NATO, Serbia and Kosovo

It was the 15th anniversary of NATO attack on Serbia two days ago... 15 years... It feels like it was a lifetime ago. A lot of things changed during that time, both in Serbia and in the world. For example, I can now choose a corrupt bastard who's gonna drive my country into the ground, instead of being stuck with one. That's a huge democratic achievement. And it feels worse, actually. At least when I was stuck with one, I could place the blame for everything at his feet, and I could hope that by removing him, I can achieve some change. The feeling's completely gone now. I'm totally apathetic, knowing that whatever I do, there won't be any difference. On the same day Crimean referendum was held, Serbian parliamentary elections were held. I've voted in every single elections there was as soon as I was legally allowed, thinking it was the duty of every citizen in a democracy. On the 16th of March, I barely got around to it, 10 minutes before the polls were closed, because it was on my way back home, otherwise I would have bothered at all probably.

In 2000, I gave my part to remove Milosevic from power. I walked the walk and talked the talk. Not just an ordinary member, I also organized others to do the same. I won't lie, it felt good. Maybe it had more to do with the fact that I was 18 years old, and let's face it, a lot of things feel good when you're 18, but that's definitely not the whole story. I was a part of something greater, fighting non-violently for some values I believed important, and for a better tomorrow.

Looking at all those people at Maidan, I could sympathise with them. I do believe most of them were good people, fighting for something they've believed in. Unfortunately, I believe they will end up the same as I 15 years later. They will figure out they weren't out there, bleeding and struggling for a better tomorrow, but for a change in a foreign policy. It will take time to get there, the enthusiasm stays for a year or two. It won't be a "kick in the teeth" kind of revelation, rather a slow realization that you've been a part of a big fraud, that you and ordinary people like you did all the work and that rich, fat, corrupt bastards are still rich, fat, corrupt bastards. For my part, I don't think I'll march like that ever again, but if I do, someone will be hanging from the lamp posts before I go home. I've left work half-done once, I won't do it twice.

So, 15 years ago, NATO, like Tom Cruise in Minority Report, bombed Serbia to stop the crime that didn't happen. I don't really care about Kosovo and I don't buy into the "craddle of Serbian culture, birthplace of Serbian soul and national identity and Serbian Orthodox church". We have a lot more culture than that, I believe, and if we don't, we don't deserve it if we didn't create something new in 600 years. I don't believe that nations have a soul, national identity is constantly evolving, and for the church thingy, well, I'm an atheist so screw that.

I care about lives needlessly lost and about people who needlessly suffered, both Serbian and Albanian (and others involved). I'm not even blaming NATO exclusively, although they did make sure that all avenues except the bombing were closed. I try to move on, not think about such things too much, life goes on and all that. So, what makes the 15th anniversary any different than 14th? I guess Ukraine and Crimea... I can relate a lot to the entire thing. Even though I supported the Russian meddling initially, and I do believe the new government in Kiev would have started more violence if not checked, I believe Russia took it too far. In that, I found myself aligning my opinion more and more with that of the western countries. And then, two days ago, it was 24th March, and I was listening for the 15th time NATO ambassadors explaining to me how I should be thankful for the bombs, how they got us rid of Milosevic. No, they didn't, Mr. Westerner, I did, and all the other people who first went to vote him out and refused to go home until he admitted defeat. I've gotten used to it, at least I thought so. Then I've saw a Twitter post by NATO spokesman on that day.

Attachment 12612

... and it made me more angry than all the bullshit I've been fed for 15 years of how it was done with my interests at heart. Freakin' pinnacle of insensitivity.

It seems I still do hold a grudge...



Sorry for the rant and long post, I just needed to get it off my chest.

It was certainly dumb for a NATO official to tweet this, but he didn't make it. Some Albanian dude from Pristina appears to have made it back in 1998.

I am with you!

I remember. I was there. I had just started our programme for the Refugees and IDPs (Internal Displaced Persons, in UN Jargon). I was in Novi Sad, with my Serbian Friends. OTPOR, resistance. The joy on their faces when one by one the TV channels turned back to their old logo (except Pink, but Pink Channel…) It was warn in my friend’s flat, themselves refugees from Croatia, and phones were ringing, rakia for everyone. Sounds of the horns coming from the street, this feeling of freedom running in the Streets. And the TVs. Army not marching on Belgrade, Anti-riots police joining the demonstrators, the bull-dozing of the Parliament doors… Zivoa Serbija. I still have the badge, of the clenched fist. After the despair of hearing the NATO planes bombing Serbia, I heard the cry of the Serbian Crowd for freedom. I needed all my well-constructed cynicism to keep my balance.

But that was a great night.

I write you name, Liberté

On my school notebooks
On my desk and on the trees
On the sands of snow
I write your name

On the pages I have read
On all the white pages
Stone, blood, paper or ash
I write your name

On the images of gold
On the weapons of the warriors
On the crown of the king
I write your name

On the jungle and the desert
On the nest and on the brier
On the echo of my childhood
I write your name

On all my scarves of blue
On the moist sunlit swamps
On the living lake of moonlight
I write your name

On the fields, on the horizon
On the birds’ wings
And on the mill of shadows
I write your name

On each whiff of daybreak
On the sea, on the boats
On the demented mountaintop
I write your name

On the froth of the cloud
On the sweat of the storm
On the dense rain and the flat
I write your name

On the flickering figures
On the bells of colors
On the natural truth
I write your name

On the high paths
On the deployed routes
On the crowd-thronged square
I write your name

On the lamp which is lit
On the lamp which isn’t
On my reunited thoughts
I write your name

On a fruit cut in two
Of my mirror and my chamber
On my bed, an empty shell
I write your name

On my dog, greathearted and greedy
On his pricked-up ears
On his blundering paws
I write your name

On the latch of my door
On those familiar objects
On the torrents of a good fire
I write your name

On the harmony of the flesh
On the faces of my friends
On each outstretched hand
I write your name

On the window of surprises
On a pair of expectant lips
In a state far deeper than silence
I write your name

On my crumbled hiding-places
On my sunken lighthouses
On my walls and my ennui
I write your name

On abstraction without desire
On naked solitude
On the marches of death
I write your name

And for the want of a word
I renew my life
For I was born to know you
To name you

Liberty.

I was living in England at the time, so I only caught the BBC's coverage to the run-up. I imagine the news in the States was even more gung ho, "Serbian genocide machine back in action", "Millions of helpless Albanians dead already!", that sort of thing. Truth be told, I didn't really have much of a clue what was going on, central/eastern European history is not covered in US schools at all, and MTW was 3 years away. The Serbs were always going to be the bad guys though, they were Orthodox, which made them basically Russian, right? Albright's war. :no:

The French were on the ball though. I was visiting Paris when the bombing started, and the citizenry were less than pleased. My first riot! :2thumbsup:

I've always had mixed feelings about that bombing campaign. I have, subsequently, also learned that the USA and NATO may have been responding to effective marketing as much as to any actual crisis -- or at least that is an argument that I have heard advanced.

Regardless, things like the tweet Sarmatian posted are galling. I remember my pastor at the time of our "triumph" over Saddam, before the insurgency heated up and soured public opinion. He stood up in front of a whole congregation of folks, many of them military and military retirees and lambasted them for taking joy over the Iraq Conflict and Saddam's ousting and hunted target status. He told us that reveling in such things was sinful -- such actions may have needed to be done, but that taking joy in them beyond a quiet satisfaction in accomplishing them efficiently and honorably was actively wrong.

I try to remember that lesson. A thing may need doing, but reveling in it, especially when there are poor innocents taking it on the chin as a by product, isn't something we should do.

I was in the states and chose that time to leave the military. The military for the most part saw it as the War of the Search for the Clinton Legacy.

Some of the public saw it as giving the Serbs what they deserved and the media hyped it as good deeds and justice for the Evil. I have never been a big fan of punishing the people for the actions of their leaders.

Of course we looked ridiculous. All the smart bombs seemed to get very stupid. But it sold a lot of Tomahawks.

The attack on the Chinese Embassy was almost as brilliant as destroying the aspirin factory in Sudan.

“The attack on the Chinese Embassy was almost as brilliant as destroying the aspirin factory in Sudan.” Don’t forget the brilliantly executed attack on the Refugees Column and the destruction of several tractors and the absolute success of the destruction of the railways bridge that hit the train. Not speaking of the strike on the TV tower at night that killed the cleaners…

I've had a really long day yesterday. That was partly responsible for the post. I didn't intend it to be an anti-NATO rant.

It was more about the fact that ordinary guys get screwed in the end, no matter which side they're on. There's 50 million people in Ukraine and I don't think anyone really cares about them, not even their political leaders.

Democratic principles are enforced only when it's politically convenient, never for the sake of principles themselves. I guess I'm getting more and more cynical as I age.

I was 6. Good to see the government of my father was just as prone to pointless action as the one of mine.

It's funny. I started using the "fat bastards must hang from lamp posts in front of parliament" from May last year. It's long overdue IMO. A few bankers, a few oligarchs, a few lobbyists. Nip-nip, here and there, and suddenly things might start changing.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Brenus

...Not speaking of the strike on the TV tower at night that killed the cleaners…

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I have always been annoyed by this. From punitive strikes against Libya in the 1980s forward, the safety factor of operating at night with our night vision and infrared capability has led to most such strikes occurring in the middle of the local night. Very safe for the aircrew and almost unstoppable without equivalent high-tech capability.

Unfortunately that means we've been "punishing" the local dictator/thug/former CIA spawned ally of the US/kleptocrat by killing their janitors in some edifice while they lay comfortably entwined in the limbs of their wife/mistress/favorite goat. I never thought they were likely to think of themselves as having been "punished."

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Sarmatian

It was more about the fact that ordinary guys get screwed in the end, no matter which side they're on. There's 50 million people in Ukraine and I don't think anyone really cares about them, not even their political leaders.

Democratic principles are enforced only when it's politically convenient, never for the sake of principles themselves. I guess I'm getting more and more cynical as I age.

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Democracy only works when the voters can make educated decisions and aren't told what to think. The political class here in the US has gotten too good at controlling the message.

Democracy works when there are real alternatives, and real choices. Major media, States or Private, are controlled by Government and Pressure Groups and just delivered the same message.
Last week in France 38 % of the voters actually went to vote, a historical low in a much politicised nation.
And it was a slap in the face for the 2 major political so-call opponents, as they are both advocating the same policy that brings poverty, hunger un-employment and despair.
In order to try to keep power, the media tried (and succeeded) to pretend a push of the Extreme-Right Front National to gather the sheep to vote for the 2 Bigs.
It won’t work with me, and I don’t think it will work. It worked 30 years, but we are tired to be taken in hostage. The Social Party (that is socialist only by name) and the right wing that built the Front National with massive media campaign will have to find other system to win election than fear.
Perhaps listening to the population and the need of some others than the wealthy and the bankers might be a start.
That is valid in all countries.

Well, there are usually other options than the big parties and the crazy nationalists.
If people always vote for the same parties then it's their own fault. Unless the voting system encourages that sort of behavior since only one party can win.

Maybe the more left parties only seem so crazy because the big ones and the media tell us they are since they challenge the current system that everyone is so comfortable with. I'd be willing to give them a chance even if it were just to show the big ones that they're not so hip anymore. Meanwhile, the rest of the country had almost given Merkel a full majority in the last round...

People say it's always the same old and then vote for the same party again because the others would change too much. :dizzy2:

Why not since Vietnam?

If it's from "the end of WW2 at least", then you might as well push it back to the end of the Civil War.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Greyblades

I was 6. Good to see the government of my father was just as prone to pointless action as the one of mine.

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Despite his apologist statements there was genocide going on in the Balkans of which the Serbian most certainly had a role in. So did others but I have no idea where this attitude from this forum about how what NATO did in the balkans was "bad" is coming for. It is disgusting frankly.

There were atrocities and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans but this is specifically about Kosovo.

Not Bosnia, Croatia, etc.

Kosovo was a different beast and a different reason. It was 90% propaganda and a mistake.

“Despite his apologist statements there was genocide going on in the Balkans of which the Serbian most certainly had a role in. So did others but I have no idea where this attitude from this forum about how what NATO did in the balkans was "bad" is coming for. It is disgusting frankly.” Well well well: Not sure I want do this. Oh yeah, I want.
Of which “genocide” do you refer to? News for you, NATO attack on Serbia preceded the “ethnic cleansing” on the Kosovars, and didn’t prevent the “ethnic Cleansing” of the Serbs, Askenalee and others minorities by the Albanians.
So, are you referring of the Croatian Ethnic cleansing, with around 200,000 Serbs on the road? Probably not, as it was done openly and the full view of NATO and with it logistic help.
So, that let’s as with the “genocide” in Bosnia, which happened several years before NATO bombing campaign.
I supposed it doesn’t include the “genocide” of the Fikret Habdic (Vlekida Kladusa) Muslim pocket by the Muslin forces of Aljia Itezbegovic, or the “genocide” by the Croats of the Muslims in Novi Travnik.
No. You speak of the “genocide” by the Serbs of Muslim, as seen in Srebrenica. New for you: Bombing campaign was after, years after, and not against the ones who did it.
If you think that bombing Serbia for the murders perpetuated by the Bosnian Serbs was right, that makes you a followers of Milosevic.

So, yes, NATO bombing was done for political reason, and not to save the Albanians from a genocide that never happened.