Posted on 08/11/2008 11:11:31 AM PDT by kronos77
Belgrade, 11 August (AKI) – The deadly conflict between Russia and Georgia in the breakaway province of South Ossetia is an indirect result of Kosovo's declaration of independence in February, Serbian analysts and politicians said on Monday.
“If there wasn’t a ‘Kosovo precedent’, as the greatest world powers headed by the United States called the secession of a part of Serbian territory, there wouldn’t have been a war in South Ossetia,” Oliver Ivanovic, Serbian government official in charge of Kosovo told the Belgrade daily Blic.
Ivanovic said that Kosovo's example was “inspiring to South Ossetia, so they wanted to strain relations and to define their position.”
Georgia wanted to solve the problem of separatist South Ossetia by the use of force, just like Serbia had tried to do in Kosovo in 1999, he explained. .. Commentator Dragan Petrovic told Tanjug news agency that the United States had encouraged a conflict between Russia and Georgia to strengthen its influence in the region.
“The Americans want to drive a wedge between Georgia and Russia to improve their position in the area because of an oil pipeline, future actions against Iran, to isolate pro-Russian Armenia and to encourage the aspirations of the Muslim population in the North Caucasus,” Petrovic said.
Former Serbian foreign minister Goran Svilanovic said he now saw Georgia as a “Russian sphere of interest”.
He said it will soon “become clear to everyone in Russia, Georgia and the countries in the region”.
(Excerpt) Read more at adnkronos.com ...
Montenegro has barely a quarter of Kosovo's population. Montenegro is conceivable without NATO troops.
What goes around, comes around.
Bizarre statement. What did Georgia ever do to Serbia? Georgia isn't part of NATO.
Neither principality is based on any kind of ethnonationalism: Liechtensteiners are ethnic Germans and Monagasques are ethnic French.
Gibraltar is not an independent country at all, but a British dependency.
South Ossetia is not a wealthy banking center.
The “mines” you are referring to are identified as lead and zinc mines. They hardly are the dominant force in the Kosovoan economy, nor would you want such a place to be.
Today's chest thumpers refer to "glass parking lot".
Time to beef up your understanding of idiomatic expressions.
Montenegro treats all of its citizens equally.
Kosovo persecutes all Serbs, Jews, and Roma within its borders.
Bosnia was an attempt to create an Islamic state, according to Alija Izetbegovic. The Serbs living there did not want to be forced to live under an Islamic state, not again.
Huge difference, but it’s why Montenegro doesn’t need foreign troops to survive but Bosnia and Kosovo would vanish without them.
Now, about those Reconquistas who want their nation of Aztlan back...
“Bombing back to the stone age” was something sometimes said “way back when”. It’s not all that common to hear it in more recent times.
Today’s chest thumpers refer to “glass parking lot”.
Time to beef up your understanding of idiomatic expressions. “
allow me to be more specific:
“We will demolish, destroy, devastate, degrade, and ultimately eliminate the essential infrastructure of that country” — said U.S. NATO General Wesley Clark, threatening Yugoslavia, in March 1999.
Thomas Friedman, in New York Times (Apr. 23, 1999), advised Americans, whose tax money was to be used for war: “Give war a chance. (...) It should be lights out in Belgrade: every power grid, water pipe, bridge, road and war-related factory has to be targeted. Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation.” Addressing Yugoslavs, he said: “We will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389, too”
Bill O’Reilly, on the Fox News Channel (April 26, 1999) advised NATO: “Rather than put ground forces at risk where we’re going to see 5,000 Americans dead, I would rather destroy their infrastructure, totally destroy it. Any target is OK. I’d warn the people, just as we did with Japan, that it’s coming, you’ve got to get out of there, OK, but I would level that country so that there would be nothing moving—no cars, no trains, nothing.”
Stephen F. Cohen described the results in the Nation (May 24, 1999): “NATO’s sorties are literally demodernizing Serbia. Two or three decades of its economic development — the foundation of the elementary well-being of ordinary men, women and children — have already been destroyed.”
I realize it was Curtis LeMay who said we would bomb the Vietnamese back to the stone age...the preceding was some of the phrases used for the bombing of Serbia...different words..same intent.
“Bombing back to the stone age” was something sometimes said “way back when”. It’s not all that common to hear it in more recent times.
Today’s chest thumpers refer to “glass parking lot”.
Time to beef up your understanding of idiomatic expressions. “
allow me to be more specific:
“We will demolish, destroy, devastate, degrade, and ultimately eliminate the essential infrastructure of that country” — said U.S. NATO General Wesley Clark, threatening Yugoslavia, in March 1999.
Thomas Friedman, in New York Times (Apr. 23, 1999), advised Americans, whose tax money was to be used for war: “Give war a chance. (...) It should be lights out in Belgrade: every power grid, water pipe, bridge, road and war-related factory has to be targeted. Like it or not, we are at war with the Serbian nation.” Addressing Yugoslavs, he said: “We will set your country back by pulverizing you. You want 1950? We can do 1950. You want 1389? We can do 1389, too”
Bill O’Reilly, on the Fox News Channel (April 26, 1999) advised NATO: “Rather than put ground forces at risk where we’re going to see 5,000 Americans dead, I would rather destroy their infrastructure, totally destroy it. Any target is OK. I’d warn the people, just as we did with Japan, that it’s coming, you’ve got to get out of there, OK, but I would level that country so that there would be nothing moving—no cars, no trains, nothing.”
Stephen F. Cohen described the results in the Nation (May 24, 1999): “NATO’s sorties are literally demodernizing Serbia. Two or three decades of its economic development — the foundation of the elementary well-being of ordinary men, women and children — have already been destroyed.”
I realize it was Curtis LeMay who said we would bomb the Vietnamese back to the stone age...the preceding was some of the phrases used for the bombing of Serbia...different words..same intent.
I didn’t argue with the intent, just the expression itself.
In Kosovo, Milosevic, the communist turned chauvinistic nationalist (like your man Putin) launched his third war in the Balkans. He'd lost the first one badly in Slovenia. He'd lost the next one with Croatia and Bosnia. By the third time, nearly everyone realized he was an evil man. As I rode through Kosovo, I saw nearly all of the roofs blown off of the homes of the people who were returning there. You can say what you want. I know how they'd treated the civilians there. I do not believe all of the Kosovars deserved this, nor do I believe the Georgians deserve Putin's war against their democracy.
I don't think Clinton was worse that Putin. I think they are/were both as bad as their position allows them to be and that makes Putin ten times worse especially now that Clinton has no position.
“nor do I believe the Georgians deserve Putin's war against their democracy.”
No one deserves to fall victim of megalomaniacs, but Georgia could have avoided this particular invasion by not invading South Ossetia. They had to know beforehand that Russia would use that as pretext for invading Georgia? Why would Georgia want that?
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