Quote from: Ian AbsentiaAt what point are claims of ethnic cleansing supposed tip the scales of international intervention?  How bad did it need to be?

Why don't you answer your own question?  The IRA killed about 650 civilians.  Was that "ethnic cleansing"?  Would it justify NATO dropping cluster bombs on the Catholic parts of Ireland to stop it?  

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaA

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaDuring WWII there were similar complaints regarding rumors coming out of German-occupied Europe, and there are similarly still people citing evidence that claims of ethnic cleansing there were grossly exaggerated.

So we bombed the Serbs because of Hitler?

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaWhat is it supposed to take to motivate international intervention when something like that is happening, regardless of the degree? What does it take to justify humanitarian intervention?

You tell me how you feel.  Do you, like Christopher Hitchens, support the invasion of Iraq on military grounds?  Would you support an invasion of Zimbabwe?  How about Burma?  Oh, and let's not forget that the Kosovo-related action was without UN approval.  Do you approve of the US playing globocop without UN approval?  How about NATO?

Quote from: John MorrowSo we bombed the Serbs because of Hitler?

Your hand-waving of mass graves based on quantity alone bore an ugly familiarity.

As for the when and how, I asked rhetorically.  Why here and not there?  Why this way and not that way?  You appear to be asking the same rhetorical questions, and similarly lack a sweeping response.

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaYour hand-waving of mass graves based on quantity alone bore an ugly familiarity.

I purposely went back and mentioned that mass graves were found as not to trivialize them.  The Serbs likely killed thousands of Kosovo Albanians, including women and children.  That was clearly horrible and crimes.  But the thousands actually found in mass graves is an order of magnitude lower than the 100,000 claimed dead that was used to justify the war.  Would Americans and other NATO members have gone to war for 10,000 rather than 100,000?  If you do some searches (which I did before replying), you can find the claims made to justify military action still online, including maps of mass graves that never panned out once the UN actually inspected them.

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaAs for the when and how, I asked rhetorically.  Why here and not there?  Why this way and not that way?  You appear to be asking the same rhetorical questions, and similarly lack a sweeping response.

Correct.  

But from an anti-Iraq War perspective, it's possible that the skepticism over the justification for that war might have been greater had Clinton and Blair (who was also a party to Iraq) had been grilled over the "lies" that they used to justify the attacks on Kosovo when their justifications didn't pan out.  In other words, if the left hadn't given Clinton and Blair a pass on Kosovo, Blair might have been more reluctant to go along on Iraq.

Quote from: John MorrowBut from an anti-Iraq War perspective, it's possible that the skepticism over the justification for that war might have been greater had Clinton and Blair (who was also a party to Iraq) had been grilled over the "lies" that they used to justify the attacks on Kosovo when their justifications didn't pan out.  In other words, if the left hadn't given Clinton and Blair a pass on Kosovo, Blair might have been more reluctant to go along on Iraq.

To be frank, I'm not particularly interested in an anti-Iraq War angle on the matter, and I was never a fan of Bill Clinton's remote-control, fire-and-forget approach to military engagement.  To apply the brush as broadly as possible, it's ever the geopolitical conundrum why one hot-spot gets the attention while another goes ignored, no matter who's in charge at the time.  Case in point: Why isn't anyone genuinely concerned about the long term welfare of the Kurds?  It inevitably boils down to issues of political expediency.

Which brings us back to the Balkans.  What was so important about the Balkans a decade ago?  It was immediately post-Soviet Union, and any emerging satellite state needed at least token support from the world's leading democracies.  I doubt that the US would have steered clear of the conflict in Bosnia and Kosovo even under a Republican administration, and there's little point in speculating how, say, a Dole administration would have conducted itself in peace-keeping efforts.

!i!

You know the problem with political threads?
They suck us in and push our buttons when we might want to do something else - but we're like controversy addicts - can't help it ...gotta get "into it".


Chatting about this shit on an internet forum or messageboard won't really change a damn thing.

 Getting active (Away from computer keyboards) like hellping your preferred political cabdidate or party by actively, physically volunteering time and money - THAT actually might change something.

Or even worse (better?) become a candidate yourself.

- Ed C.

Quote from: KoltarYou know the problem with political threads?

Blow me, Ed.  Some of us can multi-task. And some of us genuinely try to sort out our thoughts and feelings regarding very complex issues.

!i!

Quote from: Ian AbsentiaBlow me, Ed.  Some of us can multi-task. And some of us genuinely try to sort out our thoughts and feelings regarding very complex issues.

!i!

Nope - don't have to do that activity with you .

 Not really worried if you or I are wrong or right.

I just don't feel like getting all "Morrow" about it all.

- Ed

Quote from: Ian Absentiait's ever the geopolitical conundrum why one hot-spot gets the attention while another goes ignored, no matter who's in charge at the time.  

a.k.a. can you say Darfur?

Quote from: KoltarChatting about this shit on an internet forum or messageboard won't really change a damn thing.

I'd change "chatting" to "getting into a flame war."  Discussing it could help promote some awareness, or at least shed some light on things. My original question was only partially tongue-in-cheek--I really _don't_ have a good grasp of what's going on over there, but I figured others here might, or someone might have some decent links that help out.  Not that I agree with everyone's POV, but it doesn't hurt to hear both sides of a story.    

Whether an RPG forum is the place for such discussion, I can't say, but I don't frequent any other boards, so. . .

Pete

Pete,

I usually check out TIME magazine, NEWSWEEK, U.S. News & World Report, their websites,  the Drudge Report, and maybe wikipedia when I want to research that kind of stuff.


 Hate to say it - but the chorus of that old Billy Joel somg was right....... We didn't start the fire, its been burning since the world's been turning.

- Ed C.

Balkan history is a complex topic even in comparison to the rest of Europe, and the factions are so mixed up by ethnicity, religion and protegé states and the interests of the factions so contradicting that it's impossible to blame any side or bring any lasting peace to region.
Just keep the morally side away and assume that every Balkan faction has historically seen enough skeletons in the closet to form an army of darkness.

Looking at this from the perspective of realpolitik, it was extremely important for the Western states in general and the European Union in particular to intervene into the Yugoslavia wars generally.
With Austria and Italy two of our countries directly border Slovenia, with Croatia not far away, so that any trouble could have easily spread over to the rest of us Euros. (In fact, during the wars in Slovenia and Croatia Yugoslavian fighter planes often got astray and flew over Austrian territory. I'm still thankful that the Tyroleans with the triggers for the surface-to-air-gunnery kept their cool during these instances.)

Now, if the Kosovo intervention was a good idea morally and as realpolitik, that's a topic that I still don't have decided.
However, it was generally a dumb move to take Kosovo completely from the Serbian grasp. Now we have some strong anti-Euro/West sentiment in Serbian population and politics and drive them directly into the arms of Mother Russia, while the Kosovo-Albanians very probably will turn out as the kind of ally whichs demands in comparison to its usefulness aren't worth it to keep them. I bet that the Kosovo-Albanians won't stop their demands just because they got the grand prize - they certainly want more territory, reparations and whatever could be taken away from their neighbours "due to historical reasons", and then the West runs into a catch-22. If they back up the Kosovo-Albanians, they'll get into bad standing with the rest of the Balkan, while when they don't do they'll lose the Kosovo-Albanians as allies and still have a worse standing then before the war, as all it did was to waste military resources and to alienate with the Serbians one of the major players in the region.

Exactly!! The whole thing one big pile of "Damned-If-You-Do /Damned-If-You-Don't".

No matter what the Western nations do - someone's not gonna be happy.


- Ed C.

Actually, the Serbs were apparently at least begining a round two electric boogaloo about the time NATO bombed them.

As far as justifications for taking sides...

One of the basic principals we are supposed to have, is putting a stop to genocides (so, yes, we do have some 'splainin' to do for a lot of situations were we stood by and did nothing).  

Doesn't matter that there were no "good guys" in that fiasco.  As for why Serbia should be especially pissed at us, A. They were winning, and B. They effectively started it.

Essentially, this is how it went down.  

The Dictator of Yugoslavia dies after rulling over his cobbled together little country since the end of WWII.  Power devolves to a sort of House of Representatives sort of thing consisting of the heads of each province.  There is also something akin to our president in this system elected popularly (I believe).  In the last election before Yugoslavia went down in blood and fire, a Croat won.

Now, in WWII, Croatia became something of a client state of Germany, and decided that they were going to commence the mass slaughter of Serbs. There were factions among the Serbs (returning to the present, now) who felt they could never afford to be ruled over by Croats again.  The Serb minority in Croatia (now a province of Yugoslavia) rebelled and closed off a major roadway.  Think of it as if, say, Ohio rebelled and closed down I-75.

The provinces that are majority Serb (which would be most of them) wanted to refuse military aid to Croatia to put this down.  The Croations wanted military aid to do so.  Bosnia (who had maybe a bare majority Muslim population, but was mostly just ethnically diverse) kept anything from being done by not supporting anyone.

The Croats tried to smuggle arms in from outside to better equip their police to deal with the rebelion.  They got cought.  Calls for Serb unity went out, and they decided to kill everyone who wasn't a Serb.  The Croats then decided to purge Serbs from Croatia.  The Kosovar and the Bosnians mostly just got fucked because they were badly outnumbered by all the other factions of fuckers.

NATO puts a stop to it after a very long and drawn out mess to even get action taken.  Clinton campaigned on, in part, putting a stop to the bullshit in the Balkans, if you remember.  It took two years to get anything even started on that score.  China and Russia weren't having it, and the Republicans hated the idea of anything Clinton might want to do, and the military didn't care for him either.

Problem was, the Kosovar especially were pissed off in the aftermath.  So, some militant factions got going and started bushwacking Serbs.  The Serbs decided that the appropriat response was to get started on the Ethnic Cleansing of Kosovo.  They got squished right quick on that.

I'm not sure I agree with, or even understand all of, your recounting of events. But I have to say it's one of the cooler-sounding histories I've read.

Quote from: NotYourMonkeyActually, the Serbs were apparently at least begining a round two electric boogaloo about the time NATO bombed them.

While some Serbs certainly killed women and children, I'm not entirely sure it's that clear cut because at least some of those killed were part of the KLA (remember them) who were actively fighting Serbia at the time, too.  The several thousand dead found in mass graves is certainly tragic and Serbian attempts to cover them up were certainly criminal but it was far, far from the 100,000 person genocide claimed as a justification for the intervention.  This Boston Globe article from 2007 says, "Serbian authorities, who ousted Milosevic from power in 2000, have identified 924 victims in the mass graves uncovered in Serbia. They said 53 were children younger than 16, and 72 were women."  Wikipedia says, "In August 2000 the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) announced that it had exhumed 2,788 bodies in Kosovo, but declined to say how many were thought to be victims of war crimes."  Some of those were likely KLA fighters.  But that's around the 4,400 (Kosovo + Serbia) reported to human rights groups, though it's not clear that all were innocent civilians.  Meanwhile, the NATO bombings killed between 488 and 1,500 civilians and the Serbian government claims that the KLA killed another 1,800 civilians.  While counting bodies is always a dicey way to determine who is wrong, would people have been as supportive of NATO knowing that 4,400 had been killed rather than 10,000 and does that qualify as a genocide?  And with respect to ethnic cleansing, what about the estimated 200,000+ Serbs who have left Kosovo and the Roma who were also driven out by the ethnic Albanians?  Does that count as "ethnic cleansing"?  It's not as if all Serbs are guilty of the crimes committed by ethnic Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia, is it?  While I think Slobodan Milošević was a thug and deserved to be tried for crimes against humanity, I'm simply not convinced that we didn't beat up a big bully and then turn around and protect a smaller bully who was doing the same thing.

Quote from: SkyrockNow we have some strong anti-Euro/West sentiment in Serbian population and politics and drive them directly into the arms of Mother Russia, while the Kosovo-Albanians very probably will turn out as the kind of ally whichs demands in comparison to its usefulness aren't worth it to keep them.

It could get even uglier than that if the Russians decide to get involved militarily on behalf of Serbia.