Ah, Those Journalists

[Sarmatian]

Ah, I stand corrected, it did take until 1992, though. That more or less proves my point. Whether or not he should have a statue is an entirely different question.

Well, the fact that Brits welcomed the unveiling of the statues with boos and jeers and that the statue has to be guarded 24/7 proves your point even better. Even though some politician decided erecting the statue was a good idea, many Brits didn't and still don't agree. And this gives a great deal of credit in my book to the British, if I may add.

As to whether anyone will answer for the WMD, I would point out that the Republicans are out of the White House and Labour is soon to be obliterated from the House of Commons.

Suffering a political defeat and facing responsibility is not the same. They'll be back in 5 or 10 years.

Louis point is, I think, that you fail to recognise the Serbian bias and the narrative of victimisation that bias creates.

I understood his point but I think he's barking up the wrong tree. Once again Louis wants to be a shrink of an entire nation. Serbs certainly aren't the biggest of nations, but twelve millions, give or take, is still to much, even for Louis, but that's a minor point. The major point is, even if Louis is right, that it doesn't change the anything. I agree with him to a point. There was rampant nationalism (it exists even today, on a much lesser scale, but still too much for my liking) and there is a narrative of victimisation, but not even close to what he was saying. I say not even close for two reason - because it's not nearly on that scale and because parts of it are justified. That doesn't, or shouldn't excuse, the other sides. It shouldn't be an excuse for their mistakes, blunders and crimes just like crimes against Serbs can't be an excuse for crimes committed by Serbs.

Since we mentioned Bomber Harris - his strategy of pursuing terror bombing was done in a total war. It was literally us or them. It doesn't justify it in my book, but at least it gives some more food for thoughts.
In case of NATO vs Serbia... Serbia's entire GDP comes to what... few percents of NATO combined military spending. Technologically, Serbia was decades behind. It wasn't a total war, heck it wasn't a war at all. It was an action against "Serbian mechanisms of repression", or something like that, I'm not sure how exactly Clinton phrased it. It makes the rules even more strict.

I'm sorry that I'm always returning to Serbia, it wasn't my intention when I started this thread, it's just that I'm naturally more familiar about that than about Iraq or Afghanistan or other events. The point still remains that anything not fitting the accepted image was ignored by the media and the politicians. Reports on the internet are scarce, too. Unless you know exactly what you're looking for, you won't find it. I'm sure we could find many similar examples about Afghanistan or Iraq, and more importantly, I'm sure that there are many more that we couldn't find, which is kinda a point of this thread...

EDIT: Exceptional documentary that covers what I'm trying to say. Made in Netherlands, I believe. Among other things it deals with the infamous "concentration camps" photographs made in 1992 that very most influential in turning the public opinion in the western countries against Serbia. I strongly encourage watching because it's exactly about what we're talking here...

[Louis VI the Fat]

I am happy that Dresden has been brought up. I wanted to use it as an example, but feared the 'Godwin' of it.

There are two ways to discuss 'Dresden':
- As part of an objective, at least, honest, debate about atrocities, Allied self-criticism, needless suffering, strategical value, rightful avengement. Let's call it Truth and Reconcilliation.
- As part of a revisionist narrative. Where the argument is: 'Dresden was a war crime!! The Allies are just as bad as Hitler. Dresden = Auschwitz. The suffering of the German people proves Hitler was right when he stood up for persecuted Germany'. 'Dresden' here is not a debate, but an instrument of political propaganda.

These two 'debates' (one is, another isn't) are unfortunately often hopelessly intertwined. Much to the delight of professional Nazi revisionists. They will argue the second, and when confronted with criticism, claim they are merely debating the first. Slippery weasels.

I accuse the arguments of Sarmatian (and Brenus ) of belonging to a discourse belonging to debate two. Not out of any deliberate act, but unwittingly so.

Perhaps, Sarmatian, you really just wanted to discuss killing of journalists in war as a genereal subject. In which case I am sorry for turning this thread into 'Serbia'. I can not read your mind. However, the origin of this thread lies in the accusation of NATO hypocracy. So this tangent I pursued.

Once again Louis wants to be a shrink of an entire nation. Serbs certainly aren't the biggest of nations, but twelve millions, give or take, is still too much, even for Louis, but that's a minor point.

Louis wants truth to be known and justice to be done. So I support democracy and human rights groups in Serbia. And I have a distinct dislike of nationalist discourse.

These three are pretty much the considerations behind what I write and why I write it in any 'Serbia' thread. Other than that, I have no special feeling for or against Serbia. I wish Serbians all the best.



Edit: I am sooo tempted to deconstruct your statement 'Serbia has only twelve million people, but even that is too much'. It fits in perfectly with what I've argued about Serbian national discourse.

Serbian nationalist discourse describes the wars as a 'a foreign plot to diminish Serbia. The world fears the might of Serbia. And therefore wants to bring Serbia down'. This ethnic narcissim is combined with victimization: 'evil world, Turks, the West, NATO. All forever keeping Serbia down'

Am I incorrect in presuming this line of thought to be behind the statement in question?

In fact, I seem to remember you arguing in a previous Serbia thread that the US was behind the break-up of Yugoslavia: it feared an intact Yugoslavia as a competitor for global domination.
(A faint echo of what Russian nationalism claims about the break-up of the Soviet Union. I am not sure whether Serbian nationalism took its cue from Russia here.)

[Louis VI the Fat]

The nature of Serbian nationalist discourse and how it permeates Sarmatian and Brenus' posts, I must leave for another post. I shall adress three issues that have come up:

The NATO bombings.
My opinion in brief: Certainly ill-conceived and poorly executed. But neither undeserved nor, in fact, all that ineffective. For one thing, the wars in Yugoslavia pretty much ended after the bombings. Which seems to support the case both for the bombings and for the claim Serbian agitiation was a main driving force behind the wars of the 1990's.
Whether an independent Kosovo is desireable, I think maybe not. However, that was not the sole reason for the war. The war was a concluding act of the decade before, not an independent event.

'Killing journalists yes or no'.
I am tempted to be a goody two-shoes and say never. But I won't.
There are two kinds of journalists: mere mortals, and Adrian. No wait. A more useful distinction is: journalists who report; and secondly, reporters, writers, documentary makers, filmmakers who make propaganda. Alas, the second will always pose as the first. The first are not always (postmodern: never) able to distinguish themselves from the latter.
So I would say, never shoot the first, the second are fair game. If only the distinction could be made. And even if it could, I am not sure it isn't a pandora's box of tragedies.
(A similar discussion could be had about medics. Medicine is not neutral, and can be an effective instrument of war. The conventional wisdom, as with journalists, to never consider them a legitimate war target, is slippery)
(If only military targets are legitimate, then nobody fighting on a losing side will ever be a soldier distinguishable as such again. Which would make for an even bigger mess than the already blurred and uncomfortable wisdom of only targetting military targets. The wars in Yugoslavia serve as an excellent case in point.)

The attack on the Serbian state television.
Shade of grey. The wars in Yugoslavia were not one of conventional, large armies. Paramilitaries mostly. The wars had such bizarre sub-plots as Al-Qaida groups fighting against (football club) Red Star Belgrade hooligans.
The Serbian state, however, aided and abetted paramilitiaries and etnic cleansing. So while no army could be bombed back to Serbia, the Serbian state and its organs could be the target. The state television as much as the state. For one thing, as argued in a previous post, the Serbian television was not as innocent or civilian as it might appear. It was a state-run instrument of propaganda and incitement of hatred.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Yes, Serbia should not be singled out as perpetrator.
Yes, innocent Serbs died, who didn't deserve this fate.
Yes, other countries have not come to terms with dark episodes from their past.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1675992.stm)

Having said that, here's a short article about Serbian dealings with the wars:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In South Africa, Nelson Mandela established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission that offered amnesty to individuals in return for their public disclosure of the truth. It took new generations to come to terms with much of Nazi Germany's behavior. The U.S. civil rights movement forced the crimes of segregation into the arena of public scrutiny and shaming.

Serbs have not begun that process. They have played down the Srebrenica massacre and other atrocities from the 1990s wars they instigated. Former prime minister Zoran Djindjic, under international pressure and under cover of night, did send Slobodan Milosevic to trial in The Hague, Netherlands. Djindjic was assassinated in 2003. His successors have been more timid.

Serb nationalism

Before the wars, in the 1980s, the Serb capital Belgrade was the cosmopolitan Paris of Eastern Europe. It is now a dreary backwater, left behind as neighbors sprout modern shopping malls, McDonald's and skyscrapers and join Western clubs from NATO to the European Union. The Serb mafiosos and gangsters remain a nationalistic, intimidating force. Despite the efforts of some human rights campaigners and hard-hitting media outlets, nationalist sentiment still runs high. In a Serb opinion poll in May, more than half denied the Srebrenica massacre even took place.

Last month, however, Serbs got a chance to break out of the denial. Serb TV broadcast a video of part of the massacre. In it, Serb paramilitaries — the "Scorpions" — pull six battered, emaciated men from a truck, hands tied behind their backs. At least three are shot at close range. A Serb Orthodox priest blesses their actions against the "infidels." It was the Serbs' first incontrovertible evidence that they, not just rogue Bosnian Serb "cousins," were complicit: The Scorpions, as other paramilitary groups, were under the direct command of the Serb police.

The fact that it took a full 10 years for the video to emerge is already testimony to the resistance. The film was first played at The Hague tribunal, where it was sent by Serb human rights campaigner Natasha Kandic, who has long been subject to death threats. The Hague has, until now, largely enabled Serbs' denial. Milosevic's trial is being carried out far away, by foreigners, encouraging many to feel they, too, are being victimized. But the videotaped evidence cannot be so easily dismissed.

There are signs it might provide the needed psychological jolt out of the surreal world that Milosevic — much as Hitler — constructed. His nationalist propaganda denied inconvenient realities — though the truth was known.

Serbian men, as the Scorpions, were drafted to fight in the wars, often going with gusto. They knew what was happening, bringing information back to families and friends. When I visited Serb homes near Srebrenica months after the massacre, people shrugged about what might have happened to the "disappeared." But their exchanged glances told a different story. Police cars pulled up at the houses after I left, suggesting an official effort to suppress any breaking of the collective coverup.

A chance to come clean

Serbia is at a crossroads. It has a choice: Face up to the past, fully cooperate with The Hague tribunal, find a way — even if it's a South Africa-style commission — to come to terms with the past. The European Union has told Serbia that any future in its fold is conditional on that kind of cooperation; in recent weeks, in apparent response, several suspected war criminals have been handed over. Or continue on its present slide with an economy in shambles and no happy future.

That might seem like a no-contest choice. But it isn't. Serbia has had it for a decade now.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion...ica-edit_x.htm

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Where the argument is: 'Dresden was a war crime!!

That is a perfectly sensible assertion. Dresden being a war crime may be included in [bad] revisionist history (there is good revisionism as well, mind you, and I don't like it when people group the two), but it may also be included in legitimate and civil historical debate.

The Allies are just as bad as Hitler. Dresden = Auschwitz. The suffering of the German people proves Hitler was right when he stood up for persecuted Germany'. 'Dresden' here is not a debate, but an instrument of political propaganda.

I agree with you that these kind of assertions are laughable. That is just one reason why us normal Germans, whatever our thoughts on the subject, despise the Nazis who try to intrude on the debate.