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Serbia Wants Its Troops Back in Kosovo in Case of Iraq War
voanews.com ^ | 02 Feb 2003, 20:24 UTC | VOA News

Posted on 02/02/2003 2:44:14 PM PST by Destro

Serbia Wants Its Troops Back in Kosovo in Case of Iraq War

VOA News

02 Feb 2003, 20:24 UTC The Serbian government has asked NATO for permission to send its troops back to Kosovo in case of a war in Iraq.

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic says Serb troops would fill any security vacuum in the province if NATO withdraws its soldiers for military action against Iraq, although there are no immediate plans to do so.

Kosovo has been administered by the United Nations since 1999, after a NATO-led air campaign ended then Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's crackdown on the region's ethnic Albanian majority.

A senior advisor to Kosovo's Prime Minister Bajram Rexhepi criticized Mr. Djindjic's request. He said that any tendency to return Serbian forces to Kosovo would be an attempt to destabilize the province and the whole region.

Some information for this report provided by AP.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: balkans; campaignfinance; kosovo
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To: Destro
Just anothe Dj PR stunt. He's just trying to mop up the limelight in case Kostunica ever gets his act together (not likely)...

VRN

61 posted on 02/03/2003 5:44:45 AM PST by Voronin
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To: foreign policy wonk
It was a cheap shot (so to speak) - I just couldn't resist... what is a wonk anyway?
62 posted on 02/03/2003 6:16:01 AM PST by Kate22
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To: Kate22
It was a good cheap shot :)

"wonk" is a relatively new term, meaning "pundit".



be seeing you,

foreign policy wonk


post 0037
63 posted on 02/03/2003 6:17:51 AM PST by foreign policy wonk (Take down the House of Saud!)
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To: foreign policy wonk
The use of the Serb paramilitaries was Milosevic's way of creating "plausible deniability" which has insulated him from direct responsiblity to this day, no matter how Vojislav Seselj insists that Milosevic directed the entire operation.

Or just quid pro quo?:

Confession of Miro Bajramovic

VRN

64 posted on 02/03/2003 6:24:17 AM PST by Voronin
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To: Voronin
I'm sorry, I do not follow.

What do the confessions of Miro Bajramovic have to do with Milosevic's employment of paramilitaries for the sake of "plausible deniability"?

Hopefully you can elaborate.



be seeing you,

foreign policy wonk


post 0038
65 posted on 02/03/2003 6:28:24 AM PST by foreign policy wonk (Take down the House of Saud!)
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To: Torie; smokegenerator
As Israel keeps shpwing us, you don't need more people to win battles. Tell me Torie, just what industrial base do the Albanian have that can supply them with armored brigades and close air support? How long do you think NATO will stay in Kosovo doing Clinton's work?

As Mick Jagger sang Tiiiiiiime is on my side--yes it is.

66 posted on 02/03/2003 6:41:15 AM PST by Destro
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To: LenS
The USA has given more material economic support to Iraqis military than has poor old Yugoslavia even during Milosevic's era.

Croatian neo-Nazis are hardly Christian paladins.

Bottom line-Croatia and the Muslims (Bosnian and Albanian) had a working alliance with Islamist forces like al-Qaeda and Iran and..hehehe..NATO.

67 posted on 02/03/2003 6:51:01 AM PST by Destro
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To: foreign policy wonk
It is your (and others) opinion/perception that 'Milosevic employed paramilitaries.' That's a suitibly liniar explination for the sensation minded world media, but it bares little resemblance to reality.

If you knew about the state of paralysis within the JNA high command at the time (which was still very much multi-ethnic), then the (self/)'employment' or paramilitaries is not so strange. Most of the paramilitaries were local. The JNA units which were haemmoraghing men and materiel could not be relied upon to follow orders (of which they recieved very few). If somehow you think that there would have been no paramilitaries if Milosevic hadn't 'employed' paramilitaries, they you don't understand the nature of the conflict and the dark history of Yugoslavia.

You don't need to be organized and told to go and kill all Croatians/Serbs etc. if you just got unofficial news that your relatives have been slaughtered. Many of the crimes committed never made it to the Western press, but that doesn't mean they didn't exist. If Croatian Mig-21 pilots could still 'defect' to Zagreb at the time, who would have stopped Serbs from forming their own units to protect their own villages/avenge crimes against their own? Even if the Serbs came directly from Serbia, most have relatives.

By its' nature, civil war is very messy. When there is a power vacuum, many people are either forced, or willing to take decisions/actions that are totally out of experience (I'm not necessarily talking about Milo). If the state can't protect you, then what is to be done. The Serbs, like the Jews refused to be victims again.

What happened in the SFRY is not some Rwanda 'we're going to slaughter everyone' routine and 'it's my idea' (which the West did absolutely nothing about), but a literal bloody mess right from the start and made far more bloody by outside hands.

VRN

68 posted on 02/03/2003 7:29:51 AM PST by Voronin
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To: FreedomPoster
"Sanity" would consist of levelling every mosque from a start line drawn roughly from Venice to Vienna, all the way to the Greek-Turkish border.

I agree with you but the Euros have long since capitulated to the forces of the left and Islamofascist tyranny.

As for the border, it will take some doing, but the Greek Turkish border is an anomaly. Turkey like the Soviet Union needs to fragment and lands returned to Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians, etc that were forcefully taken along with the lives of millions.

Unfortunately with the corrupt leftist Greek government in power now that won't happen.

69 posted on 02/03/2003 7:34:08 AM PST by eleni121
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To: foreign policy wonk; smokegenerator
Smokegenerator is 100% right in his ascertion that Kosovo is Serbian - this is accepted internationally, the boundaries remain in place and sovereign ownership of the territory rests with Serbia under Resolution 1244.

Of course the vast majority of Albanians are never going to accept this, but that's not going to change anything. Even Dole and McCain's powerful pro KLA lobby won't change anything. The KLA has shown itself to be a murderous bunch of thugs which are running the province of Kosovo as a smuggler's paradise. The whole of Europe has been affected by the high rate of crime and no European government is about to support independence (even Blair).

"Re-establishing entire control over Kosovo is a double-edged sword, as the international community won't allow that to happen."

Djindjic has it right though - the troops may well be needed elsewhere in the world pretty soon. I think that it is a possibility that there will be a handing back of control to the Serbian government in Kosovo, but it is bound to spark off major trouble from the KLA. The 'international community' would have to be prepared to support the transition realistically and work with the reformed Serbian government.

70 posted on 02/03/2003 9:00:36 AM PST by Kate22
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To: LenS
#24

Hello,again,dear LenS!

Please,enlighten us all:

How many Christian Slovenes were "slaughtered" in Slovenia?By Serbs or by ,at that time, mainly multinational JNA(Yugoslav Peoples Army)?

How many other Christians were "slaughtered" by the Serbs?It seems to me that in former Yugoslavia everybody was shooting at everybody,but,unlike the bestial Serbs who were "slaughtering" others,other sides were commiting a "justifiable homicide",right?!

Do you know the number of dead Albanians in Kosovo,FBI information?

Do you know who had killed majority of civilians there in 98-99?

Do us a favour and shut your chauvinistic mouth!

71 posted on 02/03/2003 11:02:00 AM PST by branicap
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To: Destro
This is just Djindjic playing the nationalist card to win popularity from the population.
72 posted on 02/03/2003 1:41:31 PM PST by Seselj
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To: LenS
Why would you, as a neutral American, care about what the Serbs do in Kosovo, let alone be willing to waste American resources on it? Are you a ustasha, a balija, or a shiptar?
73 posted on 02/03/2003 1:44:06 PM PST by Seselj
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To: smokegenerator
The 600th anniversary of the battle of Kosovo Polje on June 28, 1989 provided Milosevic with an opportunity to clearly state his support for the Serb nation, demonstrating pure Serbian chauvinism by claiming tighter control over Kosovo

I think you are off your rocker, pal, for posting "history accroding to CNN" (which is almost as bad as "history according to Steven Spielberg"). Would you mind quoting from Miloshevich's speech at Gazimestan (the 600th anniversary speech) where the CNN statement about "Serbian chauvinism" is obvious?

And what the heck does your Croatian friend's mother in Belgrade have anything to do with this? I siggest you sober up before you start posting. Please, it's embarrassing.

74 posted on 02/03/2003 3:34:34 PM PST by kosta50
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To: Seselj; LenS
Nah, he's just a jackass.

In other words, all of the above.

75 posted on 02/03/2003 3:53:28 PM PST by Gael (Not banned yet)
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To: kosta50
If not mistaken, knowledge of how one thinks is paramount to how the other side functions and operates. Once you gain an understanding of their mindset, you gain the upperhand. Hence that posters name- smokegenerator, meant for prying eyes and ears. Going from one spectrum to the other imbalances the 2 reports, makes great sense.

Knowing the "other team"s infrastructures thoughts is priceless.

76 posted on 02/03/2003 4:42:44 PM PST by bridging up
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To: Seselj
Which means--the other side is winning and he has to adopt--which means--nomatter what side wins Kosovo is now an issue that can't be ignored. For whatever reason teh Serbs are not giving up Kosovo-and the politicians-those in NATO's employee or not can not ignore this.
77 posted on 02/03/2003 7:58:07 PM PST by Destro
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To: grania
Our incursion into Serbia and Kosovo was at the instigation of Madeline Albright. There were no US interests involved (except Bill Clinton changing the headlines during the Lewinski affair).

What is the result? Rape, pillage and murder of Serbs in Kosovo by Albanian moslems, funded by the CIA! This is immoral.

The Albanians continue to burn down Serbian Orthodox churches in the area, some have been there over 700 years, murder Orthodox nuns and monks.

That is the real crime, and the US is a party to this madness.

Lets turn Madeline Albright over to some international court for war crimes, and send Clinton's toady, General Wesley Clark along with her.
78 posted on 02/03/2003 8:05:35 PM PST by OldCorps
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To: eleni121
"Turkey like the Soviet Union needs to fragment and lands returned to Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians, etc that were forcefully taken along with the lives of millions."

Let's see... The Seljuks won the battle of Manzikert back in 1071, Fatih Sultan Mehmet took Istanbul in 1453, Turks have been living in Cyprus since 1570, and you want to dismantle Turkey in its entirety.

Do you really want us to believe that you're not obsessed with a bloodlust to revenge these ancient, ancestral squabbles?

79 posted on 02/04/2003 8:50:58 AM PST by Mortimer Snavely (Is anyone else tired of reading these tag lines?)
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To: Destro
I still can't believe how stupidly we backed the wrong horse in Kosovo.
80 posted on 02/04/2003 8:58:22 AM PST by montag813
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