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Young Serb Killed in Embassy Riot Shared His Nation's Rage at U.S.
The Wall Street Journal ^ | February 25, 2008 | MARC CHAMPION and JOHN W. MILLER

Posted on 02/25/2008 9:19:41 AM PST by dschapin

...

Zoran Vujovic, a lanky, outgoing, sports-crazy college student, was the only person to die in the attack on the embassy. His death was a family tragedy. But the history of violence that has engulfed families such as the Vujovics also helps explain the burst of anti-American anger now sweeping Serbia.

This latest spasm to wrack the Balkans began with Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia on Feb. 17. The U.S. and much of Europe quickly supported the Kosovars, enraging many Serbs. But their anti-Western grievances have deeper roots.

Zoran and his family were part of the Serb minority in Kosovo, a province dominated by Albanian Muslims tucked between Serbia proper and Macedonia. They fled their home in the Kosovar capital of Pristina in August 1999, after Zoran's 82-year old great-grandmother, Ljubica, was found strangled in her bathtub. Serbian troops and police had just been driven from the province by the U.S.-led aerial bombing campaign of that year, designed to halt dictator Slobodan Milosevic's brutal attempt to drive out the province's ethnic Albanian majority.

Revenge was swift for Serbs left behind, including Zoran's family. "A British captain investigated, but no one was ever prosecuted" for the murder of Ljubica, says Zoran's uncle, Dragisa. Two years later, Zoran's grandfather, who had found Ljubica's body, committed suicide by throwing himself under a train, according to family friends who still live in Kosovo.

The memories are still raw, and the Vujovics see themselves as victims of Washington and Brussels. "The family is angered by the mention of just the word 'America,'" says Dragisa.

...

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: clintonswar; embassy; kosovo; russia; serbia
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To: Nam Vet
I know my European history and your comparison to La Raza (!) is a real stretch. I could compare the Serb action in Kosovo similar to Saddam exterminating Kurds or Shiites.

Would you have stood by the Russians and let the Serbs cleanse all of Kosovo? Not an easy answer.
21 posted on 02/25/2008 9:58:37 AM PST by Thrownatbirth (.....Iraq Invasion fan since '91.)
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To: MeanWestTexan

Yeah, I can totally understand how he felt as well. We have betrayed the Serbs and sold them out to their historic enemies.


22 posted on 02/25/2008 10:01:35 AM PST by dschapin
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To: Thrownatbirth; RC2
We could've just let the Serbs ethnically cleanse Kosovo of all Muslims.

No, we could have let Yugoslavia fight the UCK terrorists who were killing people of all races and religions just as we fight terrorists.

The clinton administration had plans for the attack on Yugoslavia. People, including Albanians, began leaving Kosovo when we began the bombing campaign. Many fled into central Serbia. Today many Muslims continue to live peacefully in Serbia. They don't need NATO troops and razor wire for their survival.

Now we are just letting the Serbs Albanians ethnically cleanse Kosovo of all Muslims non-Albanians and kill Albanians that don't toe the UCK line!

23 posted on 02/25/2008 10:09:54 AM PST by F-117A (Mr. Bush, have someone read UN Resolution 1244 to you!!!)
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To: dschapin

It’s such a shame that the U.S is positioning itself on the wrong side of this affair. It would be much better that we stayed out of it all together than to support the Islamofacists who are trying to divide and destroy yet another European country.


24 posted on 02/25/2008 10:10:19 AM PST by shuckmaster
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To: dschapin

Muslim nations and individuals should not be assisted by the U.S. in any circumstances or in any way.

We should oppose them at every opportunity.

We should refuse to allow Muslim immigrants and students entry into the United States.


25 posted on 02/25/2008 10:52:28 AM PST by TFMcGuire (Either you are an American, or you are a liberal)
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To: Thrownatbirth
"I know my European history and your comparison to La Raza (!) is a real stretch. I could compare the Serb action in Kosovo similar to Saddam exterminating Kurds or Shiites."

Hardly.

The expulsions of the native Serbs in Kosovo by the Albanians began many years before these wars. Check back to American news stories in the 1980's from reputable news sources, and you will find that it was the Albanians who were continually "the ethnic cleansers" of all non-Albanians in Kosovo. The previous communist government just ignored it while thousands of Serbs & other non-Albanians poured out of Kosovo every year due to Albanian ethnic cleansing of non-Albanians. Even the Bishop who was to become the Serbian Orthodox Patriarch was beaten by Albanian and hospitalized for months, along with a number of nuns raped by Albanians. Serbs had finally had enough of a foreign minority to whom they had offered sanctuary from Albania's ruthless leaders, taking over the province and cruelly repressing the indigenous peoples. This frustration is how Milosevic came to power in the first place.

Yes, Kosovo autonomy was revoked, because "autonomy" had turned Kosovo into a cruel and lawless place -- and into "a little Albania" on Serbian soil. And yes, Milosevic was heavy-handed in suppressing a growing Albanian insurgency for secession, but there was no "genocide of Kosovars". There was a suppression of an armed insurgency which any leader of any country would have been forced to try and accomplish given the circumstances. Milosevic's tactics may have been heavyhanded, but he was responding to a problem that already existed, not creating a new one.

Kosovo is not Bosnia.

26 posted on 02/25/2008 11:13:45 AM PST by Bokababe ( http://www.savekosovo.org)
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To: dschapin

“The family is angered by the mention of just the word ‘America,’” says Dragisa.

P*#@ on you!


27 posted on 02/25/2008 11:26:28 AM PST by AngelesCrestHighway
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To: cripplecreek
In that part of the world it is the thing to do, bash America, Bash Bush. That is until you need food, money or protection. The small countries in the Balkans are like oil and water they will never mix and no one wants them.
28 posted on 02/25/2008 11:43:06 AM PST by ANGGAPO ( is for the oil.)
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To: Thrownatbirth
We could've just let the Serbs ethnically cleanse Kosovo of all Muslims.

That would have been a bad idea but we had blinders on and still do: the genocide wasn't 1-sided, we just chose to help one side over the other. Some of the mass graves the UN has been documenting for the last decade plus, are full of serb corpses.

Serbs rightfully see the US as against them. I truly do not understand the US policy on Russia and it's allies. We support the Kosovars' independence movement but tell Russia to stay out of the various independence movements by Serbs in Georgia. We also react negatively to Russia's military actions against the islamofascist Chechyna rebels.

What are we thinking???

29 posted on 02/25/2008 12:02:16 PM PST by DesertSapper (Conservative . . . and waiting to see if the GOP deserves my vote in November.)
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To: Thrownatbirth
I see you swallowed the propaganda hook, line and sinker. Also, throughout history Kosovo was a Christian-Serb province. The Albanian muzzies were the aggressors throughout. Ethnic cleansing ????? Look who have been driven out, one way or another. Christian churches and monestaries as old as 1200-1400 years have been totally razed by the Albanians. Ever heard of the "Greater Albania" idea??? I believe Macedonia and part of Greece are also part of the 'plan'. That idea has been around longer than you or I, as I recall. I'm surprised you haven't heard of it before.

Nam Vet

30 posted on 02/25/2008 12:22:06 PM PST by Nam Vet (I'd rather be waterboarded than vote for John McCain.)
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To: dschapin

Many more Serbs will die horribly if they allow their hatred for the USA to consume them.


31 posted on 02/25/2008 12:32:26 PM PST by Tailgunner Joe
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To: Nam Vet
I'm surprised you haven't heard of it before.

QSL cards Radio Tirana adorn my shack.
32 posted on 02/25/2008 12:50:09 PM PST by Thrownatbirth (.....Iraq Invasion fan since '91.)
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To: AngelesCrestHighway

Can you blame them since they lost their home and their grandmother was murdered as a result of our policies. In general America has been a great force for good in the world. However, we are not infallible and when we do the wrong thing it can have devestating consequences. In this situation what we did was horribly wrong and we have to face the fact that some people are going to legitimately hate us for what we did.


33 posted on 02/25/2008 1:54:29 PM PST by dschapin
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To: cinives
Can someone really explain to me why we went there, and why we are still there ?

Sure. It helps the globalists to have their own military machine (NATO) and the precedent to use it to break up sovereign nations when it suits them.

John McCain armed Kosovo Islamic terrorists

McCAIN AND THE KLA CONNECTION

34 posted on 02/25/2008 9:20:56 PM PST by TigersEye (This is the age of the death of reason.)
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To: TigersEye

That’s the only thing that makes sense.

However, the globalists better get an understanding of the “Muslim problem” or everything they’ve worked for for a hundred years or so is right out the window.

I don’t think a Bin Laden is a globalist in the same sense that a George Soros is.


35 posted on 02/26/2008 5:40:15 AM PST by cinives (On some planets what I do is considered normal.)
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To: dschapin
Presumably he went into the embassy starting fires and got himself trapped behind the flames.

I'm suppposed to feel bad that an arsonist died?

He may have been drunk at the time which would have made that more likely."

Stupid is as stupid does.

36 posted on 02/26/2008 7:18:10 AM PST by Valin
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To: cinives

The globalists think they can manage it all. It’s a recipe for endless conflicts all over the globe and endless excuses for controlling and killing the enemy du jour in the name of stability. And that’s 1984 doublespeak.


37 posted on 02/26/2008 10:58:16 AM PST by TigersEye (This is the age of the death of reason.)
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