Philosofy, your position that President Bush is a coward for his failure to: "provide military help to the Serbs to help fight the Moslem terrorists from Albania [and] drop the case against Milosevic" indicates a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation. First, your description of the Albanians as "Moslem fanatics" is not supported by the facts. You are more likely to find Moslem fanatics in Hamtramck or London than in Albania. Prime Minister Nano of Albania is Orthodox. President Moisiu of Albania is Catholic. The laws and lifestyle of Albania are secular. There is religious freedom and mutual tolerance among adherents to the four significant relgious elements: Sunni Islam, Catholicism, Bektashi, and Orthodox. If you read the post a couple above, you can see the concrete actions the Albanians have taken to fight the real Muslem fanatics.
Second, you somehow seem to have miscast Milosevic as fighting for Christians. As you probably know, in June 1999, Patriarch Pavle of the Serbian Orthodox Church called for Milosevic's resignation and then followed up in an interview with the weekly “Slobodna Bosna” (Free Bosnia) on July 26th, 1999: "Milosevic is no Christian".
Slobo was and is a criminal--go to the ICTY page and read the 60+ counts on his indictment. The Patriarch recognized that and stuck to his Christian principles. From the same interview: “If Greater Serbia should be built on crimes, I don’t agree, let there be no Greater Serbia. If small Serbia should be built on crimes, I don’t agree again, let there be no small Serbia. If it takes a crime for one only remaining Serb to survive, I don’t agree again. Let us extinct, but to survive by crime, no way”, Patriarch Pavle said.
What are your principles based on, Philosofy? Serb nationalist extremism or Christianity? They are not the same thing.
Hi FormerLib, thanks for warm welcome! :-)
Mark502inf, sorry, it seems to me that you serve(d) with albanians in iraq. Am I right?
Ah, yes, thanks, I too think that it was too harsh reaction by moderator, afterall, I apologised for posting pictures, after one freeper advised me on that, but it didn't help.
But, back to your post.
It's all nice that you've posted about US-Albanian relations. But don't you agree that US has a long record of nice talk about it's allies, no matter they're afghanistan mujaheedins, or central american narko-lords? Until they stop being useful, ofcourse US is not going to speak the truth about them. Remember how Alija Izetbegovic was "secular muslim leader", "peaceful democrat", and other BS?
It's the same with Albanians. The difference between Albanians and Serbs, is that Serbs didn't realise the time they were (are) living. I mean by that - no matter if you have some rights or not, it's the power that you need, it's powwerful allie that you need behind your back.
I posted it before, but serbian-americans and americans that post here seem to reluctant to accept it - Albanians are not extreme muslims, or extreme in any religion. The contacts they had with islamic terrorists, from bosnia to iran and bin ladin, were in fact their contacts with everyone there to help them create Greater Albania. So, once Bin Ladin and islamic fundamentalism became hunted animals in war on terror, albanians were trying desperately to cut down all the contacts with them. It's all. Albanians are not men of principles. They "support" USA because USA is the strongest nation in the world. Once you see US fall, or some other power become more influential, you'll see all forms of "pro-americanism" among albanians collapse. But even then, Belgrade will not change the names of the Roosevelt st. or John Kennedy st. Belgrade didn't change it during Milosevic, and will, I hope, never change them. That's principle.
During Serbian empire, albanians were loyal to serbs. during turks, except for Skenderbeg's defense (who was very close to serbs if not serb himself) , they converted to Islam by more then 70%, to become the "best allies" of the turskih empire. During WW1, and WW2, they were german allies. Now, they're with USA. And serbs had conflicts with the nations that used albanians as tools for penetration into balkans. As some measure of empires - the ones serbs fight with and albanians colaborate, are empires. I just hope that US strategists will see, that if you defend principles, you'll have serbs as allies. If you want immoral killers to do dirty jobs, you'll rely on albanians, but beware not to lose the position of the strongest nation. Germans were the strongest in the balkans for two times, and serbs fought with them. There was none to help us. Now, we have to obay in order to survive. I would send serb troops to iraq if that would bring mercy to my people. Yes, Radicals wouldn't. They're too much idealists. It's bad for small nations. We were stupid for standing up to austria-hungary, germany... we shoud have done the same as everybody else. Obay them, be their puppets, and after the western allies defeat them , just switch sides. But no, we had to lose about 3 millions of lives in world wars. Stupid us.
You spoke about Milosevic. I don't like him. Since 1992, or 1993, when I was 12 years old, I didn't like him. I have many things against him. But he was never a nationalist. He was never a real christian. He was something like leftist atheist power greedy man. He greeted monks with "hello comrades monks" :-) But he was the one to say in 1987 to kosovo serbs:"none shall beat you anymore!" And that made him big, and he was riding on that wave of 1987-1992 popular support, because he stood up against position serbian nation was in. And it was awful position.
If kosovo albanians were sincere, they would go out to vote in 1992 to throw milosevic out from the office. it was possible! But they didn't! they never wanted to be equal citizens. what did they want? they wanted kosovo as it is today. to kill serbs, and burn their temples, without fear that serbs might strike back.
You were talking about Patriarch Pavle. Maybe you heard what you liked. Maybe you should have heard what Patriarch had to say about his years of service in Kosovo during communist rule. About numerous attacks on him, by albanian mob, or even by individuals. Not just on him, but on other serbian priests, monks, common people. Sacral objects. And lack of protection from state officials.
Albanian tolerance inside albania? there were thousands and thousands of serbs in northern albania in 19th century still. What about now? Serbs were fleeing their territories infront of turks, but someone always stayed. Now there are almost no serbs in albania. And the rest of them live in fear. They could have just dreamed about rights albanians had in serbia, before as well as during milosevic.
Albania is corrupted state to the bottom. Tribes and clans have most of the influence. politicians are puppets. Albanian mafia is now one of the strongest organized crime groups in the world. European narcotic market, prostitution, mostly under their hands. Thousands of albanian girls are crossing adriatics to become prostitutes in western europe. That's what they do to their own children.
Ok, again, we serbs will have to wait. but, as I said in American University in Bulgaria, I say it again - the very minute US leaves Kosovo, or stop defending albanians, serbs will rush down. We'll never forget. Kosovo is all we have. Our fundamental traditions, our national philosophy, our songs and national costumes, it's all about Kosovo. The national hat in the area where I come from (Krajina, today under croatia) is red on top and black around, symbolising red blood of fallen heroes and black for mourning over Kosovo. It has nine long... how to say, small woolen "tails" in the beck, to symbolise unity after 9 Jugovic brothers that died gloriously in Kosovo battle. Hundreds and hundreds of kilometers away, there's another Kosovo field, and small Kosovcica river, and small Lazarica church, named after prince Lazar. We deserted communism. Now we have to rely on some other tradition, system of values. We have nothing but Kosovo. Most important, all our emotions toward Kosovo aside, we have right on it, and we'll claim it sooner or later. Yes, we're in deep sh** now, and many people believe we don't care. But we cared for almost 500 years, and we came back. It wouldn't be our first time to do it again.
The only way the idiots in the West are going to survive is by acting as ONE CHRISTIAN BLOCK AGAINST the Moslem aggression. The Moslems are certainly acting as “US against THEM”! If we don't drop the fairness crap, and adopt “US against THEM” we will certainly parish. The Moslem expansionist movement has been in progress for more than 1500 years, and now it is funded with the petrodollars from Saudi Arabia. Stop listening to the lies of our media. It is so simple. If these bastards stop blowing things up all over the world, I may have some respect for them. If minority Moslems militants are doing the blowing ups, and the majority Moslems are ashamed of them, and preach in the mosques against them, then I may have sympathy. But, you, and I know that 95% of all Moslems support that violence, and the violence starts from the hate filled sermons in the Mosques!
Best regards