Serbia and holocausts, etc.

[gurneyhalleck1]

That was a do-or-die situation, i'm sad to say. If we didn't get the U.S.S.R. as an ally, the Axis Powers DEFINITELY would've taken over the planet Earth and you and I would be speaking German. Those were wartime circumstances of choosing the least of all evils to stop a world-wide pseudo-armageddon of fascism. And after the war, the U.S. was pretty aware of Stalin's sickness. But during WWII, it was tough to pick and choose your mates and only stick with folks without dirty laundry.

The Serbian massacres weren't about allies or World War, it was about ethnic cleansing and butchery.

I get your point and respect it, heck, even agree with it, but I think it's a touch of a different situation, that's all. It really boiled down to----who do you want to have as your enemy?----Nazi Germany with Japan and Italy OR the Soviets? Not an ideal choice of "friends!"

Yes. Just like when we chose to be silent and even outrightely deny Joseph Stalin's Ukraine holocaust when we needed a strong ally in Russia during World war 2.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Do you see where your points keep returning, nestoj? They keep repeating the "oh yeah, well look at YOU!" retorts. And that's precisely what I'm talking about. The U.S. isn't the topic, SERBIAN MASSACRES are! And you are dead wrong, my brother. I hear Serbs ALL THE TIME and even non-Serbs who are brainwashed in my own parish who think and swear these massacres are pure fiction! I read it online, hear it at church, and hear it in forums. There are MANY Serbs who think these things are made-up!

You are starting to admit the atrocities here, which I am glad to read, but constantly adding an addendum that says, "oh yeah, what about you Americans!!" isn't the point. I repeatedly say that the U.S. has committed a host of mistakes. You just aren't reading it. I've said it in almost every post!

That's the thing. Nobody's covering anything up. For some reason you've missed my posts from the start of this topic. For every wrong we did, there's some government official, or a colonel, or a general, or political party leader...in prison somewhere. We keep quiet and pay our dues. From time to time, some schmuck of ours blurts something in denial, but that doesn't magically remove from prisons all those found guilty. You guys talk much about "wrongs", day after that you forget about them, everything's dandy and you go about doing them all over again in some other wretched corner of the earth....but that's your problem, not ours. Actually, it was ours for a decade or so, but it's, luckily for us and unfortunately for them, landed in backyards of, at the moment, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. Holocaust denials would be spot-on, since holocaust is reserved for what happened to Jews in Europe. Holocausting everything around is downright disrespectful to the victims of worst extermination program in recorded human history. But I guess that too falls under modern "talk much, talk loud, do nothing, mind no essence" tendencies.

 

[nestoj]

Do you see where your points keep returning, nestoj? They keep repeating the "oh yeah, well look at YOU!" retorts. And that's precisely what I'm talking about. The U.S. isn't the topic, SERBIAN MASSACRES are! And you are dead wrong, my brother. I hear Serbs ALL THE TIME and even non-Serbs who are brainwashed in my own parish who think and swear these massacres are pure fiction! I read it online, hear it at church, and hear it in forums. There are MANY Serbs who think these things are made-up!

You are starting to admit the atrocities here, which I am glad to read, but constantly adding an addendum that says, "oh yeah, what about you Americans!!" isn't the point. I repeatedly say that the U.S. has committed a host of mistakes. You just aren't reading it. I've said it in almost every post!

Page 3, post 25. That's what I had to say on the subject. As far as "not mentioning others" goes, if you take a look that post you'll see noone but my own people mentioned by me...but, since then, the topic evolved, involves other parties so me, not being blind, am discussing them too. Regarding denial and deniers - not my problem - I'm not them, I'm me and me you have on page 3, post 25. Actually, the only Serb having any say in anything you bring up against us here is the one you have on page 3, post 25. Perhaps my English is not that good and maybe my understanding is lacking...but the only Serb here, on topic of Serbian denial, sounds like not denying anything.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

You are quite wrong, nestoj---your English is OUTSTANDING! I'm very impressed!

Page 3, post 25. That's what I had to say on the subject. As far as "not mentioning others" goes, if you take a look that post you'll see noone but my own people mentioned by me...but, since then, the topic evolved, involves other parties so me, not being blind, am discussing them too. Regarding denial and deniers - not my problem - I'm not them, I'm me and me you have on page 3, post 25. Actually, the only Serb having any say in anything you bring up against us here is the one you have on page 3, post 25. Perhaps my English is not that good and maybe my understanding is lacking...but the only Serb here, on topic of Serbian denial, sounds like not denying anything.

 

[Thekla]

Do you see where your points keep returning, nestoj? They keep repeating the "oh yeah, well look at YOU!" retorts. And that's precisely what I'm talking about. The U.S. isn't the topic, SERBIAN MASSACRES are! And you are dead wrong, my brother. I hear Serbs ALL THE TIME and even non-Serbs who are brainwashed in my own parish who think and swear these massacres are pure fiction! I read it online, hear it at church, and hear it in forums. There are MANY Serbs who think these things are made-up!

You are starting to admit the atrocities here, which I am glad to read, but constantly adding an addendum that says, "oh yeah, what about you Americans!!" isn't the point. I repeatedly say that the U.S. has committed a host of mistakes. You just aren't reading it. I've said it in almost every post!

Yes, but the US has never owned up to our responsibility for Operation Storm, for the reported falsehoods re: the number of dead in Kosovo etc., for the blunder in handling Milosevic, for forcing an end to the agreement with Itzbegovic, for the depleted uranium used in Serbia and elsewhere, for supporting the expansion of the KLA before the conflicts even began (ie the parallel to the creation of the Taliban in Afghanistan to "give the USSR their own Viet Nam which started the mess in Kosovo)-- for our role in the very thing you decry.

 

[buzuxi02]

That was a do-or-die situation, i'm sad to say. If we didn't get the U.S.S.R. as an ally, the Axis Powers DEFINITELY would've taken over the planet Earth and you and I would be speaking German. Those were wartime circumstances of choosing the least of all evils to stop a world-wide pseudo-armageddon of fascism. And after the war, the U.S. was pretty aware of Stalin's sickness. But during WWII, it was tough to pick and choose your mates and only stick with folks without dirty laundry

.


Actually I think we would be speaking Japanese, they were still fighting after Germany surrendered. But I tend to get along with Asians and I like Japanese so who knows if it would of been a bad thing.

But back to the hodge podge of a thread. The thing that irks me about the west's hatred of Russian people is based on phyletist fantasy. Everyone blames Russians for Stalin

Stalin wasn't Russian at all! He had not one ounce of Russian in him. Ukraninians also have caught this amnesia. They blame Russians for the famine, at a time when it was one empire, and who were lead by an atheist commie who was 110% Georgian!!! Stalin's first language wasn't even Slavonic!

Now the Russians are once again evil communists because of the Crimea even though Kruschev, Gorbachev and Breshev were all part Ukranian.

We were too hate Russians because they were communists now we are to hate them because they passed a law against promoting homosexuality. It has always been about hating Russian people because as the largest white ethnic group in Europe the westerners had to demonize them.

I remember during the cold war how comedians and such would ridicule how ugly Russian women were, "the cold fat Olga". Once the iron curtain fell, Americans were shocked that it was all propaganda and many of these women are actually hot.

And guess what its not only those 'homophobe' Russians but many other countries that are now passing laws against homosexuality. Because the "anointed" westerners have overreached in their crusade of spreading homosexuality, and it has caused a backlash. There would be no new laws by any country if the wests elitists didn't shove it down everyones throats and ridicule every country as backwards if they did not accept that ancient democratic value of the ancient greeks of sodomy.

 

[E.C.]

Do you see where your points keep returning, nestoj? They keep repeating the "oh yeah, well look at YOU!" retorts. And that's precisely what I'm talking about. The U.S. isn't the topic, SERBIAN MASSACRES are! And you are dead wrong, my brother. I hear Serbs ALL THE TIME and even non-Serbs who are brainwashed in my own parish who think and swear these massacres are pure fiction! I read it online, hear it at church, and hear it in forums. There are MANY Serbs who think these things are made-up!

You are starting to admit the atrocities here, which I am glad to read, but constantly adding an addendum that says, "oh yeah, what about you Americans!!" isn't the point. I repeatedly say that the U.S. has committed a host of mistakes. You just aren't reading it. I've said it in almost every post!

Gurney, I would like to remind you that anytime there is a diaspora populace they tend to be different from those who are in the motherland.

Just as there is a difference between, say, an Arab who's lived in the States for 15+ years and an Arab who is still in the Middle East; there is a difference in mentality between Serbs who were raised by Serb immigrants and Serbs still in Serbia.

One thing that I have noticed about the ethnic dimension of American Orthodoxy is that there is a great tendency among the ethnic groups to white wash their country's history. I remember a Greek man in our parish who swears to this day that the Greeks have always be united as a people even though they went back and forth between being a kingdom or a republic at least four times since independence and fought a civil war in the 1940s. He's been an American citizen since at least the late 1960s, yet another Greek guy I once met who was visiting had no problem admitting that Greeks have a strong tendency to disagree.

I've also noticed this with Russians. One gentleman in my former home parish was an asylum seeker during the Soviet days, visited Russia in the early 2000s and had no problem saying that Russia has quite a few problems. Yet, some of the 2nd and 3rd generation Russians I've met in Seattle just flat out deny some of the crap that went on during the Soviet days.


Now, here we have nestoj who is a Serb and I believe still living in Serbia. The man has very little problem saying that his country has done some bad stuff. He's clarified in his last few posts and I've seen some of hisin the past where he had little apparent problems saying that his country has done some bad things. Perhaps the Serbs you're around are the sort who, out of romanticized or nostalgic feelings for the motherland, are denying the bad things the Serbs have done in the past thirty or so years. That is a problem. That is a huge problem. If the priest(s) are among them than that is an even graver problem and deserves reporting to his bishop. Lord only knows what would happen the day that a Croat walks into that priest's church being interested in Orthodoxy and hears "the Serbs do no evil"! Or a student working on a liberal arts major with contacts with the ACLU or some other religion-loathing organization!


Honestly, I think the two of you may have been either talking past each other or misunderstood. Perhaps taking a breather and a re-read of the past few pages would be a good idea

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

did I ever say that the American people and the U.S. government are the same thing, sister Thekla? I think I made it quite clear in my posts that the American people are quite honest about our screw-ups, but the government is less than candid OR TRUSTWORTHY! I think you're mixing the two that I'm separating into one entity. Is anyone here crazy enough to think the U.S. government is trustworthy or above board!?

Yes, but the US has never owned up to our responsibility for Operation Storm, for the reported falsehoods re: the number of dead in Kosovo etc., for the blunder in handling Milosevic, for forcing an end to the agreement with Itzbegovic, for the depleted uranium used in Serbia and elsewhere, for supporting the expansion of the KLA before the conflicts even began (ie the parallel to the creation of the Taliban in Afghanistan to "give the USSR their own Viet Nam which started the mess in Kosovo)-- for our role in the very thing you decry.

 

[Thekla]

did I ever say that the American people and the U.S. government are the same thing, sister Thekla? I think I made it quite clear in my posts that the American people are quite honest about our screw-ups, but the government is less than candid OR TRUSTWORTHY! I think you're mixing the two that I'm separating into one entity. Is anyone here crazy enough to think the U.S. government is trustworthy or above board!?

Have you heard any US citizens discussing and expressing true remorse for these issues (Operation Storm, steamrolling the agreement with Izetbegovic, dropping depleted uranium in Serbia, etc.) ? Have you been engaged in a discussion expressing disgust at the arming and bankrolling of the UCK ?

 

[prodromos]

The Serbian massacres weren't about allies or World War, it was about ethnic cleansing and butchery.

Returning to a point I made earlier, the term "ethnic cleansing" which is synonymous with "genocide" cannot be used to describe what happened in Srebineca. The women and children were all allowed to leave.

 

[buzuxi02]

One of my points is we are all beating ourselves up. War is brutal and disgusting but chances are we wouldn't want to undo most of it.

I wouldn't want to stop the Spanish inquisitions and whatever other 'immoral' techniques they used to rid Europe of the Moors. Bottom line is we are all glad there is no Caliphate of Cordoba.

Jews despised what happened to their ancestors at WW2. But would any modern day Jew 60 years removed from the events want to undo it? Obviously in hindsight the benefits outweighed the costs, sounds harsh but its the truth and we all know it.

Would americans take back dropping atomic bomb on Hiroshima? Yes...UNTIL they are reminded of the casualties it would of took to stop the Japanese, and even then we may have lost- at a time everyone had loved ones fighting.

At the end of the day that old proverb holds true: "Alls fair in love and war"

 

[prodromos]

Jews despised what happened to their ancestors at WW2. But would any modern day Jew 60 years removed from the events want to undo it? Obviously in hindsight the benefits outweighed the costs, sounds harsh but its the truth and we all know it.

I'm afraid that is not a 'truth' I am particularly well acquainted with. What on earth were the 'benefits'?

 

[katherine2001]

I'm with Prodomos on this. What are the benefits of having people wiped out? I am not okay with the Inquisitions and I would undo them in a minute. Christ gives us a standard and inquisitions and holocausts don't fit that standard. Personally, I wouldn't want to have to answer to Him if I took part in those things. I guess the martyrs were all "wimps". They should have destroyed those who tried to kill them rather than doing God's will and going to their deaths without fighting back.

 

[buzuxi02]

I'm with Prodomos on this. What are the benefits of having people wiped out? I am not okay with the Inquisitions and I would undo them in a minute. Christ gives us a standard and inquisitions and holocausts don't fit that standard. Personally, I wouldn't want to have to answer to Him if I took part in those things. I guess the martyrs were all "wimps". They should have destroyed those who tried to kill them rather than doing God's will and going to their deaths without fighting back.

Then what your saying is that Islam is right because we would have either all converted or died from extinction. Just as most of the Christians converted to Islam in Syria, Egypt, Palestine, Turkey, Albania, North Africa etc.

I am named after an emperor saint, so I fight back or maybe we should drop Sts Constantine and Olga from the calendar.

 

[buzuxi02]

I'm afraid that is not a 'truth' I am particularly well acquainted with. What on earth were the 'benefits'?

They received a state. The holocaust is a lucrative industry they created. Reparations have enriched them. You think if Elie Wiesel had the power to get rid of Hitler before the war ever started he would? I don't.

 

[prodromos]

They received a state. The holocaust is a lucrative industry they created. Reparations have enriched them. You think if Elie Wiesel had the power to get rid of Hitler before the war ever started he would? I don't.

I can't agree. I don't believe anyone would wish such horror on their ancestors, whatever the perceived benefits. The cost is far too great.

 

[Philothei]

I agree completely. You make great points. The massacre of the Armenians HAS been a political convenience to bury our heads in the sand. It irks me, too! Like I said, I'm not claiming the U.S. is sinless! Far from it! But I do note that some countries seem to link their religion to their actions making it ok to overlook or even deny awful misdeeds. I do think Americans overall are pretty willing to admit the horrendous things our country has done, though. The government, well, that's another creature!

Gurney

Have you thought that the corruption that exists in the USA and it its Gov. is any less than the one that exists in other countries? And to get to the bottom of things....Foreign and not necessarily US meddling creates the most of the problems ...I do not want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but many of small counties' problems are rooted to the "super powers" need to control other smaller ones. Sadly that is why we have "civil wars", coup-ed-tas and all the rest. It is a geopolitical reason for these "unrests" not a religious. Religion is mere used as a "arm" to foster disunity not the true problem.... The masses who follow extremism naively think they reserve their tradition...alas they are not aware that they follow what others -not their own powers to be-want them to follow.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Hi Again Philo,

I think maybe we're talking past each other. I have made it clear that I think the U.S. is rife with corruption and our government is about as trustworthy as a bunch of Weight Watchers members at a doughnut shop.

But I will say that American PEOPLE in general are fairly quick to admit that. I think most Americans, not all of course, but most, are quick to admit that we've done some awful things to Native Americans, African-Americans as slaves and beyond, prisoners of war (especially in recent years), and we've compromised our values in the "war on terror" as well as nation-building and meddling all over the world during the Cold War. I don't think most Americans are proud or in denial about these things. The government may be, but the PEOPLE are not. And that's who I'm talking about---the people.

Take Iraq. There were some massacres by soldiers in Iraq. There were some soldiers who went nuts and went into houses killing civilians. When the news came out, most Americans were shocked and disgusted. Or take my own father. My dad was in the Vietnam war in 1966. He's a good man, a good soldier, and a proud veteran, BUT my dad will be the first to tell you that we really shouldn't have even BEEN in Vietnam! And he'll also tell you that the massacres that occurred there after he had returned stateside MADE HIM SICK! He knows what went on there.

But it has seemed to me that I hear people like Serbian Orthodox priests saying, "meh, those supposed massacres weren't even real. They were the product of false propaganda by the Western media! Those ditches full of corpses were not even real and the death tolls exaggerated and the Serbian people would never commit those atrocities."

When I hear that, I think, "HUH? Are you kidding me?" It's not the Serbian government that lies that I'm talking about, but the actual people I've met deny that stuff and start blasting Muslims and Croats. It just seems creepy.

Gurney

Have you thought that the corruption that exists in the USA and it its Gov. is any less than the one that exists in other countries? And to get to the bottom of things....Foreign and not necessarily US meddling creates the most of the problems ...I do not want to sound like a conspiracy theorist but many of small counties' problems are rooted to the "super powers" need to control other smaller ones. Sadly that is why we have "civil wars", coup-ed-tas and all the rest. It is a geopolitical reason for these "unrests" not a religious. Religion is mere used as a "arm" to foster disunity not the true problem.... The masses who follow extremism naively think they reserve their tradition...alas they are not aware that they follow what others -not their own powers to be-want them to follow.

 

[gurneyhalleck1]

Yeah, gotta agree with you IN SPADES, pro! Seriously!

I can't imagine all those Jewish people living in Israel saying, "well, if I could bring grandpa and grandma back to life, my three dead brothers, my cousin, and my mom and dad all back to life, I'd let them stay dead because this State of Israel sure was worth it!"

Or can you imagine the victims of 911 saying, "I'm glad my husband died in tower one that day when the plane hit him because thanks to that bombing we finally caught Bin Laden like a decade later plus we got a more robust homeland security out of it along with a safer Iraq!"

Can you imagine all those Russians after World War II saying, "wow, I'm glad the Nazis pulverized Leningrad and crushed six hundred thousand plus of our comrades and killed my wife and my daughter! Thanks to that whole thing, we won the war and got East Germany and some superb expansion for communism! Woo-hoo!"

:o:o

I can't agree. I don't believe anyone would wish such horror on their ancestors, whatever the perceived benefits. The cost is far too great.

 

[Thekla]

But it has seemed to me that I hear people like Serbian Orthodox priests saying, "meh, those supposed massacres weren't even real. They were the product of false propaganda by the Western media! Those ditches full of corpses were not even real and the death tolls exaggerated and the Serbian people would never commit those atrocities."

When I hear that, I think, "HUH? Are you kidding me?" It's not the Serbian government that lies that I'm talking about, but the actual people I've met deny that stuff and start blasting Muslims and Croats. It just seems creepy.

As I've pointed out before, there was a vast amount of mis-information in the US media; for example, the claim that there were 100,000 Albanians missing and feared killed by Serbs in Kosovo (David Scheffer, US State Dept.). The number was later claimed by the US to be up to 500,000. This indeed swayed public opinion toward the NATO bombing. By the end of the conflict, the number had been downgraded to 10,000 Kosovars missing or dead - all of these allegations were stated to be based on claims of missing persons (no lists were provided). Which - if any of these numbers - have been verified as factual (FBI teams visited the region following the war and failed to find anything close to these numbers).

There are two sorts of mis-information; the sort above, and selectively failing to provide information - and this was also the case. Atrocities committed against Serbs were rarely if ever reported past the 80s. (Prior to the US support for UCK the NYTimes, for example, ran stories reporting the intimidation and killing of Serbs living in Kosovo.)

Given the misinformation and lack of information, and the often outright bigotry toward Serbs in this country, as I said before it is not altogether surprising that what is reported would not be trusted.

And as before, how many in the US have expressed remorse for our participation in the ethnic cleansing of Croatia (estimates of deaths vary, but hover around 1,200 iirc), the pre-conflict support for UCK (KLA), etc. ?

Perhaps if we in the US do discuss and show remorse for our contribution to the mess, then others will be more free to do so as well.