Recent controversies over Kosovo have brought the accusation that if someone opposes the Al-Qaeda presence in Kosovo, one must therefore support Serbian genocide. That is, of course, absurd. The jihadist presence in the Balkans is real, and the response to it should be a sober and clear-eyed international effort -- but such an effort could only possibly come about, of course, with an awareness of the nature of the problem, and that is hard to come by these days. In any case, the situation in Sarajevo today offers a glimpse of what Kosovo will be like soon enough, if the present forces at play there continue on their present course. Or perhaps those who place such high hopes on the secularized, nominal Muslims of Kosovo can explain why the secularized, nominal Muslims of Bosnia were not able or willing to prevent this ethnic cleansing in Sarajevo.
"Bosnia: Muslims dominate capital, claims Croatian MP," from AKI, August 6 (thanks to Fjordman):
Sarajevo, 6 August (AKI) – The Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, once a symbol of ethnic diversity, has become an entirely Muslim city, a Croat deputy in the Bosnian Parliament, Branko Zrno, said on Wednesday.“Sarajevo definitely isn’t a multi-ethnic city, but the city of one group, the Bosniacs (Muslims), " Zrno told local media.
He pointed out that Serbs and Croats in Sarajevo have no institutional protection, and continue to leave the capital.
Zrno echoed allegations from Bosnian Serb leaders, including Serb entity Prime Minister Milorad Dodik, that non-Muslims in Sarajevo suffered discrimination and were denied their rights.
Zrno said that the Croatian presence in the city had been halved and that neither Croats nor Serbs held any important posts in local government.
Serbs claim that in the city of 400,000 only 7,000 Serbs have remained, compared to 160,000 before the 1992-1995 civil war.
The Serb claims have been supported by the Muslim President of the Bosnian Helsinki committee for human rights, Srdjan Dizdarevic, who said in a recent interview that Sarajevo had become a “monoethnic” city.
“Over 90 percent of Sarajevo inhabitants belong to only one group, the Bosniacs,” Dizdarevic told weekly Fokus.
“Ethnic cleansing in this city has, unfortunately, been successfully completed. If the will exists to reconstruct Bosnia on multiethnic principles, one should start with Sarajevo,” he concluded....
No this is NOT ethnic cleansing. When the population is reduced from 160,000 to 7,000. Nothing to care about.
The real ethnic cleansing is by Israel. They reduced the Palestinian population from 600,000 to a mere 4 million. Now that's successful ethnic cleansing.
This began with the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Sarajevo, of course, was the city that the supposedly the Serbs put under siege so brutally. Back then, the population was more diverse, containing Serbs as well as Bosnians. Both groups suffered during the siege, not just the Muslims as is commonly thought. Innocent Serb civilians in the city at that time were often subject to brutal reprisals carried out by Bosnian Muslims. There are reports that the Muslims even killed some of their own to make it look like the Serbians were killing civilians.
An independent Kosovo cannot be a good thing. It should remain a part of Serbia, where it belongs.
Dead men tell no tales. Apparently there are plenty of non-dead Muslims in Sarajevo who are more than happy to tell tales, tall ones at that actually, specificallyactually, where they have moved on to.
Correction:
What I meant to say was:
Dead men tell no tales. Apparently there are plenty of non-dead Muslims in Sarajevo who are more than happy to tell tales, tall ones at that, specifically, as to where the Christian Serbs have apparently moved on to.
Apologies all around.
Well, Robert you are my hero, but what "Serbian genocide" you are talking about?
I know about 1,000,000 Serbs exterminated in concentration camps by Croats and Muslims.
I know about 500,000 Serbs expelled from Croatia and Kosovo in the last war.
Probably we are commiting genocide against ourselves...
http://real-srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com
http://www.jasenovac.org/whatwasjasenovac.php
I'm also opposed to "Serbian genocide", as a label that is, unfairly cooked up by anti-Serbian people to benefit the Muslim takeover.
Fist of all, that is complete lie.
All Croatians who lived in Serbia before the war, today live in Serbia. Serbs who lived in Croatia were expelled or killed, only a small percent still lives there and are second class citizens.
All Albanians who lived in Serbia, today live in Serbia. Serbs who lived in Kosovo are almost all expelled or killed, except in small strongly guarded enclaves like Mitrovica.
There was genocide in Balkans - against Serbs. Serbia is today only truly multinational and multicultural country in the Balkans.
LazarOfSerbia: First of all, I acknowledge that Serbians have been brutalized in the Balkans by non-Serbians for a very long time now. Second, I accord to Serbia a rich artistic and religious tradition. But Serbians have been brutal too. Milosevic, Karadzic and Mladic in the 1990s functioned as no better than animals, as did many non-Serbs. I have noticed a tendency by Serbs to exculpate themselves completely while casting aspersions on everyone else. This won't do. As someone who has no Balkan ancestry whatsoever, thus no dog in this fight, I have concluded that a pox should be levelled on the houses of many ethnicities in the Balkans, including the Serbs. It's a strange and bizarre place, the weirdest part of Europe, and I know from speaking to many Western Europeans that they think as I do.
By the way, I don't support an independent Kosovo, but Serbia has invited disregard and even contempt by many of its actions since the break up of Yugoslavia going on twenty years ago. Don't believe me? Well, don't bother asking a Bosnian Muslim. You and I probably have equal skepticism of such a person. But try asking a Slovenian.
May 15, 2006
Fitzgerald: The jihad in Serbia
"The jihad in Serbia is one that is obscured in a particularly vexing way. Accordingly it must be emphasized that in alerting people to attacks on the Serbs, and to the destruction of ancient churches and monasteries, and on the infiltration into the area of Arabs bringing a brand of Islam quite different from the relaxed, syncretistic local version (not exactly full-bodied Islam in practice, because that local practice was affected by the centuries of proximity to non-Muslims, and to the effect of Communism), one is not endorsing any massacres by some Serbs. One can distance oneself -- most Serbs do, unfeignedly -- from Milosevic and those atrocities that were committed by some Serb forces.
One must keep in mind both the way in which some atrocities ascribed to Serbs were exaggerated, while the atrocities inflicted on them were minimized or ignored altogether. The role played by Arabs who came from outside never received the attention in the West it deserved. But what was most disturbing was that there was no context to anything: nothing about the centuries of Muslim rule, the ferocity of that Turkish rule, the role of the feared devshirme (which was not, as Bernard Lewis would have it, a kind of benign "recruitment" of Christian and in some cases Jewish children for the armies of the Sultan, but rather a forced levy of such children, snatched from their families to enter the armies of the Sultan).
Had such a history been discussed early on, Western governments might have understood and attempted to assuage the deep fears evoked by the Bosnian Muslim leader, Izetbegovic, when he wrote that he intended to create a Muslim state in Bosnia and impose the Sharia not merely there, but everywhere that Muslims had once ruled in the Balkans. Had the Western world shown the slightest intelligent sympathy or understanding of what that set off in the imagination of many Serbs (and elsewhere, among the Christians in the Balkans and in Greece), there might never have been such a violent Serbian reaction, and someone like Milosevic might never have obtained power.
Izetbegovic had openly demanded that Islam become the ruling force in Bosnia. His remarks on the need to reimpose the Sharia and impose full Muslim rule did send shivers down Serbian spines. And at the same time, Germany, which was so quick to recognize Slovenia and then Croatia, was remembered by Serbians as connected to Operation Kozara and many other massacres, as well as to Croatian collaborators with the Nazis, the Ustashe who killed Serbs, Jews, and Gypsies at Jasenovac. And Serbs have not forgotten the story of Kurt Waldheim in his "Intelligence Unit." Germany's quick recognition of these states was understood in light of all this, and seemed to many in Serbia to be what prematurely caused Yugoslavia to dissolve.
And these two histories that are vivid in Serbian imaginations, the recent one of German and Ustashe massacres, and the much older, much longer one of oppression and massacre by the Ottoman Turks. These were enough to terrify Serbs into supporting certain leaders whom, had they not been so terrified, they would never have followed.
In all of Europe, only a few French journalists and the Austrian writer Peter Handke tried to explain Serbian fears and Serbian history. In the United States, no one made the slightest effort. Milosevic = Serbs, Milosevic = bad, Serbs = bad. And Izetbegovic? Well, when he died, the plummy-voiced Paddy Ashdown (now some grand panjandrum in the Balkans) delivered himself of some solemn words of regret on the passing of the great man (the Great Man was a monster); not a hint of what Izetbegovic was all about.
In Bosnia and Kosovo, hundreds of millions of dollars from the Saudis and Arab fighters, have now been around -- as they will go wherever Jihad-duty calls -- for the last 15 years.
A few months ago, Albanians destroyed a few hundred Orthodox churches in Kosovo. Nothing happened at the UN. Just as nothing happened when a Hindu temple was destroyed in the middle of Kuala Lumpur by the Muslim-run government. Nothing was done when Joseph's Tomb was reduced to rubble by the "Palestinians" in 2000. Nothing was done when the Bamiyan Buddhas were at long last, after 1,500 years, destroyed because, at long last, they could be. Here and there, there was about those churches as about the other cases, a cluck-cluck of disapproval. But nothing will happen.
And if Turkey is, insanely, allowed into the EU? What will the Balkans be like then, if not a place to settle, or still worse, a transit-point for Muslims, by no means all of them citizens of Turkey? Who will distinguish a Turkish Kurd from an Iraqi Kurd, or an Iranian Kurd? Who in Western Europe will really be able to distinguish an Arab "immigrant" slipping in from a Turk who is entitled to free movement within the EU? Chaos, anyone?
Shouldn't the Western Europeans learn just a little about the Balkans? Let's start with Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, or Ivo Andric (whose recently-reprinted Ph.D. thesis on the effects of Muslim rule, "The Development of Spiritual Life in Bosnia under the Influence of Turkish Rule," should not be forgotten), Milovan Djilas and his son Aleksa. No one can discuss the Balkans unless that person can adequately describe:
1) the devshirme system;
2) the condition of Christians under Ottoman rule, including such events as the Bulgarian Wars of 1875-1876;
3) the significance of the Battle of Kosovo;
4) who was Karageorge.
Be able to answer those questions, and you will have begun to earn the right to have an opinion about the Serbs, Bosnia, and Kosovo.
How many in the State Department today can answer those questions? Why not? Why didn't those in the West study what Izetbegovic said? When Clinton ordered the bombing of the Serbs, had he heard, ever, about the devshirme? Did he know that Izetbegovic had written about imposing the Sharia? No, of course not. But had he, and had others, they might have reassured the Serbs long before, and helped to make them less panicky, less prone to give power to someone like Milosevic. The West entirely mishandled Serbia.
And right now, despite the dribs and drabs that begin to come out about the exaggerations on which criticism and bombing of Serbians was based, despite the new evidence, or the evidence no longer hidden, of past Muslim atrocities, the Western world still seems ready to overlook what is now happening. And what is now happening are attacks on Serbian villagers and the destruction of Serbian churches in Kosovo. Is one supposed to permanently blame Serbia and never take its side because of what Milosevic did? Is one to overlook the role of Bosnia as a place of training for those who could tomorrow be conducting Jihad anywhere in the world?
There is no reason not to take Serbia's side now. There is every reason -- of principle and of Infidel self-interest -- to take it."
[Posted by Hugh at May 15, 2006]
Interesting retrospective post, Hugh, from 2006. You make many valid points, as usual, but methinks you let the Serbs off the hook a shade or two too much. They have blood on their hands as well.
What Islam lacks is Integrity.
What Islam lacks is Honesty.
What Islam lacks is Truthfulness.
Until the cult of islam can EARN these traits, islam will continue to fail in the eyes of Humanity and will continue to remain scorned for the decades to come.
Hugh, I admire your essays.
Wellington,
Of course in civil war all sides commit gruesome attrocities, this is civil war by definition. My kid read about American civil war a few days ago and was shocked by what people did to each other.
Problem is how many lies about Serbia are taken as granted. For example, you told me to "ask a Slovenian" about alleged Serbian transgressions. What to ask a Slovenian? They woke up one day, decided to unilaterally declare independence and started killing unarmed young soldiers (who had no orders neither ammunition to defend themselves) of federal Yugoslav Army to prove their point. My friend, 18 years old, was killed there by Slovenian mob and he was Hungarian. What the heck he had to do with all of this?
And what Serbia did? The sam as the USA - nothing. We watched the news not believing someone can be that stupid. Republics had their right for independence by constitution, but this had to be achieved by negotiations and agreement of everybody. Not by force. A few days latter, Federal Army retreated from Slovenia. Don't forget it was 4th armed force in Europe. It could have destroyed Slovenia in two days if someone wanted to do so.
So what you want me to ask a Slovenian?
Why my innocent teenage Hungarian friend was killed like an animal?
I don't think they have reasonable answer. They don't have anything to say about Serbia, because Serbia had nothing to do with their madness.
I recommend you take a few hours to watch this eye opening documentary "Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War":
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5860186121153047571&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6371060303901674397&hl=en
Under the article that I did two years ago, and re-posted above (The Jihad in Serbia) I found a p;osting by someone who had served in the American military and had been in the Balkans at the time that Wesley Clark was running the American military operation there.
His comment is worth reproducing:
"As part of a U.S. military planning staff, I (amongst other educated U.S. military officers) attempted to warn the amazingly insane and emotionally unstable Gen Wesley Clark that his intentions would lead only to the following:
1) We would facilitate the establishment of a Muslim state in Kosovo.
2) This would be the second Muslim state to established in the heart of Europe, following Bosnia, in just three years. What might the consequences be?
3) This would grow into a very painful experience for Europe and the U.S. 10-20 years down the road.
4) We would enforce Serbia's perception that they are the bastard stepchild of Western Civilization.
Clark fired over twenty of his top intelligence analysts for briefing these views to him. He persisted with his fantasy that the Kosovar Albanians were as pure and clean as the wind-driven snow; innocent victims of a simple Serbian compulsion for evil. Yeah, right!
Clark was clueless and a madman. Behind closed doors, the overwhelming majority of officers on the EUCOM planning team thought he was INSANE. However, after he fired the first several, everyone got the picture. Cook the intel to make the Kosovars look like angels and the Serbs like demons.
Clark had a demented and paranoid beef with Milo because the Serbian President showed the American General no deferrence whatsoever during Dayton negotiations with Ambassador Holbrook, for whom Clark was a bag carrier/military aide.
I was also in Bosnia for seven months as a human intelligence officer; the most civilized persons I met with overall, were Serbs. The most frightening, Muslims. The place was crawling with mujahideen who were only there, of course, because the Americans had done nothing to save the Muslims (who DID suffer badly, I should add). Dirty pajamas, long beards, AK's, the works. I know, because I disarmed them myself.
I visited a Catholic Church in a (former) Half-Croat/Half-Muslim town, Gornji Vakuf. The church had been razed, burned, and the alter lined with 110 young Croats who were summarily executed, along with the Parish Priest. On the rectory was spraypainted the words, "There is no more time for you here." In other parts of the town, many walls and buildings were spraypainted with the words, "Mismo Hamas," which is Serbo-Croat for, "I am Hamas." In fairness, I did see a noticeable amount of "Ustace" (Ooh-stah-shah) "U's" spraypainted in other towns, too.
Milo was a bastard. That said, the Serbs are the most maligned and heroic of our brothers in Europe. After the battle of the Field of Blackbirds alone, they should be praised as heroes that should stand alongside Charlemagne and the boys who stormed Normandy, on opposite ends of the temporal octave of late Western Civilization.
And I'm Croatian!"
[Posted by: Knight4AO at May 15, 2006 1:53 PM]
The Balkans is weird because it was occupied for centuries by Islam and the non-Muslims were subjected to appalling cruelties as well as lots of mean-minded harassment and bullying and general nastiness, the whole business of being 'disrespected' and 'humiliated' and daily 'pushed to the narrowest part of the street' (as per the hadith in Bukhari) by Muslims. We whose ancestors - in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, England, Scandinavia, Germany, Netherlands - largely escaped the trauma of Muslim raids (except on the coasts of Cornwall and Ireland) and certainly escaped the horrors of jihad and Muslim occupation, can barely begin to imagine what that was like.
Under the Muslim boot and scimitar the non-Muslim Serbs and Croats and non-Muslim Albanians and Macedonians developed - at a social level - pathologies not unlike those shown by children or women who have been subjected to severe, sustained abuse from which they were unable to escape. That is what Bat Yeor means when she talks about dhimmitude, the mindset it creates.
The 'brain drain' of their best and brightest via centuries of the devshirme or 'blood tax', the 'tribute of children' - together with the ghastly trauma it caused to the families of the stolen children who knew that their beloved ten-year-old son, say, might return one day as a brainwashed, dead-eyed Muslim jihadist mass murderer, cutting down his own kin - added a special level of damage.
I suspect that Sicilians and Spaniards developed similar pathologies.
All one has to do is read the sections of Bostom's 'Legacy of Jihad' that deal with the behaviour of the jihadists and Muslim occupiers in the Balkan region, or the corresponding sections of 'The Dhimmi' and 'The Decline of Eastern Christianity Under Islam', and then perhaps - if you have the stomach for it - look up and read some of the books in their bibliographies, to realize that the Balkans region has been horribly degraded in every way - ecologically, culturally, emotionally, socially, spiritually.
For those here who are Australians: to understand Serbia, if you live in, or visit Canberra, you can visit the 'St George Free Serbian Orthodox Church'. It is something of a tourist attraction because of the spectacular murals with which the interior was decorated by a Serbian immigrant artist.
When my husband lived in Canberra he visited it and was somewhat nonplussed to find a church with huge murals of battle scenes...now, of course, knowing what we know about the Jihad, and the Ottoman Empire, and Serb resistance to Jihad, we understand better.
Here is a link with a black and white photo of the interior (click on the image to view it full-size):
http://www.basis.act.gov.au/DUSLibrary/ImagesACT.nsf/3506a89b45287c52ca256abc000c49a8/4769dc62a8e6346a4a256d340076ff0d!OpenDocument
and the exterior:
http://www.aussieheritage.com.au/listings/act/Forrest/FreeSerbianOrthodoxChurch/2148
and with the artist
http://www.basis.act.gov.au/DUSLibrary/ImagesACT.nsf/3506a89b45287c52ca256abc000c49a8/1e05b7404fe4ca3e4a256d340076ff90!OpenDocument
with some history
http://members.pcug.org.au/~petkovic/canberraserbs/st_george_construction.htm
From a different site, this information:
"Murals depicting biblical scenes and Serbian history cover the walls and line the ceiling of this replica of an ancient Serbian village church. It is the work of the late Karl Matzek and was completed just before his death, at the age of 87."
I offer these links as a service to fellow Australians who want to begin to understand the Serbs.
And here is something else for all non-Muslims in the Balkans. It is a John Tavener composition, written *before* he went off the rails.
The Protecting Veil.
http://www.chesternovello.com/Default.aspx?TabId=2432&State_3041=2&workId_3041=8549#
If you have the right sort of widgets on your computer you should be able to listen to it.
of Karageorge & Serbian warriors against Islamic rule 1804-1815
7:33 youtube
"But Serbians have been brutal too. Milosevic, Karadzic and Mladic in the 1990s functioned as no better than animals, "
Actually Wellington, there's no evidence of this whatsoever, other than the big lie repetition of the NYT and the Amanpour types--the same people that had nothing to say about the slaughter of Serbs that was carried out by Orec from his Srebrenica 'safe haven'.
A prudent person would be quite skeptical of news sources that make usage of big lie repetition and are entirely silent about the genocides for which we have names, photos, and bodies (around 3,800 of them).
Some analysts believe that if anything, Milosevic was a bit of an appeaser to the West, not putting up much of a fight when his own people were cleansed from Croatia (not unlike Israeli leaders that are coerced into cleansing Jews from Gaza), but overall the Serbs were defending their country from Western imperialism utilizing jihadist proxy fighters, for whom raping, mutilating, and slaughtering of Serb civilians was par for the course, not at all considered bad behavior.
Under such circumstances, the Serbs conducted themselves with much restraint. There is no evidence that they were anywhere near as depraved as their jihadist enemies.
A further thought.
Now that the Muslims are, as the posted article says, on top - and an overwhelming majority - in Sarajevo, *what* is going to happen to the famous Sarajevo Haggadah (which I *think* is still in the museum there)? In the link I found, there was this supremely ironic passage:
"Heute wird die Sarajevo im National-Museum in Sarajevo in einem speziellen Raum ausgestellt, als Symbol für das multi-ethnische Sarajevo" - i.e. 'Today the Sarajevo [Haggadah' has a special place in the National Museum in Sarajevo, as a symbol of multi-ethnic Sarajevo'. Yeah. Right.
The Haggadah is one of the most spectacular illuminated medieval manuscripts.
The link below - though the surrounding text is in German - contains lots and lots and lots of gorgeous pictures, which you will find if you go to the left hand side of the page and click on the links there: 'Bildteil', 'Bildteil: Details', 'Einzeldetails' and 'Blattern'. If you click on the small images, they enlarge. The link 'Hauptseite' is the 'index' from which you can go back and forth.
http://www.talmud.de/sarajevo/
If all Jews and most Christians have by now been hounded out of Sarajevo by the Muslims, then there is absolutely no reason why the Haggadah should remain there. It should be given to the Jews; as far as I am concerned, it now belongs in Israel.
But Serbians have been brutal too. Milosevic, Karadzic and Mladic in the 1990s functioned as no better than animals,
Amanpour kept talking about all the mass graves as the cameras paned to show all the grave maker.
When the UN investigators came and dug up the "graves" they found nothing under most of them.
It was total exaggeration and theater.
Curiously, what is happening with Georgia and Russia today is very similar to what happened back in Kosovo except for one thing -- the US is NOT supporting the break-away state as it did with Kosovo.
Why the duplicity?
Perhaps because it was the islam that wanted Kosovo so the "liberation and freedom" movement was welcomed. This time however, the separatists are Russian and perhaps Russian orthodox so now the "liberation and freedom" movement is regarded as "jeapordizing the sovereign integrity" of Georgia.
The US government and the EU want to rule the world, but perhaps they should rule their own countries first.
(yeah, I know -- it won't happen)
From the article:
"neither Croats nor Serbs held any important posts in local government."
Why? Because the theorists of Islam have always taught that, ideally, no non-Muslim should EVER be in ANY position of authority over ANY Muslim. (This of course is one of the reasons for the Muslim ban on marriage of a Muslim woman to a non-Muslim man, given that the Muslim idea of marriage is very much a master-slave paradigm with the man as the master).
See Ibn Kathir on Qur'an 9:29:
"Allah said,
﴿حَتَّى يُعْطُواْ الْجِزْيَةَ﴾
(until they pay the Jizyah), if they do not choose to embrace Islam,
﴿عَن يَدٍ﴾
(with willing submission), in defeat and subservience,
﴿وَهُمْ صَـغِرُونَ﴾
(and feel themselves subdued.), disgraced, humiliated and belittled.
"Therefore, Muslims are not allowed to honor the people of Dhimmah or elevate them above Muslims, for they are miserable, disgraced and humiliated."
Non-Muslims must not be elevated above Muslims.
Tabandeh, a modern Shiite Muslim in Iran, states flatly:
"Islam and its peoples must be above the infidels, and never permit non-Muslims to acquire lordship over them".
(cited and discussed by Andrew Bostom, The Ayatollahs' Final Solution?, FrontPage 7 May 2005 -
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=75A82DEF-EEC2-4EED-B7F8-5EA8DCF95156
I don't know much about the Sarajevo hagadda, but there is one or two remaining pet Jews in Sarajevo.
I was debating a typical revisionist historian on another forum (not surprisingly he is a college professors, typical pusher of government issued BS), and he said:
'oh that's incorrect! I was just in sarajevo and met with Jakob Finci and we can go over there and get it all straight from his mouth!'
So I reasearch Finci, he seems like a decent enough man--but he's a lackey for the Soros foundation. Thus, Soros has bought the version of revisionist history that is spouted by the last Jew in Sarajevo.
I'd assume he tells a rather Serbophobic tale, and if such is the case, he is a pathetic kapo (which is what I'd expect, given that Soros is a pathetic kapo).
Perhaps as long as Finci is there, the haggada will stay...
LazarOfSerbia: Thank you for your response. I took the time to watch large segments of the two links you provided. Surely, you can understand that while a criticism here or there is made of the Serbs, these two accounts are highly tendentious narrations which have as their aim the portrayal of the Serbs in the best light, while all others are treated as more or less villains (very much so the Germans). As I watched the videos, I couldn't help thinking what a Croatian or Slovenian would say were they viewing it with me. Interesting too was the implicit assumption put forward time and time again that Yugoslavia should not have been broken up, at least not for a long while. But many have contended for a long time now that Yugoslavia was about as artificial a political entity as one could find. But this view in the videos was bascially ignored.
Again, I blame no Balkan ethnicity entirely or exculpate any ethnicity completely. And trying to be scrupulously honest and fair about Balkan history is a task that would have confounded Solon himself. I would note, however, that Ambassador Holbrooke, whom I admittedly have some reservatons about, is on record saying that the single most brutal human being he ever met was Radovan Karadzic. Do you know of any reason to dispute this assessment? Also, Milosevic was a scoundrel-----and a PR idiot.
Oh, I wish to respond to something else you mentioned. While I admit of only a general knowledge of Balkan history, I have a thorough understanding of the American Civil War era, having taught a specific college course on such for many years now. You mentioned that a child of yours was reading about the Civil War and was shocked by what people did to each other. Hmmm. Wonder what your child was reading. Are you aware that almost no women were raped by either Confederate or Union troops during the war? Also, children were left unmolested as well in almost every instance. Yes, soldiers were intent upon killing each other, that is the nature of war, and much property was destroyed, quite deliberately by General Sherman, for the specific reason to drive home to the entire South that they had lost the war, but the American Civil War actually stands as a model for the conducting of war in a fashion that spares civilians about as much as is possible. The massacre at Fort Pillow of black soldiers represents an exception, not the rule, of what transpired during this conflict, though black Union soldiers and their white officers were indeed in extra danger from their Confederate enemies. But even here we're talking about what soldiers did to each other and not to civilians. There is no comparison between the American Civil War and the utter barabarism of what occurred in the Balkans in the 1990s.
I am no less than 1/4 Serbian, and my position and loyalties on these historical issues are based on that fact, whether or not they prove to be 100% defendable or not.
No one that I call near or dear as a friend or a family member are Muslims in any regard, from any region.
Thus is the squashing of any moral conundrum for me.
"Curiously, what is happening with Georgia and Russia today is very similar to what happened back in Kosovo except for one thing -- the US is NOT supporting the break-away state as it did with Kosovo."
Georgia has been a good client state and "ally" for some time now; it would be moronic to pull a 180 for the sake of some sort of Eastern Bloc symmetry.
I encounter a level of Serbian nationalism on this site that I encounter literally nowhere else on the internet. Did this emerge over time, or is it a part of the site's thesis?
Sometimes it seems that maybe Robert Spencer should just not allow comments at all anywhere on Balkans posts. Yeah, I know about how one fo the fundamental points about this site is defending free speach, but man, do the Balkan threads bring out the worst in people, not just here but on damn near any internet forum. The pro Serb side makes it hard to take them serriously when they profess opposition to jihad but you can tell they are just looking for more excuses to hurl abuse at anyone who doesn't want Serb purity in Balkans, while the Serbophobe side tries to claim about how much they stand against jihadists everywhere else in the world but lets their ingrained hatred of all things Serbian goad them into supporting and empathizing with Islamic hardliners who've managed to disguise to the world their attempts to create an Islamic Shariah state in Eastern Europe as attempts to merely save Muslims from genocide.
Just to clarify my stance before I go any further, I oppose Islamic supremacy in the Balkans in all its forms, done either outright, i.e. the invasion of the Wahahbis, or it what Spencer has aptly termed the stealth jihad, i.e. Izetbegobicth's Islamic Declaration or the KLA's attempt to disguise jihad as Albanian nationalism. I stand with the Serbs against Islamic jihadists just like I do the Croats, Slovenes and even secular Muslims [one might recall the repression of pro Yugoslav Muslims mainly in but not limited to Western Bosnia].
Moreover, I do not accept that there is a truly *innocent* side in the Balkans wars. The Bosnian War of the 90s was basically fought between a fascist [Tudjman], a communist[Milosevic] and a jihadist [Izetbegobitch]. To suggest there is an innocent side in this conflict is just obscene; all active combatants were criminals agaisnt humanity and are right now frozen in the Ninth pit of hell, Coclytus. There wasn't an innocent side in WWII either; there were Bosnain Muslims who fought voluntarily with the Nazis, Muslims who were lured or forced by the Croats to join the Nazis, more Muslims who fought with the Partisans agaisnt the Nazis and many who wanted to avoid the war altogether. As for the Croats, there were some who fought with the Partisans and of course, those who formed the Utashe and worked to get other ethnic groups involved. Even with the Serbs it wasn't black and white. Some fought with the Partisans, some courageously fought both Nazis and Communists, Draža Mihailović being a key example, and some Serbian royalists who wanted primarily to have a Serb only Yugoslavia and were onyl marginally less barbaric than the Nazis.
The point to all this is actually rather simple: the Balkans discussions here were plagued, and still are, by a need on al sides to view the conflict in one dimensional terms of hero vs villian. With former Yugoslavia and the Serbs in particular under the same threat as Western Europe, Israel, India, Thailand, the Phillipines and Sub-Saharan Africa, it does absolutely nothing. The Serbs, to their utmost credit, have apologized for their role in ethnic cleansing over the years and repudiated the Serbian nationalists and communists who enabled it. All other ethnic groups need to do the same thing. The Serbs, Croats, Slovenes and Albanians desperately need to just get over their petty racial rivalries so that they can get the West to take them seriosuly when they speak put agaisnt encroaching jihad. As for the Bosnian leadership, well, the current leadership is basically Islamist and stealth jihadists akin to the AKP and Erdogan in Turkey. They're hopeless, but we do need to encourage the secular muslim oposition, which is severely repressed but still active, to gain back infleunce and make ammends for their cleansing of non muslims from Sarajevo and elsewhere.
I tried to asses it reasonably, but I figure I'm going to get flames thrown my way anyway. So if you're going to do it, just get on with it, the flame suit's on.
maxwell46&2: A fine and reasonable assessment. But, yes, I'd keep that flame suit on.
"You never fought a war in your own country, but you're always fighting wars. I'm fighting a war for the first time, and it's in my own country. Which one of us, in that sense, has the right to wage war?" General Mladic to U.S. General Clark.
"The jihad in Serbia is one that is obscured in a particularly vexing way.
Hugh
Interesting retrospective post, Hugh, from 2006. You make many valid points, as usual, but methinks you let the Serbs off the hook a shade or two too much. They have blood on their hands as well.
Wellington
Hugh makes a very good point. Also remember that "obscuring the truth" was Clinton's specialty.
Wellington also makes s good point that there was blood on the hands of both sides.
Does anyone remember the REAL reason the MSM and Clinton took out Serbia and demonized Milosevic? Because, in Clintons and the MSM's view, Milosevic had a strong resemblance to Knute Gingrich. (humor)
If everyone is 'equally guilty' then it should be pretty easy for someone to find where some Serb leaders advocated creating an ethnically clean Serb state, one free of Muslims and Croats.
Where is this evidence? Or must you rely on nothing more than repetitive big lies from the NYT because this evidence does not exist?
Izetbegovic made his plans abundantly clear. Tudjman was a Ustashe-nostalgic racist. Sans evidence that Serb leaders espoused similar ideology, the Serbs were just defending against jihad and cleansing which would subject Serbs to the same treatment they received in WWII.
Only an entirely morally bankrupt evaluation system would reach the conclusion that 'defense against the US supported handzar/ustashi revival is as evil as the handzar/ustashi revival'.
Wellington and Maxwell,
Put down your flame suits.
These are not flames, but tears.
I appreciate your efforts to be unbiased, but I see you don't have enough reliable information to be unbiased. Remember when Bill Clinton appeared on TV and said that Serbs killed 100,000 Kosovo Albanians? And now everybody knows how many people were killed in Kosovo war - 3,000 (on ALL sides). But the damage is done, everybody will remember only "genocidal Serbs". First impression stays forever. That's the context set by western media you will have to leave behind in order to form unbiased opinion about the issue. Otherwise, we end talking about "asking a Slovenian"...
What really hurts, and Jihad Watcher's should understand that feeling, is knowing something other people are not aware of and when you tell the truth, you are labeled as "one dimensional", "fundamentalist" etc. At least, you'll agree, we learn to be very patient. But it hurts when after 20 years we still have to explain basic fact that Serbia didn't "attack" Slovenia. Serbs didin't "attack" Croatia and Bosnia, they lived there for centuries and suffered the worst Nazi genocide during the WWII - proportionally to population maybe worse than Jews. Yes, topics about the Balkans are always controversial because there are too many lies about what really happened there. And those are not Serbian lies, we didn't have a chance to be even heard, let alone to lie.
Even Robert Spencer, whom I admire, used phrase "Serbian genocide". What "Serbian genocide" for heaven's sake!? Over 500,000 Serbs were killed or expelled from other parts of Yugoslavia, not one Slovenian, Croat, Muslim or Albanian was killed or expelled from Belgrade or other Serbian city. If Robert meant "genocide against Serbs" that's the truth. I understand he is already writting about "controversial" topic and the last thing he needs is to be labeled as a "supporter of Serbian genocide". Maybe he has to be "politically correct" there because of "higher good", who knows. I, as a Serb, feel bad when writting about our point of view here, because I know his enemies just wait for such an opportunity. Even my nickname makes me uneasy, because it will give ammunition to his enemies and that's the last thing I want.
But the truth has to be told.
Georgia has been a good client state and "ally" for some time now; it would be moronic to pull a 180 for the sake of some sort of Eastern Bloc symmetry.
It IS "moronic" to deny the painfully obvious and unfortunately our so-called "foreign policy" is a case study in the moronic strictly in the context of our national interest.
To the extent that NONE in Washington really care about the nation that was the United States have acted over the years as agents for various and sundry lobbies rather than the people; then in that strict sense our "foreign policy" makes perfect "sense."
What used to be called "corruption" is nowadays called "politically savvy."
Georgia owes the American people nothing -- we owe them nothing.
Like any other "loyal ally" of the US the arrangement is temporary and circumstantial.
If it served our national interest, I say declare war on Russia and destroy them.
However, the Israeli owned oil and gas lines that run through the area to Turkey, are not essential to the security of the American people.
BTW -- I am NOT Serbian.
For Lazar of Serbia,
I appreciate your attempts to tell your side fo the story as well. I wasn't trying to suggest Serbs shouldn't tell their much ignored side of the story, just that in general all the sides on the Balkan conflicts, for their own securtiy more than anything else, need to start treating the conflcit as civilized adults and not like enraged children in a schoolyard fight.
If it's any comfort at all, I am fully agaisnt an indepedent Kosovo, especially under the malevolent leadership it currently has, and recognize that Serbia as a 100 % legal, ethical and historical claim to Kosovo. An independent Kosovo under Jihad friendly KLA would be quite possibly the biggest catastrophy to happed to Europe in the last 60 years, next to WWII. ANd anyone who says otherwise either does not udnerstand the nature of the KLA, who unlike Izetbegobitch's Bosnian gov't didn't even try to hide their Al Qaeda connections, or is in dire need of getting their head examined.
LazarOfSerbia: Thank you for your perspectives on the continued mess in the Balkans. I can ordinarily only profit from consideration of different points of view on a controversial topic (can't get much more controversial than Balkan history). I may not agree with every position you take but I would feel chagrined if you thought that I had only animosity for the Serbs. Quite the contrary. The Serbs have a rich heritage and are a brave and resourceful people. I respect that.
I do think they have some blood on their hands for what happened in the 1990s but virtually all the other ethnicities in former Yugoslavia are far from guiltless. I also do not look kindly upon the advancement of anything Muslim in the region. That is a principal reason why I have opposed an independent Kosovo. And I think there is something to be said for the idea that the West needed a whipping boy by 1999 and the Serbs were chosen, though exactly why they were chosen for this role reasonable minds could differ.
Of all the geography out there to have as a home, the Balkans is far from optimum, but then I have some direct experience with how geography can affect the mind set, the culture and the entire history of a people. My grandparents came from Poland. Ah, the stories they told. Even while still in my teens I concluded that existing between Germany and Russia with virtually no natural barriers was a source of a lot of the woe the Poles have endured for centuries. Although, as in the case with the Serbs, some of this woe was self inflicted. In any case, my best to you and your family. Take care.
"But Serbians have been brutal too. "
I guess you expect them to roll over and die when attacked?
Yeap DenverRodeo,
Serbs have no right to defend their lands and homes.
I can't claim any detailed knowledge of Balkan history. But having read this rather fascinating thread, I can't resist throwing in my 2 cents.
Yugoslavia is where the orthodox church, the catholic church and mohammedanism all meet.
If we leave mohamedanism out of the picture and interpret the story as part of the European scene, Yugoslavia is very exceptional and makes nearly no sense. At least not to me.
In no other spot where the catholic, protestant and orthodox churches butt up against each other do I know of such an ongoing trouble spot of long term, continual, active violence. Ireland comes to mind, but doesn't quite make it.
If on the other hand we look at Yugoslavia as a stretch along the border between the mohammedans and everybody else, then Yugoslavia makes perfect sense.
Like everyplace else along that border where there is a resistant, but vulnerable (at least assailable) non-mohammedan neighbor, there is ongoing bloodshed, and has been for a long time.
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Ultimately, looking on from the outside, one has to decide, does one want to take a side in the fight or not. And if so which? What interests, if any, does one have an the outcome?
In a battle between warring groups of about equal virtue, equal wickedness and equal value (or worthlessness) to the rest of the world, one might well shrug and ignore the matter. But I don't think that is the case here.
I think the Balkan matter is confused by ethical questions which are in turn twisted by the notion of collective responsibility. This group did this at this time, and that group did that at that time, ad nauseam.
But the fact is that collective responsibility is a weak notion. Should Israel declare war on Germany for what their grandparents did? Few would agree.
So in my view the fact that the ancestors of everybody involved had blood on their hands is neither illuminating nor relevant.
Nor is the fact that atrocious things may or may not have been done more recently by warriors or criminals still alive today.
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The fact is we have to decide where our interests lie. And I maintain that our interests, as humane and civilized people, will almost inevitably direct us to the morally better side in the conflict -- in current real terms!
If we look at Bosnia and Kosovo as points along the front line of expanding sharia control of the world, the case is simple.
Stop the jihaddis right where they are. Hold the line. Keep political control of ANYTHING out of their hands.
Then push them back. Break their war making capabilities. Cut the sharia theocrats off at the knees.
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It will not do to listen to the complaints of the allegedly "innocent" victims. Those complaints are made regardless of injury. And if true, they are irrelevant. The complaints are made by the supporters, drones or slaves of a deeply immoral force for evil in the world.
And ultimately theirs is a culture that celebrates victimhood in any case. Half the time a claim of "innocent", "helpless" suffering is a fashion statement.
Neither today's Serbs nor today's Croats are necessarily a nation of angels. Nor are they free of criminals -- to say nothing of their antecedents. But ultimately, whether or not they are the most noble and merciful warriors in the world is irrelevant.
The fact is that they are fighting on the right side against the right enemy. And presumably, I dare say, for the right goals.
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I must add that what little I have learned about sharia, jihad and mohammedan imperialism has profoundly changed my view of world history, the world's cultures and the geo-political challenges we face today.
Thanks Jihad Watch.
joeblough: A fine post. You made much sense. The matter at hand is indeed confronting Islamic supremacism. This will take time. And money (lots of it). And lives (lots of them). Whether Croatian or Serb, American or Russian, Brit or French, I wish all in the West could see this. Unfortunately, many, even most, don't. There's still much to be done to defeat the greatest totalitarian way of thinking of all time-----Islam.
witness:
1) The Ossetians are not Russians. Ossetian is a separate ethnicity. Russia has given many of them citizenship in the Russian Federation, and most are Eastern Orthodox, however.
2) Where did you come up with false assertion, "the Israeli owned oil and gas lines that run through the area to Turkey"?
The Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline is owned as follows:
"The BTC Co. shareholders are: BP (30.1%); AzBTC (25.00%); Chevron (8.90%); Statoil (8.71%); TPAO (6.53%); Eni (5.00%); Total (5.00%), Itochu (3.40%); INPEX (2.50%), ConocoPhillips (2.50%) and Amerada Hess (2.36%)."
from:
http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=9006615&contentId=7020655
joeblough
well put. I'll second that.
I would add only that Serb (mostly Orthodox) and Croat (mostly Catholic) have this one advantage - that the Christianised Hutu and Tutsi, or Afrikaner and Zulu and Xhosa, or Catholic and Protestant Irish, also had and have. No matter how atrociously we fail ourselves and each other, no matter how much and how long we may tell ourselves lies about stuff we have done, there *is* always the possibility of reconciliation, however painful and difficult. Our culture does offer a framework for facing up to our wrongdoing, saying sorry and offering restitution to those we've wronged, and receiving the same in return. It goes back to the Hebrew Scriptures - Psalm 51 - the whole idea of 'truth in the inward parts'.
Result? - some Germans, though not all, were capable of facing up to the fact that their country committed the Shoah, and that this was an evil deed. At least one former Nazi - having genuinely repented, and become a Christian - stood in front of Corrie ten Boom, Christian victim of Nazis, acknowledged his wrongdoing, and humbly asked her forgiveness.
Muslims do not have a framework that allows for that sort of spiritual revolution. They literally can't say 'I/ WE DID BAD STUFF'. That which believes itself to be final, perfect, without partners, incapable of being improved upon, is also frozen, locked in on itself, incapable of humility, change and growth. Rather than change to conform itself to spiritual or material reality, it would destroy the reality that challenges its [false] perception of itself as perfect. Sharia can't be changed because sharia is perfect: how dare anyone criticise sharia!
So, for example, the vast majority of the Turks are drowned deep in denial concerning the Turkish Muslim genocide of the Armenians.
I recall an article by Nonie Darwish, written before her decision to apostasise and become a Christian, called "What a Muslim [herself] Learned on Yom Kippur". She spoke of the crippling inability of the Arab/Muslim mindset to own up, at all, to personal or group wrongdoing. She then spoke about the Jewish fast of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, how novel and eye-opening she - having been raised a Muslim - found the whole concept of accepting personal responsibility and repenting!
I think we might well, one day, see Croat Catholic and Serb Orthodox Christians tearfully reconciling with one another; but I doubt we will ever see Turkish Muslims admitting to a Greek or to an Armenian that the devshirme, and the Armenian Genocide, were evil, and offering acts of restitution. Not so long as the Turks remain Muslim.