Posted on 08/17/2004 8:38:32 AM PDT by itssoamusing
I'm relatively new to the world of FReeping for the most part. I need some help in understanding what the war in Bosnia was about. I'm particularly interested in the Muslim aspect of this. I've read numerous articles about this and Milosovic. I'm finding it hard to distinguish who was right and who was wrong. The impression I get from what I read is that Milosovic was killing Muslims and also that the Muslims were raping and beheading people etc. I've also been interested in reading about the many uprisings of Muslims throughout history and how it may relate to this. Forgive my poor knowledge of this subject.
Thanks in advance FReepers, Doug
I am trying to still figure out why the Democrats supported that war but not Iraq. Bosnia did not have UN support and did not pose any threat to the US, which is the arguement they use in calling the Iraq War unjust.
There is a decent summary in Huntington's "Clash".
Oh boy, you picked a really thorny subject. If you'd been here when our planes were bombing over there you'd have seen some nasty arguments. Some, like MadIvan, held that it was a just war. I'd say that the majority thought that it was Clinton's war. And no one can argue that it didn't really get solved, the place is still a mess.
Mad, I've always liked and respected you, even when I disagree. I don't want to re-fight the Balkan War debates, I'm pinging you only to ask a short answer of what you think. And let's not get in any fights, or I'll never forgive myself for pinging you.
Regards, Ivan
I think the above sums it up quite adequately.
I see that you are under the mistaken impression that their are really smart people in the Department of State and the Pentagon. They're not smart, they have merely hidden their stupidity until it is proven by a situation such as Bosnia.
Go to these websites for answers...
www.danielpipes.org and www.jihadwatch.org
It wasn't Clinton's war - it was Albright's war.
It is a sordid history - goes back almost a thousand years. Genetically, Serbians and Bosnian's are of different stock. On top of it, they follow different religions. And have at different times been killing each other. Tito managed to crush everyone and form a semblance of a state (supported by Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill. They were all terrified of another war emanating from the Balkans, just as WWI had). As the iron fist of Tito relaxed after his death, the fissiparous tendencies of the various states erupted. Serbia tried to re-establish the state, but it successively failed against Croatia and Slovenia. It (under Milosevic) drew the line in the sand with Bosnia since it has some historic importance for the Serbs. The hellion exploded. Albright, originating from neighboring Czechkoslovakia (I forget if she is Czech or Slovak) had an interest in the region and decided that that was where she would prove her manhood.
And all the while, the gangrene in Afghanistan spread, and its stench still lives with us..........
How's this? Way back in the 16th Century ( That was before Vietnam and Woodstock.) The Ottoman Turks who were peace loving Muslims Plundered the Balkans, raped the cattle and castrated the Serbian men. Where were the NYT (Oh no, ehtnic cleansing , rape squads.)? Fast Foreward to the Cold War (Up to and including Viet Nam and Woodstock.), the USSR and Jr. Managing Partner Marshal Tito took up where the Turks left off, i.e., all you Serbians, Slovaks, ethnic Turks, etc., play nice or else. Exuent Tito, USSR, who's next? Not me said the french, germans. The yanks will take care of it. Enter Clinton ,Holbrooke, Burger, et al.,trying to cover up their weakness on defense, intelligence, sex .. who knows what else? Intermission: General Wesley Clark performs Mamooska with hat swapping Serbian war criminal. Is it about time the E.U. steps up to the plate with their own military ? Not a chance.
Bosnia was to cover their a$$e$, just like they supported action against Saddam Hussein in 1998, and then was against it. It is all about covering tail.
Good luck. My wife is Serbian, her father from Bosnia-Herzegovina. We were married in my church, an Albanian Orthodox parish under the Greek Archdiocese, during the war! I thought I would try to get a handle on the situation in the Balkans and I found a lot of sources, all hopelessly biased either pro- or con-Yugoslavia. It's a complex situation, and there's a complex mixture of history, myth, and legend that sways the story whoever is telling it. The best source I found for a overall view of Yugoslavia's history, and why it turned out the way it did, is Rebecca West's "Black Lamb and Gray Falcon" written around 1938. It's pre-WW2, pre-Tito, but it shows that some of the seeds of Yugoslavia's destruction were planted practically from the beginning. What caused those seeds to germinate and grow, as far as I can tell, was Tito's shoring up his own regime by playing various ethnic groups against each other, which created a kind of order, but an order that began to unravel after Tito's death.
Try Silber and Little's Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation. You won't understand Bosnia without the context of the rest of Yugoslavia.
Clinton bombed the wrong side.
Nope. Croats, Serbians, and Bosnians are essentially the same ethnic group.
PJ O'Rourke had an excellent article on Bosnian/Serbian/Croat thing, forget which of his books it's in. He remarked on how easy it was for people to pass as one of the other two groups when they needed to; next to impossible to tell apart visually.
And he said the joke about telling them apart was that Serbs don't go to church, Croats don't go to Mass, and Bosnians don't go to Mosque (Basically the only differences are alphabet...all have the same language, but the Serbs use Cyrillic, Bosnians and Croats use Roman...and religion, though really most of the people in all three groups weren't very religious when the wars started.)
The thing about FR is there are a lot of Serb apologists, who have found very fertile ground here with the whole "All Muslims are evil and should be exterminated" trend on FR.
Milosevic is a Communist and war criminal any way you slice it.
ALL three sides were guilty of war crimes against each other in the Bosnian Civil War; the Serbs were the worst basically because they had the most combat power, and more people from the other two groups under their control, thus the greatest ability to commit crimes against the most people.
that was my thought....was Milo fighting against the Muslims?
Thanks to all FReepers for your insights.
no mistakes about that......thats for sure.
I cannot believe some of the stuff I read everyday about the Clinton Admin. My mother in law got me hooked on this sight and converted FOREVER. I voted for that ASS CLOWN before being reformed. My apologies to all (LOL)..hanging head in shame now. What a difference a couple years makes and trying to be and remain informed. This is the best site ever!!! Now I'm converting others.
Bu'Wai',we're always finding ways to intervene in other countries affairs. First we create the drug trade then we suppress the drug trade. First we send missionaries then we send troops to protect them for their abuses. We force other cultures to mutate into our own likeness, then, we're shocked when they do the same to us. See Africa, Japan,Iran.
Splinter groups in the US try to promote their alternate way of life by attempting to export it to other cultures. See Iran, see Margaret Mead. Maybe we need a new 12-step program for people who can't stop interfering in other Nation's affairs. See Tao, I-ching.
BTTT.......calling all kitties
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