Archive through September 16, 1999 - Kosovo War

philtr — Thu, 16 Sep 1999 17:54:00 +0000

Ad hominem attacks ignored.

"You continually throw out this kind of … and when challenged either shift the question to something else or try to wiggle away from it by claiming some kind of disinterested neutrality (your "facilitator" role)."

Your characterization not mine.

" Neither your post nor Daniela or I ever mentioned Tanjung or any of the myriad of interventionist organizations in the service of NATO."

I never said you or Daniela mentioned them. They're merely examples of ogranizations that put out what I believe are good reports. Tanjug does not.

" Kouchner claims these numbers are the result of a "A new survey by NATO-led troops in Kosovo ....", not OSCE, UNMIK, NATO, ICG, or any other self-serving NGOs"

I believe if you go back and look at my post, I was alluding to report reliability.

" What's being questioned is Kouchner's reliability and credibility (and honesty!) and the absurd notion that in the midst of the chaos in Kosovo where NATO troops have little control of anything they somehow were able to "survey" the population and determine the numbers of various ethnic groups."

There is no objective verifiable evidence that impugns Kouchner's reliability or credibility. Statistical sampling is a well developed art form that can be used by most anyone under appropriate supervision.

phil

philtr — Thu, 16 Sep 1999 17:35:00 +0000

T'gunn, the points raised by Harris to support his position and not really dealt with by North are:

1) …the Serb regime has long planned the "ethnic cleansing" of the Kosovar Albanians that is currently underway on an accelerated schedule…

2) …in the long term there is no way other than military force to save them and to put a permanent halt to Serb aggression…

3) …if the Serb government persists in the face of aerial bombardment of strictly military targets, those attacks should and no doubt will be broadened to include economic targets and civilian infrastructure as well…

4) Milosevic began his rise to power by embracing and legitimizing the strong strain of mystical, fanatical nationalism that had been suppressed during the decades of Tito's rule… …followed by a number of far-reaching acts…

These acts included:
5) …stripping the Kosovo region of the official autonomy status…

6) …large scale elimination of government resources for Albanian schools and cultural institutions…

7) …mass firing of Albanians from both
government and non-government positions…

8) …suppression by violence of Albanian attempts to maintain theircultural autonomy and identity.

9) Milosevic appropriated for the Serb Republic the votes in the council of the Yugoslav Federation that had up to then been wielded by Kosovo and Vojvodina autonomous regions. This gave Serbia disproportionate power…

10) Karadzic, the Bosnian Serb leader and infamous war criminal, was Milosevic's proxy in Bosnia, as were the notorious Arkan and other militia leaders responsible for much of the butchery.

11) …during the intervening decade the Albanian community had conducted a campaign of political struggle , using the tools of passive resistance…

12) …was still going on in the face of vicious and unrelenting Serb oppression when, in 1997, the UCK (KLA) emerged in Kosovo…

13) The response of the Serbian police and military was brutal and indiscriminate, and by March of 1998 had become an outright campaign of "ethnic cleansing…

14) These forces had resumed the campaign of violence against the Albanians, as always under the guise of fighting the UCK "terrorists," and as always involving the deliberate and methodical execution of men of military age, the random slaughter of women, children and the elderly, and the systematic destruction of homes and villages.

phil

tommygunns — Thu, 16 Sep 1999 07:39:00 +0000

PS to Phil,

Re:>> Capatilism is top dog only because it works best for most. <<

If you want to see the results of your wonderous capitalism, I suggest you leave your ivory tower and take a trip to Latin America. Just about any country will do, but I highly recommend a visit to Colombia. I'm not talking about FARC or the cocaine business either. Colombia, hailed as one of the oldest democracies in the America's with a completely capitalist economy is now, and has been for decades, mired in the most mind-boggling poverty, misery, and despair imaginable. You will find the most horrendous slums imaginable precisely in those cities with significant US corporate investment - Cali and Barranquilla. The squalor of Barranquilla can only be compared with the vision that Calcutta used to bring to people's mind.

I know this because I have lived in both Cali and Barranquilla and I've been to just about every corner of the country and seen the unbelieveable human misery.

And were is Nicaragua today, now that the evil Sandinistas and their evil "socialist" programs to spend the national wealth to feed, house, and educate the people. Nicaragua is once again mired in the stench of poverty and misery thanks to the US.

Don't stop there. Keep going south. Your dazzling capitalism and democracy can be seen first hand in Panama City, Quito, Lima, La Paz, Santiago, Rio, Asuncion. It's the same wherever you go in Latin America despite decades of Peace Corps, Alliance for Progress, USAID, and a whole garbage bag of programs that never were intended to alleviate the misery of Latin America. Really solving the problems that plague people all over the world IS NOT PROFITABLE, that is why capitalism ISN'T and WILL NEVER BE successful.

Yea, I know you said "it works best for most". And so royalty in feudal Europe thought as well.

tommygunns

L'menexe — Wed, 15 Sep 1999 11:46:00 +0000

hi kissie!
actually ==I== missed you. no foolin'.
was very pleased that a situation wherein i was
(perhaps pointlessly) rude became articulate by
the time we last crossed paths.
i've said before my participation here had more to
do with my philosophical inclinations than the
real knowledge frequently on display here since
the "h'niq wars" of a couple months ago.
i come back regularly to read, and i try to become
a little more familiar with the specifics, but
damn, i'd just get in the way of these more
ed-ja-ma-cated types holding forth nowadays.
but ==this is true== among the things passing
through my brain as i'd wished i could get more
than 90 mins sleep last night was to drop a line
here saying, in effect, that i missed you.
well, y'know, as much as one might under these
circumstances. (grin)
>>larry b./L'menexe

tommygunns — Wed, 15 Sep 1999 05:21:00 +0000

"Clark rejected Serbian accusations that chaos had prevailed in Kosovo since the arrival of KFOR."

No, why should that statement surprise anyone? It's a perfect example of the blatant lies we've been hearing from day 1.

"He said there were indications that Serbs were deliberately undermining security in the province and cited as an example that one of the three Serbs killed by Russian KFOR soldiers on Sept. 6 was carrying a Serbian Interior Ministry identity card."

This one is simply ludicrous!! Now we're expected to believe that a member of MUP, with all the accusations of atrocities against them, is going to infiltrate back into Kosovo and continue to carry a MUP identity card!!!

Jeeeeez! NATO troops taking census counts and MUP soldiers carrying identity cards in hostile territory. It makes for perfect disinformation - "we smart, they dumb". I can just hear both Jane and the Chimp ROTFL!

Keep shifting the blame is also a great tactic of propagandists (from denial of chaos to the chaos is caused by those dumb infiltrators). Just like every article about Serb, Roma, or other non-Albanian murders has to include a reminder of alleged Serb atrocities as though that justifies and excuses the current ethnic cleansing of Kosovo.

tommygunns

tommygunns — Wed, 15 Sep 1999 04:57:00 +0000

Phil,

Get a grip. Ever since the Diana Johnstone and David North articles you've had this raging hard-on about socialism. Why don't you make an intelligent rebuttal to David North's response to P. Harris's letter if it bothered you so much. Instead, you accuse North of not answering any of Harris's "14 points". You don't bother to say what those points are or how David North failed to address them. Maybe you don't understand analysis based on history, or maybe you just don't understand history and prefer to live in your little bubble of time (ref an earlier post about fragmented reality).

Who the hell cares about the SLP? No one on this board has ever mentioned that particular organization. Do you think it is representative of all socialist thought? Is socialism to you just one big monolithic ogre? What DO you know about the long history (long before Marx) of socialist thought. I suspect, like most Americans, you know very little about socialism, never having actually read or studied the works of it's many thinkers - and certainly not taught anything about it in school.

Instead of directing others on this board to athiest websites and assigning "homework", you might spend a little time learning about a subject that seems to cause you much consternation.

BTW - Every one of your NATO-boot-licking so-called international community leaders claims to be socialist!! How do you square that with your reactionary dismissal of socialist analysis?

If it wasn't for socialists (and communists) you, my friend, wouldn't have ANY of the benefits you now most likely take for granted and consider them your right - e.g., the 8hr day/40hr week, paid vacation, paid sick days, holiday pay, unemployment insurance, mortgage interest deductions, Social Security, medicare, and all the other entitlements that prop up your life. Do you really believe your great capitalist business leaders would have willing given all this perks out of the goodness of their souls? Without an opposing force to their greed, you'd still be picking cotton 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

As for Diana Johnstone's article, all you did was ask a lot of irrelevant and picyune questions that were just down right stupid! If you reject her contention that there is a resurgence of nazism and the Ustasha in Croatia, then give us some hard evidence that shows otherwise.

Your most recent rant about "Capitalism is top dog ..." is simply childish. It reeks of "nya, nya, nya, told you so" silliness.

I repeat: "You continually throw out this kind of crap and when challenged either shift the question to something else or try to wiggle away from it by claiming some kind of disinterested neutrality"

Back on point: I still maintain that Kouchner's assertion of a NATO troop-led survey and the supposedly "new" numbers is pure fabricated bullshit!

tommygunns

kissie — Tue, 14 Sep 1999 21:34:00 +0000

"... (unlike troops with a more socialistic bent), can dance and chew gum at the same time. " Unfortunately, that's all they are capable of.

philtr — Tue, 14 Sep 1999 17:35:00 +0000

This should not surprise anyone. phil

Subject: UPI KFOR denies Yugoslav army will return
Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 05:52:54 -0400
From: Snezana Lazovic
To: KOSOVO NEWS

KFOR denies Yugoslav army will return

BELGRADE, Yugoslavia, Sept. 13 (UPI) -- NATO's supreme commander in Europe, Gen. Wesley Clark, has sharply rejected growing pressure from Belgrade for the return of some Yugoslav security forces to Kosovo.
During a stop in Kosovo today, Clark said at a press conference in Pristina that those forces had gone out and would stay out.
``There would be discussions about a return for the purpose of demining, about a presence at (religious and cultural) monuments, perhaps
a presence at the frontier, but no more than a presence,'' Clark said, adding, ``But the return was explicitly banned.''
Clark rejected Serbian accusations that chaos had prevailed in Kosovo since the arrival of KFOR.
He said there were indications that Serbs were deliberately undermining security in the province and cited as an example that one of the three Serbs killed by Russian KFOR soldiers on Sept. 6 was carrying a Serbian Interior Ministry identity card.
Speaking about an organization of members of the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army to be set up after its demilitarization on Sept. 19, Clark described it as an unarmed and nonmilitary civilian service...

philtr — Tue, 14 Sep 1999 13:24:00 +0000

T'gunn and Daniela, NATO led troops, unlike troops with a more socialistic bent, can dance and chew gum at the same time. There is no reason to believe that they (NATO troops) can't conduct a reasonably good survey as part of their onging duties.

NYT and other similar slavish types have at one time or another gone after politicians and corporate types from all parts of the political and economic spectrum. Can you say that of Tanjug or any other similar mouth pieces with a similar socialistic bent? I think not.

All they're able to do is whine about life being so unfair because their socialist buddies can't seem to make the capatilist system work for them.

So they come up with this interesting idea of class struggle and all, everybody egalatarian or some such similar drivel.

Give them a chance, and the first thing they do is set up a clone of a capatilistic system, class layers and all (see the membership requirements at http://www.slp.org/facts.htm ), and then sell it as egalatarian class struggle drivel to any idealist with money and who will listen to them. The Socialis Labor Party is not a socialist organization by any streatch of the imagination. Its capatilistic through and through.

Capatilism is top dog only because it works best for most. Not because some made way for it. If it wasn't the best system, something else would be in its place. Everyone loves a winner not a whiner. If socialism is narvana, make it work and show us capitalists the way.

T'gunn, the joke is on you and your friends. Some day you may figure it out. Be patient. phil

tommygunns — Tue, 14 Sep 1999 03:03:00 +0000

Phil to Daniela 9/13:

Tanjug never mentions the calls for Milosevic to step down?

Are you naive, or what??? Even I wouldn't expect it to. Whether it's a state run news organization or a so-called independent is no guarantee that either is accurate or credible. Each serves it's own masters and neither has much to do with a "free press" - Tanjug serves the FRY state, the NYT it's corporate rulers. As the saying goes, a free press is great for those who own one!

Now, get back on track and explain how NATO-led troops managed to conduct this "phantom" survey.

tommygunns