[raccoon-announce] Dirty Thousand

[Ivo Skoric]

The Economist wrote about this last year. They even run a picture of 
the infamous commander. I have the issue in VT, probably somewhere. 
Not that they'd do much good there, but the stuff IS verifiable, and 
Serbian government is oferring those troops since Djindjic was 
around.
ivo

On 12 Jan 2004 at 19:22, Dejan Kovacevic wrote:

THIS is sensational stuff! (Check out The Herald link bellow.)

Well, THAT seems to be the problem. However we want to believe that
Serbian "Red Berets" were ruthless in Kosovo or that Americans will
employ any old dirty trick just to rule the world, this "news" is in
fact very thin: I could write a better dispatch from raw data
available from the few press clippings I keep at home.

None of the stuff is verifiable and there are no quotes from nor
mention of sources for this "news." (And "The Herald" is known as the
Scottish version of "The Globe," i.e. yellow.)

"The US has provisionally accepted the offer of the battalion." From
whom? Serbia? Why? What, the Afghanis who mercilessly kicked Soviet
Empire ass will be "oh so scared" of big bad Serbs (who, by the way,
did not do such a great anti-guerrilla job since Kosovo Liberation
Army not only won the war, but also seriously pounded Serbian forces
along the way)?

What makes it even less plausible is that this is exactly the 
strategy
that is not working in Afghanistan and while I believe that Americans
would like someone else to shoulder the burden (in human lives), I
also want to believe that they are pragmatic enough not to let bunch
of unruly Serbs run anything in such a volatile environment. 
Remember,
it's about control, not wrecking more havoc.

Ivo, I'm worried about you: lately you've been passing gossip and 
jest
as some kind of serious analysis. What is going on? (Tin Aragorn is
too fresh to be such a big influence.)

dejanK



-----Original Message-----
From: Ivo Skoric <ivo at reporters.net>
Sent: Jan 11, 2004 12:17 PM
To: ed Agro <edagro at verizon.net>
Subject: [raccoon-announce] Dirty Thousand

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/7699.html

How to win a war where the enemy refuses to play by the rules? Find a
soldier who does not give a damn about them either.

The US is training 1000 Serb elite paramilitary troops, who were last
time engaged in ethnic cleansing operations in Kosovo in 1999, for
anti-terrorist duties in Afghanistan. While the use of ostensibly
anti-Muslim fighters in a Muslim country could be seen as a
provocation, Afghans are not behaving friendly to any foreign
soldiers.

Interestingly, to avoid compunctions about ICC, thousand Serbs are 
not
going to be under NATO command in Kabul, but directly under the US
command.

ivo

---------------------------------------------------------
Ivo Skoric
19 Baxter Street
Rutland VT 05701
802.775.7257
ivo at balkansnet.org
balkansnet.org





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