Why right-wing, ultranationalist Serbs love Qaddafi.

[pampango]

http://www.tnr.com/article/world/86424/qaddafi-libya-serbia-nato

With all these fair weather friends—including his own foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, who feld to Great Britain last month—Qaddafi must feel lonelier than ever. Yet the Tyrant of Tripoli can count on one group of people to stand by him to the end: far-right Serbian nationalists.

It may seem strange that those who backed the ethnic cleansing of Muslim Bosniaks and Kosovar Albanians would rush to the defense of a man proclaiming to defend his country from a “crusade against Islam.” But Dragan Todorovic, a leader of the Serbian Radical Party, recently told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), “Qaddafi absolutely has our support.” (The Radical Party’s former leader, Vojislav Seselj, is currently on trial for war crimes at The Hague). At least one pro-Qaddafi rally has already taken place in Belgrade; demonstrators bore posters with slogans like, “SUPPORT TO OUR FRIEND.” A Facebook group entitled, “Support for Muammar al-Qaddafi from the People of Serbia” has garnered over 65,000 members. “Our plan is for the campaign to shift from Facebook towards the street,” Igor Marinković, of the ultranationalist Naši 1389 told RFE/RL (1389 being the year of the Serbs’ loss to the Ottoman Empire in the Battle of Kosovo).

Why do far-right Serbs have such affection for Qaddafi? The reasons are historical and emotional, grounded in cold war-era relations, a disdain for the West, and opposition to foreign intervention. “We absolutely think that non-meddling in one country’s affairs has to be respected and that citizens of that country should choose the government that suits them,” Todorovic said.

Qaddafi was also a vocal opponent of the NATO intervention against Slobodan Milosevic in the 1990s, and the two countries maintained a healthy arms trade for years, even after the Serbian president was ousted by his own people and handed over to The Hague. In 2007, Belgrade’s Megatrend University awarded Qaddafi an honorary doctorate. (Serbia’s deputy minister for Higher Education recently sniffed to RFE/RL that, “considering the quality of the university, it is not surprising that it awarded a doctorate to a dictator.”) Serbia’s relatively pro-Western president, Boris Tadić, has paid several visits to Libya. Serbian military units performed in a parade to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Qaddafi taking power, and Libya was one of just 14 countries that filed briefs with the International Court of Justice in favor of Serbia’s position opposing the recognition of Kosovo.

[Gravel Democrat]

1. Some PNAC ops are better than others

http://newamericancentury.org/balkans.htm

http://www.globalissues.org/article/448/backing-up-globalization-with-military-might

"Humanitarian Crisis" Crusade

We were told this inhuman blitzkrieg was necessary to protect the human rights of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. People everywhere wanted to believe this noble purpose. Yet the most obvious and glaring contradiction was the absence of any similar concerns about hundreds of thousands of Serbs expelled from the Krajina region of Croatia by the Croatian military, in 1995-described in the press as "the largest ethnic cleansing" of the Yugoslav civil war. (3)

Thousands died in that "Operation Storm." Not only did the United States not express compassion or offer to defend those refugees, the massive assault was carried out with the aid of "retired" U.S. military officers belonging to a "private" organization, Military, Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI) with the help of U.S./NATO planes and weaponry. (4)

In fact, Agim Ceku, a brigadier general from the Croatian Army who presided over that colossal bombing and expulsion of Serbs from Krajina, beginning in 1993, took over command of the KLA in recent months, according to Jane Defense Weekly. Licensed by the U.S. State Department and Pentagon, the MPRI also had been operating in Kosovo training the KLA, beginning several weeks before the air strikes began. (5)...(MUCH MORE YOU HAVE NEVER HEARD: http://www.globalissues.org/article/448/backing-up-globalization-with-military-might

The best analysis of the (not Un approved) 78 day bombing of a sovereign country. It's long and worth every minute to read.

[Lyric]

2. So let me get this straight.

They think that the citizens of a country should choose the leadership that suits them...but they're opposing the rebels and supporting Gadhafi.

Um, okay.

:crazy: