Posted on 08/06/2002 4:45:18 PM PDT by Hoplite
VRN
Don't need no 'splainin. Most Greeks I know can't stand the Serbs and Russians. The Greek public opinion has much more to do with the perception that the US conducted an immoral and illegal attack on one of its neighbors.
Do you honestly believe that the US has its hands clean in the Balkans?
How's about every honest person admitting that the Bosnian Serbs committed 90% of the war crimes in Bosnia and subsequently showing absolutely no inclination to hold the perpetrators accountable for those actions, resulting in the UN's seeing a need to have the ICTY do the job for them?
How's that Serb investigation of the murder of prisoners from Vukovar Hospital coming along?
Yeah, over 10 years later and absolutely nothing.
Ergo, the ICTY.
We appear to differ on the opinion of an "honest person", so I suppose I'll add the adjective "informed" to my definition and we can clear the matter up.
As to specifics, notably Galic's indictment, he is charged with 6 specific instances of forces under his command shelling civilians and 32 specific instances of his forces sniping civilians, so it is up to the defense to attempt to first prove and then work in any instances of self-inflicted sniping or shelling into their strategy, though I don't see how they will mitigate any of the specific counts.
Now, on to the 5 February Markale shelling - your appeals to authority which attribute this shelling to the BiH forces are relying on the preliminary report issued by an UNPROFOR Member, Cpt Verdy, which by the way is not "Secret" and has been brought into evidence in Galic's trial, and has been thouroughly discounted by John Hamill, the author of the subsequent UNPROFOR Team of Experts Report.
To wit, starting on pg. 6097 of the trial transcripts (Yeah, I can see why you hate the ICTY so much):
1 Q. Have a look at the second paragraph of that page. Did you find
2 that the figures used by Captain Verdy were unsound and, therefore, his
3 results were flawed?
4 A. I found his results were totally flawed, totally flawed, totally
5 inaccurate, completely wrong.
6 Q. Did you find that the methodology he used was flawed or not?
7 A. His initial methodology appeared to be relatively good; however,
8 his use of the methodology and his simple arithmetic turned out to be very
9 flawed. In a word, wrong.
10 Q. And you also found that he used tables in respect to the wrong
11 weapon?
12 A. I couldn't believe what I read in his report and what he
13 explained. He used Howitzer tables. Howitzers are a completely different
14 weapon from mortars, for a start, as I explained earlier. But further
15 than that, each individual weapon, of whatever type, has its own specific
16 tables and cannot be used for any other weapon, because they are the
17 result of an arduous scientific process which determines exactly what
18 range is arrived at on any elevation on any specific charge. So using any
19 other weapon, even if it was a mortar - and it wasn't in this case - is
20 completely and totally wrong.
21 Q. So you said using another weapon; you mean using the range tables
22 for any other weapon.
23 A. Yes. Simply cannot be done.
24 Q. Was this your finding or was this a consistent finding of all of
25 the team of experts who went there on the 11th?
Page 6098
1 A. Nobody on the team could believe what had been done. So yes, it
2 was consistent across the team which came from Zagreb.
So General Rose, Mitterand, and anybody else referring to the "Secret Report" which implicates the BiH forces in targeting their own people in regards to the Feb. '94 Markale incident is merely propagating false information, and yes, never mind Demurenko.
Don't read too much into my post. I thought this thread was an attempt to indict Greek policy and public opinion to be complicit with (mostly ) fabricated Serb crimes in the Balkans.
I say you and most other biased observers of the Balkans read too much into Greek Balkan policies. There is no Orthodox alliance against Muslim populations in the Balkans. That is a fallacy created by interventionist third wayers to destabilize the region. The fact is Greece is a major strategic pressence in the Balkans, and has natural economic and security concerns and interests with its neighbors. Casual observers, or those with an axe to grind often misread Greek intentions.
I restate: most Greek do not like Serbs and Russians, but they sympathise with them because the Third Way is out to get them all.
"How's about every honest person admitting that the Bosnian Serbs committed 90% of the war crimes in Bosnia ..."
... "So General Rose, Mitterand, and anybody else referring to the "Secret Report" which implicates the BiH forces in targeting their own people in regards to the Feb. '94 Markale incident is merely propagating false information, ... "
SIDE 1: ASSORTED INTERESTS PROMOTING "SERB CRIMES" THEORY
Who are the honest persons you are talking about? Clinton? Albright? Holbrooke? Biden? Lantos? Gilman? Dole (the "Senator from Tirana")? The Muslim lobbyists with deep pockets in Washington? Amanpour? The NY Times editorialists? The Ruder Finn professional propagandists who spread the "rape camp" and other related nonsense to naive self-proclaimed humanitarianists? ITN, who fooled the world with Fikret Alic and the fence? Soros and the various outlets he and his friends control, including Human Rights Watch, International Crisis Group, Coalition for International Justice and IWPR? ICTY prosecutors who are given jobs by the aforementioned corrupt politicians as a reward for their "services"? Or ICTY prosecution witnesses of dubious credentials who are carefully picked by the well-funded and well-organized "court" in order to give biased and distorted accounts thus providing a judicial stamp of approval to the official propaganda? Any honest person who does a little search will find out that almost all anti-Serb propaganda originates in one or more of the above quite restricted in number but extremely influential sources, centered largely in Washington, particularly but not exclusively in "liberal" circles.
SIDE 2: THE WARTIME UN LEADERSHIP WITH BOSNIA HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE
On the other side, almost any senior UN figure with authority and experience in Bosnia disagree with Hoplite's statement of 90% Serb guilt and attribute equal or, in some cases, more blame to the Muslim side. Many of them, not only Rose, have explicitly talked and written about the consistent tactic of the Muslims to commit crimes and blame them on the Serbs, as well as to provoke the Serbs by firing from "safe havens" and civilian areas. The ones coming to mind include Boutros Ghali, Owen, Rose, MacKenzie, Morillon, Brinquemont, Nambiar, Akashi, Woodward, Corwin. Do you, Hoplite, really suggest that all these people, who never had a known connection with Serb interests, are propagating false information? Were they fooled by some organized Serb propaganda (if such a thing ever existed outside Serbia)? Do you, Hoplite, really suggest that the likes of Clinton, Soros, their pseudohumanitarian cheerleaders and their ICTY appointees are more reliable than the high ranking UN figures involved in Bosnia? Why should any honest and informed person agree with you and take ICTY seriously?
To the example I quoted above from Mitterrand, I here add 2 more from General Rose's "Fighting for Peace". Note that the reports do not represent Rose's subjective impressions, neither the conclusions of some untrustworthy post-facto investigator probably appointed with political motivation (like John Hamill for the Sarajevo explosion), but objective military information by peacekeepers who happened to witness the crimes and had not any obvious motivation or opportunity to lie.
page 197, " ... More serious were reports we started to receive from the French in the city that the Bosnian forces were sometimes firing on their own citizens. ..."
Page 162:.."The French battalion guarding the airport had managed to pin down one of the firing points that was in the Bosnian held town of Butmir, close to confrontation line. On one occasion, a Fernch soldier had actually seen a mortar fired from Butmir, across the airfield, at aircraft waiting to unload on the dispersal apron. The Bosnian forces were evidently doing this to sustain the image of a city under siege. Ganic (Bosnian Muslim Vice-President) agreed he would stop these attacks, but he never did."
There is plenty of solid evidence of this kind to indict the whole Bosnian Muslim leadership on very serious war crimes and absolve Serbs from many, although certainly not all, of the ones they are accused of and convicted for in this kangaroo court. I do not argue that Galic and other Serbs are guilty of no crime, but the aforementioned Ganic and other Muslims are apparently also guilty, but not prosecuted by the overtly biased ICTY. It is the vicious anti-Serb partiality and propaganda that enrage any non-Serb who is impartial, honest, informed and wise enough to trust Rose and Boutros Ghali more than ICTY, Albright and Izetbegovic.
Are we done reviewing the '94 Markale incident, or do you have more BS to send my way? You seem to fall on your face when we get down to specifics.
The 1994 explosion specifics are analysed in the literature I linked to in one of my comments above. See particularly the original writings by David Binder and the conclusions reached by UN officials and Boutros Ghali. I don't see much point in copying the arguments from these sources, since I don't have anything to add. After all my goal here is not to argue with you but to write short analyses that may give ammunition to other freepers in their efforts to debunk the anti-Serbian propaganda whenever they are active outside FreeRepublic. I have to admit that your antagonistic comments sometimes help me in that respect and I appreciate them, like other freepers do.
Appreciate this: learn to learn - it will help you avoid recursive errors of this type.
Now that's an interesting statement. I'm a Serb and it's been my experience that most Greeks love Serbs more than most Serbs love Serbs :-)
As a matter of fact, I've never met a Greek that didn't express some sort of sincere and immediate affection for me the minute they found out that I was of Serbian ancestory.
Unlike Hoplite, the US military has enough sense to recognize when it has made a mistake and change course. So far, they have arrested virtually the entire KLA officer corps for killing their fellow Albanians.
Hoplite may recall it was Clinton who ordered the USAF to serve the KLA's needs. Well, GWB is trying his best to undo Clinton's errors. When will Hoplite join the rest of the world and admit that Clinton was wrong ?
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Get a clue.
Thanks.
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