Posted on 11/20/2001 6:52:51 AM PST by Voronin
I could of course point out that it was Yeltsin that stopped the war and still none of NATO's original objectives were met. 'Ghandi of the Balkans' my backside. I wonder if he had to ask permission from the President of Kosovo, Mr. Hasim Thaci.
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Or, 'we had to kill them to save them'.
His intellect really shows through. 'Humanitarian' whatever is just the sugar coating of the pill. 'National Interests' (however they may be defined) are what counts or otherwise 1 million Tutsis would still be alive. Dreck.
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But standing behind every "peace-loving" Shiptar spokesman is a Wahhabi with an AK-47 and a knife (for use as a "cold weapon") or worse--a UCK headhunting, baby-burning savage!!!! Only the Chechen bandits equal the UCK in savagery and inhumanity!!! I hope that Bush et al. can see through the Shiptars' disguises, before Kosovo-based terrorists start attacking Greece or even the US!!!!
Can't they get it straight???
A military plan that bombed: Waging Modern War by General Wesley Clark
MICHAEL ROSE
WAGING MODERN WAR by General Wesley Clark
Public Affairs, £19.99, pp465
Shortly after the end of Nato’s war against Yugoslavia, General Wesley Clark was summarily dismissed from his dual post of Supreme Allied Commander Europe and Commander in Chief Europe by a ungrateful country. He thus added his name to a long list of generals who have been similarly treated, including his fellow American, General MacArthur. Although he admits to “half expecting something”, his sacking evidently came as something of a shock. However, his fate is unlikely to surprise readers of his book — if a general loses the confidence of both his political masters and military chiefs, as he did in Nato’s war against Yugoslavia, then his fate, win or lose, will be sealed. In this detailed, unusually revealing book, Clark not only claims victory for Nato, but seeks to vindicate the strategic use of air power, believing that it is capable, by itself, of delivering the sort of strategic goals demanded by Nato in 1999. Clark is wrong in both instances, for neither was the result of the war a victory in the classic sense, nor were Nato’s specific objectives met. These were, first, the prevention of more civilian suffering in Kosovo, second, the disruption and destruction of the Serb forces carrying out atrocities against the Kosovo Albanians, and third, the enactment by Milosevic of the demands set out at Rambouillet by the international community.
Tragically, in the 11 weeks following the onset of hostilities on March 24, 1999, thousands of people were massacred and 1m driven from their homes in a programme of ethnic cleansing by the Serbs that accelerated after Nato began its bombing campaign. Militarily, the Serb army was scarcely damaged. Finally, at a political level, the one remaining point of disagreement at Rambouillet that led to the war (that of giving unrestricted freedom of movement for Nato troops in Yugoslavia) was never conceded by Milosevic.
Furthermore, far from not waging war on the Yugoslav people as Nato politicians had originally promised, because of the failure of the air strikes against the Serb military machine in Kosovo Clark widened his target lists to include bridges, electric power plants, fuels depots and TV stations. The resulting civilian casualties finally started to threaten the cohesion of the Alliance as member states rightly began to question the overall strategy being pursued.
By the end of the war, with the arrival of the Russian forces at Pristina airfield seriously threatening Nato’s claim to have achieved anything at all by its air campaign, maintaining Nato’s credibility was pre-occupying strategic planners. It is clear that the solution to Kosovo always lay in “democracy in Belgrade”, as Biljana Plavsic, former President of Republika Srbska, once explained to Clark. Unfortunately, the bombing of Yugoslavia not only weakened the existing domestic opposition to Milosevic but delayed the start of the democratic process.
Clark is clearly a courageous man but one driven by a Messianic determination to see his mission succeed. Whilst still an undergraduate at Oxford, he had determined that “if there’s nothing worth fighting and dying for, then there’s nothing worth living for”. These are noble sentiments, but somewhat dangerous in a military commander. Throughout the book, however, one cannot help but have a sneaking feeling of sympathy for him. Tirelessly “working” problems, sometimes going 36 hours without sleep, he becomes embroiled in every level of command. Never once does he appear to lose faith in his own judgment.
He appears in his book as a lonely but heroic figure fighting a war on three fronts — against Milosevic, Washington and foot-dragging Europeans. Even when fired, he determines “to give everything I had until the end”.
At a Nato defence ministers’ meeting held a few months after the war, one defence minister stated that the most fundamental lesson of the war was that “we must never do this again”. No one laughed. Although in his book Clark warns against “extolling” the air operation in Kosovo as a future pattern of war, it is abundantly clear that he wants us to believe that the bombing in Yugoslavia worked. By doing so, he lends support for a strategy of air power that has dangerous implications. It will be a lasting tragedy if our politicians and generals continue to believe that bombing can deliver solutions in such complex humanitarian situations. Hopefully, they will not allow themselves to be too beguiled by this book — because even in Afghanistan today the real victories are being won by soldiers on the ground.
General Sir Michael Rose was the head of theUN Protection force in Bosnia. Waging Modern War is available at the Books Direct price of £15.99 plus £1.95 p&p on 0870 165 8585
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Processed or unprocessed?
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Your side lost.
That's what Osama thought after the planes hit the WTC. He was also wrong.
Your side lost.
Wrong again. Already the West is toughening their line against an independent Kosovo. It will be returned to Serbia and we will rid that area of the followers of bin Laden as well.
Wholesalers of Bin Laden's heroin will be next.
Care to tell me what happens if Montenegro secedes and there is no Yugoslavia any more?
Many people who know me DO consider me a loving and caring person--even a gentle one!
If loving and caring people get riled up about ultra-violent muslim expansionists and their enablers and sympathizers, maybe it's because their hearts go out to the muslims' many, many victims. And maybe there REALLY IS A PROBLEM with international islam and its world-domination agenda.
Think Burma, and think about the routes that product will use to get to European markets and whether any of them pass through the Balkans.
Ultra violent muslim expansionists. Hmm, there are such people among many other religions, yet I don't go on calling a whole religion as such, or demonize them all. And Muslims can be victims as well. As those 8000 in Srebrenica. It's not a black-white world, and it's not as simple and obvious as you would like to see it.
And when I hear people speaking about international Islam being a problem and world domination agenda, I can't help but think of the same rhetorics that Hitler and the Nazi's used for Jews during WW2.
The same irrational fear, similar mentality - treating certain people as second grade, calling them all evil,blaming them for destroying the (western/Christian) society, those are all the things that I have been hearing regarding Muslims lately. As though they are all responsible for terrorism, and as though non-Muslims are all innocent, and have never been responsible for terrible things, or even contributing to the present situation in the Muslim world.
Being self-critical, trying to see a bit further can be good for a person. Realising that it's not a one-sided world, that we're not always absolutely right or rightious and that being tolerant can also be a great thing. At least that's how I see it.
Kosovo remains a province of Serbia. Next question?
We'll see what tune you'll sing if they ever come for your pathetic little nation.
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