[IceFire]

One place in my town still wraps em in newspaper except that the newspaper is on the outside and another paper is on the inside with nothing on it.  Still best insulation/resuable stuff anywhere.

[mikhael]

Originally posted by Rictor

The # of US dead isn't the issue. The number of innocents is. If the measure of a war is based only on the number of your own soldiers killed, which is to say "effectiveness", then moraliy goes out the window.

An excellent point, and one that would apply if the region hadn't already been plunged into the depths of war already. Yugoslavia... isn't that the place where people were being killed for bing from the wrong tribe?

Oh wait. No one drills oil in Yugoslavia, so we can't use "crimes against humanity" as an excuse, right?

Sorry. I forgot how the justification game was played.

[Bobboau]

it's simple
America is wrong.
and anyone allied with America is therfore vicariously also wrong.

and I think the number of dead innocents shouldn't be the measure, but rather the ratio of innocents to non-innocents, relitive to what it would be had no action been taken.

[castor]

Just another such miserable thing among a heap of the others.
Is there a real difference it'll maken in YOUR life?
Thought not. Look elsewhere,.

[karajorma]

And I'm sure you didn't think that the russian invasian of Afghanistan would have any effect on our lives either.

[Bobboau]

or the Islamic revolt of Iran

[Ghostavo]

Originally posted by mikhael


An excellent point, and one that would apply if the region hadn't already been plunged into the depths of war already. Yugoslavia... isn't that the place where people were being killed for bing from the wrong tribe?

Oh wait. No one drills oil in Yugoslavia, so we can't use "crimes against humanity" as an excuse, right?

Sorry. I forgot how the justification game was played.

I advise you not to go there... here's a few reasons...

Although the motive for going in there with guns firing at every target available may have been the best, it's actions certainly weren't.

Of course Yugoslavia was a communist state before that, so I think the reason NATO went there was to blow up the communist faction for good.

[vyper]

Someone needs to read more Chomsky, he has some interesting facts on that one.   Clickety

[Rictor]

Originally posted by Bobboau
it's simple
America is wrong.
and anyone allied with America is therfore vicariously also wrong.

and I think the number of dead innocents shouldn't be the measure, but rather the ratio of innocents to non-innocents, relitive to what it would be had no action been taken.

How easy it is to simply classify any critisism under "fanatical anti-Americanism" and be done with it. Now, until you stop generalizing and start refuting the specific arguements provided (not here specifically, but in general) against American foreign policy, you haven't got a leg to stand on.

Originally posted by karajorma
And I'm sure you didn't think that the russian invasian of Afghanistan would have any effect on our lives either.

I don't know about you, but neither the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, nor the Islamic revolution in Iran has ever affected my life in the slightest. For that matter, the recent invasion of Iraq has also not affected my life. However, if people show interest in things that concern the directly, and not those things that concern mankind itself, then you end up with a society who's goals and desires begin and end at their doorstep. And I think that you'll agree, this is not a society in which you want to live.

Originally posted by mikhael
An excellent point, and one that would apply if the region hadn't already been plunged into the depths of war already. Yugoslavia... isn't that the place where people were being killed for bing from the wrong tribe?

Oh wait. No one drills oil in Yugoslavia, so we can't use "crimes against humanity" as an excuse, right?

Sorry. I forgot how the justification game was played.B]

Allow me to summarize your view of Yugoslavia, 1990-2003.

Communism fell. The Macedonians, Croats, Bosnians and Slovenians decided they had had enough of Serb oppression and peacefully tried to secceede. The Serbs, driven by bloodlust and headed by an insane leader promptly started killing Bosnians and Croats en masse wherever they could find them. Not being the type to fight back, the Croats and Bosnians just sort of took the punishment. The US intervened out of humanitarian reasons and after several failed attempts negoiated a lasting truce. Several years later, the Serbs were at it again, commiting genocide in Kosovo, a territory that rightfully belonged to the Albanians who formed the vast majority of the population of Kosovo. They too did not fight back, and after several hundred thousand Albanian civilians had been killed by the brutal Serb regime, NATO intervened to stop the massacre. A 78 bombing campaign was initiated, during which no civilians were killed. Now, under NATO protection, the oppressed Albanian masses in Kosovo can finally live in peace. They have also decided to let bygones be bygones, and have embraced with open arms any Serbs who choose to live in the Kosovo area.

Am I correct?

If you wish to argue intellegently about a subject such as this, I would advise you to get some history first. I am EXTREMELY wary of anyone who tries to divide the world into black and white, good and evil. And it is exactly this that the US has done for the past X years, and which the citizens of United States as well of many Europeans countries have blindly accepted. Don't believe me?

Communists=bad, West=good
North Vietnamese=bad, United States=good
North Koreans=bad, United States=good
Serbs=bad, Croats, Bosnians=good
Afghanistan=bad, United States=good
Iraq=bad, United States=good
Palestinians=bad, Israelis=good
Syria, Iran, Saudia Arabia=bad, United States=good
France, Germany=bad, United States=good

See a pattern? I'm sure I could think of more if I put my mind to it, but I think that you see where I'm going with this. In none of these cases had the media decided to provide a fair and accurate picture or any real history of the conflict whatsoever. So really I can't blame you for having such a biased view of things. But atleast try to be aware of your own bias, and do not mistake it for the truth.

As for specifically the Kosovo conflict, and Yugoslavia in general, I'll try to dig up an excellent mp3 file which is an hour long interview with a historian (Bosnian, now living in the US) who does a very good job of explaining the Balkans 1990-present. If I can find it, I really suggest you listen to it, its extremely informative and next time someone asks you your opinion about the Balkans, you'll have one based on actual fact.

Peace out

[Rictor]

Here it is. About 50 megs and an hour long. Strongly suggest you listen to it. After all, its an hour to get some pretty detailed knowledge of the history of the Balkan conflicts.

http://www.philipdru.com/audio/malic.mp3

[vyper]

[q]Am I correct?[/q]

Perhaps historically there is a shred of accuracy in there, otherwise no.

One
I can't find more online, go read The New Generation Draws A Line.

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Rictor
I don't know about you, but neither the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, nor the Islamic revolution in Iran has ever affected my life in the slightest. For that matter, the recent invasion of Iraq has also not affected my life. However, if people show interest in things that concern the directly, and not those things that concern mankind itself, then you end up with a society who's goals and desires begin and end at their doorstep. And I think that you'll agree, this is not a society in which you want to live.

Consider that 9/11 is a concequence of the invasion of Afghanistan and maybe you'll start to see where I was going with that comment.

I very strongly agree that we should care about repression and torture of anyone, anywhere rather than simply dismissing it as happening to someone else in a country far away. I take particular exception to people saying that just cause events occur in another country we should ignore them though. Cause that's just piling ignorance on top of a lack of feeling.

[Rictor]

vyper: I meant, am I right about that being his views of the situation, not that that was the truth of the situation. I ofcourse know that there is not a shred of truth (or rather, some lies and some half truths) in there, thats why I wrote it. However, sad as it may be, I think that many, many people believe exactly that.

karajorma: Disagree with your first statement, agree with your second. We SHOULD care about the lives of other, no matter if what happens to thekm influences us. Apathy to injustice is only one better than perpetrating the injustice yourself. However, I don't think that 9/11 was an effect of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I mean, you could argue that because of the Soviet invasion, the United States had cause to train and arm Bin Laden and his Islamic militants, but I think thats only part of it. The reason why the WTCs were hit is more an reflection of US foreign policy than of Soviet Russia's failed attempt at taking Afghanistan.

[karajorma]

But the point is that if Russia had never invaded Afghanistan none of it would ever have happened.
 Sure American politics was also a major cause but only a fool thinks that major events have only one cause.

[vyper]

You're both right and both wrong.

[Singh]

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was also due to the cold war politics- which were further enflamed by the United State's anti-communist policies. Had the united states not had such a hard stance, there might not need to have been an invasion at all. But then, Stalinistic rule (I refuse to call it socialism or communism, its just a dictatorship) would have had a far worse presence in the world.

Their is no one person to solely blame for Afghanistan- both the USSR AND America were responsible for the problems that occured there.

[mikhael]

And the British. You can't forget that the crazy mosaic of the current southwest and southeast asian countries is almost directly attributable to Britain's silly imperial colonialism.

Of course we can also further take that back to the "portable" form of Christianity that dominated the first millennium AD, and most of the the second.  But wait, that portable, viral Christendom was also an offshoot of earlier Roman and Greek and Carthaginian policies...

[Rictor]

Its pretty safe to say that there are countless events which are responisble for almost any and every idea, insititution or power currently in existence. You can track everything back to the BIg Bang, if you are one to believe in that theory. However, look too far back and you loose anything resembeling a coherent cause, since as mikhael said, eveything is a mosaic, and one which grows exponentially the farther back you go.

[Ghostavo]

You can track everything back to the BIg Bang, if you are one to believe in that theory.

Where there is an atom, there is conflict!!

Every conflict since WW2 have been linked somehow to the cold war... consequences of leader on both sides of the wall...

This race is doomed, let's start a new one!!!!!