sorry Charles, forgot to include you
On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 10:56 PM, Makis Xiroyannis <
makis.xiroyannis@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
That man only wasted his life, whatever his reasons
However people can understand hypocrisy and sentiments like the one Tiron
describes are not uncommon. Charles quite accurately desrcibed it - if it
was something happening in a hostile country you would be ready to take up
arms already. In Greece we are still "allowed" to see Turkish atrocities in
Afrin offensives, I have seen videos where Kurdish female soldiers are
badly beaten then executed inside dirt holes by Turkish soldiers. I wonder
if such news ever reach the US. Turkey is a member of NATO a close (and
unforunately, essential) ally of the US with the second largest army in the
entire alliance. Not so easy to blame them for barbaric acts such as these.
What makes me sad is that the poor Kurds were the only people who instead
of immigating in their thousands when the war started, stood up and
successfully stopped the ISIS butchers at a time when the islamic state was
almighty. But they are expendable, people with no country of their own;
once their usefullness was spend and ISIS was defeated we kill them next
because the Sultan of a supposedly democratic country said so.
We live in a world where we are being told what right or wrong is; what
news reaches us is more controlled that ever. Thats not likely to get any
better I am sorry to say.
On Thu, Feb 22, 2018 at 9:42 PM, Tiron <strategija@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I have always found it interesting how the world is much more concerned
with what is happening in the US then vice versa.
Literally every Serb will know who is the president of the US and I doubt
even 1 in a thousand Americans would know the name of the Serbian president.
There was an interesting documentary, I think I wrote to someone about
it, I apologize if I already talked about it, recorded about memories of
Kenyan UN peace keepers deployed to Bosnia. I worked with some of them when
I worked for UN in neighboring Croatia. We had I guy in our station who's
job was to guard the village from elephants. Elephants for the protected
areas would cross the river when the water was low and scratch their back
on the mud houses and demolish them. To prevent the villagers from killing
the elephants police deployed officers to guard the village from elephants
and elephants from villagers. True story.
Any way, the main message from the documentary was "There were some
people shooting and killing each other in a place called Bosnia. When we
got there they all looked the same to us".
Due to Clinton actions, and his wife running for presidency, Trump
received sympathies in Serbia. There was a mock street named after him,
billboards and posters, lots of hope he would change how US is acting in
these parts of the world. There is also an issue with the fact he is
presented as a macho self made success man (which is not exactly true as we
know), even the sex scandals only boost his image here. I read once a
comment "He is doing what we would all like to do, but we cant".
This goes hand in had with the Serbian (and I would dare say Balkan)
needs for a strongmen as a leader. Excellently portrayed in a short story
"Leader" written in 1902, you can read English translation here
https://domanovic.wordpress.com/2015/02/07/leader-1/ ;(10-15 minute read)
On 2018-02-22 19:25, eiagames wrote:
There was almost nothing on the news here a day later but what I read
agrees with what you related.
Interesting about perspectives... I don't think many people here remember
the US role in the 90s (though Bill Clinton tweeted very recently an
anniversary regarding the Balkans) and I can't think of anyone here who
would consider the US and Serbia "at war" ever. It was sold here as a UN
action even though it was essentially US driven... And it was controversial
for a couple of reasons.
I'll speak plainly on the first score: many Americans were uncomfortable
with the whole thing. While some of the Serbian leaders carried out some
seriously awful things, others did as well. The Bosnians were often
referred to as Islamic in contrast to (mainly) Christian Serbs so it had
the effect of neutralizing a lot sympathy here. Moreover, understanding the
Balkans are hard for *most* people to get let alone wilfully uninformed
Americans.
The other issue it raised in our country was a debate about getting
involved in foreign countries and the racist undertones it engendered.
Rwanda was going on at the same time and there was a lot of handwringing
about why we'd get involved in the Balkans but not Rwanada (where human
rights abuses were just as bad - if not worse). Clinton got pressure from
the political left for having a "racist" foreign policy and pressure from
the right to resist getting involved *anywhere*. Finally, Clinton was a
polarizing president for his personal conduct, particularly his sexual
scandals.
Fast forward to 2018, virtually no Americans we were involved in the
Balkans in the 90s and I doubt 9 out of 10 Americans could find Serbia (let
alone Montenegro) on a map of Europe... 😕
Long way to say we've had very little press coverage on this incident...
Now if this had happened in an Islamic country hostile to the US... Whole
different story.
Charles
Sent from my Verizon, Samsung Galaxy smartphone
-------- Original message --------
From: Tiron <strategija@xxxxxxxxx> <strategija@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: 2/22/18 12:37 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: Charles MacKay <eiagames@xxxxxxxxx> <eiagames@xxxxxxxxx>, Makis
Xiroyannis <makis.xiroyannis@xxxxxxxxx> <makis.xiroyannis@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: Hello!
Hi,
The man from the case has been identified, he is an ex-soldier aged 43.
He lived in Montenegro but was born is Serbia. He was a decorated soldier
during our brief war with US and NATO, he recently lost his job and
expressed strong disagreement over Montenegro joining NATO last July. All
in all, someone under a lot of built up mental stress, I am surprised we do
not have these kind of incidents more, with so many people in recent wars.
T
On 2018-02-22 05:16, Charles MacKay wrote:
Hey guys,
I hope this finds you well.
I've been meaning to check in for a while but the attack on the US
embassy in Montenegro overnight spurred me in to action. What's the press
saying over there about it. Scant little here so far.
Talk to you soon,
Charles
