GeforceRE: Kosovo
“Charity rather than a friend helping a friend during a rough time.”
@Garry
Now you are the one who’s being naive. If the EU gives money to the Serbs to rebuild infrastructure, isn’t that helping? You know how much of our budget goes to “charity?” Not as much as you wish probably, but a lot more than the US or any other rich nation. Maybe it’s because we are selfish, but don’t you think it’s in our advantage to have a rich Yugoslavia with a growing industry? I don’t think anyone in Brussels liked to “bomb” your country, and I don’t say the decissions made were always the right ones. But for us, Yugoslavia is very important. Not only for economical reasons, also geographical ones. Yugloslavia is in the middle between Greece and the rest of the EU. And after all, we do care about the people living there.
GeforceRE: Elections in France #2
Paris, yesterday.
Protestors pro LP : 10000
contra LP : 300000
Who’s gonna win. LP, NOT!
GeforceRE: Kosovo
[updated:LAST EDITED ON 02-05-02 AT 05:46 PM (GMT)]@ink, it didn’t mean to insult anyone. What I said was not an offence, on the contrary. I know how Macedonia and Montegegro are reforming, and I also know how people were oppressed the last 10 years. With “values” I don’t mean what’s right or wrong, after all, we are all humans. I thought more about economical similarities between the US and the western-European countries. What this guy suggests is that we break up our relations with the US, and instead focus on eastern-Europe. For the R.E.U., sadly it is true. But also a bit normal, 13 nations are eager to join the EU, but how the hell can this be possible, at once? UK and France also have different priorities, now you understand what I mean with differences between the EU and Yugoslavia? In 2004, Tsjechia, Poland, Slovenia will also join the EU. They’ll get financial support from the other states, and just like Spain and Portugal, they’ll be able to become new trade partners. Slovenia was also a member of the Yugusl. federation. It might be possible that Serbia and Macedonia will also join in later, but not like this guy suggest. Don’t forget that the atrocities of the Balkans are still in fresh memory of our politicians … But Yugoslavia should become a new trade partner anyway.
Anyway, apologies accepted. If I were you, I would have reacted in a very similar way. My way of expressing my opinion, was not very diplomatic of me. And I do sympathyse with the people who live in the Balkans. I think they were treated unfair because their leader was a mass-murderer. I also agree NATO-bombings were also about politics (the pipe line through Kosovo), I never denied this.
About Turkey and the Kurds … that’s actually the main reason why Turkey may not join the EU, because the Kurds are still not recognised as a ethnic minority. In this matter, the EU and Turkey also have different ‘values’ (oops wrong word).
The ETA in Spain is something totally different. It’s not because Spain is a rich and whealty country, ETA are called terrorists. But the difference between other ‘terrorist’ organisations, is that the majority of the people who live in Basque really don’t care about becoming independent. Their language is an official one, they can get education in their mother language … they are an ethnic minority. The political party which wants and indepent state in the North of the Iberian Peninsula, took distance from the ETA. The average Joe (or Juan :-)) on the street hates the ETA, even if they want an independent state.
GeforceRE: Kosovo
There’s a big difference between the EU and what this guy refers as the USE. It’s also very unlikely that Yugoslavia or Macedonia will ever be part of such an organisation like the EU. They have totally other values, and I don’t think western-Europe would like to give up their political and economic relations with the US in favour of Yugoslavia.
The mail was sent to me by an unknown adress. I thought it was someone from the forum, who thinks I’m anti-US }>
GeforceRE: Airline Names
Mine will be called
“BMG (my initials) Brussels Airlines.”
I ‘ll only be using Airbus : A-318,9- A-320,1 for the domestic flights and A-330,340’s (including the 600’s for my flights to Africa) and why not, the A-380.
Hot Waffles will be served on board, Belgian Beer, Chocolat (no fries or sprouts ;-)).
GeforceRE: The UN
Yeah, it’s true, the UN is not Israel’s saviour. But that’s not the first priority of the UN, to support countries in their military actions. When Belgian paratroopers landed in Congo in 1956, we were also condemned by the UN. So it’s not just an anti-Israel thing.
Also, who backed you guys in the 1956 Suez Crisis? The Americans, no, Brits and French. The same guys that are now critisizing you.
Talking about the UN, JJ is right. It’s not democratic, and the UN safety council doesn’t work at all. Instead of France or UK, give one vote to the EU (which already works together closely with the UN) and give the other one to Iran or India, two nations which diserve to get more input in world peace, as they represent millions of people. Syria can’t do much against a US-veto, JJ, if it wasn’t of the US, sanctions would already be reality (even the Brits agree with the other 7).
China is not the world champion of human rights (death penalty … 🙂 sorry), but they should be represented at all costs. Or do you think giving your vote to Taiwan (= vote to the US) would be better again, like before 1971???
GeforceRE: SN flies to Kinshasa
Ohh, shut up Ben. Nobody cares anymore about that stupid little Belgian airline company. :7
GeforceRE: After learning more about West Beirut..
I heard a report from a British worker at Amnesty International who said no massacres took place, but that the IDF devestated whole blocks to revenge the death of 13 soldiers.
Today, I saw pictures on TV of IDF bulldozers destroying cars in front of Arafat’s HQ. What’s the use of destroying cars? CARS, for the love of god. Aren’t those soldiers disciplined or is that their training? If you suspect that there’s a bomb in that car, the last thing you’ll do is driving over them with bulldozers, so it’s just sweet revenge.
GeforceRE: UFOs
“Cartman, what’s that anal probe sticking out of your ass”
You mean this kind of horrible thoughts? :7
Yeah, I believe in UFO’s, but you should also consider that the UF0-business is really a big one, and that you can earn lots of money with writing a book about UFO’s, personal testimonies, T-shirts, spin-offs …
GeforceRE: Russian politician dies in air crash
Please post this stuff on General discussion, that’s what it’s meant for.
GeforceIsrael’s troubled UN relations
By Barnaby Mason
BBC diplomatic correspondent
After at first agreeing to a United Nations mission to find out what happened in the Jenin refugee camp, Israel has now put forward several objections.
One is to the composition of the team, another – perhaps more fundamental – has to do with exactly what it will investigate.
Israel says it has nothing to hide in Jenin
To understand the nature of the argument, you have to look not only at the specifics but also at the long history of friction and tension between Israel and the UN.
For many years, Israel has seen the UN as a cockpit of hostility towards it.
That does not apply so much in the Security Council, where the Israelis’ main backer the United States has habitually vetoed critical resolutions.
General Assembly support
But the General Assembly, where there are no vetoes, has produced a stream of condemnation, especially during the 1970s and 1980s.
For many years, until it was revoked, one General Assembly resolution held that Zionism was a form of racism.
Israelis believe UN hostility in New York is transferred to aid workers on the ground
The Arab states might have been defeated by Israel on the battlefield, but they were able to mobilise the rhetoric of the Third World and others against the Israeli occupation of Arab territory.
In the minds of many Israelis, the hostility they perceived at UN headquarters in New York was transferred to UN workers on the ground.
The UN refugee agency in the occupied territories may tend to see things from a Palestinian point of view; the whole reason for its existence, after all, is to help Palestinian refugees.
But there have been more particular quarrels with the UN in recent years.
In April 1996, Israeli artillery killed more than 100 Lebanese civilians who were sheltering in a compound of the UN observer force in southern Lebanon, near the village of Qana.
‘Bias’
The Israelis described it as a tragic mistake, but a UN inquiry by a Dutch general concluded that the shelling was probably deliberate.
Then there was a row over a UN videotape related to the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers by Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas in October 2000.
Israel says Qana was a tragic mistake
The UN eventually admitted that it had misled the Israelis by denying that the tape existed, while continuing to argue that it contained no direct information about the kidnap.
All this helps to explain Israeli fury when the UN Middle East envoy, Terje Roed-Larsen, described the scene in Jenin refugee camp as horrific beyond belief.
The reaction to UN criticism is especially vehement, although Israeli officials have recently accused several international organisations of being biased against them, including even the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Fact-finding
Their most basic objection to the UN fact-finding team is that the investigation is focusing only on what the Israeli military did in Jenin.
Last Friday’s Security Council resolution speaks simply of getting accurate information about recent events there.
Senior Israeli officials said the team should investigate, as they put it, the production line of Palestinian suicide bombers operating out of Jenin refugee camp.
The UN and the relief agencies, they said, had been blind to terrorist activities for years.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Yehuda Lancry, said it was the terrorist network in Jenin that had generated the Israeli military operation.
Mr Lancry also summarised the objection to the make-up of the UN mission when he said it should be more balanced and include military and counter-terrorist experts.
He said they would understand the difficulties facing the Israeli army.
In fact, the team contains a retired American general and an Irish police adviser. The Israelis are now arguing that they do not have a high enough status in the mission.
A third Israeli objection is that the team shows signs of wanting to extend its inquiry beyond events in Jenin.
The Palestinians and others say the Israelis violated the Geneva Conventions in other West Bank towns, too.
The Israeli Government continues to insist it has nothing to hide. But the effect of all the objections may be to reinforce the allegations that it does.
GeforceUN not welcome?
[updated:LAST EDITED ON 28-04-02 AT 04:32 PM (GMT)]Israeli minister of foreign affairs Shimon Perez has said that the UN-envoy is not welcome anymore in Israel (which means that they are allowed to go to Jenin, but Israel will not cooperate with the investigation). If they have nothing to hide from the outside world, why won’t they work together with the UN? Now, we will never know what really happened down there. JJ, you were right. What’s the use of an investigation if we already know who’s to blame. Now Israel just lost their last credibility towards the world. The international community has a right to know what really happened in Jenin. Israel is now in conflict with the UN, the EU, the Arab World … they really don’t give a ##### anymore what the rest of the world thinks about them. At least they should cooperate with the UN-team, to show that they have nothing to hide, maybe we were wrong and Israel should have got more support from the west, but the current situation only looks bad for Israel. If you are in conflict with so many parties, than you should do something about it. Not with Israel.
By Martin Asser
BBC News Online
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on 21 April that the current stage of his Operation Defensive Shield had ended, but the campaign to root out “terrorist infrastructure” from the Palestinian territories would continue.
The past few days have given a clue to what the next stage will be like – a return to targeted killings (aka assassinations) of Palestinian militants and lightning raids on their suspected hideouts.
The army remains in place around Palestinian towns
But these will take place in a different environment to when Mr Sharon launched his massive offensive on 29 March, amid Israeli outrage at a suicide bomb that killed more than two dozen people at a Passover meal.
Primarily, by plunging back into almost every Palestinian-ruled area in the West Bank, the Israeli military claims to have come close to eradicating – through arrests or deadly attacks – the entire leadership of all the main Palestinian militant groups: Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.
The army also says it has dismantled two dozen bomb-making laboratories and seized 30 kilogrammes of explosives, as well as hundreds of illegal weapons and other militant paraphernalia, such as suicide bomb harnesses.
Present danger
But few people believe that the threat of Palestinian retaliation has been completely wiped out. The militants may be reeling now, but they are sure to regroup in time.
And if anything, the anger that fuels anti-Israeli attacks is stronger than ever, with allegations of a massacre in the Jenin refugee camp added to the long list of Palestinian grievances.
More assassinations will mean more angry funerals
Meanwhile, the West Bank town of Hebron – which has provided many a willing suicide bomber in the past – was hardly touched by Defensive Shield. Nor was the Gaza Strip, another Palestinian-ruled area where militants enjoy wide support.
Israel may have opted not to re-occupy these places for fear of engagements that could make the battle at Jenin seem small by comparison.
And in Hebron’s case, it could have destabilised further a highly tense area where extremist Israeli settlers live under heavy military guard in the middle of the Palestinian population.
So a stepping up of incursions and targeted killings in Hebron and Gaza seems the most likely military option for Israel.
The way American Middle East diplomacy has been going recently, it seems unlikely Washington will mount a serious stand against the assassination of militants.
State Department officials have in the past criticised such killings, along with human rights groups and specialists in international law.
Palestinian discord?
Another dimension of the post-Defensive Shield environment is one which the Israeli Defence Forces may be less keen to trumpet – having insisted that their campaign was not intended to affect Palestinian civilians.
Now the wider Palestinian population no longer feels immune from direct Israeli punishment if a suicide bomb were to go off in an Israeli shopping mall or restaurant.
Civilians now feel they will suffer retribution
It is they who have borne the brunt of the curfews, the electricity cuts and shortages of food and medicine, with the danger of shoot-to-kill enforcement by the army if they left their homes.
Having until now broadly supported the militants’ right to resist Israeli occupation – if not always their methods – Palestinian civilians now fear an even harsher campaign on their towns if attacks on their Israeli counterparts continue.
It remains to be seen whether this will drive a wedge between Palestinian civilians and the militants, which would be a first during the current intifada.
That may be the hope of Mr Sharon, who has built a career on the use of military power to achieve what he sees as Israel’s political and security goals.
On the other hand, pressure is likely to start building on Mr Sharon to grasp the nettle of a political settlement with the Palestinian leadership in the aftermath of his offensive, something he has less experience in doing, and less inclination.
GeforceRE: Electional surprise in France
[updated:LAST EDITED ON 28-04-02 AT 02:35 PM (GMT)]other example
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GeforceRE: Electional surprise in France
[updated:LAST EDITED ON 28-04-02 AT 02:17 PM (GMT)]Here’s an exemple of how extreme right tries to attract people with stupid pamflets. Stop Belgian occupation! Republic of Flanders
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GeforceRE: Kindly post your nation special forces images
Belgium
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