Please read Part 1, Part 2a, and Part 2b for background info that will be used in the text of this post.
During the research for and from personal knowledge of the subject of the Balkans, I kept running across evidence and stories and facts that do not add up to the story that the Western Press fed the American People about the wars in the Balkans during the latter part of the 20th Century. The topic of the Srebrenica massacre always seemed to be one sided and made almost no tactical/operational sense if the Western Press reports were 100% accurate. In the following post I have tried to be as concise as possible and to double check all claims and reports with credible sources because frankly, there is an awful lot of half truths, lies, and omissions out there. This post is in no way claimed to be the authoritative end all for this discussion.
The first part of this problem is the lack of coverage by the Western media on any war crimes or even so much as an errant bullet from the Muslim side against the Serbs. The Muslims in this fight with the Serbs were portrayed as the poor victims; totally innocent of any wrong doing. Given the history of the Balkans, I find this impossible to believe. I find it impossible because of documents like the 132 page report form the UN called the “Memorandum on War Crimes and Crimes of Genocide in Eastern Bosnia (communes of Bratunac, Skelani and Srebrenica) committed against the Serbian population from April 1992 to April 1993” (I have a Lexis-Nexis account, and there is no mention of this document in English language press. The Security Council admitted the study as an official United Nations document. The documents are linked here: 1 , 2, 3, 4, . The Western Press was, in my opinion, criminal in repeatedly and systematically omitting the Serb side of the story. I suppose carrying water for Bill Clinton was more important than getting both sides of the story out.
The geography of the Srebrenica area is very rugged with steep valleys, forests, and winding, easily defended roads. In this sort of terrain, the defenders have the advantage. The Muslims were defending Srebrenica. Oddly, they did not mount a serious defense, nor did they utilize their heavy artillery (protected and supported by the UN) which would have been devastating if aimed at choke points, passes, and Serb troop/equipment concentrations. The Muslims launched many violent and bloody raids against Serb civilians in the area but would not mount a real defense of Srebrenica. Why? The Muslims were very smart in this case, they saw that the Western media was focused on this area as a De-Militarized Zone. It was in fact, a very heavily armed area. There was, within striking distance of the exhausted Serb Drina Corp, the 2nd Corp of the Muslim Army. They were not ordered into combat by Sarajevo. Had they attacked, they would have split the Serb forces and devastated the material that was rapidly building up in the area, effectively ending the action.
However, if the Muslims fought back, they would loose the valuable and well polished myth that they were the “victims” in this fight. As the Serbs drew nearer, the upper echelon of the Muslim command departed, the War Criminal Naser Oric and his commanders left Srebrenica; leaving their troops and mid-level commanders to fight for themselves. The Muslim myth of Victim is fine for the lower ranks, but not for the leaders, the leaders left their soldiers to die.
I will not get into the numbers of Muslims killed in Srebrenica, the Serbs allowed the women and children to leave the area safely. The Serbs attacked from the south only, the allowed the west and north as escape routes, if they meant to do genocide, they would have initiated a siege that would have sealed the area. The official numbers range from 2,000-8,000 men, 2,000 were confirmed killed in Srebrenica.
The UN documents (documents like the 132 page report form the UN called the “Memorandum on War Crimes and Crimes of Genocide in Eastern Bosnia (communes of Bratunac, Skelani and Srebrenica) committed against the Serbian population from April 1992 to April 1993” (I have a Lexis-Nexis account, and there is no mention of this document in English language press. The Security Council admitted the study as an official United Nations document. The document linked here). Witnesses, like Carlos Blanco, linked below, state that Mladic and the Serbs allowed the women and children to leave the area safely. The Serbs attacked from the south only, the allowed the west and north as escape routes, if they meant to do genocide, they would have initiated a siege that would have sealed the area. The official numbers range from 2,000-8,000 men, 2,000 were confirmed killed in Srebrenica. According to one Portugese UN officer (now professor, and this page is a must read from an eye witness), Carlos Martins Branco, The mass graves are filled by a limited number of corpses from both sides, the consequence of heated battle and combat and not the result of a premeditated plan of genocide, as occurred against the Serbian populations in Krajina, in the Summer of 1995, when the Croatian army implemented the mass murder of all Serbians found there. In this instance, the media maintained an absolute silence, despite the fact that the genocide occurred over a three month period. The objective of Srebrenica was ethnic cleansing and not genocide, unlike what happened in Krajina, in which although there was no military action, the Croatian army decimated villages.
Tags: Srebrenica
The Muslim Bosnians DID allow elements of al Qaeda and other Islamists in, but the people of Muslim Kosovo kicked out al Qaeda ‘volunteers’ and fervently supports America, as does Muslim Albania.
I’m an Orthodox Christian, just like the Serbs, but they did commit genocide in Kosovo.
My two cents.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKDdF6vfjoo
1
yep, there was plenty of killin, on both sides. the western press only covered one side…the muslim side
this article is about srebrenica…which is in bosnia, not in kosovo
all the other war crimes are discussed in all of the earlier parts.
@ timbok:
I’m an Orthodox Christian, just like the Serbs, but they did commit genocide in Kosovo.
No they didn’t.The only Albanians killed were the KLA. FYI- They only kicked AL-Qaeda out after NATO went in. Before that many members of the KLA were trained by Al-Qaeda.
Christians vs. Muslims I support Christians.
Also why the world did nothing about the 2 Million Christians killed in Sudan?
Sorry but Kossovo is Serbian territory, it doesn’t belong to the Dar Al Islam.
@ timbok:
I’m an Orthodox Christian, just like the Serbs, but they did commit genocide in Kosovo.
The Muslims drove out Serbs and looted Monasteries, so I have no sympathy. I really don’t care what the Serbs did. It pales in comparison with what Muslims have done all over the world.
@ coldwarrior:
This thread went up earlier than I expected. Oh well!
1
sorry, but that is total bullshit.
the albanian muslims only pretend support america because we helped them beat the serbs…to thank us they sent their own muslim sons to fight us in afgahanistan, iraq, and to terrorize nyc. they do not cooperate to shut down the opiate smuggling that goes straight thrrouhg their county, and they harbor known al-queda terrorists.
6
hell, i wasnt even paying attention myself.
cookin’ wings, drinkin some booze, doing some serious goofing off.
@ coldwarrior:
I can confirm, My Cousin fought Albanians in Iraq.
Rodan @ #5
I couldn’t agree more. We see the muzz mentality all over the world. It is intolerance, aggression, arrogance, barbaric, cruel. They are after dominance. I will always side with Christians.
the largest ‘genocide/ethnic cleansing’ occured against the serbs during american backed and croat and muslim acted operation Storm.
The operation, which took 84 hours, was documented as the largest European land offensive since World War II. 200,000 serbs were forced from their homes, and 1300 CIVILIANS were murdered by croat and muslim forces. of course there was rape and torture as well.
i dont blame the serbs one iota for anything they did on their own land.
11
operatio storm was ignored by the press…they were carrying water for clinton who needed an international incident so his presidency could look good.
@ coldwarrior:
Operation Storm was a black mark on America’s history.
13
the largest land offensive in europe since ww2 was ignored…
never happened.
now if it were the serbs doing it, the whole world would have known every last detail…the caterwauling christian ammonpor would have been all over that one!
i should not have expected anything better out of the western press.
they did side with pol pot too…they thought he was going to be just what cambodia needed
To separate fact from fiction is impossible. The West has been taken over by the idea that there is no fact – only “narrative”. The narratives chosen as the prevailing “truth” are those that are invented by the non-West.
“Genocide” and “ethnic cleansing” have both lost their meaning. The deliberate slaughter of captured unarmed civilians is wrong, but for “genocide” to apply, the victims must be Muslim and the perpetrators must be non-Muslim. Muslim mass killing of Muslims does not a genocide make (Arab Muslims v. African Muslims in Darfur), and Muslim mass killing of non-Muslims do not a genocide make (Serbians, Armenians, Kurds…) Similarly, “ethnic cleansing” does not apply to Arabs of Jews.
The rehabilitation of Serbs in the world’s eyes will be difficult. Knowing the historical “context”, knowing of the murder and rape of Serbians and the destruction of their churches, and the original ‘betrayal’ of those who converted to Islam, will not exculpate them. “Cycles of violence” always require the Western, Christian faction to break them.
Mass-killing can run the gamut from genocide to collateral damage in war. It is very important that each incident be categorized correctly. I do not think that Srebrenica was genocide. It might have been ethnic cleansing. It might have been a war-crime. Whatever its classification, what the rest of the world does about it should be consistent with what the world does about similar instances (usually nothing) without regard to the nature of the victims or perpetrators.
A very interesting post.
16
nicely said
@ Overlook:
agree 100%
as overlook said, and is one of the main the points of these balkan posts; the american public was feed outright lies, lies by omissions, and half truths in the entire balkan episode.
we were led to believe that just one side did all of the war crimes and were the only bad guys in the whole place and the other side was pure as the driven snow and did nothing wrong, ever, to provoke this sort of action.
i havent trusted the press since 1980, so their actions are par for the course. the problem is that their bias has a direct effect on policy that then killed people this time.
Thank you.
In my 16, I should have added that the “world” did not exist as an instrument of international justice prior to World War II. Various great powers would decide to act in their national interests or defend their client states – and ethnic cleansing, mass murder and genocide be damned. With the emergence of that shameful institution of hypocrisy, the UN, and the extraordinary event of the Nuremberg trials which started the confusion of law with war, the path was laid for the self-destruction of the West. The irony is that the beneficiaries of this new legalistic internationalist “world” thinking are the aggressive totalitarian ideologies that caused WWII.
Speaking of Bill Clinton, only he could connect the Haiti earthquake and Martha Coakley’s campaign:
I don’t even know what to say about this…
And – further to my last at 20, even when the “world” spoke after WWII, it mandated whole population relocations – legal ethnic cleansings which were often accompanied by mass killing. (India and Pakistan).
@ coldwarrior:
Americans don’t understand the historical context. Most Americans live in a fantasy world that shit is sweet in the world.
only clinton could pull that off.
/
overlook,
i never viewed post ww2 that way…it s an interesting perspective that i need to mess around with…its is very interesting indeed
23
half of the american population has below average intelligence ( i always love that quote)
and it does not help that many americans are stuck in celebrity gawking mode 24/7 and dont care about the rest of the world. these people buy whats inthe press without ever asking deeper questions or wondering why. the sheeple who are ignorant of their surroundings are led and that is their lot in life.
@ coldwarrior:
Yup Americans are naive about the world.
another quote i like, and this is in regards to when idiots who should never breed have kids:
…and you need a license to go fishing….
Rodan @23:
Most Americans don’t even know what the rest of the world looks like.
I go to Ft Bliss several times a year to conduct pre-deployment training for units going overseas. I frequently take people on a drive along Highway 375, which runs parallel to the border, so they can see what it actually looks like in a third world country. We can’t actually cross into Mexico, because it’s off limits to military personnel (and probably more dangerous than Iraq at the moment).
Most of the people I’ve taken down there were completely clueless. They had no idea that people lived in cardboard shacks a few miles from downtown El Paso.
@21
Let’s put this drivel down to Clinton’s being tired and emotional. What did Clinton’s man Aristide do for Haiti?
Perhaps he is trying to say that Massachusetts should vote for La Croakie in order to prevent earthquakes there.
Perhaps he and Danny Glover have been in talking.
27
its beyond niave, it is a willingness to actively want to NOT know about what is out there. its almost like a fear of the knowledge itself. these people are comfortable in their ignorance of threats and events that could shape their lives forever…as long as there is more tabloid tv on, they are just fine with being exploited and ignorant.
30
yeah, clinton is trying to prevent the wrath of kennedy and prevent an eathquake in marhtas vineyard if brown is elected
(if brown IS elected, it is one of the signs of the end times)
Overlook @30:
After what happened in New Orleans, I can’t see any Democrat using response to a natural disaster as a reason to vote for them.
26,
More shockingly, 40% of sick days are taken on Mondays and Fridays.
/1.0
Do you really want to give the government the right to decide who does and doesn’t get to have kids? I would not trust any person or agency with that power.
@33
Response, no. But prevention yes. With a Dem as President, “the seas will begin to subside”…
Duty calls. I must go.
28,
The problem that we have in out “expert” mentality is that too many people think that taking out a fishing license guarantees that the fish will jump in the boat.
@33: No, according to the Dems, that was all Bush’s fault, remember?
Overlook @36:
Not just any Dem, though. That’s only true about The One.
35
this is the problem with the internet…meaning and intonation is lost.
the lament is about fishing requiring more paperwork than brreding…like fishing is more important.
thats all, nothing nefarious
“Not just any Dem, though. That’s only true about The One.”
And look! He’s already retroactively reversed global warming!
(Too modest to admit it and take credit for global cooling, though.)
@ coldwarrior
By definition, half of the American population has below the median intelligence. Depending on the shape of the curve, it’s quite possible that 70% (or 30%) are below the average.
We now return to the regularly scheduled thread.
Don’t worry, I never thought you (or anyone here) would be advocating that the US government have this power (especially the current government!) However, I have heard some people (usually but not always of the leftward persuasion) actually say that they think people should be required to get some kind of license/permission before breeding, and mean it. That always just rubs me the wrong way, because it’s a power just begging to be abused. Eugenics, or genocide by attrition.
By definition, half of the American population has
belowless than or equal to the median intelligence. There are probably a large number of people tied with the median IQ.42
i know…its a saying…see the fishing thing above.
given what i’ve see tho…70% is the right number
It all depends on how high (or low) the average/median value is, as well.
i WILL not break out my multi-variate analysis books for this
i refuse.
Opilio
42
Ha-ha! You stepped right into that trap. The mean, mode, and media will always be the same for IQ, because IQ numbers are normalized into Gaussian distribution. The “natural” IQ scores are just test scors. The only thing that forces it into a bell-shaped curve is the normalization.
Please don’t. It’s distressing how many gaps have appeared in my knowledge in the decades since I’ve left college.* A few months ago, I actually had to look up how to calculate standard deviations.
*I’ve killed a lot of brain cells since then. But only the weak ones.
I don’t think we have to explain or justify anything. Look around the world. Look how Christians and Jews, Hindus etc are treated in muzz countries. They are persecuted relentlessly and cruelly. The muzz, however, are treated with respect and accorded all the same rights as citizens, in western countries.
If you look at a map that shows the encroachment of islam , you see darkness and suffering. If the Serbs can help stop the spread of this disease into europe, more power to them.
@ Robomonkey
If so, then it is likely that more than half of the American population has less than or equal to the median intelligence.
49
ditto!
i was rifling through an old econometrics modeling book…i was stunned that i passed the class!
50
thats because the muzz are smart and bold enough to play the west like a fiddle.
coexist, civil rights, polite society are all weapons the muzz use against us. we hand them the ammo
On the other hand, more than half of the American population could also be said to have greater than or equal to the median intelligence.
*Reply/Quote buttons aren’t working for me.
@ snork
“Drats! I fell victim to one of the classic blunders – The most famous of which is “never get involved in a land war in Asia …”
55 @ snork
Ha-ha! You stepped right into that trap.
“Drats! I fell victim to one of the classic blunders – The most famous of which is “never get involved in a land war in Asia …”
HAHAHA! you have been trapped by a macnamarian logic knot!
It’s also amazing how little of that stuff I crammed into my noggin was ever used again after graduation. Of course, you never know which little bits are going to be important, which is why you have to learn all of them.
I took a bunch of higher math classes, the kinds of math that have little if anything to do with the real world, but my major was computer science. Even there, I’ve never had to create my own operating system nor have I had to work with anything as dated as COBOL or FORTRAN. I have created my own interpreter for a customized programming language; but that was just for fun.
@ RoboMonkey
All evidence to the contrary.
Nor for me.
Wait, what?
coldwarrior, you did a really good job of bring the facts out abt. the ‘Balkan Problem”.
This is so much history that I didn’t know but suspected because of the classic muzz tactics since the 7th century. Where has it changed since that time? They are the devil to me until they prove otherwise.
The burden is on them.
59
land war in asia
60
thanks, i do appreciate that
Don’t forget Google.
57
same here, i had top level stats and econometric classes…only really used a fraction of what i paid for
Oh yeah, I was thinking of a different McNamara. Never mind.
64
And I’m pretty darned sure I’m not going to be given a contract in COBOL or FORTRAN any time soon (or ever) either.
robomonkey
did u see last nights post “grad school and automatic weapons”
most of it is from the CMU cs department in the late 80′s i think its hysterical
66
do they even use cobol or fortran anymore?
67
I skimmed it, but just in passing. I don’t think I commented.
I got in late and tired last night. I usually skip gun threads; but since I studied CS in the late 80s, that part of it called out to me.
I’m sure some places are still running the same huge COBOL programs that they’ve run for decades and decades; those were the ones that were vulnerable to Y2K. Apparently, a whole lot of people dusted off their COBOL credentials to profit from that one.
None of the agencies we work with (mostly military contracts, primarily Army) use COBOL. They tend to use Oracle for large databases, unless they’re using some custom software.
@ RoboMonkey
Same here. CompSci degree from the Math Dept, way back when.
Partial differential equations, Eigenspaces, Chebyshev’s inequality. If I had a nickel for everytime I’ve used those since college…
As for FORTRAN — no idea.
Oh wait – some of the Hadley CRU leaked code was in FORTRAN.
70
i remember that
71
I do have a nickel for every time I’ve used those, right here in my empty pocket. And yes, I learned how to do all of those too; although I couldn’t tell you how right now to save my life.
73
It didn’t really affect PCs, but we had to certify that all of our software was Y2K compliant, too.
That took me about five minutes. Back in the mid-90s we were already calculating NPV and other values out to 2000 and beyond, so we already had four-digit years in the instances where we saved years as character strings rather than numbers/dates.
Coldwarrior, good post.
One thing I have heard about Srbrenica is that the Dutch UN Peacekeepers in the area were well aware that Naser Oric’s men were carrying out atrocities against the Serb civilians in the Serbian villages nearby, and that they have testified contrary to the standard line in the western press that the Serbs did not commit genocide, as they let the Bosniak Muslim women, children and elderly escape, and that most of the Muslim casualties were as the result of combat, although the Serbs did execute some that they believed were guilty of crimes against the Serb civilians in the area. As a result of this, I have heard that these Dutch peacekeepers have been scorned as “cowards” by the Dutch lefty media for not having stopped the “genocide”. The Dutch were loath to intervene against the Serbs as they saw it as a justified retaliation for what Naser Oric’s men had been doing…beheadings of Serb civilians and the like.
I’m sure “Medaura” would have a different opinion. LOL.
@ The Osprey:
correct, the Muslims killed 3,000 Serb Civilians in that area.
74
I learned them well enough to pass the courses, no less, and certainly no more.
Fortunately that was as deep into mathematics as the degree required. Had I had to learn anything on top of my “understanding*” in these areas, I would’ve been doomed.
*an extremely generous term
42 Opilio –
I’m feeling a bit dense here. I thought average meant half above and half below? (Of course, I never took statistics, either!)
78
One of my friends was going for a math degree, so he went a couple of courses further than I did. I have no idea what those courses were about; I watched him working on homework a couple of times and couldn’t understand a word he was saying.
76
thanks…
i read that same thing about the dutch forces…this post was pages long and i had to scale it back.
oric is a real bastard…
i dont think i am done with this series yet…maybe some things about the dutch and other UN testimony and some on the ground reports…
as for anyone on 1.0, i really dont car about their opinion, but they are welcome to some on over anytime and debate this topic with me in public anytime.
No, that’s actually the definition of median, not average (a.k.a. mean).
If you had four people in a room, three of whom had an IQ of 100 and the fourth with an IQ of 140, the average IQ would be 110. You get that by adding the IQs (100+100+100+140=440) and dividing by the number of people (440/4=100). In this instance, three out of the four people (75%) have an IQ below the average.
79
u asked for it!
68,
CRU uses Fortran, and I think NASA GISS (Hansen’s outfit) does, too. In fact, they can’t figure any of it out (you need to follow the climategate thing, and Harry’s mess).
84
Yep, see my 72. I thought they had used FORTRAN, so I went back and checked before I commented.
82 Robomonkey — Okay, that means I learned, basically, that median=average. Which means I’m getting even more confused.
I learned that the average IQ is 100. So someone with an IQ of 110 would be slightly above average, and somone 90 would be slightly below. But in that room, 110 would be right on average? How would my “average” have been found out, then, and how would a country’s average be determined?
79
The median is the numeric value that separates the higher half of a sample from the lower half. For example, for the numbers
120
100
70 <– this is the median value
60
50
while the average is
(120+100+70+60+50)/5 = 80
Got to go. I’ll let Ophilio finish the math lecture.
87 Opilio –
I have to get up early tomorrow, which means going to bed about now. I’ll re-read this after we get back, and see if I can figure it out, perhaps after some clusty-ing. See you tomorrow!
Coakley events turned into Brown rallies today!
http://spitfiremurphy.wordpress.com/2010/01/16/scott-brown-stalkers-in-action/
Holy Shiite!
Isn’t that Hoft guy being sued for libel by some……..idiot?
‘Sup, Loppy? Looks like fun times in Beantown.
Check out the first comment on Loppy’s blog:
Ya think?
Hey snork! Fun times, indeed. Thrilling!
The Bosnian muslims fought like Palestinians. They would setup mortars and artillery pieces on the grounds of the Sarajevo hospital, lob a few rounds at the Serb artillery up in the hills, then pack up and scoot…when the Serb retaliatory fire came in, they would claim that the Serbs were deliberately firing at the hospital…and then of course there was the famous marketplace incident, where they lobbed mortar rounds at their own people and claimed the Serbs did it.
95
yep….
i forgot about the marketplace issue…that was sarajevo?
Yes, CW, it was in Sarajevo.