>>>Why don't you try being a pragmatist (whatever that means) with American Jews and try to tell them how stupid they are for wanting to fight over something out of "romantic" notions of history, their historic land, and so on?
This is a gross distortion of facts, you want to make an analogy to the Holy Land? Ok let's make one.
The Palestinians claim that all of Israel/Palestine is theirs, and they will not rest until it is all theirs. However this is ignoring the fact that Israel is populated by Jews, thus what they actually mean is genocide/ethnic cleansing. Serbs are doing the same thing by delibeartely ignoring the fact that Kosova is populated by Albanians, how else would that change except through an act of mass murder/expulsion?
But even building on you analogy, Kosova would be the equivalent of the Gaza strip. Sharon was smart enough to realize that on this one he would win by losing. I wish a Serbian equivalent of Sharon would arise to lead the Serbs away from their blind nationalism in regards to Kosova.
>>>You keep calling it "Kosova" -- that shows how ignorant you are
No I call it Kosova as a symbol of my respect for Kosovar self-determination. You want to call it Kosovo? Do as you please, this is quite a silly point as far as I am concerned.
>>>Thirty years ago it seemd impossible for the Soviet Union to collapse. Right now, Albanians in Kosovo can't imagine that their protagonists may not be there thirty years form now. They may have to face up to a different reality one day. What they do today is what they will be billed for tomorrow.
Yes I have heard this same wish before. What you are in fact hoping for is the collapse of the US, or the American do-good will around the world. Well I am here to tell you that I am a firm believer in America's Manifest Destiny, and for all your wishing otherwise the US will continue to support freedom around the world, and will never turn a blind eye to ethnic/nationalistic folly.
>>>What they do today is what they will be billed for tomorrow.
You and a couple of other posters here are getting more and more open about this. Who and what are you exactly threatening? What the hell do you think makes you better than me? Because you're a Serb/Orthodox/whatever? The God that I believe in loves all His creation the same, and does not prefer one language over another. The Lord that I believe in spilled His blood for all mankind, including Albanians.
Hi Gerald, Hi people, TEXT - The use of the word ‘revisionist’ to describe this current of opinion serves a dual purpose, for the revisionists seek on the one hand to oppose what they see as the mainstream, orthodox view of the wars in the former Yugoslavia and on the other to challenge the very notion that genocide took place. Thus they are in some ways the counterpart to the Holocaust revisionists. So, if people claim in WW2 there was a Holocaust over Jews, and now people claim there was a genocide over Srebrenica muslims, we can conclude that one opposing this claims has to be a revisionist. The fact that Serb troops executed war prisoners and soldiers wishing to surrender, few hundreds of them, against the orders of the higher command, seem like minor offense compared to the fact that Jews were murdered en masse in millions in highly developed system of concentration camps, including women and children, supervised by the highest officials of the German state. Second, Jews didn't kill german civilians in an attempt to conquer german lands, after breeching fundamental rights of german nation. Thirdly... but I doubt GeraldP and other like him would really follow me. One more thing - the author concentrates on LEFTIST criticism, trying to connect issues like only leftist sympathize with Serbs. I wouldn't say Henry Kissinger's a leftist. George Kennan also opposed Kosovo campaign. Oh, just this, this is one of the clear anti-serb half-lies I saw in the text TEXT - Every single Western peace plan for Bosnia was based on the premise of Bosnia’s partition; every one gave Karadzic’s Bosnian Serbs a much larger share of Bosnia than their proportion of the population would warrant. The fact that Serbs were predominantly rural population, because of the centuries of turskish rule in which serbs had to work and give part of their agricultural products to the wealthy muslim lords living in towns, has no significance to the author. If you have muslims mostly in towns, because they don't have to work (Serbs were working for them), and after genocide in Bosnia (two times in XX century) muslims are more numerous then serbs, then it's not right to give serbs more land then they should get "by percentage in population"! Oh realy??? Maybe those Serbs didn't want Islamic invaders to come to their lands and opress them. But I would like to comment few of Gerald's posts. GERALDP - "...as long as the population [of Kosovo, my add] is ethnic Albanian, Serb nationalism will not rest regardless of whether Serbia has sovereignity or not. " This is not true. Why didn't serbs force albanians to get back to albania before the world war two, why didn't they do it after WW II, and why did they agree on more and more autonomy for Kosovo, untill Kosovo became de facto independant from Serbia inside of Yugoslavia? On the other hand, why did the Albanians commited genocide against Serbs in WW II, and why did they continue to fight partisans untill 1951, and why did they continue to opress Serbs all the time during Yugoslavia, untill Milosevic used it to seize the power? Why did Albanians staged drowning of three boys in March, using that fraud to attack those miserable people, Serbs in Kosovo, didn't albanians feel satisfaction to see Kosovo is theirs and Serbs have only their ghettos to live in? Couldn't Albanians allow Serbs to live in their ghettos, if nothing else? It's not strange then that people like getofmylawn conclude, "there can be no appeasement, we're claim all of our property if you're not satisfied even with 90% of it!" I have Vasa Cubrilovic's "Proposal". I'm sorry he was right. He said that Albanians will throw us out from our territory if we don't throw them out of our territory. BUT NOBODY WAS LISTENING TO HIM. Such people don't have many support among Serbs. That's why Serbs had to flee Krajina, because they didn't revenge for Croatian genocide and centuries of opression, but wanted to make peace. Serbs lost many territories in Bosnia for not wanting to revenge for genocide and centuries of opression. In Herzegovina serbian priests were forcing Montenegrins not to revenge to muslims in 1918. And they didn't. And Serbs lost Kosovo for not wanting to revenge for genocide and opression. You had everything in Kosovo during socialist Yugoslavia, but no, you wanted independence all the time. And now you come and tell me "I do not want to fight over a piece of land, but I will fight for a peoples and their freedom..." So, if you don't want to fight for the land, why don't you all grab your things and return to Albania where you came from? I want to fight for the land, and you don't, so give me the land. How's about this? But no, you wanted Kosovo more then we did. Did. That's why your numbers in XX century, "under serbian rule of fear and terror", were increasing, and serbian decreasing. GERALDP - All your romantic notions about "Kosovo is Serbia" can only be fulfilled through bloodshed. No, no, there doesn't have to be bloodshed, who's so crazy to like bloodshed? So, in order to avoid bloodshed, give us back what's ours, because you're men of peace, you don't want bloodshed. Enough with this. Huntington said it nicely. Land disputes can't be solved by discussion. p.s. I don't have problem with your "Albanianness", if getofmylawn (maybe) has. I just have the problem with people breeching my rights. Be them Serbs or Canadians or Albanians. p.p.s. GERALDP - you apparently consider legends more important than people and their lives. No, we use legends (and true events, also :-) to inspire us to continue our struggle for our rights. But we can tell the difference between legends (one represented by this pic of "Kosovo Maiden") and historical facts.
While you can't tell that difference since you base ethnic cleansing and chauvinism on your Illyrian myth and "Serb churches aren't Serbian" fairytales.
you want to make an analogy to the Holy Land It's not an analogy. Kosovo is Holy Land for the Serbs. The sooner the Albanians relaize that, the better it will be for the future of both people.
Some kind of comprise will be necessary, but simple demographic majority will not be the determining factor. It may work in New Jeresey when voting districts are drawn. It doesn't work in Israel and it won't work in Kosovo.
The fact is that sooner or later the Arabs will be the majority in Israel. Israel is, by definition, a Jewish state. If demographics are to determine the future of Israel, then Israel is doomed to a failure (unless its Arab population is either ignored or expelled, because the Arabs will not accept Israel as their country).
By analogy, if you wish, Serbia is a state of Serbs first and foremost, and Kosovo is a cultural, historical, spiritual and physical part of Serbia, has been and will be. End of discussion.