Thousands in Serbia March Against NATO and the West

[Purveyor]

Source: ASSOCIATED PRESS

BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) -- Thousands have marched against NATO and the West in Serbia, carrying banners praising Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The march Sunday marked the 17th anniversary of NATO's 78-day intervention in Serbia against its bloody crackdown against Kosovo Albanian separatists in 1999.

The crowds affiliated with far-right groups carried pro-Russian banners and shouted against Serbia joining the EU or the Western military alliance.

Current Serbian leaders, once staunchly anti-Western, have said they want to join the EU, but to remain militarily neutral.

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_SERBIA_MARCHES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-03-27-11-28-26

---

[PatrynXX]

1. somehow I told you so just doesn't have the same ring to it :(

had others say no putting a 70 yr old in for another 40 yrs was a deterrent . yeah the death penalty is not a deterrent and hasn't been for some time. On it's own maybe maybe not. but together pouring salt in the wound sucks.

[cheapdate]

2. Imagine a country where Donald Trump would have approval ratings in the 80% range.

[Igel]

3. Of course.

It wouldn't their national pride. They'd been in charge in Jugoslavija, a Serb ruled over Kosovar and Croatians and Montenegrans, and they were protecting the site of a historic battle and the closest thing they had to an empire.

They'd been wronged in some ways--their media made it sound like they were facing genocide, but exaggeration doesn't mean there wasn't some actual events that the overweening fiction was based on. But what they were doing was justified because it would restore their national greatness that they were due, which had been stripped from them unjustly.

It's hard to be a former oppressor and petty imperial power and be made merely equal. It's even worse to be accused of doing bad things when your self-image says you're great and good. The cetniks that slaughtered Muslims and ethnically cleansed Croats and fought with but not against Hitler are largely forgotten (or adored); all that's remembered are the Communists who fought for the USSR and established Serb supremacy. That during Tito's rule there was an uneasy relationship and Jugoslavija was often at odds with the USSR is as forgotten as the cetniks (even if they have returned and are fighting for the DNR)

Those who remember that the cetniks fought with Hitler justify it. They used the Germany forces to achieve their own goals. Good when the cetniks do it, bad when others do it. Such is the power of in-group justification.

It's hard to separate some of that from their older history, to be sure. They were deeply oppressed under the Turks and Muslim converts. The Croats were Catholic and were at odds with the Serbs and vice-versa. There was old emnity among brothers.

Meanwhile, Russia was the Serbs' old defender against the Muslims. Helped with getting them Orthodox materials under the Turks. Helped free them from Muslim imperialism and oppression that we mostly prefer to ignore these days because it's inconvenient to even admit it happened. Their language is influenced by Russian and Russian Church Slavic (not nearly as much as Bulgarian, to be sure). Serbs like to forget that this was partly religious crusade for the Russians, but also part of Russian imperialism. But under the Russians, the Serbs were privileged as the Bosnian Muslims and many Albanians had been under the Ottomans. Few like giving up privileges. And few who assume they have a right to rule like being humiliated.

It certainly was a problem that while Tito kept them separate from the USSR so that they were more prosperous than many of the Comecon countries, they were really behind the rest of Europe. It's hard on the ego when your inferiors are better than you. Damned hard.

That Karadzic was recently sentenced by the ICC certainly plays a role in this, another symbol of national humiliation in not being able to kill and oppress as God has decreed. They want revenge. Not very Western, but Orthodoxy isn't Western, now is it. They admire Groznyi, what was done to the city as well as what was done by the tsar' with that epithet; Sarajevo and Srebrenica (both times, that last one) were good things, they're how you should deal with those who won't submit. Orthodoxy is pre-Enlightenment and, in fact, owes a lot to the training they got under those who were their overlords and betters for centuries.

[xocet]

12. Interesting post. Out of curiousity, what is the etymology of 'cetnik'? Is that a Russian term?

n/t

[7962]

4. Since NATO stopped their genocide, this is no surprise. They're still pissed.

they werent able to kill all the Croats & Bosnians before NATO finally stopped it

[SunSeeker]

6. NATO did not stop genocide. It actually hastened the ethnic cleansing.

The few NATO soldiers who were sent to the Balkans did not physically intervene for the most part. NATO pretty much relied on just bombing everything to bits. And that only hastened the ongoing ethnic cleansing. By bombing Kosovo, it drove out pretty much all the Serbs (and other Christians as well as Jews) leaving Kosovo to just ethic Albanian Muslims. The NATO bombings in Bosnia and Serbia accomplished similar results. The fighting stopped because all of these once multicultural areas were ethically cleansed of all but the dominant ethnicity in their respective regions. The Orthodox Christian Serbs had pretty much been all forced into Serbia and Montenegro, the Catholics were in Croatia, and the Muslims were in Bosnia and Kosovo. But the bombing also destroyed essential infrastructure including roads, bridges, schools, hospitals and even tv stations, leaving all of these now independent tiny countries hopeless economic basket cases.

Thousands of innocent civilians, men, women and children, died at the hands of the murderous fighters using the bombing as cover, and by the indiscriminate bombs themselves. And of course, those bombs were our bombs. We were just using NATO as a fig leaf. So, it is certainly understandable that the Serbs are not happy with the US/NATO and have turned to their ethic brothers in Russia in their disgust and horror with what NATO did to them. This turn to Russia is unfortunate, since Russia is run by a right wing criminal, but it is still understandable. NATO did nothing to be proud of in the Balkans. Its bombing of civilian targets, such as the deliberate bombing of the Belgrade TV station, was nothing short of a war crime.

[7962]

7. Oh please. The Serbs were slaughtering the Bosnians & others. Force was the only option.

The EU was doing little but talk, and the US stepped up and put a stop to it. And stopped the same thing from happening in Kosovo.
The UN passed numerous votes on stopping them. Remember Srebrenica? The Serbs killed 8000 civilians in just that one town.
Ask those people if they think NATO overstepped their bounds

[SunSeeker]

8. Everyone was slaughtering everyone. It was a civil war.

The NATO/UN "peacekeeper" troops did NOT stop the slaughter. They just stood by and watched, like in Srebrenica, which was under UN/NATO protection at the time of that massacre. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica The peacekeeper troops did nothing but protect other NATO personnel and NATO facilities. There were a lot of Srebrenicas in that civil war, by all sides. Kosovo Albanians killed thousands of Serbs, forcing the rest to abandon land they held for hundreds of years and flee from their ethnic homeland of Kosovo.

The fighting finally stopped because the ethnic cleansing, put on steroids by the US/NATO bombing, was completed. There were no opposing ethnicities left to fight in the various rebel states.

Why did we bomb the Belgrade TV station? Could it be they were showing embarrassing footage of hospitals and schools bombed by the US, with children's limbs strewn about the rubble? Ask those people if they think NATO overstepped their bounds. Amnesty International certainly thinks so; it declared the bombing of the Belgrade TV station a war crime. http://www.cleveland.com/world/index.ssf/2009/04/amnesty_international_calls_na.html
And yet, we declared it a "legitimate target." http://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/apr/24/balkans3 We did not even issue a warning so civilians could leave before bombing the building: "Amnesty International said in the statement that NATO officials confirmed that no specific warning of the attack was given, even though they knew many civilians would be in the RTS building." http://www.cleveland.com/world/index.ssf/2009/04/amnesty_international_calls_na.html

The scene was horrific:

Reporters at the scene said they saw the almost decapitated body of one man dangling from the rubble, and the body of a make-up artist. Another man was trapped between two concrete blocks. Doctors amputated his legs at the site but he later died.

The state-run news agency Tanjug said about 150 people were inside the building at the time of the attack. The minister without portfolio, Goran Matic, said that in addition to 10 dead and 18 wounded, at least 20 people were feared buried in the rubble.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/apr/24/balkans3

It is this grotesque disregard of Serb lives that has driven Serbs into Putin's arms. Not only is that a disaster for Serbia, but it is a tremendous danger for the security of Europe and US interests.

[7962]

10. You love revisionist history. The UN is generally useless until the US gets involved.

The Serbs were ALREADY russia's pals historically, nothing changed there. Apparently you have some relation to the Serbs to excuse all the horrors they perpetrated. Were they the ONLY ones? Of course not. but they were certainly the worst by far
Funny how the Serbs were the ones who killed the most and also had the biggest war criminals since they were SO 'victimized".
Look at the list of Serbs who were wanted or killed for war crimes: Milosovec, Seslej, Mladic, Karadzic, Markovic, Drljaca, etc
Only 25% of the deaths during the entire Balkans Wars were Serb, yet they were in all the other regions.
If the US hadnt stepped in, they'd have killed a helluva lot more too

[happyslug]

13. Yes, that is why the Gypsy and Hungarians were all running to Serbia during the Civil War

Furthermore the largest Ethnic Cleansing was the removal of Serbs from Croatia. Now, the Serbs of Krajina. technically a part of Croatia but pre war having a majority Serbian population, had called itself independent at the start o the Civil War,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Serbian_Krajina

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Storm

The evacuation and following mass-exodus of the Serbs from the RSK led to a significant humanitarian crisis. In August 1995, the UN estimated that only 3,500 Serbs remained in Kordun and Banovina (former Sector North) and 2,000 remained in Lika and Northern Dalmatia (former Sector South), while more than 150,000 had fled to Yugoslavia, and between 10,000 and 15,000 had arrived in the Banja Luka area....

EU envoy Bildt accused Croatia of the most efficient ethnic cleansing carried out in the Yugoslav Wars. His view is supported by several Western analysts, such as historians Marie-Janine Calic,[183] Gerard Toal and Carl T. Dahlman, Miloševic biographer Adam LeBor, and Professor Paul Mojzes, but rejected by US ambassador Galbraith.

Operation Storm as the biggest ethnic cleansing since WWII, it did not get much press in the West for it was NATO supported Croatia that did the Cleansing (Through post Civil War, many Serbs have returned, but many others have refused).

At the time period it was noted the Roma (Gypsies) and Hungarians who lived in the Former Yugoslavia tended to run to Serbia NOT Croatia for protection. You saw the same thing in Kosovo, where the Serbs and Roma refugees went to Serbia NOT Albania.

Now, Bosnia was a different set of facts. Bosnia is the most isolated part of Yugoslavia and the Yugoslavia Army had long planed to retreat to Bosnia in case of any invasion (Bosnia is also were the Yugoslavian Partisans were based out of during WWII). Thus you had extensive plans for the Defense of Bosnia before the war ever broke out. Thus Bosnia quickly divided among its population. The Croats viewed the Moslem Bosnians as Croats with a different religion, while almost 1/2 the population call themselves Orthodox Serbs. These two groups still exist in Bosnia and divided into two seperate states within Bosnia:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republika_Srpska

In terms of Language, speakers of Croatian, Serbian and Bosnian can understand each other, but Croatian is written in the Latin Alphabet, Serbian in the Cyrillic Alphabet and Bosnian in the Arabic Alphabet.

Bosnia and Herzegovina are regional names NOT ethnic names. Bosnia is the "Ethnic" historian name for Moslems in "Bosnia and Herzegovina", with Croat being the name for historical Catholics and Serb being the name for historical Orthodox (and that is true even if the actual person is NOT of any of those three religions, you can have atheist Croatians, Serbians and Bosnian).

It is among the ethnic groups of Bosnia that you saw the most ethnic crimes. It appears both Croatia and Serbia tried to contain such crimes but each had only limited control over the side they supported in Bosnia. Neither Croatia or Serbia sent in actual troops into Bosnia, preferring to work through proxies, and that was a problem for such proxies tended to be the most radical among the Bosnian and Serbians in Bosnia. Serbia had the upper hand in most of the fighting, for Bosnia had long been a place to retreat to and thus massive plans to hold Bosnia against all invaders. Given the Serbia had the largest population in the former Yugoslavia, it had the most senior officers (and Serbia had always preferred more central control of Yugoslavia then Croatia, Croatian preferring more local control, thus reinforcing the tendency for Serbs to be in leadership positions in the former Yugoslavian Army).

Just pointing out that while the Serbs are NOT sinless in the breakup of Yugoslavia, outside of Bosnia, the Serbs did almost NO ethnic Cleansing, unlike Croatia and Kosovo. Bosnia, was another story, with everyone doing some variation of ethnic cleansing, more to firm up the borders between the Serbs and the Croats/Bosnians then the eliminate each other. Serbrenica, in many ways, shows this cleansing attempt by local Serbs (I.e. Serbs living in Bosnia NOT Serbia):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Srebrenica_massacre

If you read the reports carefully, Serbia had NOTHING to do with the massacre, in fact tried to prevent them. On the other hand the Serbs of Bosnia were cleanly involved. You have to seperate the two sets of "Serbs" for if you do not, then those "Serbs" living in the US in the 1990s are as at fault as the Serbs in Serbia, i.e they are at fault for they are Serbs NOT want they were doing.

The subsequent NATO attack on Serbia to end such cleansing did NOT attack the people who did the actual killing, in fact attack people trying to prevent it. The massacres in Bosnia was an excuse to attack Serbia. It was hoped that such an attack would end Serbia Support for Bosnia, but people forget when the President of Serbia lost the next election it was to someone who wanted to continue the fight NOT end the fight.

Sorry, Serbia was a debacle for the US and NATO. Serbrenica should have been evacuated by those NATO troops in Serbrenica NOT held. Any long siege is known to end is a massacre, the better option would have moved the people out, but the NATO forces Refused to do that. That just set up the Serbs of Bosnia to grow mean and that leads to massacres as what happened in Serbrenica. I am NOT apologizing for Serbrenica but putting it in context, even the Dutch said their troops were part of the fault for that massacre. A break up of an integrated country can lead to disaster if all sides do not want to work together and in the break up of Yugoslavia all sides wanted to see what they could win militarily before they sat down to talk peace. Thus the Civil War, thus the ethnic cleansing,

[SunSeeker]

16. You don't know Balkan history. Everyone perpetrated horrors.

I notice you completely ignore our own war crimes, as determined by Amnesty International, in the Balkan civil war and instead just list those on the Serb side. You refuse to acknowledge our targeting of civilians. THIS is what is driving Serbs into Putin's arms. There were many atrocities by other sides as well. As usual, only the losing side in a war is ever prosecuted for war crimes. We stepped into the middle of a civil war and chose a side. Could you imagine if Russia stepped in during our civil war on the side of the South?

There has always been ethnic slaughter in that region. The Serbs have a long history of being slaughtered by Turkish Muslims--particularly in Kosovo. Then there is the Kosovo ethnic Albanians and Croatians joining forces with the Nazis during WWII, slaughtering Serbs and Jews. Serbs sheltered the Jews from the Croatian-run concentration camps in WWII, including Madeline Albright's family. After WWII, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro and Serbia where held together as one country, Yugoslavia, under the Croatian strongman Tito. Serbs put up with him because he fought against Hitler unlike his ethnic brethren, and the Croats put up with him because he was not a Serb. Once he died these regions started their quarreling, each wanting to go their separate ways except for Serbia, who wanted to keep Yugoslavia a country. The regions proceeded with their ethnic cleansing to become de facto separate countries, eventually with the help of the US bombing, resulting in horrific civilian casualty figures on all sides. Nothing to be proud of for the US. We did not stop the killing, we only hastened the ethnic cleansing, which left no else to kill.

[geek tragedy]

17. yes, yes, poor Slobo Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic, victims of history. nt

[SunSeeker]

18. The NATO bombings did not kill those two. The victims were the civilians we hit.

By your logic, the people of Iraq had it coming because Sadam Hussein was a murderous asshole. You're better than that, geek tragedy.

[geek tragedy]

19. You're portraying Serbia as the victim--it was the aggressor nt

[SunSeeker]

20. It was a civil war started by the rebel states seeking to secede

Slovenia managed to obtain their independence from Yugoslavia without bloodshed, but then they did not try to ethnically cleanse themselves of Serbs. Bosnia and Kosovo brutalized their ethnic minorities. Bloodshed begets bloodshed in these sort of situations. We did not help matters with our bombing.

Vilifying Serb civilians only pushes them further into Putin's arms, and that is NOT in our national interest.

[geek tragedy]

21. you're pushing a categorically false narrative

Ethnic cleansing was a policy pushed by the Serbs, not inflicted upon the Serbs

[SunSeeker]

22. I'm stating facts.

See post 13 above.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10141393308#post13

Why are you so intent on vilifying an entire ethnic group?

[Sunlei]

5. Serbia will be allowed into the EU system when Russia is 'allowed' in.

Open those borders plz.

[Xolodno]

9. Odd thing is...

Putin asked to join NATO after he gained power...and was rebuffed.

Again....the "West" own worst enemy has proven to be...the "West".

Some here bitch and moan about Putin...but don't realize....we enabled him. Much like the embargo enabled the Castro's.

[yellowcanine]

23. Yes Putin is just a cuddly little teddy bear.

[Odin2005]

11. Fuck them.

[7962]

15. Go ahead & tell us how you REALLY feel!! nt

[geek tragedy]

14. Fans of Slobo and Putin still a bunch of bitter assholes nt