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>By far the biggest difference here, I think, is that by being a European war and through the potential for further conflict and nuclear conflict, this war has

>By far the biggest difference here, I think, is that by being a European war and through the potential for further conflict and nuclear conflict, this war has far larger international ramifications and strategic risks attached to it. To see European cities bombed is to be reminded of what has happened in the past and that it can happen again. That is why it is receiving so much attention. Bombing of Serbia was a bombing of European cities, specifically bombing of civilian population centers far from the front to terrorize the population. Also without UN approval.

ardit33 5y ago
Serbia did commit massive attrocities and genocide against both Bosnians and Albanians in Kosovo. They also had wars with Slovenia, and Croatia. They last gesture was massive ethnic cleansing. The US intervened when things went out of hand. Putin risks to end up like Milosevic, a war criminal.
- darebak 5y ago
  It did not, if you have any international court verdict that says that Serbia conducted a genocide, I would like to see it. Also Serbia was not at war with Slovenia. Those are the basic facts. Now, even if those things were true, they are claimed by the proponents of bombing, enemies if you will, the same way that Putin is claiming there is a genocide of million Ukrainians in Ukraine. Do you believe your enemies?
  - nickpp 5y ago
    Motives matter too. Bombing of Serbia was to stop a bellicose regime and the humanitarian crisis it was creating. It was like bombing Russia right now, which I'd support fully hearted, if it was a possibility.
    - darebak 5y ago
      It was not. Serbia was establishing order within its territory when NATO bombed it without any approval from the UN, basically doing something just because they could. Remind you of anyone?
      - sokols 5y ago
        Saying that Serbia was establishing order within its territory is a bit cynical take. What they did is that they systematically[1] cleansed villages and settlements in order to decrease the percentage of Albanian population in Kosovo. In a way, they were implementing a century old policy of a guy named Vaso Cubrilovic who argued that Albanians should be expelled[2] from the lands Serbia (precursor of Yugoslavia) took in 1913. What NATO did, is stopping exactly this from happening. [1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2001/10/26/under-orders/war-crimes-kosovo https://www.hrw.org/report/2001/10/26/under-orders/war-crime... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expulsion_of_the_Albanians https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expulsion_of_the_Albania...
        darebak 5y ago
        It's not cynical, it's exactly what was happening. It was the police that was cracking down on terrorists, not army. Army only became involved with NATO involment. And before you say that Albanian guerilla organizations were not terrorist, the US state department classified them that way up to less than one year before the bombing happened. And as for that supposed policy of Albanian expulsion, by how much did the percentage of Albanians diminish during the Serbian rule of Kosovo? And by how much did the number of Serbs diminish during the Albanian rule of Kosovo?
  - lucky1759 5y ago
    Here you go: https://www.rferl.org/a/yugoslavia-hague-tribunal-major-moments/31334488.html https://www.rferl.org/a/yugoslavia-hague-tribunal-major-mome... https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/bosnian-serb-military-leader-mladic-will-hear-final-verdict-genocide-case-2021-06-08/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/bosnian-serb-military-l... Multiple ethnic "serbs" were convicted of genociding muslims.
    - darebak 5y ago
      That's not a source that tells Serbia committed a genocide, because such source doesn't exist. Ethnic Serbs in Bosnia are a different thing, same as ethnic Bosniak in Serbia are a different thing. Also I found it telling that used Serbs in quotation marks.
      - imranhou 5y ago
        Just arguing about naming doesn't erase the bottom line that lots of people were grouped in camps, murdered and raped...
        darebak 5y ago
        It's not arguing about nameing, it's about command line of control. Serb Republic ním Bosnia was a completely different entity than the Republic of Serbia. I mean, Serbia even put sanctions on Serb Republic during some period of the war. Justifying bombing of Serbia because of Bosnia would be like justifying bombing of Belgium because of the Netherlands. Yeah, sure they are kinda allies but that's it.
  - cleancoder0 5y ago
    Yeah, technically it was the head of Yugoslavia that started a war with Slovenia the moment it left the federation (after Croatia left too). Luckily, war lasted 10 days. Not Serbia, I guess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-Day_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-Day_War NATO bombing was not out of the blue. The head of Yugoslavia was a similar mad man (to Putin), just warring out of desperation. The best proof one has of his lunacy is the fact that Montenegro split from Serbia without any deaths. How did this happen? Due to the mad man dying in 2000. I'm pretty sure he would have enacted order by butchering civilians again, inside "his" borders. Serbia is also the only country out of these conflicts that does not guarantee seat in the parliament for the exYugoslav minorities. Even though the leadership displayed aggression that was successfully deflected, the defenders made a deal to guarantee inclusion of the Serbian minority in the parliament (Croatia, Kosovo etc.) Still, we have a country like Germany, that self-flagellates for decades and the sentiment of the majority is quite clear. While the general sentiment of people/press in Serbia is that NATO bombing is equivalent to Putin bombing Ukraine. and yeah, every now and then, the most popular Serbian (Monacoan) tennis player will say things like "Kosovo is Serbia" with complete indifference and still be the Jesus like figure his father makes him out to be.
    - darebak 5y ago
      >NATO bombing was not really out of the blue. The head of Yugoslavia was a similar mad man, just warring out of desperation. Nobody said it was out of the blue, but it was illegal, wrong and plain terrorist like. >The best proof one has of his lunacy is the fact that Montenegro split from Serbia without any issues. How did this happen? Lucikly, the mad man died in 2000. And the best proof of NATO lunacy is that Kosovo declared independence in 2008 because they feared Serbia which at that point wasn't in Kosovo for almost 10 years, during which Kosovar population carried out pogroms of Serbs while the UN forces just watched. Also Milošević died in 2006, never convicted of any war crimes. Later rulings on other people incriminated him but the same can be said for Tuđman. So, I guess if you die early you are not a war criminal. >Serbia is also the only country out of these conflicts that does not guarantee seat in the parliament for the exYugoslav minorities. It guarantees us a seat in the parliament, you just have to pass a laughably low percentage of the general vote. As a minority from Serbia, there's lot of problems in that country but minority representation is not one of them. If I wanted I could go through life without ever using Serbian language, I am not sure the same can be said for a lot of EU countries. >While the general sentiment of people/press in Serbia is that NATO bombing is equivalent to Putin bombing Ukraine. Because it is the same, a territory within a country decided it wanted to be independent and it is supported by an outside imperial force.
jhasse 5y ago
> Also without UN approval. With the 5 veto powers, this basically means nothing.

ardit33 5y ago

Serbia did commit massive attrocities and genocide against both Bosnians and Albanians in Kosovo. They also had wars with Slovenia, and Croatia. They last gesture was massive ethnic cleansing. The US intervened when things went out of hand. Putin risks to end up like Milosevic, a war criminal.

darebak 5y ago
It did not, if you have any international court verdict that says that Serbia conducted a genocide, I would like to see it. Also Serbia was not at war with Slovenia. Those are the basic facts. Now, even if those things were true, they are claimed by the proponents of bombing, enemies if you will, the same way that Putin is claiming there is a genocide of million Ukrainians in Ukraine. Do you believe your enemies?
- nickpp 5y ago
  Motives matter too. Bombing of Serbia was to stop a bellicose regime and the humanitarian crisis it was creating. It was like bombing Russia right now, which I'd support fully hearted, if it was a possibility.
  - darebak 5y ago
    It was not. Serbia was establishing order within its territory when NATO bombed it without any approval from the UN, basically doing something just because they could. Remind you of anyone?
    - sokols 5y ago
      Saying that Serbia was establishing order within its territory is a bit cynical take. What they did is that they systematically[1] cleansed villages and settlements in order to decrease the percentage of Albanian population in Kosovo. In a way, they were implementing a century old policy of a guy named Vaso Cubrilovic who argued that Albanians should be expelled[2] from the lands Serbia (precursor of Yugoslavia) took in 1913. What NATO did, is stopping exactly this from happening. [1] https://www.hrw.org/report/2001/10/26/under-orders/war-crimes-kosovo https://www.hrw.org/report/2001/10/26/under-orders/war-crime... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expulsion_of_the_Albanians https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expulsion_of_the_Albania...
      - darebak 5y ago
        It's not cynical, it's exactly what was happening. It was the police that was cracking down on terrorists, not army. Army only became involved with NATO involment. And before you say that Albanian guerilla organizations were not terrorist, the US state department classified them that way up to less than one year before the bombing happened. And as for that supposed policy of Albanian expulsion, by how much did the percentage of Albanians diminish during the Serbian rule of Kosovo? And by how much did the number of Serbs diminish during the Albanian rule of Kosovo?
- lucky1759 5y ago
  Here you go: https://www.rferl.org/a/yugoslavia-hague-tribunal-major-moments/31334488.html https://www.rferl.org/a/yugoslavia-hague-tribunal-major-mome... https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/bosnian-serb-military-leader-mladic-will-hear-final-verdict-genocide-case-2021-06-08/ https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/bosnian-serb-military-l... Multiple ethnic "serbs" were convicted of genociding muslims.
  - darebak 5y ago
    That's not a source that tells Serbia committed a genocide, because such source doesn't exist. Ethnic Serbs in Bosnia are a different thing, same as ethnic Bosniak in Serbia are a different thing. Also I found it telling that used Serbs in quotation marks.
    - imranhou 5y ago
      Just arguing about naming doesn't erase the bottom line that lots of people were grouped in camps, murdered and raped...
      - darebak 5y ago
        It's not arguing about nameing, it's about command line of control. Serb Republic ním Bosnia was a completely different entity than the Republic of Serbia. I mean, Serbia even put sanctions on Serb Republic during some period of the war. Justifying bombing of Serbia because of Bosnia would be like justifying bombing of Belgium because of the Netherlands. Yeah, sure they are kinda allies but that's it.
- cleancoder0 5y ago
  Yeah, technically it was the head of Yugoslavia that started a war with Slovenia the moment it left the federation (after Croatia left too). Luckily, war lasted 10 days. Not Serbia, I guess. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-Day_War https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ten-Day_War NATO bombing was not out of the blue. The head of Yugoslavia was a similar mad man (to Putin), just warring out of desperation. The best proof one has of his lunacy is the fact that Montenegro split from Serbia without any deaths. How did this happen? Due to the mad man dying in 2000. I'm pretty sure he would have enacted order by butchering civilians again, inside "his" borders. Serbia is also the only country out of these conflicts that does not guarantee seat in the parliament for the exYugoslav minorities. Even though the leadership displayed aggression that was successfully deflected, the defenders made a deal to guarantee inclusion of the Serbian minority in the parliament (Croatia, Kosovo etc.) Still, we have a country like Germany, that self-flagellates for decades and the sentiment of the majority is quite clear. While the general sentiment of people/press in Serbia is that NATO bombing is equivalent to Putin bombing Ukraine. and yeah, every now and then, the most popular Serbian (Monacoan) tennis player will say things like "Kosovo is Serbia" with complete indifference and still be the Jesus like figure his father makes him out to be.
  - darebak 5y ago
    >NATO bombing was not really out of the blue. The head of Yugoslavia was a similar mad man, just warring out of desperation. Nobody said it was out of the blue, but it was illegal, wrong and plain terrorist like. >The best proof one has of his lunacy is the fact that Montenegro split from Serbia without any issues. How did this happen? Lucikly, the mad man died in 2000. And the best proof of NATO lunacy is that Kosovo declared independence in 2008 because they feared Serbia which at that point wasn't in Kosovo for almost 10 years, during which Kosovar population carried out pogroms of Serbs while the UN forces just watched. Also Milošević died in 2006, never convicted of any war crimes. Later rulings on other people incriminated him but the same can be said for Tuđman. So, I guess if you die early you are not a war criminal. >Serbia is also the only country out of these conflicts that does not guarantee seat in the parliament for the exYugoslav minorities. It guarantees us a seat in the parliament, you just have to pass a laughably low percentage of the general vote. As a minority from Serbia, there's lot of problems in that country but minority representation is not one of them. If I wanted I could go through life without ever using Serbian language, I am not sure the same can be said for a lot of EU countries. >While the general sentiment of people/press in Serbia is that NATO bombing is equivalent to Putin bombing Ukraine. Because it is the same, a territory within a country decided it wanted to be independent and it is supported by an outside imperial force.

jhasse 5y ago

> Also without UN approval. With the 5 veto powers, this basically means nothing.