Talk:Kosovo War/Archive 2

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[snipped --dk] ...anon users,, get an identity, and log in and use it. And sign each entry with your name, and place your comments at the bottom, otherwise its a useless mess to read. Thirdly: read NPOV, study it, love it, live it. Finally, Im not sure its appropriate that we, signed wikipedians answer everything that anon users say. They need to get clued in first to the basics, and then proceed. Its not productive to start a game without knowing the rules.-Sv

Your revert is completely unjustified. The paragraph is reporting, not arguing, and the facts, which quite unsurprisingly are surprising to you, are well documented. I advise reading the ICTY proceedings of the Milosevic case as a valuable source of information, testemonies of Albanians and Serbian witnesses, and BBC as a good source
Your edits are only telling one side of the story and that is in violation of our NPOV policy. It is very clear that you are anti-NATO and pro-Serb if you were writing as our policy dictates it would not be possible to easily tell which side you are on. --mav
No, it is consistent to report whatever facts one knows. If you want, put facts which are the "other side", provided they are true. Here is a link for you

http://taoswebb.com/horsefly/dec99/intl_affairs.html

Read NPOV - it is your responsibility to neutralize your own prose. It is not the responsibility of others. --mav
Here are the doctored satellite photos in question

http://www.balkan-archive.org.yu/kosovo_crisis/html/graves.html

You must be kidding. That site is a POV rag. See this statement "..photos of the alleged new graves offered as "proof" of "Serb atrocities" by Washington's "lie and deny" PR factory are - FAKES." That is hardly an unbiased source. That reminds me of a neo-Nazi Holocaust denier who offered as proof a "report" on a neo-Nazi website. Hardly convincing. --mav
You should think a bit about your own bias. The photos in question are used extensively as a proof of practices used by NATO in propaganda war. After the war, NO MASS GRAVES were found in pusto selo. That is a fact which is easily established. Forenistic experts work in Kosovo for years, and all mass graves - which range from less than 20 to 100 bodies - are well documented. Pusto Selo is not there. That is very easy to check. Your mentioning of holocaust is extremly insultive, and you should think a bit about your behaviour. Not even ICTY talks about genocide in Kosovo. You are very well brainwashed, and I dont think you are capable of asessing the truth - look at the web, ICTY site for yourself if you are. Leave your bias aside and think through the facts yourself - I am sure you are intelligent enough to conclude what was the real extent of the atrocities and what should you think about claims that 500, 000 Albanians were killed. And if you had any honesty, you would never mention holocaust in this context again!
Ah yes. I see. The concentration camps with starving Muslims were just Hollywood-made propaganda for the US. The fact remains that you have not cited any credible sources and you are violating NPOV by not including the other side. --mav
The "concentration camps" you are reffering to are an issue in Bosnian conflict, not Kosovo - which proves claims that you have erased. In fact, a widely circulated photo of tuberculous men behind the wire in Bosnia was also a hoax - the men was actually not inside of a camp. But unlike in Bosnia, where detention camps nevertheless existed, none of this was case in Kosovo. ICTY should a credible source for you, and you can check weather particular mass graves were listed there. Try watching some of the ICTY proceedings as well, that will help reduce your heavy bias.

-Such a mess. I must insist that the standard of evidence needed to indict NATO be at least as low as the standard needed to indict Yugoslavia. In fact I could argue that it should be lower, as Yugoslavia now lacks the power to withhold evidence, and possibly the power to refute false testimony, whereas NATO is in no such position of weakness. On the other hand, it is foolish to be more convinced than the quality of the evidence warrants. I think this issue requires steady, factual coverage. I don't see how it can receive that in this atmosphere and with the sloppy evidentiary standards typical to immature Wikipedia entries.
-I could put together a simple time-line of the facts one needs to know about the Kosovo conflict in order to get an NPOV picture of events, but how long would it survive unvandalized? (And I'm not sure I have the time to invest right away.) The important fact about the propaganda war is that it leaves a residue of commonly accepted falsehoods, so people post propaganda to the Wikipedia innocently unaware that it is propaganda; often they are so certain of themselves--and have war-time cites to back their opinions--that they don't really examine counter-claims. If this were my encyclopedia I would make a leaf entry that discusses, say, [Propaganda:Case Studies:Operation Allied Force]. Since it is [my] encyclopedia, I yet may.
-The actual issues raised by the Kosovo situation are deep and cannot be handled in a shallow manner. They call into question the viability of the rule governing warfare and the relevance of the United Nations. This work should be done, but it should not be done by shouting. the librarian

Here is an interesting post-war article about some of the mass graves. http://www.cnn.com/2001/LAW/06/columns/fl.mariner.kosovo.06.20/ --rmhermen

-I think that article makes an excellent illustration of the problems of reportage amidst propaganda. When the mass graves were originally reported, they were definitely propaganda: reported in sensationalist manner based on thin evidence as a buttress to popular support for the war effort. When the investigation was conducted the confirming evidence was not found. These findings were cited by perfectly honest people as evidence that the original reports were bogus. But further investigation showed the mechanism by which (most likely) the evidence was destroyed. It is important to note that most citings of the mass grave issue are referring to the original propaganda, and the citers do not know the full story. Perfectly honest people are right to object "but it is well known that the graves were empty", and the whole argument dissolves in sputtering. It is one role of an Encyclopedia to be there with the facts in exactly this sort of debate. What is less clear is exactly how to organize the information. -As an example of false propaganda, the "rape" article by the HRW takes NATO to task for falsely alleging "rape camps" in an attempt to incite anti-Serb feeling. the librarian

I think you are a very wise person librarian. Thank you for that explanation about propaganda. Lord knows both sides are guilty of that. But some people think only NATO are guilty of in this regard. --mav

How many quotes do you want? You would brand every one "questionable" - http://www.truthinmedia.org/Kosovo/War/day21up2.html

Ah yes - another crackpot cit. "5. Russian 19th Century Philosopher Predicted Antichrist's Arrival" --mav

http://www.post-gazette.com/forum/19991107edkelly6.asp

Your attempts are sarcasam are not particulary welcome. The basic NPVO policy is to report what is claimed, NOT to judge who is right. So, your erasing of the doctored photos is wrong. There is an argument that this is an example of NATO lies, and reporting about this is NOT GOING TO BE CENSORED!!!!!

Better cite this time. But that wasn't an official report by a respected agency - it was an editorial. Read the POV in this passage: "When Armenia forcibly expelled Azeris from the strip of land separating Armenia from the disputed territory of Ngorno-Karabakh, the Clinton administration imposed sanctions on Azerbaijan, the victim, rather than upon Armenia, the aggressor. It is probably not a coincidence that there are a number of wealthy businessmen in California of Armenian descent who are major contributors to the Democratic Party." The editorial also did not say anything about faked images - only that there was no ground evidence found to support the conclusions derived from the images. Bodies can be moved BTW. --mav

-Eesh. Really, everyone calm down. Bodies can be moved, and bodies can never have been there, and telling one situation from the other with certainty is a job for investigative reporters, not arm-chair philosophers. All we can do is gather variant versions and try to piece together either a workable hypothesis or a set thereof. Fighting will settle nothing, and that's what is happening above: not reasoned discourse; not rant raging against calm, collected response; but rant versus rant.
-The current theory is--

  1. Large numbers of people, mostly Albanian, were killed in Kosovo.
  2. Many of them were buried in mass graves in Kosovo.
  3. Many of these mass graves were dug up and the bodies transported to Serbia proper, where they were re-interred.
  4. Various Agencies, including the current Serbian Regime, have exhumed tens of thousands of these mass graves in the Belgrade area.

-If this theory is incorrect, Where did the bodies in Belgrade come from? If another source for the bodies is demonstrated, that tallies with the identities of the bodies found, then the above theory needs modification and may be wholly incorrect. Don't let's distract ourselves with niggling details in the center of the chain. the librarian


The total number of bodies found in Serbia is 54 in Batajnica, transferred from the Danube truck which possibly contains illegaly transfered immigrants from Romania across Danube. It was transfered on 4th of April by confused Serbian police, who was not sure what was the origin of the truck. Total number of dead/missing in Kosovo is 6000, with statistical estimate of 7000 - another, most ample statistical estimate puts this number at 10,000. Recall that in 9/11 attack original number of dead reported was 6000, reduced to final number of 3000. The number of bodies found in Kosovo in more than 200 places is around 4000. There were 2000 KLA prisoners which were transfered to Serbia proper an released by now. So the number of tens of thousands of albanian graves in Serbia is certainly wrong - see the ICTY transcripts of Milosevic trial for details, and you will see that there are only 54 bodies exumed (but still unidentified) in Batajnica, and used to justify Milosevic transfer to Serbian public. Why would Serbian police move just a handful of bodies and leave most in Kosovo. If a truck is indeed with Albanians, it is possible that they were transfered by irregulars - why would police sink the truck only to do reburial later?

My only comment is with regard to the page design- its hazardly, doesnt flow, and has amateurish elements, which violate the laws of good design and decorating.-Stevert

Let me weigh in with my 2 cents. War is fought on two fronts: physical, with guns and tanks and planes and infantry; and psychological, with philosophy, position papers, propaganda and so on. The physical fighting is pretty much over, in the Balkans. But the propaganda war is continuing.

I suggest that in creating this article we begin with the physical war:

  • the facts as to which armies invaded, when, where and what they did
  • the effects on the civilian population, buildings destroyed, refugees fleeing, and so on
  • changes in sovereignty, e.g., countries created, destroyed or renamed.

Next, we can begin to sort out the propaganda from various sides. Obviously, more than one side is claiming moral virtue for itself while accusing others of war crimes. I suggest that we do not try to determine which side(s) is/are virtuous or criminal. Simply report that Mr. So-and-so of Organization A accused X of war crimes; and that Mr. Thus-and-such of Organization B accused Y of war crimes; and so on.

--Uncle Ed 21:22 Jan 27, 2003 (UTC)


A agree, afterward we can muddle the line tween valid propagand and not. Ironically, photos of mass graves are not proof enough for some people, most undoubltedly are deling with issues of guilt - the fact that they were once deeply invested in something that they now bear responsibility for - just like in germany after WWII and the facts of the holocaust came out. I wont say anything about the validity or not of anon's comments, simply because hes anon at the moment, but we'd all be happy to meet him when he puts his face on.

I notice, incidentally, that Hitler was at least smart enough to kill himself - the degree to which Milosevic degrades himself is no doubt embarrassing to Serbs to who are smart enough to know incontrovertible evidence when they see it. As for collateral damage by NATO, who knows - maybe this guy (anon) lost an uncle or something as a result of NATO bombs, and casts blame for it in NATO's direction. Justification and defense of civilians isn't enough for some people, who allow themselves to be blinded by pain, though its quite understandable. Certainly recent events are harder than others to sort out - simply because theres no lack of evidence. -Stevert

Blame or justification is always going to depend on the values that the blamer/justifier has. Was dropping A-bombs on Hiroshima/Nagasaki blameworthy? or justified? For those who hate massive, sudden loss of life (especially of civilians) perhaps there can be no justification. Yet there are others who feel that winning the war was worth several hundred thousand civilian deaths (Japan is notorious for its massacres of civilians). --Uncle Ed

Well, thats the crux of the biscuit isnt it? Here you have Japan, going into Nanjing, among other places, impaling people, hanging them, chopping their heads off, raping little girls and killing them... 260K people, though Japan has yet to ofically admit to it... The argument that killing 120K different Japanese in Hiroshima and Nagasaki - makes up for its war crimes is highly suspect, and so too is it suspect that only those high in command bear responsibility - Hirohito had to give up his God status - big deal. The US should have simply prosecuted and excecuted every soldier involved. To do otherwise, leaves the motive unclear, and suspect - and this is the same issue with Kosovo - where the moral basis does not fully meet with the practical events. I believe this is the souring influence of militarists upon a society, regardless of whether the cause bears justifying or not. Hirohito was saved by Macarthur and his practical use for the figurehead, and if left to Truman would have faced the block - which supports my contention that militarists are sour on morals, despite the fact that morals are the basis of their support to begin with.--Stevert

I removed: (ending five decades of ethnic cleansing which saw the Serbian Kosovar population reduced from 61% [1] to less than 10% [2] of the population) Since it seemed to apply 50 years of action to a government in power for only eight years - and the first citation contradicted the quoted age of the autonomous government and the government's role in the decline of Serbian population in Kosovo. And the second citation was Milosevic's indictment!

It does what? Albanians were in control of Kosovo during WWII (they were allied with Italy) when they were killing Serbs; Tito was anti-Serbian and encouraged Serbian repression; and then the Autonomous Albanian goverment stepped it up when they got to power.User:Dfeather

Why is it quoted on the removal of Serbs from Kosovo? --rmhermen

So that racist idiots like you would think twice before deleting it. Why on earth not quote a UN document when trying to cite accurate figures. Do you have a problem with that document?
While pretending to clear up a little confusion, you deleted a lot of direct, properly cited, reportage. If you thought it was confusing, enlarge the section a little to make it clearer. Unlike you, the indictment of Milosevic admits that there was a background to the whole affair.
There were fifty years of ethnic cleansing of Serbs in Kosovo. It's an important part of the background. Put it back in and frame it so that it suits you.User:Dfeather

-The whole, entire, 100%, point of the Geneva Conventions was to try and ensure that nothing like the Blitz, the fire-bombing of Dresden, the fire-bombing of Tokyo, the Rape of Nanking, or the dropping of the Atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would never happen again. YES it is effective to attack civilians in order to put pressure--perhaps in the form of internal unrest or or unwillingness to toil--upon adversary governments. NO it is not legal and is a war-crime to do so, no matter how many soldier lives or other civilian lives it might save. There is simply no doubt about this.
-The moral question of whether there can be justification for committing war crimes (such as possibly saving lives) is an important one that needs to be discussed thoughtfully.
-All I see above is rant. the librarian

ok, anon, whoever the Fuck you are, I'll repeat - ==Sign== each entry, ok? this means get an identity and operate under it.

Just like in the IPF article history is relevant, - mounting tensions are valid. The problem, from the little I gather from your ranting is your inability to separate yourself and your bias from your writing.

- Do not respond without an identity, - anon comments will be remvoved, -its unfair to the rest of us to have a valid deliberation turned to Swiss cheese. 'Nuf said.-Stevert

Users have the right to remain anonymous. It would be helpful, polite and beneficial for everyone if you do at least sign your comments with a name or number or something, so that we know who says what. Anonymous comments should not be removed. Tokerboy

Sorry, I thought you needed an e-mail address to get an identity. Assuming I'm the anonymous fuck.User:Dfeather

>>Yugoslavian President Milosevic along with other political figures was charged with crimes against humanity including "persecution on political, racial or religious grounds" which is the definition of genocide. Yugoslav military and police forces are linked to 12 instances causing the deaths of over 600 civilians in the indictment. <<

This is plain wrong. The definition of genocide is extermination of a group, or part of it, based on ethnicity - by the ICTY definition. The genocide charge was made for Bosnia, but not for Kosovo in the Milosevic indictment. Also, why are you removing the Serbian Ortodox Church site about Kosovo? Here is one very unpolite antiserbian crowd. -Buldozer

I did not intentionally remove any link we had an edit conflict. However you are incorrect about the general definition of genocide. Read the article. If the ICTY has a different defintion please tell me where to find it. --rmhermen
It may be true that Milosevic has been specifically indicted for genocide in Bosnia and for action of "persecution on political, racial or religious grounds" which meets the genocidal action defintion without the added genocidal intent in Kosovo. But first I have to find Milosevic's indictment for Bosnia to see if the court specifically uses the term genocide. --rmhermen
I have found the other indictments boy is wikipedia slow) and genocide is a specific charge in them. However it is still true that the Yugoslav military and police have been implicated so that goes back in with a more detailed description of the charges. --rmhermen

Note: people tend to confuse (conflate?) terms for nasty political acts, such as genocide, mass murder and war crime. Let's not be too hasty to label any particular charge as "wrong". Rather, try to understand what the writer 'means by their words (also bear in mind not every contributor to this site is a native speaker of English).

Another note: no one likes being killed! It tends to provoke resentment, to say the least... So please be gentle and forgiving toward those who are so full of resentment and rage that their words spill out in torrents. Don't try to shut off the flow, lest you get burnt by the lava of their hatred. Just try to understand what's upsetting them so much. (Then, maybe you can help them write about it in a way suitable for an encyclopedia article -- or refer them to another outlet, like a newsgroup or a support group.) --Uncle Ed

LOL. If "persecution on political, racial or religious grounds" were the definition of Genocide, then the NYPD, the LAPD, and now the FBI are all guilty of genocide. No, genocide originally was "extermination" and has been extended to include other depopulation, but it has not yet been trivialized to include beating people up and taking their money.User:Dfeather

-Peace Feather. This kind of crowd, if your family name is Milasnovic they know exactly where you're coming from, and if your family name is Kathkhouda they would know exactly where you were coming from if they had any culture, and if your personal name is Dohi-i at least I know where you're coming from. That's the funny thing about America. Always that dark undercurrent of racism, fervid nationalism, unhealthy patriotism, smug I-got-mine-ism, lethal NIMBYism, and pompous assertion of moral (and any other kind of) superiority at the drop of a bucket. Shut up France, you're old Europe! Shut up Feather, you're old America! Meanwhile, take it light and go for a walk. the librarian

Anonymous comments should not be removed. Not everyone dares to use their real name online (I'm one of the few), and Wikipedia policy officially welcomes anonymous contributions. One needn't even "sign in" with a pseudonym like Stevertigo (which makes me dizzy) or Tokerboy (gets me high) or Cunctator (he's such a dick!).

Let's try to focus discussion on ways to make Kosovo War a better article. Anyone have any response my "facts before commentary" suggestion from 2 days ago? --Uncle Ed 14:55 Jan 29, 2003 (UTC)

I thought the silence, at least for a while, was refreshing, Ed: May be an indication of meditative thought. Though, I should say, that newbies do need to be clued in on some protocol, by regulars - otherwise who will?-Stevert

The newbies, by wandering off to Wikipedia:Help, Wikipedia:Welcome, newcomers and other help pages, or by observation. In this case there are (at least) two relevant pages: Wikipedia:How to log in and Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages. Martin

I finally took the time to read this article. I was not surprised to find that it reads almost entirely like a condemnation of NATO. A second article "questioning the legitimacy" of the NATO bombing campaign would thus hardly be necessary, as this article does such a good job of it.

This article would be vastly improved if it reduced its anti-NATO stance to under 95%, and even better if it dropped below 80%. Fifty percent seems too much to hope for. (*sigh* It reminds me of the anti-US sentiment during the Vietnam War, where all concerned intellectuals "knew" that a US withdrawal would be so beneficial to the peace-loving Vietnamese -- but then no one spoke up for the hundreds of thousands of civilians executed or imprisoned by the Communists after their victory.) --Uncle Ed 16:03 Feb 4, 2003 (UTC)

Just a note that I'm going to delete all the photos on this page unless attribution information is given on each image description page. We need to know who owns the photos, where they were copied from and whether or not we have permission to use them. There are also way to many photos on this page anyway which makes near impossible for people with dial-up modems to access it. So if many of the photos are not deleted then most of them should be placed on an images description page. See Sheep and image:Flock of sheep thumbnail.jpg for an example of how this would work. --mav

Hello, I have added description of pictures and an attribution note on the image description pages. I will put some of the pictures back, and later when I have more time make the larger gallery as you suggested in your example. --Joka

Thank you! --mav

This article is quite a shock for anyone casually browsing through the Wikipedia. In stark contrast to other articles on the site, it's immediately apparent that this author is trying to make an argument. The editorial tone is so thinly veiled, it's almost insulting. I am generally suspicious of NATO and American foreign policy, but I would never consider using as a credible source in my research.

Although the author tries to sidestep responsibility for the anti-NATO commentary by interspersing phrases such as "many allege that..." and "it is believed by many that...", these one-sided arguments are not accompanied by complementary views. This is an irresponsible abuse of a trusted writing style which irritates me because it attempts (poorly) to deceive the reader.

The bias in the image selection are even more apparent. They're extravagantly redundant with the text and with each other (ok, ok, civilian targets destroyed, I get the point). There's no clear purpose to them except to drive home the impression that NATO is malicious and/or uncaring.

The editorial should be moved to a seperate page/site and linked from this article.

- Random Passerby

You should have seen the previous version of this page - boy was that a disaster. It has come a ways toward NPOV but still needs a good deal of work. BTW the contributor why wrote much of the bias in this article has been banned from Wikipedia for blatant POV and vandalism. I removed some of the images due to the POV problem and a download time problem for people on slow modems. --mav
I just deleted some of the worst POV. I believed to be anti-NATO biased myself, but this article could have been written by a Milosevic propaganda institution. I don't like the NPOV attempts changing sentences into "The Serbs allege..." Of course there are no friends of the NATO attacks in Serbia, but I don't think, that those bizarre conspiration theories are supported by a majority within Serbia. As for the Bulgarian UN soldier: It is a fact, that he was killed by Albanians, but this was an ordinary crime and not a political act, so I thought it would be the best to take it out. -- Cordyph 22:27 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC) (myself of Serbian ancestry, but without sympathy with grotesque conspiration theories)
I'm glad that the page isn't so laden-down by the pictures anymore, though I think they should be restored to an alternate page in case somebody wants to see all of them (like we do for sheep). I haven't had time to go over all of your changes, Mav and Cordyph, but I did revert one of them, about the Rambouillet Agreement, specifically the bit about how the Rambouillet Agreement granted NATO and its agents immunity from Yugoslav law. It's right there in Appendix B, Article 6. This was one of the reasons many people believe the agreement was rejected, and thus very historically important. Why would you delete this? DanKeshet 23:02 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)
Seems that I wasn't careful enough when deleting that section. This sentence originally said, that the agreement was unacceptable to the Yugoslavian side for this reason and that reason, and I removed one subordinate clause more than I should. Sorry for that. -- Cordyph 23:17 Mar 10, 2003 (UTC)

I tried to improve this article some time ago by deleting some of the worst ecesses of POV and tried to add some NATO counter arguments, but I probably didnt do a particularly good job. I'me not knowledgeable enough on the subject to do make any realy good contributions to it, but I did add this page to the "articles needing atention" page in the hope that someone else would add a more balanced perspective. I think to be honest this article needs to be re-written from scratch. Also about the pictures, shouldent pictures be added of Serbian atrocities against Albanians to even things up a bit. User:G-Man 12.15 UTC mar 11th

Removing paragraph about Serbian victims (and the photos showing the destruction of residental areas) is not the best way to improve the article. The CNN has had people sent from Pentagon during this war, but this is also removed from the article. Adding balance by presenting NATO's point of view or defending the bombing is quite ok. But removing the information about victims of the bombing and NATO's responsibility is far from honourable thing to do.

Why did you remove this paragraph, Dan?

The legitimacy of NATO's bombing campaign in Kosovo has been the subject of debate. NATO did not have the backing of the UN Security Council to use force in Yugoslavia. NATO sought to portray the bombing campaign to the western public as a "clean war" seeing the first real use of precision munitions. "Humanitarian bombardment", as it was also known, was however responsible for the deaths of civilians. Serbian TV and the Chinese embassy were bombed. Some people accuse NATO to have committed war crimes during the campaign, and also point out that these alleged crimes were never investigated.

These statements should IMO go back into the article. -- Cordyph 07:33 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)

Sorry, I meant to work on it in talk, then put it back, but the server was really slow, I got frustrated and quit. What are the bits about it that I find annoying? 1) it seems to be confusing "legitimate" with "legal" 2) It's in totally the wrong place. For example, it introduces the Chinese embassy bombing as part of an argument, but we explain the bombing in further detail below. I think the discussion of both the legality and the morality of the campaign should come after a full description of exactly what happened. The discussion of war crimes needs to be attributed, and it's duplicated below in the discussion of the tribunal. DanKeshet
Okay, I begin to lose track in this article. In the first version the author seems to have written down everything just crossing his mind without bringing it into any order. Structuring this is just as difficult as NPOVing it. You are probably right, and the article is much better now than it was a few days ago. -- Cordyph 21:34 Mar 12, 2003 (UTC)