Jim,
To try to respond to all the inaccuracies, distortions and outright
factual untruths in this piece would take me days -- in any case, it has
already been done in a couple of books which I can recommend for anyone
who wants an accurate account of this period: Dianne Johnstone, 'Fool's
Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions', and Michael Parenti,
'To Kill a Nation'.
But to take just the first paragraph: "The small cell ...Jordanian" As
far as I know, this is true.. "Note that in the 1980s most Yugoslav
Muslims were deracinated and secular." What does deracinated mean? Plus
there is no distinction between Bosnian Muslims who were, by and large
Europeanized (though in Bosnia the Mosques were widely attended and
active as anyone who stayed in a hotel right next to a mosque and was
frequently roused from rest by the prayers broadcast from the mosque
tower as I was in Sarajevo could attest) and, if they were deracinated,
why were they designated as Muslims and not Bosnians where the Muslims
were a minority of the total population? Croatian and Serbian were
similar (though not identical) languages though they used different
alphabets and Croation tended to use the 'ij' dialect. (e.g. in
Serbian, river is reka; in Croation, river is rijeka. Also, some of the
words are different.) Bosnians tended to use the Cyrillic though there
was many cases when either or both were used or the latin alphabet in
the Croatian regions of the republic. However, the Kosovans did not
speak Serbo-Croat but rather Albanian and were ethnically and
religiously quite distinct from the Bosnian Muslims. Furthermore, even
in Bosnia, you could almost always tell a Muslim by his/her name which
were generally quite distinct from the Serb or Croat Bosnians. In fact
looking at an id card was no necessary clue since the law allowed anyone
to list their nationality, whatever their origin, as Yugoslav.
And so it goes on. I mean, it is just so distorted that to try to
correct the posting would take me hours and I just don't have the time now.
Paul P
Jim Devine wrote:
why do you say so? I don't know enough about this topic to agree or
disagree.
On 5/9/07, Paul Phillips <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
This is the most atrocious piece of nonsense I have read in a long, long
time. It is even worse than Bush's weapons of mass destruction.
Paul P
Jim Devine wrote:
> Ft. Dix Plot is Milosevic's Fault
>
> The the small cell that plotted to attack Ft. Dix was made up of
> Albanians from Kosovo, along with a Turk and a Jordanian. Note that in
> the 1980s most Yugoslav Muslims were deracinated and secular.
> Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian are really the same language, and the
> only way you could tell if someone was a Muslim was to check their
> i.d. cards (the Communists recognized Yugoslav Muslims as a national
> minority).
>
> When Communism collapsed, Yugoslav politicians cast about for new
> platforms. Slobodan Milosevic decided to opt for the most chauvinist
> form of Serbian nationalism one could imagine, setting in motion a
> vicious and brutal war for territory on the basis of ethnic identity.
> Muslims in Bosnia were targeted for mass graves. Kosovo autonomy was
> much reduced.
>
> In the aftermath of the Kosovo War of 1999, half of Kosovars lived in
> poverty and fundamentalist charities started being active among them.
> Kosovars were most often secular and anti-Islamic or heterodox when
> religious. Milosevic monstrously attempted to use charges of al-Qaeda
> presence in Kosovo (unproved) as a pretext for killing Kosovars. In
> fact, his policies pushed some Kosovars into the arms of the Salafis.
>
> In other words, Kosovo was not about Islam. It was another
> post-colonial war like many others in the post-Soviet period. If some
> Kosovars now turn to radical fundamentalism, it is a result of the
> collapse of the old Communist framework and the attacks on them of the
> Milosevic fascists.
>
> [In addition, the US turned against peaceful tactics in Kosovo in the
> 1990s and pumped resources into the Kosovo Liberation Army. This
> encouraged the force that is now "blowing back" against the US.]
>
> John Tirman sees the US occupation of Iraq as generating Muslim
> fundamentalist violence against the US, in a vicious circle.
>
> --
> Posted By Juan to Informed Comment at 5/09/2007 06:35:00 AM
> __._,_.___
>
> --
> Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your
> own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
>
>
--
Paul Phillips Professor Emertus, Economics University of Manitoba Home
and Office: 3806 - 36A st., Vernon BC, Canada. ViT 6E9 tel: 1 (250)
558-0830 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your
own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
--
Paul Phillips Professor Emertus, Economics University of Manitoba Home
and Office: 3806 - 36A st., Vernon BC, Canada. ViT 6E9 tel: 1 (250)
558-0830 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
