I just thought that, since I have recently been to Belgrade (and other parts of Serbia) I should comment on a few the things you lot said in The RAF sucks part II.
First, here are a few facts (as untarnished by my Serbianness as possible):
1. There are way, WAY more civie targets damaged or destroyed than you will ever hear about in this country. I think the official line is 16 “mistakes”. Well, from what I saw and heard I’d have to say that there are at least that many in Belgrade alone.
2. The Yugoslav army was almost untouched. I have a cousin who served in Kosovo who tells me that from the ground it was blatantly obvious that NATO had no idea what they were throwing bombs at. His company alone made several decoy tanks etc that were placed in the most exposed places and promptly destroyed.
From what I’ve seen, the Yugoslav RV flies its Oraos and Super-Galebs way more often. The moral, pay and professionalism of the army look to be no less than any other European country (Britain may be the exception, I rate your army very highly). Not too bad for a small army starved by 8 years of arms embargoes and, supposedly crippled by four regional conflicts which has just had the pleasure of fighting the largest, best equipped, wealthiest, most powerful military alliance on the planet.
3. The figures for “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” are blatantly exaggerated. Even the 2,000 and something body count is misleading, according to an article that was displayed on the BBC website stated that 50% of the bodies were in fact non-Albanian, i.e. Turk, Goran, Serb, Jew etc.
4. Even though I have friends and family who have been ethnically cleansed, beaten and killed in almost every conflict in the former Yugoslavia I have never, ever heard a Serb talk about Albanians, Croats, Muslims, Americans or anyone else the way Tony and others talked about Russians and Serbs. Makes me think that maybe its the West who have a problem with hate, the rest of us are just trying to hold on to what little we have and you guys are trying to take it.
5. If a people and a government are inseparable does that mean that all Americans are responsible for that countries crimes in Vietnam, Nicaragua, Panama, Grenada, Venezuela, Somalia, Chile etc? What about the half a million Iraqis who have died as a result of radiation poisoning (from DU tipped warheads), these are not my figures, they’re the UN’s. I won’t even bother about the Nagasaki and Hiroshima incidents.
6. I am infuriated by the attitudes to the press here. There seem to be two camps: One just believes that the press in the west tell the truth and believe all the crap they get fed. The other says “of course there is propaganda here” and then proceed to believe it all. Somebody once said about Chinese news “They get more crap but believe less of it, we get less crap but believe it all”. Your press here lies just as much as anywhere else as far as I’m concerned. At least in Yug. there is variety; here the news is the same on every channel.
I wonder whether I’ll get the same hate filled, “I’ve swallowed NATO propaganda” crap as KZ did or whether you can all show yourselves to be intelligent people and discuss this in a civilised manner.
Finally, I have a totally unrelated question: what was the name of the F-117A pilot who was shot down?
Sign In
August 30, 2000 at 7:54 am