbian police and government officials were assassinated (this was also intended to provoke Belgrade),villagers were kidnapped and murdered - about what you'd expect from a cutthroat gang tied to both terrorist kingpin Osama bin Laden and Albanian crime syndicates ( guilt by association).

A March 4 article in The New York Times mentions the village of Velika Hoca, where five Serbian women said their homes were invaded one night last July and 16 men were marched away at gunpoint never to return ( of course we won't point out that the scale of the atrocity does not match what the Serb authorities are doing in Kosovo).

None of this justifies the expulsion of ethnic Albanians (Belgrade says they're fleeing NATO bombing ( just about what one would expect Belgrade to say), but why selective reprisals from the West? Why bomb a people who have done us no harm and were our allies in two world wars? ( lets not break this idiot's bubble and tell him NATO is not going after civilian targets. Tragically, civilians are being affected, directly and indirectly. Civilians, tell Milo he has to go!) How far will Clinton go to keep the burgeoning Chinese spy scandal off the front pages?

I never thought of myself as an isolationist ( oh, you coy cad, you!). Unlike our president, I supported every Cold War intervention from Asia to Central America. Soviet communism was at war with us, and we were forced to defend ourselves on distant fronts. Likewise, I supported the Gulf War. Saddam Hussein with the region's oil wealth, armed with nuclear and biological weapons, would have ignited the Middle East. ( ain't you just precious)

But Serbia? There is no logic here (there really is, but we won't wake this idiot from his slumber).

There is no international Serbian conspiracy, no Serb sponsorship of subversion and insurrection. Serb panzers will not roll across Europe in pursuit of a continental empire (of course ethnic moslems in Kosovo better look out). Serbia seeks only to keep what was its from time immemorial (well at least from about the 6th or 7th centuries).

While America should try to contain or punish tyrants through diplomatic isolation and sanctions, the decision to intervene militarily cannot be based on altruism. Humanitarian rescue missions will inevitably lead to the overextension of American power (if America were in this by herself, which of coruse she isn't, but that's just another pain-in-the-a*s detail).

The military will be so exhausted by doing social work with bombs and troops that resources won't be there to defend the United States when our vital interests are at stake. (Cruise missiles and laser-targeted bombs don't come in Cracker Jack boxes.) ( I suspect that the NATO sholdiers are big boys and are up to the job) When China confronts us in Asia, we can tell our allies there that we spent all of our missiles in the Balkans ( this moron hasn't a clue what is in the US arsenal).

Kosovo was an avoidable tragedy. Clinton and Albright should toast marshmallows over the flames ( and this idiot should go back to teaching Jr. College in some backwater community where he won't be a disgrae on the national scene). They lit the fire.

Mime prick-o-Lick,
You and your communist magazine source are full of merde,scheist,caca,shi*! Where is the evidence of these dead soldiers and downed aircraft? I check the Serb news sources, there are no photographs or anything. The Serbs would post this information proudly on their sites and news services. This is just propaganda from a bunch of brainwashed morons that don't even know they are brainwashed.

I say all your arguments are irrelevant because NATO is more powerful than Yugoslavia,Yugoslavia will surrender or be destroyed,NATO will occupy Kosovo either way,The refugees will return,Kosovo will be autonomous or independant,and Serbs will still be as*holes.Albeit defeated as*holes. THE TRUTH HURTS. HUH?

Well said Sarah!

Maja,
You say the refugees were scared of the bombs and the grenades? Well, I don't think NATO is throwing grenades from planes. Where are the grenades coming from?

Here's a little interesting tidbit to read. It seems the Serbian army is now putting their equipment in residential neighborhoods so NATO will fire on them in Montenegro. Gee, I'd want him to be my leader. He not only kills his fellow countrymen but then sets it up so bombs will fall on his other countrymen. Nice Guy!

http://www.tampabayonline.net/news100r.htm

All those who oppose ethnical cleansing? Tell me how in the less than 50 years we have come from 30% Albanians and 70% Serbs to 90% Albanians and 10% Serbs? Who cleansed who? Who ran who out?

American tend to simplify everything. See everything in black and white, there is not grey. Why? Cause they are too lazy to read into the situation more closely. How many Americans have went to the librabry to get a book on Balcan history in order to make up their mind individualy from CNN? Very few. You just get one or two information and here you go, you have a 100% truth. And most of all you need to demonize somebody. Lynch. Somebody has to be quilty. You do it in your law system you do it in international affairs. That's why 1/6 prisoners are innocent, and 1/6 executed is innocent. There is a pressure to arrest somebody, anybody. Besides, a goverment that kills it's own people will not preach democracy to anybody. No democratic country has death pentaly.
AMERICA TAKES CARE OF IT'S OWN Clinton says. How about millions of homeless in America? They are displaced temporarily? How about hungry Americans? Ill children who have never seen a doctor cause their parents can't afford it? They are your own. You don't seem to take care of them. I suppose that is not in your national interests. Seen refugees sleeping on the ground, no food, no medical care? Multiply that 10, 50 times and you have got your fellow Americans. Why doesn't your president show you those pictures? You feel sorry for them but you don't feel sorry for your own. President is asking you to donate money for refugees? After billions and billions he has spend for humanitarian arms he only managed to spare 50 million dollars for a real humanitarian aid. Perverted. Promised the world he will take 20.000 refugees and now he is taking them to Cuba. As far as from you as possible. You don't give a damn about those people, atleast your goverment doesn't. They are using them to occupy the whole Europe with NATO. If Hitler couldn't get Europe, Clinton will succed. So it looks. Until Europe opens it eyes. Hope that happens some time soon. If not we will all be American slaves.

We do feel sorry for our own and there is an attempt to take care of poor people. It's called welfare. You don't work and you get your living place payed for, food stamps-which allows you to buy food, a monthly allottment if you have children, also at school the children get fed for free if you make under a certain amount of money. A family of 5 can make up to $42,000 a year and get reduced cost of lunches for their children. Most schools also provide breakfast. Older people get Social Security and children who have deceased or incarcerated parents also receive Social Security. A child not seen by a doctor is a parents fault. NO PUBLIC HOSPITAL can legally turn you away even if you cannot pay. YES, we do have homeless people. There are homeless shelters and food banks. America does care about its own but you cannot help someone if they won't help themselves. You cannot make a drug addict stop taking drugs, you cannot make an alcoholic stop drinking, and in this country you cannot make a mentally ill person go to a hospital unless they are a harm to themselves or others. These 3 types of people make up most of our homeless population. As for the death penalty, that is left up to each individual state. Not all people agree with it either. I am personally opposed to death in any form: death penalty, abortion, war whatever.

You make it sound perfect but it is far from that. But homeless don't have an acess to internet to tell you that. Which one of you has the guts to write how many Americans are homeless? Then we will compare the number to the number of refugees.

An American plane downed. For those who don't believe, there was a picture on CNN.

Homelessness is never perfect but at least we try to take care of our own and if you REALLY don't want to be homeless there are many organizations that can and Will help you. Some people don't want to be helped and some people are too proud to be helped.

Yes there was a plane shot down. Did you know it was unmanned? One of the ones we don't need a pilot to fly....... Don't get too excited.