Replies

Being self serving and lacking integrity, as you do, and being able to be paid off, verses telling the truth when one sees an injustice being done and speaking up about it is the choice.

More "I know you are, but what am I" nonsense. You're the liar, Tom. Not me.

Why do you think I keep bringing up your "no Kosovar mass graves" gaffe?

So long as you allow that documented lie of yours to remain in play, nothing you say is worth a damn. And all this Srebrenica nonsense you're going on about is just digging your hole deeper. You don't know the first thing about Srebrenica, and are being played like you hoped to play others in regard to Kosovo.

Oh the irony of it all.

C'mon Tom - go for the gusto: Gimme a "There were no Srebrenica related mass graves!" just for the record.

What have you got to lose which you haven't already lost?

No actually hoplite your the one full of it. Why is discrediting Tom so important to a second rate cook like yourself? You have never been out of your trailer park old man so what qualifies you to have an opinion on somewhere you have never been like the Balkans. You stand alone with your opinion which says a lot about your credibility. Stick to living with mama in the trailer park you old goof and let the truth about the big bad world to those that have been there. Drink some more Geritol and have an early nappy time....

Oh, I'm sorry; you asked me to "humor you" and I failed to do that....So, let me humor you.....

History Of Military Uniform Colors

We should remember the origins, history and tradition of the uniforms worn with pride by militaries around the world. For example, a long time ago, Britain and France were at war. During one battle, the French captured an
English colonel. Taking him to their headquarters, the French general began to question him.

Finally, as an afterthought, the French general asked, "Why do you English officers all wear red coats? Don't you know the red material makes you easier targets for us to shoot at?" In his bland English way, the colonel
informed the general that the reason English officers wear red coats are so that if they are shot, the blood won't show and the men they are leading won't panic.

And that is why, from that day to this, all French Army officers wear brown pants.

"It was too much tequila,
Or not quite enough..."

--Jimmy Buffett

By the way Hoplite, when the drill instructor asked your platoon to pull out their sheets and hold them up...what color(s) were your sheets...hmmmmmmmmm??? Anyway, feeling a little brown lately.

Ok, I'll get serious. Too bad you're not here in my Fortress of Solitude....I'm drinking a little bit of Prirodna Rakija....Pear flavor. Good stuff....I bet we could have a real nice "face to face" discussion at the table drinking Rakija and discussing the issues......:)=)

[quote]More "I know you are, but what am I" nonsense. You're the liar, Tom. Not me.[/quote]

******No, hoppie,,,,,If something I post is not exactly accurate for some reason it's not because of lying, its because I'm human and can sometimes make a mistake, or didn't read a certain report etc.....However, since we have been writing you have been caught in purposeful deceit. I find that if I'm corrected, it's a learning experience. For you, it's a failure of not covering your tracks good enough. I believed for a long time that the Serbs killed 8,000 Muslims, and so forth and so on....until I learned, "recently" that it was not true, but built on hearsay....

[quote]Why do you think I keep bringing up your "no Kosovar mass graves" gaffe?[/quote]

******Easy answer, you don't have much else to bring up...DUH!

[quote]So long as you allow that documented lie of yours to remain in play, nothing you say is worth a damn. And all this Srebrenica nonsense you're going on about is just digging your hole deeper. You don't know the first thing about Srebrenica, and are being played like you hoped to play others in regard to Kosovo.[/quote]

*******Says who? You? You're not playing anyone. True, I am not intimately familiar with Bosnia or Croatia. However, I am aware of the major issues that surround the operation and major fabrications.

[quote]Oh the irony of it all.[/quote]

******Ever thought of being in a play, or go into acting. Very dramatic for an old man.

[quote]C'mon Tom - go for the gusto: Gimme a "There were no Srebrenica related mass graves!" just for the record.
What have you got to lose which you haven't already lost?[/quote]

****** You think you are tricky......you're just plain stupid...::)

****** Okay lets start from the beginning. Milosevic was accused by NATO of organizing the murder of 100,000 Albanian Kosovars. This claim which, in the course of NATO's 78-day bombing campaign, NATO could make without the public ever have any way of checking.

The reports of the American and West European media during the war grossly and irresponsibly exaggerated the actual scale of the killings inside Kosovo by Serb forces. The comparisons between Serbia and Nazi Germany, between the Kosovan civil war and the Holocaust, were based on a distortion of history and cover-up of the political context of the violence in Kosovo.

The interesting part and what many people don't know is that NATO has since backed away from the claim. Pathologists have failed to turn up anywhere near the number of bodies NATO warned were thrown across Kosovo. Milosevic in the end was indicted on war crimes that involved fewer deaths than the number killed by NATO's bombs. There was only one pre-bombing incident Milosevic was indicted on -- the infamous Racak massacre --and it was probably a fake, engineered by the KLA, with the collusion, of the US Administration.

***** Also given the failure to the tribunal to convict any Albanians or provide any compelling evidence that there are many reasons to question the impartiality and purpose of the tribunal that has indicted Milosevic.

***** After 78-days of NATO bombing, when forensic pathologists were dispatched to Kosovo to unearth the legions of dead Albanian civilians said to have been slaughtered by Milosevic's security forces, came more reasons to believe NATO's stories of genocide were nothing more than gross hyperbole. The pathologists couldn't find all the bodies they were led to believe they'd find. Dr. Peter Markesteyn, a Winnipeg forensic pathologist, was among the first war crimes investigators to arrive in Kosovo after NATO ended its bombing campaign.

Quote:

"We were told there were 100,000 bodies everywhere," said Dr.Markesteyn. "We performed 1,800 autopsies -- that's it."
So, fewer than 2,000 corpses. None found in the Trepca mines. No remains in the vats of sulfuric acid. Most found in isolated graves -- not in the mass graves NATO warned about. And no clue as to whether the bodies were those of KLA fighters, civilians, even whether they were Serb or ethnic Albanian.

Just one example of many such stories...............

Kosovo - a reporter's dilemma
Christian Science Monitor / Sept. 13, 1999 / p 7
CONNED IN KOSOVO: A CBC REPORTER'S DILEMMA HOW TO RESPOND WHEN A TALE OF ATROCITY ISN'T TRUE?

By Tom Regan, Special to The Christian Science Monitor
HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA -- When Nancy Durham first discovered that she had been lied to, her reaction was "the most incredible sinking feeling."

Ms. Durham, a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) television reporter, had returned to Kosovo in June of this year, to do a follow-up piece on an 18-year-old girl who had joined the Kosovo Liberation Army after her young sister had been killed by Serbs. The girl's story had been part of a larger piece that aired on the CBC in January, to much critical praise. Yet as Durham stood in the doorway of the family's home in Skenderaj, the sister who was supposed to have been killed was standing there, alive and well.

Rather than trying to excuse or brush off the lie, or have the CBC do a simple correction, Durham decided to do a full story - not only about the girl who told it, but what it said about how news is reported from a war zone.
The result is a 16-minute report: "The Truth About Rajmonda: A KLA Soldier Lies for the Cause." It's being hailed by many media observers in Canada as a breakthrough piece that should serve as a model for other news organizations.

Durham's involvement with Rajmonda Rreci began in September 1998 while she was filming a piece on an Albanian doctor. Rajmonda, a patient, told Durham on camera that she was joining the KLA to avenge the death of her six-year old sister. Durham (who works as a one-woman reporting "team") returned in December 1998 and tracked down Ms. Rreci. During that interview, Rreci said that her sister was fortunate to die for Kosovo, and that she would do the same.

Then in June, almost as soon as NATO-led peacekeeping troops went into the region, Durham went back. It was during this trip she learned that Rreci had lied. When confronted, she told Durham that she had actually thought her sister was dead, but wasn't sure, and that doctors in the hospital had encouraged her to tell the story because other girls had lost sisters to the Serbs.

"My first thoughts were 'This is a disaster,' " says Durham. "I had this passion for the people in the story. I felt really depressed. If this happens to me, I thought, and I go back again, and again, and again, how many other journalists has this happened to?" Durham returned to her home in Oxford, England, and thought about what she wanted to do. And although some media critics have said that the CBC pushed her to go back to do the report, Durham says this is untrue. She says she needed to go back, find Rajmonda Rreci again, and this time tell the true story.
It turned out that most of what the teenager had said wasn't true. She had actually been a member of the KLA before she went to the hospital and had known all along that her sister was alive. But Rreci continued to stress that other Kosovar girls had lost their sisters, and why shouldn't she do it for them? Ultimately, Rreci did admit that what she said was just KLA propaganda.

For Steve Kimber, director of the school of journalism at the University of King's College in Halifax, Nova Scotia, what Durham and the CBC did was critical. "It's very important to make journalism more transparent to the public. Particularly with a story that deals with ''heartstrings' like this one. And if it's not true, to give it just as much time as the story you had broadcast earlier."

John Allemang, media critic for the Toronto Globe and Mail, says that while he feels the CBC has "overreacted," he's proud of the broadcaster for airing Durham's report. "But the question is, are they applying it across the board? There are lots of other situations where we're aware that we're not being told the complete truth. Is the CBC going to now start going back to check on other stories? The truth is, that it's hard for the media to check up on these things."

This article is reproduced in accordance with U.S.C. Title 17 Section 107 of the federal copyright laws, the "fair use" exemption. In compliance with the claimed exemption, this material is distributed without profit and for educational purposes only. Further use is prohibited.
http://www.converge.org.nz/pma/sdil.htm

David Gowan, a British government spokesman on the investigation into war crimes charges in Kosovo, said, "It's very difficult to give an overall number but what's clear is that the picture is far worse than we thought." This comment is inexplicable except as an attempt to extract the maximum propaganda value from the pictures now coming out of Kosovo. The British estimate actually represents a lowering, by at least a factor of ten, of the most farfetched claims made during the war, when US and NATO officials declared that between 100,000 and 225,000 Albanian men were missing and potentially murdered.

Nor is there any reason to believe that the figure of 10,000 is accurate. The press accounts of the British claim conceal the fact that Whitehall prepared this estimate several weeks ago, based on "military and media reports as well as interviews with refugees in Albania and Macedonia." In other words, the figure of 10,000 is not based on any tabulation of graves or bodies actually found in Kosovo, although media reports give that impression.
Official US statements on the alleged death toll in Kosovo are equally suspect. Pentagon spokesman Mike Doubleday said NATO soldiers had "come upon or heard about 90 suspected mass grave sites since entering Kosovo on Saturday." There are a sufficient number of qualifiers in that sentence to send up many warning flags. What initially appears to be significant evidence of several thousand deaths turns out to be more rumor and speculation than fact: these are "suspected" sites, some only "heard about," which troops have "come upon"—i.e., not investigated.

What becomes a "suspected" mass grave site, more often than not, is a claim or suspicion voiced by someone from the KLA—officer, soldier, interpreter—to a NATO military commander, who in turn communicates it to an American or British reporter. No one in this chain is an objective observer. All have a vested interest in depicting the conditions in Kosovo in as dark and incriminating a fashion as possible, to justify the US-NATO war.

Stratfor stated that of the 150 suspected sites examined, "the bodies are generally being found in very small numbers—far smaller than encountered after the Bosnian war". Of the civilian dead found thus far, a good number were apparently executed, but others died as a result of fighting between Serb forces and the NATO-backed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), and some were killed by NATO bombs.

In two trips to Kosovo since the war's end, the American FBI has found a total of 30 sites containing some 200 bodies. A Spanish team investigating one zone in Kosovo found no mass graves and only 187 bodies, all buried in individual graves. One team member, Emilio Perez Pujol, said, "There never was a genocide in Kosovo. It was dishonest and wrong for Western leaders to adopt the term in the beginning to give moral authority to the operation."

During the war there was a series of bombings of Serb and Kosovar civilians, including the destruction of passenger trains and assaults on Albanian refugees, followed by NATO's bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, fuelled public concern and distrust of NATO claims. Relations with Russia and China deteriorated. Divisions among the NATO powers widened over the scale of the bombing and the possible introduction of ground troops, with the US and Britain generally finding themselves on one side of the argument, and Germany, France, Italy and Greece on the other.

The question of the destruction of bodies and evidence brings us to the subject of the Trepca mines in northern Kosovo, which were widely alleged in the early days of the KFOR occupation to have served as the site for the disposal of hundreds, even thousands, of bodies. Now the International Criminal Tribunal states it has found "no solid evidence" of atrocities at Trepca. What lies between these two junctures?

To: Hoplite
Okay, I arrived in Kosovo during the middle of October 1999. As I said before, I know of no mass graves discovered when I was in Kosovo. The only only mass that I know of after that date was I did a complete analysis of the dead discovered in Kosovo according to the OSCE. This does not include mass graves found in Serbia.
________________________________________

From a DOS report:

The following is a general account of atrocities committed by Serbian forces against ethnic Albanians in Kosovo between 24 March and 4 June. Most of the incidents are drawn from refugee accounts, supplemented by diplomatic and other reporting.

Reports of Serb war crimes in Kosovo-including the detention and summary execution of military-aged men, destruction of civilian housing, and forcible expulsion-continue to mount. Kosovar Albanian refugees report mass executions in at least 85 towns and villages throughout the province since late March, as well as mass graves in Dobrosevac, Drenica, Glogovac, Lipljan, Kaaniku, Malisevo, Poklek, Pusto Selo, Radavac, Rezala, and the Pagarusa valley. DOS reported a confirmation of the presence of a mass burial site at Pusto Selo, Izbica, and Glogovac. Numerous refugee reports indicate Serb forces are taking steps to reduce forensic evidence of their crimes. This includes execution methods that would allow the Serbs to claim their victims were collateral casualties of military operations and disposal of bodies that will hamper war crimes investigations. Kosovar Albanian refugees continue to report both mass and individual summary executions throughout the province.

Refugee reports of Serbian mass executions claim over 6,000 ethnic Albanian deaths; the number would be far higher if we added the countless tales of individual murder. The organized and individual rape of ethnic Albanian women by Serb security forces is continuing to be reported by Kosovar refugees. According to refugees, Serb forces have conducted systematic rapes in Dakovica and at the Karagac and Metohia hotels in Pec.

excerpt from an article:

Gnjilane, Aug 27 99 (Tanjug) - The discovery of another mass grave with bodies of 50 Serbs in the Gnjilane area demonstrates that atrocities continue to be perpetrated by rampaging ethnic Albanian terrorists against Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija since the arrival of international KFOR peacekeepers.

Serbs who wanted to find out the fate of their relatives or friends after the discovery of a first grave with 15 bodies, were told by an unnamed UN police officer that another grave with 50 bodies had been found in the vicinity of Gnjilane and that investigation would be undertaken soon, Tanjug has learned from well informed sources.

Serbs fear that the terrorist "KLA" has committed a series of mass crimes against non ethnic Albanian civilians, as many Serbs have been reported missing in the area since KFOR's arrival at the end of June.
________________________________________

**** with all this included an analysis of the OSCE book "As Seen As Told; Part II" dated June to October 1999. The following was determined:

Total Mass graves from June 1999 to September 1999 was 59.
Mass graves with 0-8 bodies was 35 sites.

2 sites with zero bodies
9 sites with one body
9 sites with two bodies
2 sites with three bodies
4 sites with four bodies
2 sites with five bodies
1 site with six bodies
3 sites with seven bodies
3 sites with eight bodies (Total 110)

14 sites with 12-30 bodies (Total 280)

4 sites with 42-50 bodies (187)
1 site with 89 bodies
1 site with 104 bodies

Total number of bodies found: 770
Total number of unidentified bodies (out of the 770) was 184.
________________________________________

* It is noted these figures comes directly from the OSCE Report “As Seen As Told” Volume II, covering the dates from June to October 1999. The analysis above comes from the third annex of the report. The report includes a listing of gravesites from the conflict that was documented by the OSCE in co-ordination with local organizations and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

** Of particular interest is the gravesite reported in Izbica/Izbice, Srbica/Skenderaj that reported a massacre of civilians took place in Izbica at the end of April 1999. Villagers buried the bodies, and the burial was "documented by the UCK on videotape".... Supposedly, on 2 June, Serb forces "removed" the bodies to an unknown destination. The ICTY team arrived at the beginning of July and exhumed 142 graves.......ALL WERE EMPTY. (Note below)

*** It is also noted that the KLA massacred K-Albanians and K-Serbs as well. Deception is the key word here from all sides.

**** These figures don't take into account the revenge killings and the "gravesites" found after the revenge killings. One in particular mentioned in the report was fund on July 24, 1999 near Podgradje/Pogradje. OSCE documented the site, which included visible body parts (feet, buttocks), and empty cartridge cases. An ICTY team arrived to exhume the bodies during the week of 6 August 1999. Eleven bodies were found in the grave. Two additional bodies were found on 6 August 1999 in the river near the gravesite. One of the Ranilug victims was a Serb Policeman who had been absent from the village during the conflict, and operating in another area. The OSCE was also notified about a house in the nearby village of Ugljare that was used as an alleged UCK (KLA), detention facility. They visited the house and observed walls in the cellar that appeared to have been painted with oil in an attempt to mask bloodstains. KFOR's investigation led to the arrest of a K-Albanian who denied involvement in the killings but did admit to robbies near Ranilug on 10 July 99. He also admitted to being a member of the KLA coming from Macedonia. On 26 October 99, KFOR revisted the graves and found another body. A side note mentioned that the OSCE had received similar reports about the house in Ugljare and reported the information to KFOR who visited the site that was then empty. there is more to this story, about the robberies and kidnappings on July 10....

NOTE: During the ICTY trials, it was stated that the attack on a refugee column near Vucitrn and the massacre in Izbica, which together resulted in over two hundred casualties.

Then two Serb policemen who had come to The Hague as "unwilling insiders" confirmed that the operation to remove all traces of crimes committed in Kosovo and the hushing-up of the scandal about the refrigerator truck full of corpses in the Danube were carried out on instructions from top-level politicians, namely the then interior minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic and president Slobodan Milosevic according their their testimony. Keeping in mind of the political agenda of giving possible false testimony in order to justify Milosevic's arrest. Then, it could be possible that they were telling the truth.

There then followed a presentation of forensic findings, which established that some of the corpses discovered in mass graves at a police training range in Batajnica, near Belgrade, were Albanians killed in Kosovo and later transferred to Serbia in a well- organised operation. This possibility has been challenged, by other sources.

http://www.iwpr.net/index.php?apc_state=hen&s=o&o=archive/tri/tri_279_1_eng.txt
________________________________________

"Ethnic Cleansing in Kosovo: An Accounting"

Report by The U.S. Department of State

"The investigation of atrocity sites and confirmation of death claims is currently an ongoing, laborious and time consuming task. The vast majority of death claims, though, have likely been recorded by international authorities. In sum, over 500 mass grave and killing sites have been recorded by the ICTY, KFOR and other international organizations. The total number of bodies reported to the ICTY at over 500 gravesites is over 11,000. Of these 500-plus sites, the ICTY has confirmed completion of field investigations at about 200 sites, as of early November 1999. Over 2,100 bodies have been confirmed to be found by investigators at over 160 sites, or an average of about 11 bodies per site."

http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/kosovoii/atrocit.html
________________________________________

Another Mass Grave In Malisheva Is Being Investigated

12 Aug 99 (Zeri) – The workers of Office for Missing Persons and UNMIK forensic teams from Prishtina, lead by their Chief, Pablo Baraybar, started searching for another mass grave in the territory of Malisheva Municipality.
The searches are being made in the same location where three months ago a mass grave with 13 bodies was found, according to the information’s they belonged to the Serbian nationality.

Since Thursday in Mirdita neighborhood of Malisheva, two diggers are working on digging the ground and searching for the mass graves. Argentinean Special Forces are securing the location with tape and a sign to not cross into the area.

So far no bodies has been found according to the Baraybar. The office that is led by him has information that 10 to 13 bodies are in these mass graves, which they suppose are Serbs.

The new searches, according to Baraybar, will continue until they find the bodies. He has information’s that the new mass grave is somewhere near the mass grave that has been found in May of this year.

New mass graves of Serbs near Gnjilane

August 28, 1999

Another mass grave of Serbs
Gnjilane, Aug 27 (Tanjug) - The discovery of another mass grave with bodies of 50 Serbs in the Gnjilane area demonstrates that atrocities continue to be perpetrated by rampaging ethnic Albanian terrorists against Serbs in Kosovo-Metohija since the arrival of international KFOR peacekeepers.

Serbs who wanted to find out the fate of their relatives or friends after the discovery of a first grave with 15 bodies, were told by an unnamed UN police officer that another grave with 50 bodies had been found in the vicinity of Gnjilane and that investigation would be undertaken soon, Tanjug has learned from well informed sources.

Serbs fear that the terrorist "KLA" has committed a series of mass crimes against non ethnic Albanian civilians, as many Serbs have been reported missing in the area since KFOR's arrival at the end of June.

KFOR spokesmen made no mention of the latest crime at their regular press briefing Friday.

Embittered by KFOR's benevolent attitude towards terrorist atrocities, several hundred Serbs blocked Thursday about 1 p.m. the Gnjilane-Bujanovac road, demanding that the murderers be brought to justice and that Zoran Stevanovic and Slobodan Antic, abducted Wednesday on the Gnjilane-Prilepnica road, in an attack organized by the new waterworks director, ethnic Albanian Ramadan Gajtani, be released.

Relatives of abducted Serbs who wanted to identify the victims were banned by a KFOR officer from seeing the bodies, which were taken secretly during the night to the Pristina forensic institute.

Systematic terror against Serbs in the area continues, as the "KLA" is trying to cut the corridor linking Serb enclaves in the province with Serbia.

On Thursday, Gradimir Stolic was abducted, the house of Lazar Mitic was torched, and bombs were thrown at the homes of Vladimir Denic in Gnjilane and of the Djurovic and Stojanovic families in Gracanica.

http://www.serbia-info.com/news/1999-08/28/14126.html

I might add one additional bit of information that I find quite odd. Carla Del Ponte, said tht forensic teams have now exhumed 2,108 bodies from mass graves in Kosovo/Kosova. She claims that only a third of the 529 reported gravesites have been exhumed, and 11,334 deaths have been reported to the ICTY. When K-Albanians returned to Kosovo at the end of the air campaign they began searching for missing family and friends. In June, July and August numerous exhumations were underway throughout Kosovo. OSCE members attended the exhumations and were trained to do so. The information they obtained was shared with ICTY and ICRC.

I arrived in October and the book "Kosovo/Kosova: As Seen, As Told, Part II", only records the 770 bodies. In addition, the bodies were not identified as being murdered by Serbs, KLA, results of the bombing, etc. Most of the circumstances were recorded by hearsay.

So we have two problems with Del Ponte's numbers.

1) They are not the numbers you get when you add the press reports of bodies found in 'mass graves.
2) Her figures are much lower - as much as several hundred thousand lower - than the numbers NATO gave out to justify the bombing.

So, I am wondering how the ICTY came up with the figure of 2,108. Could it be a that Del Ponte hoped that by offering a compromise between NATO's previous estimates of huge numbers and the critics' estimates of several hundred dead - that by having the ICTY publicly offer this compromise she would halt further speculation? This would be similar to the tactic of starting a small forest fire to head off a larger one.

In addition researchers like former UN Gen. Mackenzie have scanned published reports and come up with a count of several hundred dead, not 2108. In a reasonably-conducted police procedure this would prove nothing because police are not supposed to broadcast every piece of evidence as it is uncovered and therefore one would not expect to derive accurate body-count from newspaper reports. But the ICTY has conducted its investigation in an unusual fashion.

I suggest you ponder this info and lets investigate further. This is becoming quite interesting. I'm glad you asked the question. It actually brings up more questions that are quite signficant.