Posted on 05/18/2004 8:49:57 AM PDT by Jane_N
No. I could care less who your sources are - if their statements are in conflict with the facts, and you cannot resolve them, then you are in error for continuing to cite those sources as any sort of authority.
You are in error.
Tell me, Jane, why do 250,000 Serbs count more than 350,000, Kosovo Albanians?
So far, the Kosovar Albanians have responded to our pressure, whereas Milosevic simply racheted up his ethnic cleansing campaign - that some refuse to recognize Milosevic's actions as what they were doesn't invalidate NATO's reaction one bit.
of the 350,000 "Albanians", how many of them have Yugoslavian citizenship? How many of them are illegaly residing within Yugoslavia? It is funny how many of them upon being interviewed state they are from Albania.
"if their statements are in conflict with the facts"
So you can basically say that according to you, unless a source repeats the common line, than it is not true, can not be trusted, or is biased?
Well we all know what the common line was/is from Capital Hill and they don't ever "fabricate" do they? And when it comes to figures concerning the war, well do I really need to comment? We all know about the numbers that were quoted and the way they happened to shrink as the war progressed (or should I say degressed). I really don't think we need to go into a discussion about the lies told by NATO when it comes to the Kosovo attack on Serbia. They are so well known already.
"Tell me, Jane, why do 250,000 Serbs count more than 350,000, Kosovo Albanians?"
Well tell me Hoplite, why do 350,000 kosovo albanians count more than 250,000 Serbs?
"So far, the Kosovar Albanians have responded to our pressure, whereas Milosevic simply racheted up his ethnic cleansing campaign - that some refuse to recognize Milosevic's actions as what they were doesn't invalidate NATO's reaction one bit."
Responded to our pressure? In what way have they responded? Are you at all up to date to with what has been happening in Kosovo since NATO/UN took over? Or do you live in a dream world where everything is suddenly perfect now that NATO/UN are there? Are you denying the riots that occured in mid march? Are you also denying all attacks against Serbs, Serb property and Serb culture that have occured after NATO/UN got involved? Is that what you call responding? In that case you have a rather warped sense of positive and negative responses. Tell the Kosovo Serbs, Kosovo Roma, Kosovo Jews, Kosovo Albanians and so on, that have fled Kosovo since NATO/UN took over how well the Albanians are responding to NATO/UN pressure. I'm sure they would greatly appreciate your explanation.
NATO/UN's lack of action/pressure/response to the real ethnic cleansing being committed against minorities in Kosovo under their watchful eyes invalidates NATO's reaction/presence totally.
Not much for paying attention, are you.
Your sources are ignoring facts upon the ground, being that there were 350,000 refugees in Kosovo prior to NATO's commencing Allied Force. Instead of reconciling this fact with your views, you are simply ignoring it.
That is not acceptable.
Well tell me Hoplite, why do 350,000 kosovo albanians count more than 250,000 Serbs?
Because there's 100,000 more of them - that's a tough concept, isn't it.
In what way have they responded?
Are they still driving out Serbs right now, or have they stopped (albeit temporarily or otherwise)? Perhaps you missed the part where 19 deaths and 4,000 refugees resulted in over 250 arrests, vs. over 6,000 known deaths and 800,000 + refugees resulting in - well why don't you tell me how many Serbs have been arrested for the murder or expulsion of Kosovar Albanians Jane?
Your Swedish neutrality is about as real as your willingness to deal with the facts in an honest manner.
Those arrests are attributed to KFOR/UNMIK, not the K-Alb authorities. You can't claim the Albanians are arresting their guilty, quite the opposite. There are massive protests when one of their "KLA heroes" is arrested. This is in direct contrast to the Serbian soldiers on trial for crimes in Kosovo, who are being tried by the Serbian government itself. When the Kosovo Albanians start trying their war criminals, then call me.
"Your Swedish neutrality is about as real as your willingness to deal with the facts in an honest manner".
I only live in Sweden. I am in fact an Australian and we (Australians) are not known to be neutral...as can be seen by our involvement in Irak!
I don't suppose you would see any of this as being valid considering it comes from German sources but maybe someone else might find it interesting.
Internal Documents from Germany's Foreign Office Regarding Pre-Bombardment
Genocide in Kosovo
Collected by International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, IALANA
1. Opinion of the Upper Administrative Court at Mnster, March 11, 1999 (Az: 13A 3894/94.A):
"Ethnic Albanians in Kosovo have neither been nor are now exposed to regional or countrywide group persecution in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia."
2. Opinion of the Bavarian Administrative Court, October 29, 1998 (Az: 22 BA 94.34252):
"The Foreign Office's status reports of May 6, June 8 and July 13, 1998, given to the plaintiffs in the summons to a verbal deliberation, do not allow the conclusion that there is group persecution of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. Not even regional group persecution, applied to all ethnic Albanians from a specific part of Kosovo, can be observed with sufficient certainty. The violent actions of the Yugoslav military and police since February 1998 were aimed at separatist activities and are no proof of a persecution of the whole Albanian ethnic group in Kosovo or in a part of it. What was involved in the Yugoslav violent actions and excesses since February 1998 was a selective forcible action against the military underground movement (especially the KLA) and people in immediate contact with it in its areas of operation. ...A state program or persecution aimed at the whole ethnic group of Albanians exists neither now nor earlier."
3. Intelligence report from the Foreign Office, January 12, 1999 to the Administrative Court of Trier (Az: 514-516.80/32 426):
"Even in Kosovo an explicit political persecution linked to Albanian ethnicity is not verifiable. The East of Kosovo is still not involved in armed conflict. Public life in cities like Pristina, Urosevac, Gnjilan, etc. has, in the entire conflict period, continued on a relatively normal basis." The "actions of the security forces (were) not directed against the Kosovo-Albanians as an ethnically defined group, but against the military opponent and its actual or alleged supporters."
4. Intelligence report from the Foreign Office January 6, 1999 to the Bavarian Administrative Court, Ansbach:
"At this time, an increasing tendency is observable inside the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia of refugees returning to their dwellings. ... Regardless of the desolate economic situation in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (according to official information of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia 700,000 refugees from Croatia, Bosnia and Herzogovina have found lodging since 1991), no cases of chronic malnutrition or insufficient medical treatment among the refugees are known and significant homelessness has not been observed. ... According to the Foreign Office's assessment, individual Kosovo-Albanians (and their immediate families) still have limited possibilities of settling in those parts of Yugoslavia in which their countrymen or friends already live and who are ready to take them in and support them."
5. Report of the Foreign Office March 15, 1999 (Az: 514-516,80/33841) to the Administrative Court, Mainz:
"As laid out in the status report of November 18, 1998, the KLA has resumed its positions after the partial withdrawal of the (Serbian) security forces in October 1998, so it once again controls broad areas in the zone of conflict. Before the beginning of spring 1999 there were still clashes between the KLA and security forces, although these have not until now reached the intensity of the battles of spring and summer 1998."
6. Opinion of the Administrative Court of Baden-Wrttemberg, February 4, 1999 (Az: A 14 S 22276/98):
"The various reports presented to the senate all agree that the often feared humanitarian catastrophe threatening the Albanian civil population has been averted. ... This appears to be the case since the winding down of combat in connection with an agreement made with the Serbian leadership at the end of 1998 (Status Report of the Foreign Office, November 18, 1998). Since that time both the security situation and the conditions of life of the Albanian-derived population have noticeably improved. ... Specifically in the larger cities public life has since returned to relative normality (cf. on this Foreign Office, January 12, 1999 to the Administrative Court of Trier; December 28, 1998 to the Upper Administrative Court of Lneberg and December 23, 1998 to the Administrative Court at Kassel), even though tensions between the population groups have meanwhile increased due to individual acts of violence... Single instances of excessive acts of violence against the civil population, e.g. in Racak, have, in world opinion, been laid at the feet of the Serbian side and have aroused great indignation. But the number and frequency of such excesses do not warrant the conclusion that every Albanian living in Kosovo is exposed to extreme danger to life and limb nor is everyone who returns there threatened with death and severe injury."
7. Opinion of the Upper Administrative Court at Mnster, February 24, 1999 (Az: 14 A 3840/94,A):
"There is no sufficient actual proof of a secret program, or an unspoken consensus on the Serbian side, to liquidate the Albanian people, to drive it out or otherwise to persecute it in the extrememanner presently described. ... If Serbian state power carries out its laws and in so doing necessarily puts pressure on an Albanian ethnic group which turns its back on the state and is for supporting a boycott, then the objective direction of these measures is not that of a programmatic persecution of this population group ...Even if the Serbian state were benevolently to accept or even to intend that a part of the citizenry which sees itself in a hopeless situation or opposescompulsory measures, should emigrate, this still does not represent a program of persecution aimed at the whole of the Albanian majority (in Kosovo)."
"If moreover the (Yugoslav) state reacts to separatist strivings with consistent and harsh execution of its laws and with anti-separatist measures, and if some of those involved decide to go abroad as a result, this is still not a deliberate policy of the (Yugoslav) state aiming at ostracizing and expelling the minority; on the contrary it is directed toward keeping this people within the state federation."
"Events since February and March 1998 do not evidence a persecution program based on Albanian ethnicity. The measures taken by the armed Serbian forces are in the first instance directed toward combatting the KLA and its supposed adherents and supporters."
Notes
As in the case of the Clinton Administration, the present regime in Germany, specifically Joschka Fischer's Foreign Office, has justified its intervention in Kosovo by pointing to a "humanitarian catastrophe," "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" occurring there, especially in the months immediately preceding the NATO attack.
The above internal documents from Fischer's ministry and from various regional Administrative Courts in Germany spanning the year before the start of NATO's air attacks, attest that criteria of ethnic cleansing and genocide were not met.
The Foreign Office documents were responses to the courts' needs in deciding the status of Kosovo-Albanian refugees in Germany. Although one might in these cases suppose a bias in favor of downplaying a humanitarian catastrophe in order to limit refugees, it nevertheless remains highly significant that the Foreign Office, in contrast to its public assertion of ethnic cleansing and genocide in justifying NATO intervention, privately continued to deny their existence as Yugoslav policy in this crucial period. And this continued to be their assessment even in March of this year. Thus these documents tend to show that stopping genocide was not the reason the German government, and by implication NATO, intervened in Kosovo, and that genocide (as understood in German and international law) in Kosovo did not March, 1999, but is a product of it.
Sources
Excerpts from the these official documents were obtained by IALANA (International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms) which sent them to various media. The texts used here were published in the German daily Junge Welt on April 24, 1999. See
http://www.jungewelt.de/1999/04-24/011.shtml as well as the commentary at http://www.jungewelt.de/1999/04-24/001.shtml).
This seems to be as complete a reproduction of the documents as exists in the German media at the time of this writing.
Copied from: http://www.transnational.org/features/germandoc.html
I don't think that call from hoplite will come in our life time sorry to say. It's highly unlikely that Kosovo albanians will ever admit they have war criminals amongst them let alone put them on trial/convict them.
Does the above sound familiar?
Nice logic, so when will the US be seceding its sovereignty over Florida to the Cubans and the South West to Mexico? This is a strawman's argument, you're justifying ethnic cleansing based on numerical superiority. Then based on your line of reasoning the Serbs in Bosnia had every right to push out the Croatians and Muslims due to their superior numbers(70% of Bosnia was occupied by Serbs), worked great in Krajina I suppose.
I wasn't aware that illegal aliens helped constitute actual population numbers versus documented citizens, are you saying illegal aliens have more worth than legalized citizens?
Yeah, its also funny how the Albanian population in Kosovo jumped to higher levels that of pre-war numbers.
There are some 3500 international and 6200 local police in Kosovo. source
The local police, the KPS, is comprised of residents of Kosovo, and as of December of 2003 has over 500 Serb officers among its ranks. source
So unless you have something that shows the KPS hasn't been involved in the arrests following the March riots, you're just talking smack.
Also, considering that both the police and judiciary are administered by UNMIK, your complaint about the Kosovar Albanians not trying anybody is more an indication of your general cluelessness than anything else, isn't it.
This is in direct contrast to the Serbian soldiers on trial for crimes in Kosovo, who are being tried by the Serbian government itself.
As an exercise in autoflagellation, why don't you enumerate those cases and individuals being tried by your example of a paragon of judicial virtue?
That this is happening at all is a sea change in Serbia, but it's as of yet merely a pathetically half hearted effort calculated to get the international community off Belgrade's back.
I'm not really following your logic here as far as your sources of information.
I'm not really surprised at that, either - you may as well start citing "emperor's clothes" or the ICDSM and have done with it.
I have done no such thing.
The irony of your use of the term "strawman" is lost on you, no doubt.
You obviously have some difficulty reading articles/posts in their entirety. You wouldn't happen to be related to RBJ who also has problems reading entire posts? This was actually quoting documents from the German Foreign Office concerning Kosovo Albanians prior to the war:
"The Foreign Office documents were responses to the courts' needs in deciding the status of Kosovo-Albanian refugees in Germany."
"3. Intelligence report from the Foreign Office, January 12, 1999 to the Administrative Court of Trier (Az: 514-516.80/32 426):"
"4. Intelligence report from the Foreign Office January 6, 1999 to the Bavarian Administrative Court, Ansbach: "
"5. Report of the Foreign Office March 15, 1999 (Az: 514-516,80/33841) to the Administrative Court, Mainz:"
As I said to you in post #45:
"So you can basically say that according to you, unless a source repeats the common line, than it is not true, can not be trusted, or is biased?
Well we all know what the common line was/is from Capital Hill and they don't ever "fabricate" do they? And when it comes to figures concerning the war, well do I really need to comment? We all know about the numbers that were quoted and the way they happened to shrink as the war progressed (or should I say degressed). I really don't think we need to go into a discussion about the lies told by NATO when it comes to the Kosovo attack on Serbia. They are so well known already."
"I'm I'm not really following your logic here" either "as far as your sources of information" as to what is fact and what is fabrications.
"I'm not really surprised at that, either - you may as well start citing" CNN!
Racak, in case you forgot, disproved #3, and was the event behind Albright's "springtime came early" comment in regards to the Serbian production of those 350,000 refugees, thus rendering #4 moot.
#5 is probative of exactly what?
Do you read your own posts? If so, do you understand the material presented therein?
How do I get a refund for the time I've wasted on you?
You're arrogant conclusion that 350,000 Albanians are worth more than 250,000 Serbs dictates otherwise. It was your stupid supposition, not mine.
The irony of your use of the term "strawman" is lost on you, no doubt.
No irony, just calling out your problematic logic for what it is, the loss is on your part. If you have no other recourse other than to make ridiculous statements such as those then I have to surmise that identification of irony is the least of your problems.
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