What do you think about the attack on the foreign embassy pictured above in Belgrade?
Svetlana reports:
The AFP reported the US Ambassador to the United Nations said Thursday he was "outraged" by the storming of the US embassy in Belgrade by rioters protesting American-led West's recognition of the illegally declared independence of southern Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija by the Pristina separatists.
"I am outraged by the mob attack against the US embassy in Belgrade," Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters, adding he would seek condemnation by the UN Security Council.
"The embassy is sovereign US territory. The government of Serbia has a responsibility under international law to protect diplomatic facilities, particularly embassies."
Hear, Hear, Mr Khalilzad! Embassies are sovereign territory and need to be protected. But the US's concern about the protection of embassies in Belgrade is, how shall we put it, rather selective. For the photograph above is not of the US Embassy which was attacked and torched by Serb protesters last night, but the Chinese Embassy, which was attacked during the US-led bombardment of Belgrade in 1999.An illegal- and murderous attack on a foreign embassy in Belgrade, which seems to have been quietly forgotten. George Tenet, former head of the CIA has conceded that the bombing of the Chinese embassy was organized and directed by his agency.
Clearly, his agency didn't share Mr Khalilzad's views on the need to protect foreign embassies.
The US's hypocrisy is not only restricted to the protection of embassies. It also applies to those who take part in political protests. The estimated half a million Serbs who took part in street demonstrations this week, and who attacked embassies and the US-financed and anti-Serb radio station B92, have been denounced as 'nationalists' and 'thugs'.
Yet, when a crowd of people set fire to the Serbian Parliament and attacked Serbian Television in 2000, as part of the State Department organised and choreographed coup d'etat to oust President Milosevic, the protestors were labelled 'pro-democracy activists'. 'Thugs' didn't come into it. As far as the US State Department is concerned a bit of thuggery and arson is ok, so long as the thugs and arsonists are on our side.
Still, the tide is turning against the aggressors in the Balkans.
This weekend, public demonstrations against the illegal seizure of Kosovo from Serbia are to be held in cities across the globe.(Serb Blog has details here). If you really do believe that international law matters, and that aggressors should not be rewarded, then please try and get to one. The Empire is teetering: it's up to us to give it its final push.
14 comments:
Neil
Hope you dont mind me linking
Ian
Neil;
Although we don't agree on the Kosovo issue, funny things are happening..
Muslims who are at the receiving end of US guns, have been waving American flags in Kosovo !!!
Serbs who are demonstrating against the US, didn't mind sending troops to serve under US command in Afghanistan, as well as serving in Sudan under the so called UN peacekeeping troops.
You are correct on the matter of the US hypocrisy.
But does that make it ok to torch embassies?
"The estimated half a million Serbs who took part in street demonstrations this week, and who attacked embassies and the US-financed and anti-Serb radio station B92, have been denounced as 'nationalists' and 'thugs'."
I find this remark to be inaccurate and very offensive.
Half a million people took to the streets in a peaceful and orderly fashion to express their feelings, thoughts and beliefs. No one, including the Empire's own mainstream media had anything bad to say about that. Nobody denounced them as anything, let alone 'nationalists' and 'thugs'.
Half a thousand took to the shop windows.
Check out the latest Youtube hit movie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VWZoKWBYXE
(Kosovo za patike = Kosovo for tennis shoes)
One could probably denounce them as 'thieves' and 'looters', but that is kind of obvious, so nobody bothered.
Another half a thousand took on themselves to burn flags and, why not, a building or two. In the process, they managed to set fire to an apartment unfortunately located next to an embassy. Not that it mattered to them. Cause they also beat the living crap out of two Russian reporters. As well as a Dutch one.
So, Neil, does ending up with three broken ribs give one enough credentials to denounce his attackers as 'thugs'?
Please, get your facts straight:
1) Several hundred thousand people took part in what was a peaceful demonstration of opposition to the unilateral declaration of independence.
2) No more than couple of thousand people leaped at the opportunity provided by the half-nods coming from some ministers in the government and looted the stores, attacked the embassies, and, all in all, stole the limelight from the main event, at the same time giving the mainstream western media a field day.
3) B92 is both Radio and TV station. While it is certainly leaning towards the western point of view, calling it "anti-Serb" is ridiculous. I'd really like to hear you elaborate on that.
4) Evil as it is :) B92 *wasn't* attacked, because several squads of riot control police were deployed around it.
Dear Dan,
You highlight something very important, namely, the success, up to now, of the policy of divide and conquer. Many Muslims, who see quite clearly the death and destruction the neocons and their 'liberal' interventionist allies have brought to independent Muslim countries in the Middle East, think that somehow the very same people who bombed Baghdad have Muslim interests at heart in the Balkans. And it's also true that some Serbs, but not thankfully a majority- think they can gain 'brownie points' with the Empire by offering to send forces to Afghanistan! The Serbs who think this way, believe that the US is genuinely involved in a 'war on terror'. But that is only a smokescreen!
The neocons are past masters at dividing people.
The truth is that Muslims in the Balkans and Serbs are pawns in the great game: don't be fooled into thinking that the neocons really care about Muslims because of Kosovo- they care about one thing and one thing only: MAXIMISING PROFITS.
Kosovo independent? Of course it isn't. It a US/EU/IMF colony.
The last thing the neocons want is an independent Kosovo, or an independent anywhere else for that matter.
I hope that Serbs who did think they could gain 'brownie' points by supporting US actions in Afghanistan now realise how they've been duped.
At the end of the day we're all in this together: Muslim, Christian, Jew, Hindu, Buddhist and all other faiths. We shouldn't let the warmongers and corporate profiteers divide us.
Best wishes,
Neil
Given the record of the Eastern Orthodox Serbo-Croats (commonly shortened to "Serbs" though they are from the same ethnic group as the "Croats" and "Bosnian Muslims"), the Albanians in Kosovo had every right and every reason to try to get away from their control. It was more of an issue of survival than anything else.
The interpretation of events from the Bush regime and Russia's Bush-like leader Putin certainly is in a cold-war mind set. However, it is important to keep in mind the human needs of the people in Kosovo.
I couldn't agree with your response more Neil.
Yes Kosovo will be another Cyprus ( multi western base), or a European version of Kuwait but with no Oil.
I don't wish to discuss that as emotions of some of your readers are very high.
America starved Iraqi people for 13 years of sanctions, then some of those starved people waved American flags welcoming American troops in Baghdad.
A million of them have perished in the following years of occupation and no one asked who was imposing sanctions on Iraq!
The most prominent act of political foolishness I can remember, is that of Yaser Arafat after 9/11.
He ordered his police to quash an anti-American demonstration in Gaza, in which one palestinian was killed by palestinian police.
He also appeared on the TV giving blood donation for 9/11 victims.
And he was rewarded profusely by US administration. Not only he was cut off the world and denounced as terrorist supporter, but also he spent the last 3 years of his life imprisoned in two rooms at his headquarters, and died of poison.
If I may spare the US one blame, it's not their mistake that the world never learn. no one seems to read history.
"I hope that Serbs who did think they could gain 'brownie' points by supporting US actions in Afghanistan now realise how they've been duped."
Those poeple where the western imposed Quislings and they where notably, very absent from the demonstrations against the US land grab in the south. Very much so, Tadic who went to Romania under a crucial moment of reunion against foreign evil.
Those pawns are in a short period of time history since this made it obvious to anyone still infected by sorosian poisnonous fumes, who is their friends and leaders and who isn´t.
One wrong doesn't justify another - even when Serbia's the wronged party.
thanks to those who have contributed to this thread.
dan: great post. many politicians think that appeasing the aggressors will give them a quiet life but it never works. Even Milosevic thought that by forcing the Bosnian Serbs to the negotiating table at Dayton, he would then be left alone by the US. But they merely carried on with their destablisation campaign.
It's sad to say, but the only thing the aggressors understand is strength- North Korea boasted that it had WMD, refused to allow in weapons inspectors and was spared, Saddam repeatedly said he didn't have WMD, allowed in the weapons inpsectors and Iraq was destroyed.
first anonymous; you post is rather confused and contradictory. Have a read of my post again, this time about more carefully, then get back to me.
You berate me for calling Radio B92anti-Serb, yet you yourself call the station 'evil'.
What happened to that boy inside the embassy? How did he died?
We did hear that in the first reports given by and Codnoleezza Rice she said that in embassy during protest evening were only embassy's security (US marines). Than, maybe half hour before Serbian TV stations reported about body inside embassy, she said that no one from US stuff (neighter security) were in embassy that evening.
Why did US ambassador and UK ambassador (one day before protest)refuse to accept extra police force to secure embassy during protest?
(I apoligize for my English. You are free to properly corect this text.)
"You berate me for calling Radio B92anti-Serb, yet you yourself call the station 'evil'."
Original: "4) Evil as it is :) B92 *wasn't* attacked"
Please note the smily. I will add something more obvious next time. Perhaps HTML will do:
"4) [sarcasm] Evil as it is [/sarcasm] B92 *wasn't* attacked"
What You saying You know of bosnian sers did in the war is not true. You just following mass media. Remember WMD?
Bosnian Serb
An even more direct example of the NATO power's hypocrisy was pointed out on the www.slobodan-milosevic.org blog.
"One may recall that in March of 2004 KFOR troops stood-by while the Albanians rioted in Kosovo. The Albanians were unopposed as they destroyed 29 Serbian churches and 800 homes belonging to Serbs and other non-Albanian civilians.
Colonel Dieter Hintelmann, the commander of the German KFOR contingent in Prizren, explained KFOR’s inaction saying: “Protection of buildings is not the task of the Bundeswehr in Kosovo” and German defense minister Peter Struck praised the “prudent behavior" of the KFOR soldiers saying “They reacted rationally, preventing an escalation and thus protecting human lives.”
Of course there is a moral difference between 1,000 year old churches, in a Wolrd Heritage site and an American embassy.
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