First of all I want to apologize for breaking my word. But the reason why is simply out of respect for the time invested by you and other form members in writing long replies. Another apology is for misjudging your age. Given the fact that you were very ambiguous about the book, and the fact that you have used the commonly used convenient “I’ve read it a long time ago” excuse, it should not be hard for you to see the logic behind my reasoning. Because I was aware that there are people who are in a similar situation, is exactly the reason why I said that “perhaps I might be overanalyzing.”
Not wanting to destroy this forum any more, I will leave most things unanswered. For example – the Canadian health care system. I believe that it is pointless arguing with you on that one simply because I’ve used it all of my life, and so have my parents. Actually one family member is a doctor working in Canada (if you want the specifics, PM me, I have no intentions of posting those things on a forum). So, I believe that I have, perhaps just a slightly better, insight into the world of the Canadian health care, than somebody who gets his insights from a friend called Saeed.
So very quickly before I get on with the main one – I wanted to say a few word about “hajib”. First of all, your argument makes no sense. I’m trying to point out that you should not call them ninjas, your reply is that I’m clueless about their “fashion”. I knew exactly what word “hajib” referred to. But since I couldn’t find the exact name for the veil, I opted for “hajib”, as it is a more general term. Just like the “amputee” doesn’t necessarily mean somebody who has no legs. If they found both words offensive (I highly doubt that they’d get pissed for me using a general term), the word ninja would piss them off a lot more.
Stem-cell research - Yet another argument I don’t understand. So what if the stem-cell research hadn’t yielded any cures? Neither has the AIDS research. Tons of others. That is exactly why they call it “research” not “cure”. But, don’t even think about saying that Bush had stopped that bill just because of the lack of the positive results. He stopped it because, being of conservative nature, it interfered with the American family morals (see below). Tell me, what are you thoughts on returning to the use of leeches (or, the increased use of them)? You know, just like the good old times. That would save the U.S. gov’t plenty of money…enough to be able to shift it to not-so-wasteful things like…oh…the war in Iraq.
A short quote from Washington Post: “The vetoed bill “would support the taking of innocent human life in the hope of finding medical benefits for others," the president said, as babies cooed and cried behind him. "It crosses a moral boundary that our decent society needs to respect."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00524.html
As for my lack of knowledge in knowing the sides involved in the war in Yugoslavia, well, we’re going to have to blame it on my desire not to write War and Peace, but try to write as little words as possible, enough to get you to understand my perspective. However, seeing as how, in order to get some answers from you, I will have to name sides, I’ll give it a shot.
Well, there are the “Yugoslavian Armed Forces”, the paramilitary units like (I believe – all of this is from memory) “Arkan’s Tigers”, then batting for the Albanian-Muslim population there is the “Kosovo Liberation Army” (also know was UCK and OVK?)…but, again, what was the point of all of this? The point was that when the Kosovo Liberation Army (Muslim fanatics, who wanted independence from Yugoslavia and saw its citizens as the enemy – in the same way their equivalents in Iraq look at the U.S. troops), Yugoslavia responded by sending in the army to kill this terrorist organization (which was, by the way, recognized by the international community as the terrorist group, same as Baader-Meinhoff, or ETA, etc.).
Tell you what…since you insist on me getting my facts straight, I’ll run them by you and see exactly were my problems is. So the timeline of the conflict (condensed version, of course) is
- 1974, Albanians are granted the autonomy of the province of Kosovo, considered by the Serbs to be the “cradle of their civilization”.
- 1989, as part of his “Greater Serbia” plan, Milosevic takes the autonomy away, pisses the Albanians off.
- 1998, Albanian terrorist group – KLA – decides to attack Serbian police, army and the general population (actually, the year is not really accurate. It represents when the real sh*t started happening. The actual year when KLA was formed was, if I remember correctly, just shortly after the end of the Bosnian conflict).
- Milosevic responds by sending in more troops. The whole thing escalates into a huge mess.
Then, in comes the US…no, not NATO. Why? Because, eventually all the roads will lead to Madeline Albright, who, if I’m not mistaken, did not work for NATO, but was a secretary of the state – the US secretary of the state. While the international community did condemn what was happening in Kosovo, they really weren’t prepared to do much until she got there. It seems to me that she had made it her life mission to get rid of Milosevic…for which I don’t blame her – the guy was messed-up. But I blame her for the way she went about it. But, in essence, this was mostly her and the U.S.’s pet project…not NATO’s.
NATO does fit into this picture, but in a much different way. You see, knowing that the rest of the world would be pissed had it been only the US against Yugoslavia, US had to seek help from their alliance. Eventually the 19 countries (not 26) decided to pitch in their votes. They had very little choice – say “no” this time and the whole alliance becomes painfully weak. However, many of them had their reservations. France, for example was one of them. Greece, who has their own problems with Albanians, was another. But, most importantly, many of those countries did not actively participate in the bombings. At best, the planes provided by their respective countries were of defensive nature (i.e. fighter planes), unlike the U.S. contribution which amounted to some 70%, and almost all of the bombings. That is why I said US and not NATO!
But if you want, I can get into more details. For example, I remember that the USS Philippine Sea was the first to launch its weapons, launching the first BGM-109 at 19:51 local time. Is that detailed enough? But is there any point in that? Doesn’t this kind of detail require a shift in the topic – something your rules are against?
The point is that there are parallels between these two scenarios. Just like the US citizens were attacked on 9/11, Yugoslavian citizens were attacked under the attack mostly in 1998 and 1999. Just like the US responded by sending in the troops, Yugoslavia did the same. Just like the US was responsible for killing innocent civilians (due to stray bombs, for example), Yugoslavia was responsible for killing people who, probably, did not deserve to die. The only difference is that Yugoslavia was accused of genocide, something that turned out to be an overestimation of the situation – what were initially the numbers between 100,000 and 200,000 dead, turned out to be between 5,000-10,000 (I’m not sure of the exact numbers, but about a year after the war ended, the NATO peacekeepers managed to find some 3,000 graves…But to be sure, lets say that it is between 5-10,000). Ironically, as I said before, the UN had found Serbia not-guilty of the wars in Bosnia (something which shouldn’t be that difficult to prove), so you can imagine how difficult is it going to be to convince me that they (the Yugoslavians) were guilty of genocide in Kosovo.
So, is that the reason to kill 7000 Yugoslavians during those 2.5 months (it took the Yugoslavians about 2 years to get to between 5-10000). You see where I’m going with this? I’m not defending the Yugoslavians. I’m not defending the Albanians. I’m not defending anybody – putting it simply, I don’t care about either side to defend it or put blame on it. All I’m doing is pointing out the parallels between the two wars, and 2 different reactions by the same nation, displayed in a period of less than 5 years.
So my question still stands – why the two different stances on the same scenarios? If you’re thinking that it is due to the change in Administration, look elsewhere. Clinton had lobbed a few Tomahawks into Afghanistan during his presidency, so he too was well aware of the risks and dangers of those terrorists.
Finally the war in Iraq - I will not respond to that one. Long time ago, I got to the point where I got mad every time I heard words like “Bush”, “Iraq”, “terrorist”, “war”, “Freedom fries, and freedom toast”…now I’m getting allergic to them. So, I’m done with that subject.
Therefore, all the questions I asked you were meant to be rhetorical. I don’t expect an answer – not to this, not to anything else I wrote about. I will do my best not to click on this thread ever again (although, I cannot promise as curiosity often prevails). But, what I will do is promise to you and all other forum members that I will not be replying any more. As a matter of fact, Tomba if you’re reading this, ban me if I ever do reply to this thread again.
P.S. I wrote this text really, really quickly, and I didn't get a chance to proofread it properly, so I apologize for any grammatical and spelling errors.
