What made the Bosnian War? [Archive]

Yugo45

27th May 2012, 02:02

Like people said, it's really complex, but I'd try and give the best explanation I can.

I'd have to give a bit of historic background first though. Yugoslavia was a union of South Slavic countries (thus, the name), excluding Bulgaria. Slavs came to the Balkan in the 7th century where they mixed with domestic Illyrians and other tribes. However, the Slavic culture and language stayed dominant. The biggest known Slavic tribes that settled the area were Serbs, Croats and Bulgarians. Soon first Slavic countries came to be, and for some reason they always fueded with each other. By the 10th century there were Croatian, Serbian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Zetian (Montenegrin) and some that don't exist anymore. Croatia soon became part of Hungary, and during that time most Croats took Catholicsm as their religion. While Bosnia, Serbia and Zeta stayed their own kingdoms for some time. Serbs and Montenegrins mostly took Orthodox Christianity. Most Bosnians were part of Church of Bosnia (dualist sect sorta thing), but many were also Orthodox and Catholics. Ottomans conquered Bosnia and Serbia in the 1400's. In the Ottoman Empire, many Bosnians were forced to change from Church of Bosnia (considered heretical by both the pope, greeks and ottomans) to Islam, Orthodox or Catholicsm.

Right, so. In late 19th/early 20th century Ottomans left the Balkans. Bosnia was annexed by Austro-Hungary while Serbia and Montenegro got independence. This is when the Yugoslav movement (also known as Illyrian movement) first appeared. Basically, it wanted to unite all South Slavs and free them from foreign empires and all that stuff. Balkan Wars happened, blah blah, and Kingdom of Croats, Serbs and Slovenes was created. Soon, the name changed to "Kingdom of Yugoslavia". In WW2, basically, everyone killed everyone. Croats claimed that all of Bosnia and half of Serbia is ancient Croatian land of Gods, Serbs claimed that all of Bosnia, Montenegro, Macedonia and half of Croatia was ancient Serbian land of mighty Serbs, etc. etc. So, everyone killed everyone.

The only side that accepted all South Slavs was the Partisan movement, with the motto "Brotherhood and Unity". Well, the Partisans won the war and freed Yugoslavia from axis without any foreign help. Tito used this to promote peace between South Slavs, used it as proof that together Yugoslavs are the shit (in a good way) etc. After the country rebuild itself from the war, the etchnic tensions began. In the 70's Croats and Slovenes claimed they want more autonomy, and first nationalists were in the making. That wouldn't be enough to start the disollution of Yugoslavia, if there wasn't for foreign involvment however.

In short, Yugoslavia was non-alligned between East and the West. As the East got weaker and weaker, the West (USA in particular) didn't need Yugoslavia as a partner no more and did everything they could to weaken the Yugoslav economy and overthrow the leading Communist party. You know, Imperialism. Former industrial and economic power, Yugoslavia was forced into taking loans from the IMF. Soon, it got heavily into debt and the IMF demanded "market liberalization" from Yugoslavia. The IMF and USA started funding nationalist movements. IMF realised that by creation of new countries, the debt will grow up a lot more. Which is exactly what happened. Before the breakup (1988) Yugoslav external debt was 13.5 billion dollars. Yugoslavia was warned that it's too indebted and we can't take further loans. Today, the same area, divided to 6 banana republics owes........ 184 billion dollars, and nobody tells us that we're overdebted. On the contrary, they force us to take new loans. Example, Yugoslavia got a debt of 600 million dollars to build a steel forgery (Smederevo). In 2003, the same factory was bought by 23 million dollars by US Steel. That's what happened to the entire infrastructure. So, in short, Yugoslavia was robbed to the naked bone.
Keep in mind that I'm not making this up, it's in official US documents (most are even declassified)

So, in order to make their plans come true, they funded the nationalists factions. As people clearly didn't have nothing better to do (record unemployment rate), came the rise of nationalism. Slobodan Milošević repressed Albanians in Kosovo, the goverments of republics couldn't agree on anything.. Slovenia soon started talking about independence and declared it very fast. Croatia was soon to follow. Macedonia was next, and then Bosnia. Finally, we got to your question.

The situation in Bosnia was the most complicated because Bosnia was roughly 45% Bosniak, 35% Serbian and 15% Croatian (+ others). Bosniaks and Croats voted for independence while Serbs voted against. The vote passed, however, and then the areas where Serbs were majority declared independence from newly formed Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina. They called it "Republika Srpska", which means "Republic of Serbs". Croats did the same and declared "Hrvatska Republika Herceg-Bosna" - "Croatian Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia" on the area where the Croats were a majority. Before this, however, JNA attacked Sarajevo and failed miserably. On that day started the siege of Sarajevo. Even though JNA officialy left Bosnia soon, most of their soldiers and equipment were given to Army of Republika Srpska, which continued the siege and the war, while being supported by JNA. Again, it was everyone vs. everyone. Bosnia was surrounded by both sides by the enemies (HB and RS). All sides practiced ethnic cleansing, rapings, pillaging and other war crimes. Though, I got to admit, the Serbs (as in, RS) did practice it the most.

Sometimes in the middle of the war, Bosnians and Croats stopped fighting and allied against Serbia. In the end of the war, when Srebrenica happened, NATO came to "help" by bombing Serbian cities and villages. Peace was soon signed, Bosnia was divided into two autonomous entities, "Republika Srpska", and "Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina".

Today, all of the 6 (7 if you count Kosovo) countries are imperialist colonies living on foreign debt, and it's just another conflict just waiting to happen. Hopefully, this time it's a class one, not a silly nationalist one.

Well, I guess that's it. Sorry if I said something that doesn't make sense, because it's 3 AM here and I'm barely writing these last sentences. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask, but I probably won't answer it until tommorow :)

JAM

27th May 2012, 02:06

What was each side's self-declared reason for waging the civil war?

The Muslims wanted the independence of Bosnia from Belgrade while the Orthodox Serbs wanted Bosnia to remain within the Yugoslavia Federation. The Catholic Croats initially allied itself with the Serbs but by 1994 they were already joining forces with the Muslims. Bosnia- Herzegovina was (and still is) composed by these three ethnic groups. Some atrocities committed in this war included genocide against Bosnian Muslims perpetrated by Serbian officers. One of this officers, Radovan Karadžić, is currently being trialed for genocide.

Yugo45

27th May 2012, 02:16

The Muslims wanted the independence of Bosnia from Belgrade while the Orthodox Serbs wanted Bosnia to remain within the Yugoslavia Federation. The Catholic Croats initially allied itself with the Serbs but by 1994 they were already joining forces with the Muslims. Bosnia- Herzegovina was (and still is) composed by these three ethnic groups. Some atrocities committed in this war included genocide against Bosnian Muslims perpetrated by Serbian officers. One of this officers, Radovan Karadžić, is currently being trialed for genocide.

Mhm, Croats never alligned themselves with the Serbs. Most (I can freely say all, actually) Croats voted for independent Bosnia from Yugoslavia (and then soon independent Croat Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia from Bosnia-Herzegovina). However, Croats alligned themselves both against Bosnians AND Serbs. There were some secret meetings now and then with Serbs to agree on division of Bosnia, but that doesn't make them allies. By the end of the war, as you said, Bosniaks and Croats did ally against the Serbs completely.

JAM

27th May 2012, 02:30

Mhm, Croats never alligned themselves with the Serbs. Most (I can freely say all, actually) Croats voted for independent Bosnia from Yugoslavia (and then soon independent Croat Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia from Bosnia-Herzegovina). However, Croats alligned themselves both against Bosnians AND Serbs. There were some secret meetings now and then with Serbs to agree on division of Bosnia, but that doesn't make them allies. By the end of the war, as you said, Bosniaks and Croats did ally against the Serbs completely.

Initially I also thought that Croats had allied since the beginning with the Muslims, but after some research I found out that they made agreements with the Serbs. Karađorđevo and Graz agreements ring the bell?

Leftsolidarity

27th May 2012, 02:49

Also, what side was "right"?

The Young Pioneer

27th May 2012, 02:58

Also, what side was "right"?

By that do you mean "right" wing?

Because there's really no "correct" or "good" guy here.

Psy

27th May 2012, 02:58

Also, what side was "right"?
None, all combatants just were trying to establish their bourgeois state boundaries.

JAM

27th May 2012, 03:08

Also, what side was "right"?

Any answer to your question is very subjective. It depends of your point of view about self-determination. Some people here agree with self-determination while others see it as a superficial struggle since there is no major change in the social-economic structure. In my opinion, the Bosnians had the right of self-determination and their fight for it was totally legitimate. The atrocities committed against the Muslim Bosnians by the Serb officials only reinforced my position about the subject.

Revolutionair

27th May 2012, 03:20

Also, what side was "right"?

Like Yugo45 said, it was capitalist competition (competition for land) combined with extreme nationalism (this land is the ground of my ancient kingdom ancestors) and imperialism (US funds nationalist groups). The only "right" side would be the non-nationalist side which because of the above became really small.

Yugo45, were there any leftists groups, how big were they all, what were their aims? Did they want to keep the union together or become seperate socialist republics, or even 'ultra-leftists' (I don't really believe in the word but it gets the point accross) who wanted a borderless society?

Leftsolidarity

27th May 2012, 03:34

I understand that an answer to my question would be completely subjective. I'm just trying to see if anyone takes any sides in the conflict and why.

The Young Pioneer

27th May 2012, 04:21

Any answer to your question is very subjective. It depends of your point of view about self-determination. Some people here agree with self-determination while others see it as a superficial struggle since there is no major change in the social-economic structure.

True, there are also those who support/oppose self-determination on a case-by-case basis. I'd consider myself one of those types of people, though ideally the need for self-determination wouldn't exist.

And Leftsolidarity-

The thing with the wars in the break-up of Yugoslavia is that there are so many different groups that claimed self-determination and the second you support just one of them you place yourself on one of the "sides" and gain enemies.

So it's best, in this instance, just to support the proletariat in the Balkan region and leave it at that.

Though, admittedly, I'm sure most people (including myself), have a slight bias due to their personal background or what they were taught or who they know that it affected. And no, I won't address my own, sorry.

Just try to learn as much as you can, read some books, keep your mind open. :)

Prometeo liberado

27th May 2012, 05:48

I agree with The Young Pioneer somewhat on this one. Could anyone short of the working class as a whole have "won" anything by this debacle? No, not when the combatants were both nationalist aggressors and defenders against nationalist aggression. Ugly begot ugly and a unified class position was masked in the blood and fog of a very confusing war.
Self determination, National liberation, Seperatists, do they obscure class unity or act as a conduit for the radicalization of the working class?

Ocean Seal

27th May 2012, 06:03

Also, what side was "right"?
They were all right, hence why I don't support any of them.

Yugo45

27th May 2012, 09:00

Initially I also thought that Croats had allied since the beginning with the Muslims, but after some research I found out that they made agreements with the Serbs. Karađorđevo and Graz agreements ring the bell?

Like I said, they made a few agreements but only to arrange partition of Bosnia. However, that does not make them allies. In fact, Croats and Serbs were on opposite sides even before Bosnia declared indepenence and the Bosnian War started.

Also, what side was "right"?

Well, depends what you mean with right. In my opinion, since everything went to hell, since Slobodan's nationalism was on it's wake, the republics did have a right to get indenpendence. But, if we follow that logic, I also think that Republika Srpska Krajina had a right to get indepedent from Croatia, and Republika Srpska from Bosnia and Herzegovina, since they voted against independence. Croat Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia, however, did not, since they voted for independence of Bosnia from Yugoslavia.

When Croatia declared indenpendence, it had a big minority of Serbs. So, Serbs declared independence from Croatia, starting the "Republika Srpska Krajina". As JNA was already in war with Croatia at the time, the Croats also attacked Serbs in Krajina. Then, the Serbs there got official support from JNA. In Bosnia, when it got independence from Yugoslavia, almost the same day Republika Srpska was formed and aided JNA in the siege of Sarajevo, and completely took the role as the main opponent of Bosnians, while being aided by what was now left of JNA, in Serbia and Montenegro. On the other side, Croats in Bosnia also declared independence and started warring with both Serbs in RS and Bosniaks.

None side was right, but at the same time all sides were right. However, (and I may not be completely objective when I say this, but the siege of my city has left it's mark on me), Bosnia was just defending itself, while both Croatia and Serbia were attacking other countries. Since the first day of the war, when first sniper and mortar fires were fired on Sarajevo, and when first civilians were killed in an anti-war protest, I think that became clear, at least to us.

At least that's what it was like in Sarajevo. In other parts of the country, I wouldn't really know that good. But in Sarajevo, the defenders were mostly new recruits, JNA desserters and cops, who were only defending the city. The "international community" is working hard to make the Serbs the ultimate bad guys, while Croats and Bosniaks are being portrayed like two skinny kids being bullied, with no way to resist. They have to do it to justify the NATO bombings on civilians in Serbia, Kosovo and Bosnia. It's funny now you think about it (not that funny, more like sad). UNPROFOR troops were involved in the war the whole time. They were in Sarajevo since almost day one. Yet, they didn't do ANYTHING, just paraded around in their shitty white cars. I met a former UNPROFOR soldier who was in Sarajevo during the war, and he told me something like "Trust me, we wanted to protect the civilians and kick the Serbs out from the hills around Sarajevo, but we weren't allowed to." What the fuck were you doing there then, if you can't protect the civilians?

JAM

27th May 2012, 15:58

Like I said, they made a few agreements but only to arrange partition of Bosnia. However, that does not make them allies. In fact, Croats and Serbs were on opposite sides even before Bosnia declared indepenence and the Bosnian War started.

"From the summer of 1992, Serbia and Croatia began to pursue congruent strategies in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At that time the HVO, nominally allied with the Bosnian Army, began to purge its ranks of Muslim soldiers..."

"By October 1992, the Croat-Muslim military alliance, which continued to function in Sarajevo and in the Posavina region in north-eastern Bosnia, collapsed"

"By the end of 1992, Croats and Serbs had in fact become military allies in the fight against the Muslim Slavs."

Europe from the Balkans to the Urals: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union by Reneo Lukic and Allen Lynch

Yugo45

27th May 2012, 16:54

JAM

27th May 2012, 17:49

The source is a dodgy one. Sorry, but I can say that Croats and Serbs were on the opposite sides the whole war with 100% certainty. Yes, they did have a common enemy (Bosnia), but, contrary to what that book states, that does not make them allies.

"Bosnian Serbs and Croats extended their new alliance to the battlefield..."

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1290&dat=19930701&id=bcc0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=7o0DAAAAIBAJ&pg=6557,486320

"AS BOSNIAN Serb and Croat forces yesterday strengthened their military co-operation against the Muslims..."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/serbs-and-croats-extend-alliance-british-forces-come-under-attack-in-central-bosnia-1494508.html

"A few months after the Muslim-Serb conflict erupted, fighting also broke out between Muslims and Croats. During their conflict with the Muslims, Croats formed a temporary anti-Muslim alliance with Bosnian Serbs."

http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/country,,MARP,,BIH,,469f3a5c1e,0.html

"This is Bosnia's endgame. Last week, in the Croat-held town of Kiseljak about T18 miles northwest of Sarajevo, three Serbian tanks pulled up to a checkpoint manned by Croatian Defense Council soldiers. No shots were fired. Instead, the tanks proceeded south to a front line where the Croat and Muslim-led government forces have been pounding each other for weeks. The Serbs returned the favor, allowing 20 busloads of Croat troops to pass unmolested through a Serbian checkpoint near the Bosnian capital. Then the Croats headed north toward the town of Maglaj to join Serbs who were squaring off against Muslims. "We are all together now," a Serbian soldier told Tony Land, head of the Sarajevo office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. "We're even selling our tanks to the Croats." "

http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/1993/07/11/bosnia-an-unholy-alliance.html

As you can see I am backing my statement with sources. I would appreciate that you start to do the same instead of simply depreciating my sources. That is a pretty weak argument for me.

ВАЛТЕР

27th May 2012, 18:16

The entire conflict was a "for profit" affair. Too many people died for nothing. During the war, in Mostar the Muslims and Croats would "order" artillery strikes on one another from the Serbian positions. So the Croat or Muslim commander would get on the radio and contact the Serbian artillery positions, ask for artillery. Which he of course paid for in Stolen cars, Household equipment, and/or Deutschmarks.

I heard a story from a Croat man who was fighting somewhere against Serb forces that told me when they would run out of ammunition, they would contact the Serbs and trade trucks full of gasoline for ammunition. So they could continue fighting. Profiteers, every last one of them.

The war was NOTHING but business for capitalists. So many people died and were misplaced for nothing in the end. Absolutely nothing. Now we all have our separate little banana republics and curse each other while the ruling class of all sides go to beach resorts and drive Mercedes together. All while "patriots" on all sides write books and spout nonsense in newspapers and on TV about how "the others" are out to get us.

Milorad Dodik, the criminal piece of shit "president" in Republika Srpska gets on TV and tells people that they cannot ever go into Sarajevo or they will be attacked for being Serbs. What is worse is that people believe this shit. I wanted to take some of my friends here from Novi Sad to Sarajevo and the idiots were genuinely afraid. Propaganda does wonders and it upsets me that I have to deal with shit like this every day.

Another thing, Bosnian-Serbs get treated like shit here in Serbia. We are looked at as outsiders and I can't tell you how many times I get looked down upon because of the way I talk. Yet when the war was being waged the "patriotic" dipshits here in Serbia were shouting "go and fight! go and fight for Serbia!" Now the very same Bosnian-Serb that went and fought for "Serbia" is treated like shit. It makes no sense even on a nationalist level.

Everyone hates Bosnians, and Bosnians hate each other. The stupidity of the Balkans is immeasurable and sometimes I wish we would all just sink into the sea since we are a bunch of savages. :crying:

Omsk

27th May 2012, 21:42

since we are a bunch of savages
This is the wrong approach - capitalism is savage. Nationalists are savage.

Yugo45

27th May 2012, 22:06

...

As you can see I am backing my statement with sources. I would appreciate that you start to do the same instead of simply depreciating my sources. That is a pretty weak argument for me.

I thought I won't need to give sources to something that's (at least to me) common knowledge. Serbs and Croats were on the opposite sides in the (whole) war. Like I said 10 times before, if they had an agreement or two and an operation or two together against a common enemy, that does not make them allies.

You try to portray it as if the Croats and Serbs allied together in the beginning of the war to fight Bosniaks. Which is not even close to what happened.

Read the whole article you posted (from google news). It clearly states that some of Bosnian Croats and some of Bosnian Serbs had a few operations together to get rid of the common enemy, Bosnia. That's far from what you're suggesting. That all of Croats were allied with all of Serbs and fought against Bosniaks. It even says that the Bosniaks and Croats were allied at the beginning of the war, while you claim that Serbs and Croats were allied solely to beat Bosniaks.

Here's a shortened timeline of the Yugoslav Civil War:
- Slovenia declares independence
- JNA attacks Slovenia
- Croatia declares independence
- JNA attacks Croatia
- JNA leaves Slovenia
- Serbs in Croatia declare independence from Croatia
- Croats fight Croatian Serbs and now a mostly-Serbian JNA
- What's left of JNA in Croatia is now part of Croatian Serb army (Republika Srpska Krajina)
- JNA officialy leaves Croatia
- Macedonia declares independence
- Bosniaks and Croats vote for independent Bosnia, Bosnian Serbs vote against
- JNA attacks Bosnia
- Bosnian Serbs declare independence (Republika Srpska) from Bosnia
- Croats and Bosniaks fight together against VRS and JNA
- What's left of JNA in Bosnia is now part of Bosnian Serb army (VRS)
- JNA officialy leaves Bosnia
- Bosnian Croats declare independence from Bosnia (HZHB)
- Mate Boban (Bosnian Croat leader) and Radovan Karadžić (Bosnian Serb leader) meet and agree on partition of Bosnia. They declare a short cease fire to try and beat the common enemy, which fails because many Croats did not want to stop fighting the Serbs. It's important to say that Mate Boban was the only non-Serb to recognize RS. Also, while all of this happened, the fighting between all Serbs and Croats in Croatia and most Serbs and Croats in Bosnia did not stop.
- Bosniaks and Croats fued with eachother
- By the end of the war, Bosniaks and Croats ally again and beat what's left of Serbs.

You want sources? Just read the articles you posted. It's all based on misinformation and rumours. "Some Muslim officials say the two sides are maybe cooperating", "The Yugoslav News agency Tanjug carried a statement from the Bosnian Serb army on Wednesday denying that it was coordinating attacks with the Croat forces. BUT there has been increase evidence of such collussion by local commanders."

Far, very far, from what you stated at the beginning.

JAM

27th May 2012, 22:38

I thought I won't need to give sources to something that's (at least to me) common knowledge. Serbs and Croats were on the opposite sides in the (whole) war. Like I said 10 times before, if they had an agreement or two and an operation or two together against a common enemy, that does not make them allies.

You try to portray it as if the Croats and Serbs allied together in the beginning of the war to fight Bosniaks. Which is not even close to what happened.

Read the whole article you posted (from google news). It clearly states that some of Bosnian Croats and some of Bosnian Serbs had a few operations together to get rid of the common enemy, Bosnia. That's far from what you're suggesting. That all of Croats were allied with all of Serbs and fought against Bosniaks. It even says that the Bosniaks and Croats were allied at the beginning of the war, while you claim that Serbs and Croats were allied solely to beat Bosniaks.

Here's a shortened timeline of the Yugoslav Civil War:
- Slovenia declares independence
- JNA attacks Slovenia
- Croatia declares independence
- JNA attacks Croatia
- JNA leaves Slovenia
- Serbs in Croatia declare independence from Croatia
- Croats fight Croatian Serbs and now a mostly-Serbian JNA
- What's left of JNA in Croatia is now part of Croatian Serb army (Republika Srpska Krajina)
- JNA officialy leaves Croatia
- Macedonia declares independence
- Bosniaks and Croats vote for independent Bosnia, Bosnian Serbs vote against
- JNA attacks Bosnia
- Bosnian Serbs declare independence (Republika Srpska) from Bosnia
- Croats and Bosniaks fight together against VRS and JNA
- What's left of JNA in Bosnia is now part of Bosnian Serb army (VRS)
- JNA officialy leaves Bosnia
- Bosnian Croats declare independence from Bosnia (HZHB)
- Mate Boban (Bosnian Croat leader) and Radovan Karadžić (Bosnian Serb leader) meet and agree on partition of Bosnia. They declare a short cease fire to try and beat the common enemy, which fails because many Croats did not want to stop fighting the Serbs. It's important to say that Mate Boban was the only non-Serb to recognize RS. Also, while all of this happened, the fighting between all Serbs and Croats in Croatia and most Serbs and Croats in Bosnia did not stop.
- Bosniaks and Croats fued with eachother
- By the end of the war, Bosniaks and Croats ally again and beat what's left of Serbs.

You want sources? Just read the articles you posted. It's all based on misinformation and rumours. "Some Muslim officials say the two sides are maybe cooperating", "The Yugoslav News agency Tanjug carried a statement from the Bosnian Serb army on Wednesday denying that it was coordinating attacks with the Croat forces. BUT there has been increase evidence of such collussion by local commanders."

Far, very far, from what you stated at the beginning.

Your only argument is the timeline of Yugoslavia civil war? LOL.

Regarding the article from google news, the only some that I read is this: Some officials of the Muslim-led Government say the two sides (Croats and Serbs) are cooperating on the Battlefield to pressure Muslims into accepting the Serb-Croat plan..."

So, now after the failed attempt of devalue my sources you now try to distort them. Considering that you are from Bosnia I find this very concerning for you.

Which is even more concerned is that you even start to contradict yourself in the same phrase. If both sides were enemies during the whole war how they could have agreements and operations together? It appears to me that you just admitted that they allied temporarily.

There was in fact an alliance between Serbs and Croats at the beginning of the war as my sources proved.

I'm still waiting for sources. Yugoslavia Civil War Timeline is not a source, I guess you know that, don't you?

ВАЛТЕР

27th May 2012, 22:55

There was nothing formal about this war. Alliances were made and broken every single day between units of different armed groups. You don't seem to understand just how informal the whole thing was. Alliances changed based on the needs of the individual units in the field. There were times when opposing troops simply would let each other pass, while other times where they would fight to the death over a neighborhood. Alliances were made and broken every single day between Muslims, Serbs, and Croats. The order could come down from command to go and fight each other and the troops wouldn't do it simply because they didn't feel like it.

JAM

27th May 2012, 23:00

ВАЛТЕР

27th May 2012, 23:10

But there was an alliance between Serbs and Croats at some point in the beginning of the war, right?

If anything in the beginning of the conflict the Croats were viewed as enemy number one. Some units in the field may have cooperated with one another for profit. However, for the most part the Croats and Serbs were looking at each other through their rifle sights. There was some talk between Tudjman and Milosevic over the division of Bosnia between Serbs and Croats, but that resulted in nothing. Cooperation between the warring factions was common for some short term goals. However they were never really allied.

JAM

27th May 2012, 23:25

If anything in the beginning of the conflict the Croats were viewed as enemy number one. Some units in the field may have cooperated with one another for profit. However, for the most part the Croats and Serbs were looking at each other through their rifle sights. There was some talk between Tudjman and Milosevic over the division of Bosnia between Serbs and Croats, but that resulted in nothing. Cooperation between the warring factions was common for some short term goals. However they were never really allied.

How do you explain my sources then? Are all that different sources lying? I am much more inclined to believe in those reliable sources than in you.

Nox

27th May 2012, 23:36

Don't troll my threads please. Either actually contribute because I'm trying to learn stuff or gtfo.

Sorry if it came across as trolling. I was just showing that his post should not be taken seriously and is Serbian Nationalist propaganda.

ВАЛТЕР

27th May 2012, 23:47

JAM

28th May 2012, 00:02

There was cooperation at times, there was also outright slaughters at times. To think there was some large scale organization is ridiculous. The Serbs in parts of Bosnia where they were only fighting against Croats wouldn't side with the Croats if you had given them ten million dollars each. There is no way that a large scale alliance could have been practically formed, because there were parts in Bosnia where the Serbs never saw fighting against the Muslims, but rather just against Croats. They would never agree to an alliance because all they saw day in and day out were Croat bombs and bullets falling on their heads, and not Muslim.

Any sources on the war have to be taken with a metric ton of salt. Simply because of the complexity of the war. There were no official large scale alliances. There may have been cooperation at times between the two sides, but this wasn't going to last more than it would take to overtake a certain town, or divide a small area. Large scale formal alliances weren't happening. Alliances between military groups in the field were common practice though.

I am the only one backing my argument with sources while you two limit each other to empty and meaningless phrases. That is a pretty shitty argument to say the least.

Let's see: the Croats and Serbs made two agreements concerning a future partition of Bosnia between them and cooperated military in the Battlefield against the Muslims. There was even exchange of military material. How the hell this isn't an alliance?

Perhaps you're too naive to understand that an alliance doesn't imply necessarily a huge public ceremony to sign an official treaty between two allies...

The Young Pioneer

28th May 2012, 00:06

I have an honest question, I hope I word it right so no one takes offense. None is intended.

I was suggested by some revleft members to see Weight of Chains, and I did.

The documentary suggests that President Izetbegović knew what was going to happen in Srebrenica, but wanted it to happen for political support, and because of this overlooked the rising action up to it and did not try to prevent it. Is this true? :confused: I have even seen it suggested that Bill Clinton knew as well?

Any insight to this would be great!

Yugo45

28th May 2012, 07:57

Your only argument is the timeline of Yugoslavia civil war? LOL.

Are you saying that the time line is wrong, while the following is correct:

- Croatia declares independence
- JNA sends a greeting card to Croatian goverment
- Croats and Serbs in Croatia become BFF
- Croats and Serbs in Bosnia become BFF
- Bosnia declares independence
- Croats vote for indepenent Bosnia
- Croats and Serbs attack Bosnia together, because, you know, they are BFF

I mean, really..

Regarding the article from google news, the only some that I read is this: Some officials of the Muslim-led Government say the two sides (Croats and Serbs) are cooperating on the Battlefield to pressure Muslims into accepting the Serb-Croat plan..."

So, now after the failed attempt of devalue my sources you now try to distort them. Considering that you are from Bosnia I find this very concerning for you.

I didn't said it said literally the word "some". I was retelling you what the articles state. Even if Croats and Serbs were BFF why did Karadžić deny that they were cooperating? Why did Tuđmans forces fight Serbs at the time of that agreement? It's just doesn't make any sense. It's not possible, and my timeline doesn't allow it to happen. The war in Croatia began a year before the war in Bosnia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_War_of_Independence

And by the time fighting in Bosnia happened, Croats and Serbs have already been fighting big time.

Which is even more concerned is that you even start to contradict yourself in the same phrase. If both sides were enemies during the whole war how they could have agreements and operations together? It appears to me that you just admitted that they allied temporarily.

What does that proove? They had failed agreements to partition Bosnia amongst themselves. How does that make them allies? It's not "Enemy of my enemy is my friend." Doesn't work that way, especially in a complicated conflict such as this one was. Even if a few Croats were helping Serbs that doesn't mean that Croatia was formally allied with Serbia. About operations, yes, some Boban's forces aided Karadžić's forces against Bosniaks in a battle or two. That's very far from all Croats and Serbs being allied against Bosnia. Even only in Bosnia, if you ignore Tuđman, most Croats did not want to stop fighting Serbian forces.

For example, this guy and his forces did not want to aid Boban:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bla%C5%BE_Kraljevi%C4%87

In the end, what Valter says is correct. And you want sources, but what kind of sources? It's just not possible that Croats and Serbs fight at the same time when they're officially allies.

I have an honest question, I hope I word it right so no one takes offense. None is intended.

I was suggested by some revleft members to see Weight of Chains, and I did.

The documentary suggests that President Izetbegović knew what was going to happen in Srebrenica, but wanted it to happen for political support, and because of this overlooked the rising action up to it and did not try to prevent it. Is this true? :confused: I have even seen it suggested that Bill Clinton knew as well?

Any insight to this would be great!

It's just a theory, but a very likely one. He sacrificed it so that NATO would intervene. Some even say that he sold it, but that's a bit far fetched.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUuhSGnLvv8

Here's a Norwegian movie about the whole thing.

Yugo45

28th May 2012, 08:06

sorry, double post

JAM

28th May 2012, 16:36

Are you saying that the time line is wrong, while the following is correct:

- Croatia declares independence
- JNA sends a greeting card to Croatian goverment
- Croats and Serbs in Croatia become BFF
- Croats and Serbs in Bosnia become BFF
- Bosnia declares independence
- Croats vote for indepenent Bosnia
- Croats and Serbs attack Bosnia together, because, you know, they are BFF

I mean, really..

I'm not saying that your timeline is wrong. I'm saying that a timeline is not an argument and much less a source to back your argument.

I didn't said it said literally the word "some". I was retelling you what the articles state. Even if Croats and Serbs were BFF why did Karadžić deny that they were cooperating?

The same way why Stalin denied his cooperation with Hitler.

Why did Tuđmans forces fight Serbs at the time of that agreement? It's just doesn't make any sense. It's not possible, and my timeline doesn't allow it to happen. The war in Croatia began a year before the war in Bosnia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_War_of_Independence

And by the time fighting in Bosnia happened, Croats and Serbs have already been fighting big time.

Did you see my sources? For a temporary period Croats and Serbs stopped to fight each other and cooperated in the battlefield. This was a shock to anyone due to the past relations between Croats and Serbs and specially the Croatia war. The Croats have broken their alliance with the Muslims due to a dispute in the Central Bosnia and allied with the Serbs for a temporary period in the beginning of the war.

What does that proove? They had failed agreements to partition Bosnia amongst themselves. How does that make them allies?

They didn't fail to agree the partition of Bosnia. The prove of this is that they even made two agreements regarding the matter. When they make a partition of the territory and cooperate military against a common enemy this makes them allies for sure. As I said, you don't need an official ceremony to make allies.

It's not "Enemy of my enemy is my friend." Doesn't work that way, especially in a complicated conflict such as this one was. Even if a few Croats were helping Serbs that doesn't mean that Croatia was formally allied with Serbia. About operations, yes, some Boban's forces aided Karadžić's forces against Bosniaks in a battle or two. That's very far from all Croats and Serbs being allied against Bosnia. Even only in Bosnia, if you ignore Tuđman, most Croats did not want to stop fighting Serbian forces.

For example, this guy and his forces did not want to aid Boban:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bla%C5%BE_Kraljevi%C4%87

You just gave me all the cards in this one.

"In August 1992, Zagreb arranged through the HVO for for the ambush and assassination of Blaz Kraljević commander of Hrvatske Odbrambene Snage (the 'Croatian Defence Forces) a fiercely anti-Serbian militia of Croats and Muslims..."

If you had any doubts about the Croat-Serbian alliance I think that doubts just ended.

In the end, what Valter says is correct. And you want sources, but what kind of sources? It's just not possible that Croats and Serbs fight at the same time when they're officially allies.

I don't think that they were fighting each other while they're allies. My sources don't show that.

Show me sources that deny the alliance and cooperation between Serbs and Croats at the beginning of the war against the Muslims.

Yugo45

28th May 2012, 18:00

I'm not saying that your timeline is wrong. I'm saying that a timeline is not an argument and much less a source to back your argument.

How is it not? The timeline prooves that Croatia was officially in a war with Serbs in both RS and RSK during the time of the supposed "alliance". You said that Serbs and Croats allied against Bosniaks/Muslims. That the war happened only because of that reason, which clearly isn't what happened, not even close. If some Croatian commanders cooperated with their enemy for personal profit, that still doesn't make Croatia and Serbia allies.

The same way why Stalin denied his cooperation with Hitler.

I'm not exactly sure what you're refering to?

Did you see my sources? For a temporary period Croats and Serbs stopped to fight each other and cooperated in the battlefield. This was a shock to anyone due to the past relations between Croats and Serbs and specially the Croatia war. The Croats have broken their alliance with the Muslims due to a dispute in the Central Bosnia and allied with the Serbs for a temporary period in the beginning of the war.

SOME Croats and SOME Serbs (minorities). That's the key word, SOME. Looking at the sources you gave, the time of this alliance would be around July 1st 1993. This is also the time when Croats and Serbs were deffineatly fighting.

4th May, RS attacks HVO near Tomislavgrad.

During June, Bosnian Croats attempted to free the sourranding hills of Travnik from RS, by fighting them, obviously.

July 7th 1993, RSK attacked Lika, in Croatia.

How were they allied and in war at the same time?

They didn't fail to agree the partition of Bosnia. The prove of this is that they even made two agreements regarding the matter. When they make a partition of the territory and cooperate military against a common enemy this makes them allies for sure. As I said, you don't need an official ceremony to make allies.

But you fail to understand one thing. It was just a few units which aided eachother by artillery in like one battle. Units of Mate Boban. Which is not even close to all of Croats and all of Serbs, even if you only take Bosnia and ignore Croatia and Serbia.

Let me remind you of your statement at the beginning:

The Muslims wanted the independence of Bosnia from Belgrade while the Orthodox Serbs wanted Bosnia to remain within the Yugoslavia Federation. The Catholic Croats initially allied itself with the Serbs but by 1994 they were already joining forces with the Muslims. Bosnia- Herzegovina was (and still is) composed by these three ethnic groups. Some atrocities committed in this war included genocide against Bosnian Muslims perpetrated by Serbian officers. One of this officers, Radovan Karadžić, is currently being trialed for genocide.

Here, you claim that Croats allied itself with Serbs, for almost the whole war, until when they in 1994 changed their allegiance to Muslims. But, as I said many times before, you can't be allied and in war with same guys at the same time. You see yourself the war was a clusterfuck. Everyone was fighting everyone while being aided by everyone. But saying Croatia was allied with Serbia against Bosnia is just absurd.

"In August 1992, Zagreb arranged through the HVO for for the ambush and assassination of Blaz Kraljević commander of Hrvatske Odbrambene Snage (the 'Croatian Defence Forces) a fiercely anti-Serbian militia of Croats and Muslims..."

Actually, no. They were assasinated by HVO (Croatian Defense Council), basically, Boban's henchmen, who was the only Croat that wanted to help RS (for his personal profit, obviously). Was never supported by official Croatian goverment in this issue. Still, Blaž's assasination has nothing to do with the this. He was assasinated because Kraljević and his guys, the HOS, wanted to create a multi-ethnic Bosnia with Muslims and Croats cooperating, while Boban wanted to make an ethnically clean Herzeg-Bosnia with Croats only. Can you see it now? The clusterfuck I mentioned before?

Show me sources that deny the alliance and cooperation between Serbs and Croats at the beginning of the war against the Muslims.

Well, okay. War in Bosnia started April 1992.

Siege of Dubrovnik ended only in May 1992:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Dubrovnik

During that time, as war in Bosnia started, JNA forces leaft most of Croatia and moved to Bosnia. However, Dubrovnik was an exception because there weren't enough Serb formations to keep fighting.

Operacija Jaguar happened in May 1992.

Operacija Lipanjske Zore happened in June 1992.
http://bs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operacija_Lipanjske_zore (no English article, sorry).

Here's a list of Croatian operations in the war:
http://bs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spisak_hrvatskih_operacija_u_Domovinskom_ratu (yet again, no English article but I think you can understand it).

As you said, the "alliance" lasted at least until 1994. However, as you can see, Croats and Serbs had many battles between (also before and after) April 1992 and 1994.

Another thing that's wrong with your theory is this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War#Independence_of_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina

Almost all Croats voted for independent Bosnia against Yugoslavia. Why would they vote for independence and then join the Serbian forces that fought against Bosnian independence?

ANOTHER thing is about Karadjordjevo and Graz agreements. Karađorđevo was just a failed treaty that happened a few das before Croatian war of independence. Graz was a treaty that wanted to only limit fighting between RS and HZHB forces in Bosnia so that they could deal with RBIH. Not an alliance. Everything else is just based on rumors.

That movie is horrible, it focuses on the idea that the conflict was 'made' by the West - it's complete un-Marxist and nationalist garbage.

Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that the conflict indeed was heavily supported by USA and IMF (which their official declassifed and some wikileaked documents confirm). And that most nationalist factions were funded by USA.

The Young Pioneer

28th May 2012, 19:04

That movie is horrible, it focuses on the idea that the conflict was 'made' by the West - it's complete un-Marxist and nationalist garbage.

Eesh, sorry, I was only taking the advice of people here when I saw it. Is there something better on the topic you'd suggest, film or book or otherwise? Thanks in advance.

Yugo45- Thanks for your response. :)

JAM

28th May 2012, 19:22

How is it not? The timeline prooves that Croatia was officially in a war with Serbs in both RS and RSK during the time of the supposed "alliance". You said that Serbs and Croats allied against Bosniaks/Muslims. That the war happened only because of that reason, which clearly isn't what happened, not even close. If some Croatian commanders cooperated with their enemy for personal profit, that still doesn't make Croatia and Serbia allies.

You're making up things now. When I ever said that the war happened only because the serbs and croats allied themselves? You not only can't present valid arguments with sources backing up but now you also invent things that I never said.

Nevertheless, your timeline is not a source as I've said. I don't know if you're serious with this Timeline issue or just trolling. Do you really need me to explain to you why a "Timeline" isn't an argument? Be more serious than that.

I'm not exactly sure what you're refering to?

Don't you know the history of the Second World War? Hitler and Stalin signed a Non-Aggression Pact which contained secret clauses including the partition of Poland and other kind of cooperation between the two. Stalin always denied that he cooperated with Hitler but the proves show the contrary.

SOME Croats and SOME Serbs (minorities). That's the key word, SOME. Looking at the sources you gave, the time of this alliance would be around July 1st 1993. This is also the time when Croats and Serbs were deffineatly fighting.

4th May, RS attacks HVO near Tomislavgrad.

During June, Bosnian Croats attempted to free the sourranding hills of Travnik from RS, by fighting them, obviously.

July 7th 1993, RSK attacked Lika, in Croatia.

How were they allied and in war at the same time?

No, the alliance was formed at the beginning of the war. This means late 1992 and extended until mid-1993. "By the end of 1992, Croats and Serbs had in fact become military allies in the fight against the Muslim Slavs." During this year you had a ceasefire in the Croatia War.

The only some that I've found were some Muslim officials claiming that Serbs and Croats were cooperating together, not that some croats and serbs were cooperating.

But you fail to understand one thing. It was just a few units which aided eachother by artillery in like one battle. Units of Mate Boban. Which is not even close to all of Croats and all of Serbs, even if you only take Bosnia and ignore Croatia and Serbia.

Let me remind you of your statement at the beginning:

Here, you claim that Croats allied itself with Serbs, for almost the whole war, until when they in 1994 changed their allegiance to Muslims. But, as I said many times before, you can't be allied and in war with same guys at the same time. You see yourself the war was a clusterfuck. Everyone was fighting everyone while being aided by everyone. But saying Croatia was allied with Serbia against Bosnia is just absurd.

Absurd and damn ridiculous is your interpretation of my words. I don't know what is your English level but your interpretation level seems to be very low. I never said that Croats and Serbs allied for almost the whole war. I said that they initially allied themselves but I never specified the period. Unless you're trolling you need to improve your english interpretation skills.

Actually, no. They were assasinated by HVO (Croatian Defense Council), basically, Boban's henchmen, who was the only Croat that wanted to help RS (for his personal profit, obviously). Was never supported by official Croatian goverment in this issue. Still, Blaž's assasination has nothing to do with the this. He was assasinated because Kraljević and his guys, the HOS, wanted to create a multi-ethnic Bosnia with Muslims and Croats cooperating, while Boban wanted to make an ethnically clean Herzeg-Bosnia with Croats only. Can you see it now? The clusterfuck I mentioned before?

LOL. The HVO (Croatian Defense Council) and Boban were independent from Zagreb? You're kidding again, right? This is so absurd that I advise you to review what you're saying.

"In the Tihomir Blaškić (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tihomir_Bla%C5%A1ki%C4%87) verdict, the Trial Chamber found that "Croatia, and more specifically former President Tuđman, was hoping to partition Bosnia and exercised such a degree of control over the Bosnian Croats and especially the HVO that it is justified to speak of overall control."

Well, okay. War in Bosnia started April 1992.

Siege of Dubrovnik ended only in May 1992:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Dubrovnik

During that time, as war in Bosnia started, JNA forces leaft most of Croatia and moved to Bosnia. However, Dubrovnik was an exception because there weren't enough Serb formations to keep fighting.

Operacija Jaguar happened in May 1992.

Operacija Lipanjske Zore happened in June 1992.
http://bs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operacija_Lipanjske_zore (no English article, sorry).

Here's a list of Croatian operations in the war:
http://bs.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spisak_hrvatskih_operacija_u_Domovinskom_ratu (yet again, no English article but I think you can understand it).

First of all, is pretty stupid to post sources without English translation.

Second, the timeline of this operation don't coincide with the time-line of the alliance which I presented you above.

As you said, the "alliance" lasted at least until 1994. However, as you can see, Croats and Serbs had many battles between (also before and after) April 1992 and 1994.

No I didn't. Your poor english skills assumed so.

Another thing that's wrong with your theory is this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bosnian_War#Independence_of_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina

Almost all Croats voted for independent Bosnia against Yugoslavia. Why would they vote for independence and then join the Serbian forces that fought against Bosnian independence?

ANOTHER thing is about Karadjordjevo and Graz agreements. Karađorđevo was just a failed treaty that happened a few das before Croatian war of independence. Graz was a treaty that wanted to only limit fighting between RS and HZHB forces in Bosnia so that they could deal with RBIH. Not an alliance. Everything else is just based on rumors.

LOL. You sign a treaty to limit your fighting with each other??? LOL. They signed the treaty to stop all military actions against each other and not just some of it.

seventeethdecember2016

28th May 2012, 19:45

Don't you know the history of the Second World War? Hitler and Stalin signed a Non-Aggression Pact which contained secret clauses including the partition of Poland and other kind of cooperation between the two. Stalin always denied that he cooperated with Hitler but the proves show the contrary.

You mean a little agreement which gave the Soviet Union the right to take back land that it had to cede to Germany during the Brest-Litovsk agreement?
Along with some insignificant economic treaties which comes along with almost every agreement in our modern times?

The fall of Revolutionary Catalonia, which was a key Soviet ally, was just a few months prior, so it is not strange that the Soviet Union would want a peaceful accord with a country they just had a Proxy war with.

JAM

28th May 2012, 19:55

You mean a little agreement which gave the Soviet Union the right to take back land that it had to cede to Germany during the Brest-Litovsk agreement?
Along with some insignificant economic treaties which comes along with almost every agreement in our modern times?

They didn't ceded to Germany. Poland and the Baltics became independent and the USSR recognized their independence shortly afterwards.

seventeethdecember2016

28th May 2012, 20:13

They didn't ceded to Germany. Poland and the Baltics became independent and the USSR recognized their independence shortly afterwards.
There is such a thing as Puppet states, and all of those countries were occupied by the German military, at least for the duration of WW1. After WW1, they allowed those countries to become independent as a condition to the Treaty of Versailles. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union obviously didn't recognize the Treaty of Versailles, so they reverted back to their Brest-Litovsk treaty.

Remember that in 1921, the Soviet Union lost the Soviet-Polish war and had to give up a lot of land. The land gained thanks to the invasion of Poland was the exact same land taken by the Polish in 1921(with some unaccountable differences.) Other land that the Soviet Union took or tried to take back(Moldova, Baltics, Finland) were all subjects to the Russian Empire.

Yugo45

28th May 2012, 20:27

You're making up things now. When I ever said that the war happened only because the serbs and croats allied themselves? You not only can't present valid arguments with sources backing up but now you also invent things that I never said.

Nevertheless, your timeline is not a source as I've said. I don't know if you're serious with this Timeline issue or just trolling. Do you really need me to explain to you why a "Timeline" isn't an argument? Be more serious than that.

You certainly made it sound like that in your first post:

The Muslims wanted the independence of Bosnia from Belgrade while the Orthodox Serbs wanted Bosnia to remain within the Yugoslavia Federation. The Catholic Croats initially allied itself with the Serbs but by 1994 they were already joining forces with the Muslims.

And still, you missed the point of my comment. I'll ask it directly this time. How come Serbian factions were still in war with Croatian factions between 1992-1994, when you set your alliance?

Don't you know the history of the Second World War? Hitler and Stalin signed a Non-Aggression Pact which contained secret clauses including the partition of Poland and other kind of cooperation between the two. Stalin always denied that he cooperated with Hitler but the proves show the contrary.

I still don't see the analogy behind it. Stalin denied that he wanted to partition Poland with Hitler, and reasons there are obvious (though the non-agression pact was never denied). After the war, Germans were the bad guys etc. If he admitted having agreements with them it would give USSR bad press. That doesn't answer my question, why did Serbs deny being allied with Croats? What could they loose if non-Croats knew about the alliance?

No, the alliance was formed at the beginning of the war. This means late 1992 and extended until mid-1993. "By the end of 1992, Croats and Serbs had in fact become military allies in the fight against the Muslim Slavs." During this year you had a ceasefire in the Croatia War.

The only some that I've found were some Muslim officials claiming that Serbs and Croats were cooperating together, not that some croats and serbs were cooperating.

Then why did you ignore the battles between Serbian and Croatian forces? Why didn't those guys get the memo about the ceasefire?

Absurd and damn ridiculous is your interpretation of my words. I don't know what is your English level but your interpretation level seems to be very low. I never said that Croats and Serbs allied for almost the whole war. I said that they initially allied themselves but I never specified the period. Unless you're trolling you need to improve your english interpretation skills.

I call back to your first post again:

The Muslims wanted the independence of Bosnia from Belgrade while the Orthodox Serbs wanted Bosnia to remain within the Yugoslavia Federation. The Catholic Croats initially allied itself with the Serbs but by 1994 they were already joining forces with the Muslims. Bosnia- Herzegovina was (and still is) composed by these three ethnic groups. Some atrocities committed in this war included genocide against Bosnian Muslims perpetrated by Serbian officers. One of this officers, Radovan Karadžić, is currently being trialed for genocide.

You indeed have specified the period. Until 1994. Since the war was from 91-95, "by 1994" is in fact most of the war. You say "initially" allied themselves. Which means "in the beginning", right? But how, WHY would they do that. They voted for independent Bosnia and against the Serbs. Why would they join the Serbian side and fight against Bosnia?

LOL. The HVO (Croatian Defense Council) and Boban were independent from Zagreb? You're kidding again, right? This is so absurd that I advise you to review what you're saying.

"In the Tihomir Blaškić verdict, the Trial Chamber found that "Croatia, and more specifically former President Tuđman, was hoping to partition Bosnia and exercised such a degree of control over the Bosnian Croats and especially the HVO that it is justified to speak of overall control."

To quote Valter, "To think there was some large scale organization is ridiculous." The assasination of Blaž was an inner strife amongst Bosnian Croats. No known connections to the official goverment of Croatia and the assasination are known, as far as I know. Herzeg-Bosnia was supported and given "instructions" to by Tuđman, but it was not under official control by the Croatian goverment. But let's look deeper into this "inner strife". Doesn't it proove that everyone, even inside these nationalist sides, were divided? There was no solid structure, everyone was fighting everyone.

First of all, is pretty stupid to post sources without English translation.

Second, the timeline of this operation don't coincide with the time-line of the alliance which I presented you above.

You keep shifting your "timelines". First it was since the beginning of the conflict to 1994. Now it's from late 1992 to mid 1993, basically, six month. Still:

Operacija Vlaštica: 22nd - 27th October 1992.
Croatia vs. Republika Srpska
This operation is considered as one of the most important operations in the war by the Croatian side against the RS.

Operacija Maslenica: Januar 1993
Croatia vs. Republika Srpska Krajina
Here, an English article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Maslenica

Operacija Peruča: 28th Januar 1993
RSK attacks a dam in Croatia.

Operacija Gusar: 22nd to 27th Januar 1993

No I didn't. Your poor english skills assumed so.

Really? One more time, I will quote your initial post:

The Muslims wanted the independence of Bosnia from Belgrade while the Orthodox Serbs wanted Bosnia to remain within the Yugoslavia Federation. The Catholic Croats initially allied itself with the Serbs but by 1994 they were already joining forces with the Muslims. Bosnia- Herzegovina was (and still is) composed by these three ethnic groups. Some atrocities committed in this war included genocide against Bosnian Muslims perpetrated by Serbian officers. One of this officers, Radovan Karadžić, is currently being trialed for genocide.

LOL. You sign a treaty to limit your fighting with each other??? LOL. They signed the treaty to stop all military actions against each other and not just some of it.

According to Vreme’s military analyst Miloš Vasić the Graz agreement was "the single most important document of the war" and was meant to limit conflict between Serb and Croat forces by allowing both parties to concentrate on taking Bosniak territory from the Bosnian forces.[3][4] The agreement was seen as Bosnian Croats betraying their Bosniak allies.[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graz_agreement#Reception

The agreement itself states nothing about a ceasefire, only about the partition.

Omsk

28th May 2012, 20:33

Maybe, but that doesn't change the fact that the conflict indeed was heavily supported by USA and IMF (which their official declassifed and some wikileaked documents confirm). And that most nationalist factions were funded by USA.

Good Marxism. The core of the conflict was Yugoslavia, not a secret service.

JAM

28th May 2012, 20:33

There is such a thing as Puppet states, and all of those countries were occupied by the German military, at least for the duration of WW1. After WW1, they allowed those countries to become independent as a condition to the Treaty of Versailles. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union obviously didn't recognize the Treaty of Versailles, so they reverted back to their Brest-Litovsk treaty.

They didn't recognized the Treaty of Versailles but they recognized the independence of those countries. I think this is enough to remove any legitimacy to any soviet aggression and occupation after the Pact with Hitler.

Yugo45

28th May 2012, 20:38

Good Marxism. The core of the conflict was Yugoslavia, not a secret service.

Like I said, Yugoslavia was in deep shit, but the conflict was heavily supported and encouraged by the west, for their own gain. The start of the "deep shit" was when Yugoslavia went into debt. And that happened when the west got rid of the need for a buffer zone between them and east.

Omsk

28th May 2012, 20:49

JAM

28th May 2012, 21:11

And still, you missed the point of my comment. I'll ask it directly this time. How come Serbian factions were still in war with Croatian factions between 1992-1994, when you set your alliance?

I've already told you that I didn't set any time for the alliance in my first period. You interpreted wrongly.

I still don't see the analogy behind it. Stalin denied that he wanted to partition Poland with Hitler, and reasons there are obvious (though the non-agression pact was never denied). After the war, Germans were the bad guys etc. If he admitted having agreements with them it would give USSR bad press. That doesn't answer my question, why did Serbs deny being allied with Croats? What could they loose if non-Croats knew about the alliance?Are you still asking? Isn't obvious? Admitting that they were allied with the Croats when the Croats had just seceded from Yugoslavia and fought an war with them? You can't see why they would not publicly admit?

Then why did you ignore the battles between Serbian and Croatian forces? Why didn't those guys get the memo about the ceasefire?I didn't ignore nothing. During the timeline that I provided to you there was no fights between Serbs and Croats in Bosnia.

I call back to your first post again:

You indeed have specified the period. Until 1994. Since the war was from 91-95, "by 1994" is in fact most of the war. You say "initially" allied themselves. Which means "in the beginning", right? But how, WHY would they do that. They voted for independent Bosnia and against the Serbs. Why would they join the Serbian side and fight against Bosnia?You completely misinterpreted my post. 1992 is clearly inside the beginning of a war which began in 1992. I didn't specify any period for the period of the alliance between Serbs and Croats. I'll help you to understand what I've said. I said "by 1994 they were already joining forces" This means that in 1994 they were already together but I didn't say that they only joined forces in 1994. Understood?

To quote Valter, "To think there was some large scale organization is ridiculous." The assasination of Blaž was an inner strife amongst Bosnian Croats. No known connections to the official goverment of Croatia and the assasination are known, as far as I know. Herzeg-Bosnia was supported and given "instructions" to by Tuđman, but it was not under official control by the Croatian goverment. But let's look deeper into this "inner strife". Doesn't it proove that everyone, even inside these nationalist sides, were divided? There was no solid structure, everyone was fighting everyone.Look at what you just said: "Herzeg-Bosnia was supported and given "instructions" to by Tuđman, but it was not under official control by the Croatian goverment"

Tuđman was the president of Croatia.

You keep shifting your "timelines". First it was since the beginning of the conflict to 1994. Now it's from late 1992 to mid 1993, basically, six month. Still:

Operacija Vlaštica: 22nd - 27th October 1992.
Croatia vs. Republika Srpska
This operation is considered as one of the most important operations in the war by the Croatian side against the RS.

Operacija Maslenica: Januar 1993
Croatia vs. Republika Srpska Krajina
Here, an English article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Maslenica

Operacija Peruča: 28th Januar 1993
RSK attacks a dam in Croatia.

Operacija Gusar: 22nd to 27th Januar 1993I'm not the one to be blame for your poor English comprehension skills. Maybe your teachers.

Dude, when I said that Serbs and Croats allied themselves I was not referring to the Croatia Independence War, but the Bosnia one. Inside the timeline that I provided you just gave me military operations in Croatia.

Really? One more time, I will quote your initial post:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graz_agreement#Reception

The agreement itself states nothing about a ceasefire, only about the partition.Since you keep posting from Wikipedia I'll start to do it as well:

"On May 6, 1992, the Graz agreement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graz_agreement) between Mate Boban and Radovan Karadžić (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radovan_Karad%C5%BEi%C4%87) was signed, establishing a cease fire between Croat and Serb forces and the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina into Croatian and Serbian units"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croat-Bosniak_war

This statement has a source, though.

Yugo45

28th May 2012, 22:36

If we pretend to be Marxists,yes.

If we take a Marxist look on things, the decay of Yugoslavia began when it was created. Nationalism was not combated, religion was left alone, people were taught to sing songs about 'their old heroes' the myth's about Kosovo, the Islamic faith was never delt with, nor the Ortodox faith, not the Catholic. Nothing was done in order, in the right way, no dictatorship of the proletariat, no Leninism, no nothing. It was a grave from the start, since Tito the butcher of communists took power. That, and the un-socialist market economy, the un-socialist state was the root. Not some foreign debt.

Okay, now can you explain to me how does that change the fact that the west heavily supported the nationalist factions and the break up and if there wasn't for them, the factions would barely achieve anything?

I didn't ignore nothing. During the timeline that I provided to you there was no fights between Serbs and Croats in Bosnia.

Ah, now you go from "All Serbs and all Croats had a ceasefire from the beginning of the war to 1994" to "Croats and Serbs didn't fight in Bosnia from end of 1992 to 1993." Great.

Look at what you just said: "Herzeg-Bosnia was supported and given "instructions" to by Tuđman, but it was not under official control by the Croatian goverment"

Tuđman was the president of Croatia.

Herzeg-Bosnia was not in Croatia. It was it's own state, just like RS was seperated from Serbia.

Dude, when I said that Serbs and Croats allied themselves I was not referring to the Croatia Independence War, but the Bosnia one. Inside the timeline that I provided you just gave me military operations in Croatia

Right. I made references to Croatian War since the beginning of the discussion and you only deny that you ever meant the Croatian War just now? Even so, you just contradicted yourself from your last statement. If Herzeg-Bosnia was under Tuđman's command, why did Croatia keep fighting Croatian Serbs and Bosnian Serbs while Herzeg-Bosnia had an "alliance" with Bosnian Serbs? The same Bosnian Serbs Tuđman was fighting.

JAM

28th May 2012, 22:57

Ah, now you go from "All Serbs and all Croats had a ceasefire from the beginning of the war to 1994" to "Croats and Serbs didn't fight in Bosnia from end of 1992 to 1993." Great.

The fact that you continue to claim that I've said something that I never did after all I've said and explained to you just shows that you are more interested in trolling than in having a serious arguing.

Herzeg-Bosnia was not in Croatia. It was it's own state, just like RS was seperated from Serbia.

That is nobody more qualified to answer this than yourself: "Herzeg-Bosnia was supported and given "instructions" to by Tuđman"

Right. I made references to Croatian War since the beginning of the discussion and you only deny that you ever meant the Croatian War just now? Even so, you just contradicted yourself from your last statement. If Herzeg-Bosnia was under Tuđman's command, why did Croatia keep fighting Croatian Serbs and Bosnian Serbs while Herzeg-Bosnia had an "alliance" with Bosnian Serbs? The same Bosnian Serbs Tuđman was fighting.

You made references in the serbian language. The only languages that I understand are Portuguese, Spanish, French and English. I didn't grasp that you were referring to the Croatia War.

The fact that Serbs and Croats had a common strategy for Bosnia doesn't mean that they had necessarily to have a common strategy for all the other political issues. The alliance was pure strategical and had no ideological or any other meaning behind it beyond immediate practical reasons regarding Bosnia at the time. They also made agreements while they were at war with each other as you already admitted. According to your logic those agreements wouldn't be possible since they were at war with each other when the agreements were signed.

Omsk

28th May 2012, 23:23

Okay, now can you explain to me how does that change the fact that the west heavily supported the nationalist factions and the break up and if there wasn't for them, the factions would barely achieve anything?

...

You completely miss the point, or you are too dishonest to admit it.

Nationalism and nationalist circles are not something which can be 'funded' and thus created, it's something which comes from the material-conditions, and in this case, it came [nationalism] from the non-socialist set-up of Yugoslavia.

Yugo45

28th May 2012, 23:28

...

You completely miss the point, or you are too dishonest to admit it.

Nationalism and nationalist circles are not something which can be 'funded' and thus created, it's something which comes from the material-conditions, and in this case, it came [nationalism] from the non-socialist set-up of Yugoslavia.

But do you believe that the breakup would play out the same way if USA and IMF weren't funding the factions and the conflict? It wouldn't. It would either be a peaceful dismiss, like USSR's, or Yugoslavia would continue to exist even more weaker.

The fact that you continue to claim that I've said something that I never did after all I've said and explained to you just shows that you are more interested in trolling than in having a serious arguing.

Well, then I guess it's a misunderstanding, but you never seperated different Croatian factions (in this case Bosnian Croats and Croatian Croats) in your arguments. Not only that, but you often merged them together under the same command (Tuđman's). You only just now stated that you actually meant that Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats had a ceasefire, and even your sources claim explicitly that countries of Croatia and Serbia were allied (they even give a time frame, mid 1992):

"From the summer of 1992, Serbia and Croatia began to pursue congruent strategies in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At that time the HVO, nominally allied with the Bosnian Army, began to purge its ranks of Muslim soldiers..."

When you asked Valter did Croats and Serbs have an alliance he responded negativly, stating that there were talks between Tuđman and Milošević (Tuđman being president of independent Croatia, not Bosnian Croats), but they ended in nothing. Here, you never mentioned Bosnian Croats. When I talked about how Croatian and Serbian forces never stopped fighting (not HRHB and RS's) you asked me to back my arguments with sources, which I did. You even said that there was a ceasefire in the Croatian War (you used the exact term, the Croatian War). You even said that Zagreb with Tuđman were behind Kraljević's assasination, which implies that Croatia wanted an alliance with Serbia, but Kraljević's HOS wasn't allowing it. And now, when I give you sources that the official Croatian forces and all of Serbian never stopped fighting you suddenly say that you meant only HRHB. Meh.

That is nobody more qualified to answer this than yourself: "Herzeg-Bosnia was supported and given "instructions" to by Tuđman"

To answer what?

They also made agreements while they were at war with each other as you already admitted.

I never admitted that. Karađorđevo was before Croatian War and Graz was only between forces of Boban and Karadžić which initiated limited military activity between the two factions.

JAM

29th May 2012, 00:12

Well, then I guess it's a misunderstanding, but you never seperated different Croatian factions (in this case Bosnian Croats and Croatian Croats) in your arguments. Not only that, but you often merged them together under the same command (Tuđman's). You only just now stated that you actually meant that Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats had a ceasefire, and even your sources claim explicitly that countries of Croatia and Serbia were allied (they even give a time frame, mid 1992):

In the same source you can read that they only became military allies in the later period of 1992.

When you asked Valter did Croats and Serbs have an alliance he responded negativly, stating that there were talks between Tuđman and Milošević (Tuđman being president of independent Croatia, not Bosnian Croats), but they ended in nothing. Here, you never mentioned Bosnian Croats. When I talked about how Croatian and Serbian forces never stopped fighting (not HRHB and RS's) you asked me to back my arguments with sources, which I did. You even said that there was a ceasefire in the Croatian War (you used the exact term, the Croatian War). You even said that Zagreb with Tuđman were behind Kraljević's assasination, which implies that Croatia wanted an alliance with Serbia, but Kraljević's HOS wasn't allowing it. And now, when I give you sources that the official Croatian forces and all of Serbian never stopped fighting you suddenly say that you meant only HRHB. Meh.

The Croats and Serbs had indeed became allies in Bosnia. That was my point since the beginning. Tudman and Milosevic for a brief period allied together regarding BOSNIA at the beginning of the war. If you didn't understand it from the beginning it's your problem. I never said anything differently. You gave me sources (wikipedia) of fighting outside Bosnia. I said Croatia War because I saw it in one of the English articles that you provided. And Tudman had indeed control over HVO and the Serbian Croats.

To answer what?

Your point that the Bosnian Croats were completely independent from Zagreb.

I never admitted that. Karađorđevo was before Croatian War and Graz was only between forces of Boban and Karadžić which initiated limited military activity between the two factions.

The Log Revolution and the Pakrac Clash happened before Karađorđevo while the Graz Agreement which meant a partition of Bosnia much like Karađorđevo was recognized by the president of Croatia who had control over HVO and Boban as I showed to you and even you admitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara%C4%91or%C4%91evo_agreement#cite_note-ICTYblaskic2000-4

Yugo45

29th May 2012, 07:01

I
The Croats and Serbs had indeed became allies in Bosnia. That was my point since the beginning. Tudman and Milosevic for a brief period allied together regarding BOSNIA at the beginning of the war. If you didn't understand it from the beginning it's your problem. I never said anything differently. You gave me sources (wikipedia) of fighting outside Bosnia.

Tuđman and Milošević never allied against Bosnia, they had a meeting before the Croatian War escalated where they discussed the partition of Bosnia in case Yugoslavia falls apart. This ended in nothing, though. About sources, actually, they point out many operatins of the Croatian military (not HRHB) in Bosnia (Posavina and Hercegovina to be exact), against Republika Srpska.

Your point that the Bosnian Croats were completely independent from Zagreb.

Not completely but they weren't under direct Tuđmans control either.

The Log Revolution and the Pakrac Clash happened before Karađorđevo while the Graz Agreement which meant a partition of Bosnia much like Karađorđevo was recognized by the president of Croatia who had control over HVO and Boban as I showed to you and even you admitted.

Pakrac and Balvan were just small scale riot. Balvan Revolucija (Log Revolution) happened in 1990, but I don't see no one claiming that the war started in 1990. They don't mark the start of the war and the war didn't escalate until at least a few months after Karađorđevo. The exact day of the beginning of the war is not marked since there was no declaration of war. But it's known that by July 1991 it had started. May 1991 may also be taken as the beginning of the war, but nothing before that.

Alright, so. Let me get this straight. You say that Graz was recognized by Tuđman, right? Does that mean he was also allied with at least RS, or? Because, as my sources proove, Croatian military kept on fighting with RS for the whole war, even during that "alliance". If Boban was under Tuđman's control, and if Boban was just representing Tuđman in the meeting, why did Tuđman keep fighting RS while Boban did not?

Omsk

29th May 2012, 10:41

But do you believe that the breakup would play out the same way if USA and IMF weren't funding the factions and the conflict? It wouldn't. It would either be a peaceful dismiss, like USSR's, or Yugoslavia would continue to exist even more weaker.

Argh. Yugoslavia recieved US funding and US help even before the conflict, so the role of foreign capitalists in unimportant. And almost all of the nationalists who 'Destroyed Yugoslavia" (Tito and his clique destroyed Yugoslavia.) were actually former Yugoslav communist officials. So the theory that it was : "All nice until the WEST started funding nationalists" is not only un-Marxist, but laughable too.

PhoenixAsh

29th May 2012, 11:46

The cause is mainly the already existing ethnic tensions coupled with a steep econbomic decline.

A decline which was aggravated by direct US intervention in the Yugoslav economy and a policy to directly intervene to create a free market system. This is not hypothetical. This was actually a national security directive issued by the Reagan administration. There are indications that the US and NATO directly influenced the SANU statement for example.

The intervention directly after the split when certain countries directly recognized the independence of Croatia was not a coincidence. It was a direct result of the NATO policies regarding the break up of what they saw as a a danger to western trade and strategic interest due to Serb anti NATO and pro Russian/Slavic position.

While western influence may not be the sole reason of the Yugoslav break up and the resulting civil war it did play a very large role in creating the circumstances for them

This is also evident from the numerous statements made at the ICY about western involvement in the conflict and the dubious role NATO and the UN played.

JAM

29th May 2012, 15:36

Tuđman and Milošević never allied against Bosnia, they had a meeting before the Croatian War escalated where they discussed the partition of Bosnia in case Yugoslavia falls apart. This ended in nothing, though. About sources, actually, they point out many operatins of the Croatian military (not HRHB) in Bosnia (Posavina and Hercegovina to be exact), against Republika Srpska.

The alliance between the Bosnian Croats and the Bosnian Serbs that you already recognized was obviously sponsored by Tudjman and Milosevic and I gave you proves of that. It's too much of a childish to believe that Milosevic or Tudjman don't knew nothing about the alliance. Both man had absolute control over the Bosnian affairs.

Not completely but they weren't under direct Tuđmans control either. Yes they were. I already gave you a source appointing precisely to that. Even if I didn't have that source it won't be needed a genius to grasp it.

Pakrac and Balvan were just small scale riot. Balvan Revolucija (Log Revolution) happened in 1990, but I don't see no one claiming that the war started in 1990. They don't mark the start of the war and the war didn't escalate until at least a few months after Karađorđevo. The exact day of the beginning of the war is not marked since there was no declaration of war. But it's known that by July 1991 it had started. May 1991 may also be taken as the beginning of the war, but nothing before that.According to Croatia War timeline from wikipedia that you like so much to quote the Pakrac clash is alreasy included in the Croatia War timeline, making it part of it.

Alright, so. Let me get this straight. You say that Graz was recognized by Tuđman, right? Does that mean he was also allied with at least RS, or? Because, as my sources proove, Croatian military kept on fighting with RS for the whole war, even during that "alliance". If Boban was under Tuđman's control, and if Boban was just representing Tuđman in the meeting, why did Tuđman keep fighting RS while Boban did not?Because the alliance concerned only Bosnia. I never said that the alliance was extended to outside of Bosnia. I never spoke about any other conflict but the Bosnian one. You were the one bringing the Croatia War.

Yugo45

30th May 2012, 12:01

Yes they were. I already gave you a source appointing precisely to that. Even if I didn't have that source it won't be needed a genius to grasp it.

And what source is that? I also gave you source that they're not, which source do we believe? He was supported during the first phases of the war, but not under control of Tuđman. They were cooperating and they planned to unite the two states at the end of the war. As long as Tuđman supported a seperated Herzeg-Bosnia from Bosnia and Herzegovina, they cooperated. How hard is it to understand that? There's nothing that proves that Boban was issued direct commands by Croatian government. Just as there's nothing to support that RS was under direct command by Milošević.

According to Croatia War timeline from wikipedia that you like so much to quote the Pakrac clash is alreasy included in the Croatia War timeline, making it part of it.

It's not the start of the war. Nothing major happened until May '91. The fighting wasn't formal until at least May '91. Since there was not a declaration of war, we can't see the exact day the war in Croatia started. But by July, like I said, it deffineatly did. Since there was no declaration of war between what was left of Yugoslavia and Croatia, like my point at beginning was, there was nothing to stop Karađorđevo meeting. Even if Pakrac did mark the start of the war, since Croatia and Serbia were not in a war, it couldn't stop the meeting.

Even if you statement that Serbs and Croats in Bosnia were BFF (which I still don't buy) is true, your initial post is still heavily flawed and it's deffineatly not true. There, you said that initially Croats allied with Serbs to fight against Bosnia. But Bosniaks were allied with Croats against the Serbs until the Bosniak-Croat War, where you set your alliance (even your sources say that at least this is true).

JAM

30th May 2012, 15:15

And what source is that? I also gave you source that they're not, which source do we believe? He was supported during the first phases of the war, but not under control of Tuđman. They were cooperating and they planned to unite the two states at the end of the war. As long as Tuđman supported a seperated Herzeg-Bosnia from Bosnia and Herzegovina, they cooperated. How hard is it to understand that? There's nothing that proves that Boban was issued direct commands by Croatian government. Just as there's nothing to support that RS was under direct command by Milošević.

"The HDZ and HVO were guided by the policy of Tudjman, who staked his cards from the start on a collaborationist policy with the Serbs, involving the Serb-Croat partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina."

Central and Southeast European Politics since 1989,
by Sabrina P. Ramet

"Earlier in his testimony, Galbraith claimed that during the conflict, Tudjman was just as much the president of the Herceg-Bosna entity as he was of the Republic of Croatia, and had ultimate control of both the HVO and Croatia’s regular army. "

http://iwpr.net/report-news/us-behind-sacking-top-bosnian-croats

"Croatia, and more specifically former President Tuđman, was hoping to partition Bosnia and exercised such a degree of control over the Bosnian Croats and especially the HVO that it is justified to speak of overall control."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara%C4%91or%C4%91evo_agreement

Personnel Centers Milošević controlled the officers who controlled the armies of the RS and RSK.

Dude, I am having a great deal of fun teaching the History of the Bosnian War to a Bosnian. If you want me to continue just say it. I hope that you don't expect to believe me that Milosevic had nothing to do with the Bosnian Serbs. Do you wanna to be more embarrassed? This claim is even more ridiculous.

It's not the start of the war. Nothing major happened until May '91. The fighting wasn't formal until at least May '91. Since there was not a declaration of war, we can't see the exact day the war in Croatia started. But by July, like I said, it deffineatly did. Since there was no declaration of war between what was left of Yugoslavia and Croatia, like my point at beginning was, there was nothing to stop Karađorđevo meeting. Even if Pakrac did mark the start of the war, since Croatia and Serbia were not in a war, it couldn't stop the meeting.According to the the article the Pakrac Clash was the open of hostilities and is included in the timeline of the Croatia war. Since there was no formal declaration of war is very appropriate to place the beginning of the war right there. Taking in consideration your knowledge about the Bosnian War I won't take chances here if I were you.

Even if you don't consider it within the timeline of the war, saying that there was nothing to stop the Karađorđevo meeting is completely ludicrous. The Log Revolution happened in 1990, the tensions between the Croats and the Serbs peaked that period and I already proved that the Graz Agreement signed by 1992 was supported by both the Croatian President and Milosevic.

Even if you statement that Serbs and Croats in Bosnia were BFF (which I still don't buy) is true, your initial post is still heavily flawed and it's deffineatly not true. There, you said that initially Croats allied with Serbs to fight against Bosnia. But Bosniaks were allied with Croats against the Serbs until the Bosniak-Croat War, where you set your alliance (even your sources say that at least this is true).Here are you again insisting on your poor English skills. I already explained you more than a time what I wrote. You probably have some comprehension problems but that's not my business.

Also, I proved you with sources that the alliance between Croats and Muslims broken shortly before the Croats allied with the Serbs. Don't embarrass yourself more than you already did.

Yugo45

30th May 2012, 16:40

"The HDZ and HVO were guided by the policy of Tudjman, who staked his cards from the start on a collaborationist policy with the Serbs, involving the Serb-Croat partition of Bosnia-Herzegovina."

Central and Southeast European Politics since 1989,
by Sabrina P. Ramet

Guided. There's a big difference between "guided" and "commanded". And you say my English level is low? Geez.

"Earlier in his testimony, Galbraith claimed that during the conflict, Tudjman was just as much the president of the Herceg-Bosna entity as he was of the Republic of Croatia, and had ultimate control of both the HVO and Croatia’s regular army."

"Galbraith claimed". He claimed that. Definition of the world "to claim":
3. To state to be true, especially when open to question; assert or maintain:

That does not make it so. You just post a bunch of newspaper articles filled with rumors and only that. Just show me what ties HRHB has with Croatia. If it's true, if HRHB really was commanded by the Croatian government, it won't be hard to find those ties.

I hope that you don't expect to believe me that Milosevic had nothing to do with the Bosnian Serbs.

That's different. Karadžić was more under command of Milošević then Boban was under command of Tuđman, so maybe it's my fault for using it for the analogy.

Do you wanna to be more embarrassed?

Embarrassed about what? Someone claiming he's teaching me history by googling newspaper articles and posting them as "sources"? Well, sure, go ahead, embarrass me. Stop being so arrogant.

According to the the article the Pakrac Clash was the open of hostilities and is included in the timeline of the Croatia war. Since there was no formal declaration of war is very appropriate to place the beginning of the war right there. Taking in consideration your knowledge about the Bosnian War I won't take chances here if I were you.

Most historians don't consider it to be the start of the war. That, for me, is enough. But even we do look at it as a start of the conflict, since there was not a declaration of war, Tuđman and Milošević could of still cooperated and it wouldn't have to be on war terms.

Even if you don't consider it within the timeline of the war, saying that there was nothing to stop the Karađorđevo meeting is completely ludicrous. The Log Revolution happened in 1990, the tensions between the Croats and the Serbs peaked that period and I already proved that the Graz Agreement signed by 1992 was supported by both the Croatian President and Milosevic.

Tensions between Serbs and Croats. Not Croatia and Serbia/Yugoslavia. You have to learn to distance the two.

Here are you again insisting on your poor English skills. I already explained you more than a time what I wrote. You probably have some comprehension problems but that's not my business.

What?

Your post:

The Catholic Croats initially allied itself with the Serbs but by 1994 they were already joining forces with the Muslims.

Either my English skills are really, really bad. Or that sentence means: Croats allied with Serbs in the beginning of the Bosnian war and by 1994 they switched sides.

JAM

30th May 2012, 17:57

Guided. There's a big difference between "guided" and "commanded". And you say my English level is low? Geez.

I just wanna alert you for the big idiotic figure that you are making here. What is the difference between guided and commanded or controlled??? I knew your english skills were poor but now I think you are trolling as well.

Definition of the verb guided: To direct the course of., To exert control or influence over.

"Galbraith claimed". He claimed that. Definition of the world "to claim":

Galbraith was the former ambassador of USA in Croatia when the relationship of USA with Croatia reached its peak and their close involvement in the Balkans is undeniable. They even pressured Tudjman successfully to remove Boban from HVO in order to guarantee an alliance between the Croats and the Muslims later which was what precisely what happened showing the close relationship between USA and Croatia. If you certainly can take something as impartial is an American testimony regarding Croatia officials. Galbraith had nothing to gain or lose by lying regarding Croatia officials.

That does not make it so. You just post a bunch of newspaper articles filled with rumors and only that. Just show me what ties HRHB has with Croatia. If it's true, if HRHB really was commanded by the Croatian government, it won't be hard to find those ties.

I gave you quotes from scientific studies which weren't never contested by anybody, articles written by journalists who were in the battlefield and testified the alliance between Serbs and Croats in the battlefield, and trial testimonies by USA officials who were completely aware of what was happening in the Battlefield.

Now I understand that you have an interest here in denying all this stuff. What are you? A Milosevic fanatic?

That's different. Karadžić was more under command of Milošević then Boban was under command of Tuđman, so maybe it's my fault for using it for the analogy.

Dude, you just admitted that Boban was under the command of Tudjman.

Embarrassed about what? Someone claiming he's teaching me history by googling newspaper articles and posting them as "sources"? Well, sure, go ahead, embarrass me. Stop being so arrogant.

I'm not being arrogant but you are leading this to the ridiculous like saying that guided and commanded have different meanings. I didn't posted only newspaper articles written by people who were in Bosnia, I posted scientific studies and testimonies as well.

Even if it was the case, do you think presenting Wikipedia as a source like you only did is more credible than newspaper articles written by journalists who were in Bosnia?

Most historians don't consider it to be the start of the war. That, for me, is enough. But even we do look at it as a start of the conflict, since there was not a declaration of war, Tuđman and Milošević could of still cooperated and it wouldn't have to be on war terms.

Yes, and there was not a declaration of war until the end, right? In this case why you said that was impossible a cooperation between Serbs and Croats in Bosnia when they were battling in Croatia?

Tensions between Serbs and Croats. Not Croatia and Serbia/Yugoslavia. You have to learn to distance the two.

Come on, this is really getting ridiculous. You are from Bosnia. Why the hell are you trying to distort things? What is your interest in this? Forgive Milosevic for all the atrocities that he committed? You like him that much? Everybody knows that the Serbs were being directed by Milosevic the all time. BTW, you know that Milosevic is considered here a fascist, right? And I think titoists aren't very welcome here as well due to nationalism and market socialism. As Omsk pointed out very well Tito was not a socialist.

What?

Your post:

Either my English skills are really, really bad. Or that sentence means: Croats allied with Serbs in the beginning of the Bosnian war and by 1994 they switched sides.

No, that doesn't mean what you've written. As I proved to you Serbs and Croats allied in Bosnia in the beginning and you already admitted that. I didn't stated a specific date to the end of that alliance in my statement. I said that in 1994 the Croats were already allied with the Muslims which is true as well. You completely misinterpreted my statement and now you are too dishonest to admit it.

Yugo45

30th May 2012, 20:12

I just wanna alert you for the big idiotic figure that you are making here. What is the difference between guided and commanded or controlled??? I knew your english skills were poor but now I think you are trolling as well.

You say I have bad English skills? Really?

You're lookinag at the wrong definition there, buddy. At least paste all of the "definition" you were looking at:
"2. To direct the course of; steer: guide a ship through a channel."

The one you gave is a synonym for "to steer". Look a bit more up for the definition of "guide" we need in this context. The one you gave does not have the same meaning as the one that's used in the context of that article.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/guide

guide (gd)

a. One who shows the way by leading, directing, or advising.

command
1.
to direct with specific authority or prerogative; order: The captain commanded his men to attack.

Do you really not see the difference between the two? Between advising someone to do something and commanding someone to do something?

Galbraith was the former ambassador of USA in Croatia when the relationship of USA with Croatia reached its peak and their close involvement in the Balkans is undeniable. They even pressured Tudjman successfully to remove Boban from HVO in order to guarantee an alliance between the Croats and the Muslims later which was what precisely what happened showing the close relationship between USA and Croatia. If you certainly can take something as impartial is an American testimony regarding Croatia officials. Galbraith had nothing to gain or lose by lying regarding Croatia officials.

And? Does this magically change the definition of the word "to claim? How does that proove that what he said was the truth? You can't expect me to believe that Boban had to do whatever Tuđman told him because the US had an ambassador Croatia who claimed Tuđman had control over Boban. Not even all of HVO did fight Army of Bosnia. In areas of Sarajevo, Bihać, Tuzla, Usora, Orašje and Brčko they were still allied and they weren't fighting. This again proves my thesis that the war was barely organized. If Boban couldn't command whole of HVO, what makes you think that Tuđman could command a completely seperated country?

I gave you quotes from scientific studies which weren't never contested by anybody, articles written by journalists who were in the battlefield and testified the alliance between Serbs and Croats in the battlefield, and trial testimonies by USA officials who were completely aware of what was happening in the Battlefield.

One man claiming that Tuđman controlled Boban is now considered a "scientific study"? Lol okay. The so called "scientific study" doesn't even say this, it only retells what Galbraith said as one of the possibilities of what happened.

Now I understand that you have an interest here in denying all this stuff. What are you? A Milosevic fanatic?

Why yes, yes I am! Milošević is one of my heroes and I consider him to be on a par with Karl Marx himself. Actually, even more!

Dude, you just admitted that Boban was under the command of Tudjman.

What was that speech about English you gave me again? I said that Karadžić was under command more then Boban was. Which can also mean, while Boban was under noones command, Karadžić was.

Yes, and there was not a declaration of war until the end, right? In this case why you said that was impossible a cooperation between Serbs and Croats in Bosnia when they were battling in Croatia?

No I did not. You have a trouble understanding English, you see. I said that it wasn't possible for Croatian government to be allied with the same Serbian factions they were battling. At that time you were still claiming that all Serbs and all Croats allied in the beginning of the war. It was before you specificly stated only Bosnian Croats.

Come on, this is really getting ridiculous. You are from Bosnia. Why the hell are you trying to distort things? What is your interest in this? Forgive Milosevic for all the atrocities that he committed? You like him that much? Everybody knows that the Serbs were being directed by Milosevic the all time. BTW, you know that Milosevic is considered here a fascist, right? And I think titoists aren't very welcome here as well due to nationalism and market socialism. As Omsk pointed out very well Tito was not a socialist.

See, you just don't understand the complexity of this conflict. It's easy to just combine all Serbs into one, all Croats into one and all Bosniaks into one. But it's not like that. There were many different factions. While some of Boban's HVO was battling Bosniaks, rest of it was still allied and fighting RS. At the same time some of Boban's forces had a limited warfare with Serbian forces, Croatian forces were fighting all of them. HOS was defying them both and allied with Bosnian government. Some JNA generals were defying Karadžić. Bosniaks in Bosnian Krajina declared autonomy from Bosnia and allied with RS and RSK. and fought Croats and the Bosnian government. etc. etc. etc. It just wasn't that simple. I don't see how this changes anything about Milošević. I'd rather that world saw all the truth behind the conflicts then if they just took that Milošević was the Hitler of the Yugoslav wars while everyone rest was innocent. Because that's not what happened. I don't see what Tito has to do with any of this. Some kind of ad hominem? Whatever it is, even though I'm not a Titoist, I consider him to be a positive figure in history.

No, that doesn't mean what you've written. As I proved to you Serbs and Croats allied in Bosnia in the beginning and you already admitted that. I didn't stated a specific date to the end of that alliance in my statement. I said that in 1994 the Croats were already allied with the Muslims which is true as well. You completely misinterpreted my statement and now you are too dishonest to admit it.

But they did not. When did I admit that? Croats voted for independent Bosnia. They fought together against the Serbs at the beginning of the war. That's what the argument is about. The very beginning of the war. When Serbs proclaimed independence from Bosnia (RS), Croats answered with an autonomy region in Bosnia, which was not seperatist and which considered itself under command of Bosnian government. Croats fought together with the Bosnian army against RS and JNA. Only after HVO was made, Herzeg-Bosnia started expressing seperatism. However, they were still fighting JNA and RS. There are many proofs of this. Take the fall of Bosnian Posavina, which, until the fall, was under control of Boban's Herzeg-Bosnia and HVO. Posavina fell slowly throughout the year, and the final fall was in October '92. But the beginning of the war was way before that. But didn't RS and Herzeg-Bosnia ally in the beginning of the war? Or at least in May '92, when the Graz agreement happened? Graz was on 6th May '92. And you say RS and HRHB were allied until, what, like mid '93? That article was April '93, so I'll assume so. Not only Posavina, but HVO, allied with Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held the front towards Brčko until 1993. And still not only that, but also take Operacije Lipanjske Zore (Operation June Dawns), where HVO, allied with HV and HOS forces, cleared the valley of Neretva from allied JNA and RS. How is it possible that HVO was allied both with RS and ARBIH, but fighting both RS and ARBIH? See, earlier you asked me to show you battles between RS and Croats in Bosnia after Graz. Since that was the time you suddenly ignored Croatian War, I didn't do it. But here, here they are. And there's many more. VRS attacks Komušina late April '92. HVO clahes with VRS May 31 '92. Jajce (HVO controlled) attacked and conquered by VRS 27of October '92. Many, many more examples.

JAM

30th May 2012, 21:05

You say I have bad English skills? Really?

You're lookinag at the wrong definition there, buddy. At least paste all of the "definition" you were looking at:
"2. To direct the course of; steer: guide a ship through a channel."

The one you gave is a synonym for "to steer". Look a bit more up for the definition of "guide" we need in this context. The one you gave does not have the same meaning as the one that's used in the context of that article.
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/guide

Do you really not see the difference between the two? Between advising someone to do something and commanding someone to do something?

command -
channelise (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/channelise), channelize (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/channelize), guide (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/guide), maneuver (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/maneuver), steer (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/steer), manoeuver (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/manoeuver), manoeuvre (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/manoeuvre), point (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/point), head (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/head), direct (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/direct) - direct the course; determine the direction of travelling

"The HDZ and HVO were guided by the policy of Tudjman...".

This is the context. Do you think this means "The HDZ and HVO were advised by the policy of Tudjman" or directed??? How absurd can you be man? Congratulations. You just made this arguing a troll one.

And? Does this magically change the definition of the word "to claim? How does that proove that what he said was the truth? You can't expect me to believe that Boban had to do whatever Tuđman told him because the US had an ambassador Croatia who claimed Tuđman had control over Boban. Not even all of HVO did fight Army of Bosnia. In areas of Sarajevo, Bihać, Tuzla, Usora, Orašje and Brčko they were still allied and they weren't fighting. This again proves my thesis that the war was barely organized. If Boban couldn't command whole of HVO, what makes you think that Tuđman could command a completely seperated country?

Here is the trolling again. Now the tactic is avoid the facts by going go to the semantic.

It's not only an american ambassador who says it. I presented you proves from the most different sources that points for the Tudjman control over the Bosnian Croats and the HVO. The american ambassador is just one more. As you can imagine all those proves are much more credible than you.

One man claiming that Tuđman controlled Boban is now considered a "scientific study"? Lol okay. The so called "scientific study" doesn't even say this, it only retells what Galbraith said as one of the possibilities of what happened.

I called scientific study the two works that i presented you in this thread:

Central and Southeast European Politics since 1989,
by Sabrina P. Ramet

and

Europe from the Balkans to the Urals: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union by Reneo Lukic and Allen Lynch

Why yes, yes I am! Milošević is one of my heroes and I consider him to be on a par with Karl Marx himself. Actually, even more!

Trolling to avoid the question.

What was that speech about English you gave me again? I said that Karadžić was under command more then Boban was. Which can also mean, while Boban was under noones command, Karadžić was.

When you said that Karadžić was under Milosevic command what you wanted really to say is that Karadžić wasn't under Milosevic command??? :laugh: You were completely caught on this one. I recommend you to stop posting. This went beyond the laughable and is becoming depressing.

No I did not. You have a trouble understanding English, you see. I said that it wasn't possible for Croatian government to be allied with the same Serbian factions they were battling. At that time you were still claiming that all Serbs and all Croats allied in the beginning of the war. It was before you specificly stated only Bosnian Croats.

I claimed since the very beginning that the alliance concerned only Bosnia. That was my claim since the beginning. We are talking about the Bosnia War. You were the one who misunderstood it.

See, you just don't understand the complexity of this conflict. It's easy to just combine all Serbs into one, all Croats into one and all Bosniaks into one. But it's not like that. There were many different factions. While some of Boban's HVO was battling Bosniaks, rest of it was still allied and fighting RS. At the same time some of Boban's forces had a limited warfare with Serbian forces, Croatian forces were fighting all of them. HOS was defying them both and allied with Bosnian government. Some JNA generals were defying Karadžić. Bosniaks in Bosnian Krajina declared autonomy from Bosnia and allied with RS and RSK. and fought Croats and the Bosnian government. etc. etc. etc. It just wasn't that simple. I don't see how this changes anything about Milošević. I'd rather that world saw all the truth behind the conflicts then if they just took that Milošević was the Hitler of the Yugoslav wars while everyone rest was innocent. Because that's not what happened. I don't see what Tito has to do with any of this. Some kind of ad hominem? Whatever it is, even though I'm not a Titoist, I consider him to be a positive figure in history.

There was no battle between Serbs and Croats in Bosnia during the alliance period between the two forces. I already proved you and you even admitted saying :"oh, I didn't know that you were talking specifically about Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs". I always claimed that the alliance concerned just Bosnia. I am saying this for the 100th time.

Your praise of Milosevic is also somewhat concerning. Now I begin to think that you were not trolling above and you really appreciate Milosevic. Milosevic was pretty much like Hitler, yes. Your defense of him is reprehensible. People who defend Hitler say the same thing regarding his responsibilities in the Second World War.

But they did not. When did I admit that? Croats voted for independent Bosnia. They fought together against the Serbs at the beginning of the war. That's what the argument is about. The very beginning of the war. When Serbs proclaimed independence from Bosnia (RS), Croats answered with an autonomy region in Bosnia, which was not seperatist and which considered itself under command of Bosnian government. Croats fought together with the Bosnian army against RS and JNA. Only after HVO was made, Herzeg-Bosnia started expressing seperatism. However, they were still fighting JNA and RS. There are many proofs of this. Take the fall of Bosnian Posavina, which, until the fall, was under control of Boban's Herzeg-Bosnia and HVO. Posavina fell slowly throughout the year, and the final fall was in October '92. But the beginning of the war was way before that. But didn't RS and Herzeg-Bosnia ally in the beginning of the war? Or at least in May '92, when the Graz agreement happened? Graz was on 6th May '92. And you say RS and HRHB were allied until, what, like mid '93? That article was April '93, so I'll assume so. Not only Posavina, but HVO, allied with Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held the front towards Brčko until 1993. And still not only that, but also take Operacije Lipanjske Zore (Operation June Dawns), where HVO, allied with HV and HOS forces, cleared the valley of Neretva from allied JNA and RS. How is it possible that HVO was allied both with RS and ARBIH, but fighting both RS and ARBIH? See, earlier you asked me to show you battles between RS and Croats in Bosnia after the Graz agreement and the end of the Bosniak-Croat War. Since that was the time you suddenly ignored Croatian War, I didn't do it. But here, here they are. And there's many more. VRS attacks Komušina late April '92. HVO clahes with VRS May 31 '92. Jajce (HVO controlled) attacked and conquered by VRS 27of October '92. Many, many more examples.

I said battles in Bosnia from late 1992 to mid-1993. You are giving battles in Croatia from early 1992. And you are lying as well. I never asked for battles after the Graz agreement but during the timeline that I gave you for the alliance between Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs. You are starting to desperate pal.

Yugo45

30th May 2012, 22:17

command -
channelise (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/channelise), channelize (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/channelize), guide (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/guide), maneuver (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/maneuver), steer (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/steer), manoeuver (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/manoeuver), manoeuvre (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/manoeuvre), point (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/point), head (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/head), direct (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/direct) - direct the course; determine the direction of travelling

"The HDZ and HVO were guided by the policy of Tudjman...".

This is the context. Do you think this means "The HDZ and HVO were advised by the policy of Tudjman" or directed??? How absurd can you be man? Congratulations. You just made this arguing a troll one.

Those synonyms are about the word in a different context. Like the context was with the ship steering example. I can say "Tuđman steered the ship in the wrong direction" and I can say "Tuđman controlled the ship in the wrong direction." But can I say "Tuđman steered Mate Boban."? No, I can't. To guide someone means to influence someone into doing something, to advise him and so on. To control someone means having direct authority over someone, ordering him to do something. That is different.

Here is the trolling again. Now the tactic is avoid the facts by going go to the semantic.

It's not only an american ambassador who says it. I presented you proves from the most different sources that points for the Tudjman control over the Bosnian Croats and the HVO. The american ambassador is just one more. As you can imagine all those proves are much more credible than you.

Central and Southeast European Politics since 1989,
by Sabrina P. Ramet

and

Europe from the Balkans to the Urals: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union by Reneo Lukic and Allen Lynch

And your tactic is to either ignore your own fallacies by claiming my English is bad or to ignore your own fallacies by calling me a troll, and you don't see me complaining.

Let's see what those sources say:
Europe from the Balkans to the Urals:
"From the summer of 1992, Serbia and Croatia began to pursue congruent strategies in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At that time the HVO, nominally allied with the Bosnian Army, began to purge its ranks of Muslim soldiers..."

Odd. It says that Serbia and Croatia were allied. Croatia, a soverign country, and Serbia. It does not say "Herzeg-Bosnia and Serbia", it says "Croatia and Serbia". But a few posts above you denied any connection to Croatia, and claimed that you meant, from the very beginning, that only Boban was allied, not Croatia. That's a bit silly, isn't it?

Trolling to avoid the question.

Because the question was so stupid it didn't deserve a non-sarcastic answer.

When you said that Karadžić was under Milosevic command what you wanted really to say is that Karadžić wasn't under Milosevic command??? You were completely caught on this one. I recommend you to stop posting. This went beyond the laughable and is becoming depressing.

What? You might want to read that again. I said that it's possible that while Karadžić was (usually) under command of Milošević, Boban was not under command of Tuđman. It's that simple.

I claimed since the very beginning that the alliance concerned only Bosnia. That was my claim since the beginning. We are talking about the Bosnia War. You were the one who misunderstood it.

No, you didn't. Maybe you forgot about it, but I didn't. Read the whole 2nd and some of the 3rd page. I was constantly saying that it's impossible that all Croats and all Serbs were allied, and you attacked me for not having any sources and gave me sources that Serbs and Croats were allied. Even after I told you that the sources as well say that some of Croats and some of Serbs, not all, were allied, you still never denied that you meant all Croats and all Serbs. Even Valter understood it as all Croats and all Serbs. Then I got the Croatian War involved and asked you how was it possible for all Croats and all Serbs to be allied when they were fighting. Is it possible that both of us misunderstood you?

Your praise of Milosevic is also somewhat concerning. Now I begin to think that you were not trolling above and you really appreciate Milosevic. Milosevic was pretty much like Hitler, yes. Your defense of him is reprehensible. People who defend Hitler say the same thing regarding his responsibilities in the Second World War.

Point me to the post where I praised Milošević (or anyone else). Saying that not everything is black and white is not praising someone. It's called "being realistic". Even in World War 2, while Churchill and Roosevelt were fighting Hitler, they weren't angels themselves. Well, Yugoslav wars were something like that but about 150x more complex. I don't expect you to understand it. If you didn't already, you probably never will.

I said battles in Bosnia from late 1992 to mid-1993. You are giving battles in Croatia from early 1992. And you are lying as well. I never asked for battles after the Graz agreement but during the timeline that I gave you for the alliance between Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs. You are starting to desperate pal.

You marked the beginning of your alliance with the Graz agreement. Even this whole argument happened with you asking me "Graz agreement rings any bells?" Graz happened 6th May '92. Are you going to deny that as well? You did say that Serbs and Croats allied against the Bosniaks at the beginning of the war. That was on the start of the argument. You said beginning of the war and with this implied that the Serbian-Croatian "alliance" happened before the Bosniak-Croatian alliance. When I prooved you were wrong, you shifted your timeframe to "end of '92". What does mark the start of the alliance then, if not the Graz agreement? Can you then show me any battles (between Graz and mid '93) that proove that Croats and Serbs had more then a ceasefire, like you said, a military alliance? Give me at least one battle where forces of VRS and HVO were cooperating, and I'll admit, you won the argument!

Qavvik

30th May 2012, 22:34

Bourgeois nationalist interests in combination with racism and religion that had afflicted the ranks of the opportunistic reactionaries that had risen through the ranks in the wake of Tito's death. As I'm sure the Stalinists and Hoxhaists have their own answers, it's important to remember that both have ulterior motives in this case; Stalin because Titoism threatened the Soviet bureaucracy, and Hoxha because he was weary of the Serbs due to past actions in Kosovo.

Ismail

30th May 2012, 23:08

Bourgeois nationalist interests in combination with racism and religion that had afflicted the ranks of the opportunistic reactionaries that had risen through the ranks in the wake of Tito's death.Sounds like the "Stalinist" narrative of events too. See: http://kasamaproject.org/2009/04/06/how-capitalism-caused-the-balkan-wars/

The only difference, of course, is that we don't consider Tito some valiant hero of national equality. In fact his activities in Kosovo give quite an opposite picture.

The latter part of your post is illogical since Stalin died in 1953 (and thus obviously was nowhere close to witnessing the demise of Yugoslavia) whereas Hoxha correctly noted that Yugoslavia was dominated by Serbian chauvinism and that the Federation's problems would get worse with Tito's death as the Republics vied for greater economic independence within the already existent capitalist framework.

For the Albanian view on the anti-Marxist nature of Yugoslav views on nationhood, see: http://www.revolutionarydemocracy.org/archive/titoites.htm

Also you're right, Titoism did indeed threaten the USSR. Yugoslavia denounced "Soviet aggression" in Korea and Europe, attacked the world peace movement as comprised of useful idiots believing in Soviet propaganda, considered a military pact with the West, promoted right-wingers in Eastern Europe and was praised by social-democrats everywhere, not to mention was being kept afloat via copious amounts of aid from the West. It also tried to annex Albania and Bulgaria and had designs on Greece and Romania. Of course after 1955 the Soviet revisionists and their Yugoslav counterparts gradually patched up relations to the extent that Khrushchev could say that his line and Tito's were basically identical, whereas Brezhnev could say in 1971 that "today [Tito] is known to us all as the organiser and hero of the liberation, revolutionary struggle of the Yugoslav people, the leader of the Communists of Yugoslavia, the head of the Yugoslav socialist state." After 1956 the only threat Yugoslavia presented was as a place for "reform-minded" Eastern Bloc intelligentsia to admire before themselves becoming openly pro-capitalist.

JAM

30th May 2012, 23:31

Those synonyms are about the word in a different context. Like the context was with the ship steering example. I can say "Tuđman steered the ship in the wrong direction" and I can say "Tuđman controlled the ship in the wrong direction." But can I say "Tuđman steered Mate Boban."? No, I can't. To guide someone means to influence someone into doing something, to advise him and so on. To control someone means having direct authority over someone, ordering him to do something. That is different.

I know this is getting hard to you but please:

"Tuđman steered the ship in the wrong direction"

"Tuđman controlled the ship in the wrong direction."

Def: To steer is to control the course of action and momentum of someone or something. (verb)

steer 1 (stîr)v. steered, steer·ing, steers
v.tr.1. To guide by means of a device such as a rudder, paddle, or wheel.
2. a. To direct the course of. See Synonyms at conduct (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/conduct).
b. To maneuver (a person) into a place or course of action.

How I can avoid from accusing you of trolling when you do such things.

And your tactic is to either ignore your own fallacies by claiming my English is bad or to ignore your own fallacies by calling me a troll, and you don't see me complaining.

Let's see what those sources say:
Europe from the Balkans to the Urals:
"From the summer of 1992, Serbia and Croatia began to pursue congruent strategies in Bosnia and Herzegovina. At that time the HVO, nominally allied with the Bosnian Army, began to purge its ranks of Muslim soldiers..."

Odd. It says that Serbia and Croatia were allied. Croatia, a soverign country, and Serbia. It does not say "Herzeg-Bosnia and Serbia", it says "Croatia and Serbia". But a few posts above you denied any connection to Croatia, and claimed that you meant, from the very beginning, that only Boban was allied, not Croatia. That's a bit silly, isn't it? What is silly and extremely odd is your English interpretation. It CLEARLY says that both countries began to pursue congruent strategies. A few lines above it says that by the end of 1992 they were in fact allies. And I never denied that the President of Croatia had control over HVO as the all discussion above shows.

The only reason why I am accusing you of trolling is because I have reasons to do it and you don't. I have tried very hard to keep this arguing serious and you started with that semantic thing.

Because the question was so stupid it didn't deserve a non-sarcastic answer.After all it wasn't. You defended Milosevic in your previous post.

What? You might want to read that again. I said that it's possible that while Karadžić was (usually) under command of Milošević, Boban was not under command of Tuđman. It's that simple.Look at what you said:

"That's different. Karadžić was more under command of Milošević then Boban was under command of Tuđman, so maybe it's my fault for using it for the analogy."

You didn't say possible and you say clearly that Boban was under command of Tudjman.

No, you didn't. Maybe you forgot about it, but I didn't. Read the whole 2nd and some of the 3rd page. I was constantly saying that it's impossible that all Croats and all Serbs were allied, and you attacked me for not having any sources and gave me sources that Serbs and Croats were allied. Even after I told you that the sources as well say that some of Croats and some of Serbs, not all, were allied, you still never denied that you meant all Croats and all Serbs. Even Valter understood it as all Croats and all Serbs. Then I got the Croatian War involved and asked you how was it possible for all Croats and all Serbs to be allied when they were fighting. Is it possible that both of us misunderstood you? Pretty much yes. I 'll give you my version. From what I understood you were both saying that not all croats and serbs in Bosnia were allied and said they were. I didn't say all the croats and serbs outside Bosnia. We were talking about Bosnia and not Croatia. You can't blame me since we were exclusively talking about Bosnia. I meant all serbs and croats within Bosnia.

Point me to the post where I praised Milošević (or anyone else). Saying that not everything is black and white is not praising someone. It's called "being realistic". Even in World War 2, while Churchill and Roosevelt were fighting Hitler, they weren't angels themselves. Well, Yugoslav wars were something like that but about 150x more complex. I don't expect you to understand it. If you didn't already, you probably never will.WW II was also very complex but it's undeniable that Hitler was the sole responsible for the conflict. I have no doubts about that. Do you? Who was the one following an expansionist policy and occupying other countries?

The only critic I have regarding the UK and USA is the fact that they were very tolerant to Hitler and didn't wage war sooner against the Nazis.

If someone arrives here and says about Hitler what you've said about Milosevic it will be immediately banned. It's interpreted as a praise to him. It's very harsh but that's how things are run here. I made the same interpretation about your statement regarding Milosevic who is for me and for the general people from here a fascist.

You marked the beginning of your alliance with the Graz agreement. Even this whole argument happened with you asking me "Graz agreement rings any bells?" Graz happened 6th May '92. Are you going to deny that as well? You did say that Serbs and Croats allied against the Bosniaks at the beginning of the war. That was on the start of the argument. You said beginning of the war and with this implied that the Serbian-Croatian "alliance" happened before the Bosniak-Croatian alliance. When I prooved you were wrong, you shifted your timeframe to "end of '92". What does mark the start of the alliance then, if not the Graz agreement? Can you then show me any battles (between Graz and mid '93) that proove that Croats and Serbs had more then a ceasefire, like you said, a military alliance? Give me at least one battle where forces of VRS and HVO were cooperating, and I'll admit, you won the argument!Didn't I talk in the same post about the Karađorđevo agreement? Why don't you consider that i marked the alliance at 1991 then? I mentioned the two agreements to prove you that the Serbs and the Croats had a congruent strategy in Bosnia.

A battle? Well, I can say Maglaj:

"THE Bosnian Muslim 'Maglaj finger' has now become the 'Maglaj pocket' after being cut off by the Serbs and the HVO, the Bosnian Croat militia, UN sources confirmed yesterday. The widespread collusion between the Serbs and Croats is no longer concealed. An HVO officer said on Thursday: 'There are three sides. You cannot fight both of them. Therefore you must ally with one."

I can talk about Zepce as well:

"Bosnian Croat infantrymen backed by Serbian tanks reportedly cut off some 100,000 mostly Muslim civilians today, United Nations officials said.The new Serbian-Croatian alliance proved decisive in the attack, which overran the town of Zepce. The mostly Muslim Bosnian Army expelled Croatian forces from the town just days ago in a one-on-one showdown."

I made a little research and found this two examples. I think it's enough since you only asked one. But if you want I can search for more.

Qavvik

30th May 2012, 23:58

The Soviets too requested aid from the West, both material and financial. The Soviet Union itself imported $1.5 billion in grain from the United States in 1987 alone. In fact, one half of all Soviet agricultural imports were from western countries. Unsurprisingly, Soviet exports to the West jumped by 55 percent through the 1970 and 1980s while imports from the West jumped by 207 percent during the same period. Thus, criticizing Yugoslavia for importing raw materials from the West and some military equipment during the period when the Yugoslavs had been cut off by the imperialist Soviet authorities and left open for the taking by the nationalist elements in the Balkans is absurd if not hypocritical at best.

Tito was not perfect, and I hardly agree with him wholesale (I tend to drift toward Left Communism on occasion), but Tito did the best that he could with what he had, unlike Hoxha or any of the Soviet bureaucrats. Socialism is but a single point on the road to communism. Tito gave power back to the workers as much as he could without flat out abandoning communism after the split with imperialist Moscow. Things did not seriously deteriorate into the state you seem to attribute to him until after his death.

Yugo45

31st May 2012, 00:34

I know this is getting hard to you but please:

What, are you serious? Do we need a linguist here? You're the one who started all this English talk and now you call me a troll? There is a difference between "to guide" and "to control". If you can't see it, then clearly it's you who has a problem with English, not me. Like I said, "to guide" someone means to influence someone into doing something. For example, "I guided a blind man across the street." I didn't force him to go across the street. I gently took his hand and helped him walk across the street. If I say "I commanded a blind man across the street." the meaning changes drastically. Now it means that I put a gun on his forehead and told him "Get across the street." Do you really not see the difference or are you the one who's trolling?

What is silly and extremely odd is your English interpretation. It CLEARLY says that both countries began to pursue congruent strategies. A few lines above it says that by the end of 1992 they were in fact allies. and not the country Croatia.

You just said it yourself.... But the last sentence makes no sense, though. Countries of Croatia and Serbia were allies, but not the country of Croatia? What then?

The only reason why I am accusing you of trolling is because I have reasons to do it and you don't. I have tried very hard to keep this arguing serious and you started with that semantic thing.

No, you did. You started it by insulting my English skills in almost every post. I just answered your insults.

After all it wasn't. You defended Milosevic in your previous post

What post? Quote the exact sentence where I defended him.

"That's different. Karadžić was more under command of Milošević then Boban was under command of Tuđman, so maybe it's my fault for using it for the analogy."

You didn't say possible and you say clearly that Boban was under command of Tudjman.

If you're allow me to quote yourself, "Absurd and damn ridiculous is your interpretation of my words."

Pretty much yes. I 'll give you my version. From what I understood you were both saying that not all croats and serbs in Bosnia were allied and said they were. I didn't say all the croats and serbs outside Bosnia. We were talking about Bosnia and not Croatia. You can't blame me since we were exclusively talking about Bosnia. I meant all serbs and croats within Bosnia.

Maybe it's a misunderstanding then, because you didn't state the exact Croatian faction you were referencing (notice how I always say "HRHB", "Croatian government", "HVO", RSK, "RS" etc.). It's a very big oversight, even if we only concentrate on Bosnia. I can actually say "Bosniaks were fighting Serbs and Croats and were allied with them at the same time." and I wouldn't say anything that's not true. Because, while Bosnian government was in a war with both RS and HRHB at the time, SAPZB (Samostalna Autonomna Pokrajina Zapadna Bosna).

WW II was also very complex but it's undeniable that Hitler was the sole responsible for the conflict. I have no doubts about that. Do you? Who was the one following an expansionist policy and occupying other countries?

Hence why I said that the Yugoslav War(s) was/were 150x more complicated.

If someone arrives here and says about Hitler what you've said about Milosevic it will be immediately banned. It's interpreted as a praise to him. It's very harsh but that's how things are run here.

Then it's pretty damn harsh. All I said was that Milošević wasn't the only bad guy, that Boban, Alija and Franjo weren't innocent as well. Like someone criticising USA for dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. Well, I hope I won't get banned for this, but: I'm not very supportive of USA throwing those nuclear bombs on civilians.

Didn't I talk in the same post about the Karađorđevo agreement? Why don't you consider that i marked the alliance at 1991 then? I mentioned the two agreements to prove you that the Serbs and the Croats had a congruent strategy in Bosnia.

You quoted a source from wikipedia that said "On May 6, 1992, the Graz agreement between Mate Boban and Radovan Karadžić was signed, establishing a cease fire between Croat and Serb forces and the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina into Croatian and Serbian units". When I said that it was just an agreement to limit some military activity, not an alliance, you replied withi: "LOL. You sign a treaty to limit your fighting with each other??? LOL. They signed the treaty to stop all military actions against each other and not just some of it." Do you see where Graz comes into play now?

"THE Bosnian Muslim 'Maglaj finger' has now become the 'Maglaj pocket' after being cut off by the Serbs and the HVO, the Bosnian Croat militia, UN sources confirmed yesterday. The widespread collusion between the Serbs and Croats is no longer concealed. An HVO officer said on Thursday: 'There are three sides. You cannot fight both of them. Therefore you must ally with one."

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on this one and admit what I never denied since the beginning of this argument: HVO did sometimes cooperate with the Serbs in the Bosniak-Croat War. The fact remains that this was never recognised by any of the two sides, even after the war and it wasn't an official alliance. Now, I hope you realized by now (did you?) about the complexity of the war, and don't still claim that it was an organized fight where it was a straightforward: Bosniaks vs. Croats vs. Serbs. One month they were looking at eachother through the sights, and the next they were playing chess together while being treated in a hospital. There wasn't a formal alliance between HVO and VRS, at least not a known one. The units did cooperate sometimes in exchange for fuel, money or just because they had a need to. It was like that, that's as much as I'm definitely sure.

Which leads me to my last question you never answered: Do believe that any of the Croatian and Serbian factions (especially HRHB and RS) had a formal alliance or do you believe it was just cooperation between different units?

Ismail

31st May 2012, 00:44

The Soviets too requested aid from the West, both material and financial. The Soviet Union itself imported $1.5 billion in grain from the United States in 1987 alone...Yeah, and Hoxha noted that the USSR had long since become a social-imperialist superpower which by the 70's had seen capitalism restored in all fields. What's your point? You said "Stalinists," unless "Stalinist" refers to every generic pro-Soviet party from 1953-1991, even though all of them endorsed Khrushchev's "Secret Speech," a number of them sympathized with (or outright initiated) Eurocommunism, and many were pro-Gorby. You do realize that after 1955 practically all the pro-Soviet CPs praised the Soviet decision to "normalize relations" with Yugoslavia, right? By the 60's Yugoslavia was spoken of as a fellow "socialist" country by these parties.

Thus, criticizing Yugoslavia for importing raw materials from the West and some military equipment during the period when the Yugoslavs had been cut off by the imperialist Soviet authorities and left open for the taking by the nationalist elements in the Balkans is absurd if not hypocritical at best.Except this argument doesn't work since debt to the West actually grew dramatically over time. By the 80's it was clearly recognized by everyone as a major contributing factor to ethnic tensions since the Republics were all scapegoating each other.

"In just the first 5 months of this year the deficit was 2 billion dollars. At the 11th Congress of the League of 'Communists' of Yugoslavia, Tito declared, 'the deficit with the Western market has become almost intolerable'. Nearly three months after this congress, he declared again in Slovenia, 'We have especially great difficulties in trade exchanges with the European Common Market member countries. There the imbalance to our disadvantage is very great and constantly increasing. We must talk with them very seriously about this. Many of them promise us that these things will be put in order, that imports from Yugoslavia will increase, but up to now we have had very little benefit from all this. Each is putting the blame on the other'. And the deficit in foreign trade, which Tito does not mention in this speech of his, exceeded 4 billion dollars in 1977. This is a catastrophe for Yugoslavia."
(Enver Hoxha. Yugoslav "Self-Administration": A Capitalist Theory and Practice. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1978. pp. 39-40.)

"The loans it has received amount to over 11 billion dollars. From the United States of America alone Yugoslavia has received over 7 billion dollars in credits."
(Ibid. pp. 25-26.)

Compare with Albania: "the new 1976 Constitution was enacted which prohibited foreign debt and foreign aid" and subsequently "Albania had little, if any foreign debt. This fact is astounding for any country but it is especially so for an East European country which traditionally has very high foreign debt. The Central Intelligence Agency's publication, The World Factbook, showed that in 1983, Albania imported goods worth $280 million but exported goods worth $290 million, which produced a trade surplus of $10 million. The 1984 state budget showed expenditures of $1.28 billion and revenues of $1.29 billion."
(James S. O'Donnell. A Coming of Age: Albania under Enver Hoxha. New York: Columbia University Press. 1999. p. 65, 88.)

Hoxha noted that Yugoslavia wasn't alone.

"The best evidence of the grave situation in the 'socialist community' and of the deep contradictions eroding it are the recent events in Poland, which have led that country to the brink of economic catastrophe and to major social and political upheavals. These are consequences of the line pursued by the Polish revisionist party for the re-establishment of capitalism, of the all-round subjugation of the country to the Soviet Union, of opening the doors to Western capital and the consequence of the large debts of Poland, which amount to the colossal sum of 27 billion dollars. Herein lies the source of the revolts of the working class and working people of Poland."
(Enver Hoxha. Selected Works Vol. VI. Tirana: 8 Nëntori Publishing House. 1987. p. 392.)

Just a few more quotes from non-communist sources:

"Dr Spasoje Medenica, a Federal Minister, calculated that the internal debt (including the outstanding bills, the overruns of investment costs and the credit obligations to the National Bank arising from the devaluation of the dinar) amounted in 1983, to 2,000 billion dinars: a figure representing one half of Yugoslavia's national income. According to Branko Ćolanović, the Chairman of Jugobanka of Belgrade in 1983, 'Yugoslav enterprises are indebted to the banks and the banks to each other, and everyone is indebted to everyone else. We are excessively preoccupied with foreign currency and have neglected dinar insolvency.' In these circumstances the persistent IMF clamour for 'a positive rate of interest' i.e. one that is higher than the current rate of inflation, has predictably fallen on deaf ears.

To prevent a financial breakdown, massive rescue operations worth several billion dollars each had to be put together in 1983 and again in 1984, by international institutions, capitalist governments and commercial banks, under the sponsorship of the US administration, relieving the Yugoslavs of the immediate obligation to repay the capital."
(Nora Beloff. Tito's Flawed Legacy: Yugoslavia and the West since 1939. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. 1986. p. 235.)

And a 1984 article:

"In actual reality, of course, self-management – after a long period of increasing suffocation by the bureaucratic cancer – has already effectively been terminated. Reflecting on the circumstances of its demise, it is instructive to note that it was the West rather than the East which dealt the final blow...

In a recent survey of Yugoslavia by the Financial Times, it was noted that 'Yugoslavia's protracted economic crisis, now in its fourth or fifth year, is beginning to change the political system.' ... as the commentaries in both The Times and the Financial Times noted last June, the country's acceptance of capitalist economic principles – exclusive reliance on monetary mechanisms – is seen as implying that 'the West is ahead ideologically' of the Soviet Union. This year, furthermore, Yugoslavia has agreed to move away from the barter trade with Comecon towards greater exchange with the West. Current agreements with the IMF and the World Bank show Yugoslavia's commitment to liberalize controls, which still cover over 80 per cent of all imports, to relax the terms under which foreign capital can invest, and to open (for the first time) the service sector to it as well. In return, the banks are promising patience and tolerance.

However, it is obvious that this addiction to foreign loans, which the LCY leadership has acquired over the past decade or two, will have to be paid for by the Yugoslav working class."
(Branka Magaš. The Destruction of Yugoslavia: Tracking the Break-up 1980-92. London: Verso. 1993. p. 97.)

"The papers give – in all the Yugoslav languages – advance notice of new wage cuts and price increases. I read with interest that shipyard workers in Split will have their wages lowered by 40 per cent. Average wage cuts: 20-40 per cent. Average price increases: 30-100+ per cent. The prices of black bread, milk and cooking oil will be protected. The IMF has demanded a drastic cut in domestic consumption and the closure of loss-making enterprises. Hundreds of telexes arrive daily at the door of the Federal government in Belgrade protesting against wage cuts."
(Ibid. p. 131.)

Compare with Albania in 1982 as reported by the Communist Party of Ireland (Marxist-Leninist): "On June 5, the day before the opening of the 9th Congress of the Albanian Trade Unions, the Council of Ministers of the People's Socialist Republic of Albania announced reductions in the price of various mass commodity goods and of many public services. The prices of certain items, including meat, clothing, shoes, televisions, radios, washing machines, bicycles, prams, kitchen utensils, watches, etc., were reduced by amounts ranging from 7-35%, whilst the price of various public services fell by 8-15½%. There is no inflation in Socialist Albania. The only changes in prices which have taken place since liberation in 1944 are reductions in prices. This is in stark contrast to the serious and ever-growing burden on the people caused by the continually soaring prices in the capitalist and revisionist countries."
(Red Patriot. Vol. 6, No. 3/4. Aug. 1st 1982. p. 11.)

but Tito did the best that he could with what he had, unlike Hoxha or any of the Soviet bureaucrats.Really? Albania had "by far the most egalitarian society in the world," with income differentials "limited by law to a maximum of 2:1." (Perspectives on Albania, 1992, p. 134.) The Soviet revisionists and their allies actually saw much to admire in Yugoslavia after 1955. Around 80% of Poland's agriculture was private after the 50's. Hungary, East Germany and Czechoslovakia all had some form of "consumer socialism." Albania by contrast was actually building socialism. The first market reforms in the USSR could be traced to the period immediately after Stalin's death and certainly the abolition of the machine-tractor stations in 1957 along with the "reforms" of the 60's constituted a move towards the market. Similar reforms in Albania did not occur until 1990.

Let's compare foreign policies. After 1955 (and especially after 1962) Yugoslavia deemed USSR as having basically gotten rid of "Stalinism" and maintained normal diplomatic and economic relations with it. In foreign affairs it valiantly defended such "socialists" as Nasser, Nehru, Indira Gandhi, and other imprisoners of communists. It also maintained good ties with Ben Bella, who sought to unite Islam with his own reformist brand of "socialism." In 1979 Yugoslavia denounced the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and called, alongside the USA, UK, etc. for recognition of Pol Pot's government in exile at the UN. There was one notable reason for this.

"Like our Democratic Cambodia, Yugoslavia is a non-aligned country which has adhered to the position of preserving independence. Friendship between our two countries is therefore based on the same principle. We have always esteemed and respected Comrade President Tito and the friendly Yugoslav people. Comrade President Tito and the Yugoslav people have always supported and helped us. We have sympathy for them and wish to express our thanks to Comrade President Tito and the friendly Yugoslav people."
(Pol Pot, quoted in Journal of Contemporary Asia Vol. 8 No. 3, 1978. p. 413.)

Hoxha by contrast had far from kind words in regards to Pol Pot. I can quote them if you'd like.

How about the struggle against Chinese revisionism? Well, any idiot could find out that Hoxha opposed in various ways the revisionism of Mao Zedong, and after Hua and Deng came to power he compared them to fascists.

How did Tito fare?

"Tito made a state visit to Beijing, and in 1978, Hua Guofeng went to Belgrade, at which time the Chinese press heaped lavish praise on Yugoslavia's social and economic systems."
(Melvin Gurtov and Byong-Moo Hwang. China Under Threat: The Politics of Strategy and Diplomacy. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. 1980. p. 255.)

"We firmly believe that the heroic Yugoslav peoples will carry out Comrade Tito's behests, unite closely and forge victoriously ahead along the road of socialism, self-management and non-alignment, and that the friendship between our parties, countries and people will grow in strength and develop steadily."
(Hua Guofeng on May 12, 1980, quoted in Beijing Review)

"I met with Comrade Tito just as an old soldier. We had a cordial talk and agreed to forget the past and look to the future. This is the attitude we adopted when we resumed relations with other East European parties and countries; we take the present as a fresh starting point from which to develop friendly, cooperative relations. Of course, it's still worthwhile to analyse events of the past. But I think the most important thing is that each party, whether it is big, small or medium, should respect the experience of the others and the choices they have made and refrain from criticizing the way the other parties and countries conduct their affairs. This should be our attitude not only towards parties in power but also towards those that are not in power. When we had talks with representatives of the Communist parties of France and Italy, we expressed this view that we should respect their experience and their choices. If they have made mistakes, it is up to them to correct them. Likewise, they should take the same attitude towards us, allowing us to make mistakes and correct them. Every country and every party has its own experience, which differs from that of the others in a thousand and one ways."
(Deng Xiaoping. Fundamental Issues in Present-Day China. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. 1987. p. 186.)

So no, Tito didn't do his best. He wasn't concerned with anti-Marxism, only "Stalinism." And of course Tito got along quite well with Kim Il Sung, Ceaușescu and other "hardline" pro-Soviet leaders as well.

Socialism is but a single point on the road to communism."We Jugoslavs have discarded classic deviations between revolutionary and evolutionary socialism. History has erased such a distinction. Life now pushes toward the evolutionary progress... I think that even in the United States there is a tendency toward socialism. A big change began with your New Deal and your economy retains many of its features. For example, state intervention in the economy is much larger."
(Tito, quoted in Cyrus Leo Sulzberger. The Last of the Giants. New York: Macmillan. 1970. p. 270.)

"For, from its 7th congress of April 1958, the Yugoslav party held that Communists 'should no longer be concerned primarily with questions relating to the overthrow of capitalism', that it was possible to achieve socialism without a revolution and that Communist parties need not enjoy a power monopoly in pursuit of socialism."
(Geoffrey Stern. The Rise and Decline of International Communism. Aldershot: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. 1990. p. 177.)

Tito gave power back to the workers as much as he could without flat out abandoning communism after the split with imperialist Moscow."What self-respecting Communist country would admit the unpalatable truth of widespread unemployment—which is by definition impossible under a socialist system—or allow 300,000 of its experts and workers to seek employment abroad and even organize their temporary migration? With public ownership of the means of production, banks, commerce, etc. workers should not strike against themselves; but this allegedly socialist country reports some two hundred work stoppages per annum... can peasants not only own their land but privately import and operate tractors; can individuals run trading businesses, restaurants, and motels? Can a Communist country ever contemplate allowing foreign investments of risk capital and setting up partnership projects? Can a ruling Communist party admit that it has turned into a brake on social development instead of remaining the infallible vanguard and motor of advance toward full communism? Whatever the answers, all this has already happened or is happening in Yugoslavia."
(Paul Lendvai. Eagles and Cobwebs: Nationalism and Communism in the Balkans. New York: Doubleday & Company, INC. 1969. p. 52, 54.)

"But how to explain the case of the Union Bank of Belgrade, one of the largest banks in the country, which holds one-fifth of the aggressive savings deposits? ... the governor of the Central Bank explained that... his proposal that a system of special reserves be held in securities of the Central Bank had been rejected by the bankers for fear of a 'disguised centralization of funds.' Another amusing and highly revealing story was reported in the same period. From this small Balkan country no fewer than two hundred firms submitted competitive bids to build a factory for Libya. Only one-third of those enterprises would suffice to carry out such construction in Yugoslavia itself.

A few weeks later, many Yugoslav households and industries felt tangibly what J.K. Galbraith has called the 'natural inclination' of the modern corporation toward 'a brutal and anti-social egotism,' even under the conditions of socialist self-management. From one day to the next, the Electric Power Community, representing power companies in the different republics, cut off power for four hours, blaming shortages on the weather. An angry government hastened to make it clear, however, that the companies had given no advance warning and that for a considerable time the thermoelectric (coal using) plans had been working below optimal capacities. The power companies had deliberately kept the output of thermoelectric plants at low levels and overused hydroelectric power. Why? Simply because of prices and costs. Since water-generated electricity costs one-third to one-fifth as much to produce as thermal power, and since the rates charged to the customers are nevertheless the same, this meant a large—and unauthorized—profit for the electric companies. Furthermore the electric power system is not truly unified. As Borba, the leading Belgrade daily, pointedly remarked: 'Certain power communities behave in this field as if they owned it. Poor connections among the various regions, mutual bargaining and relations, which have nothing to do with real business relations, explain the curious fact that in some republics power supply has often been cut while at the same time there has been plenty of power in other republics.'"
(Ibid. pp. 89-90.)

"The real changover actually started in 1954, when state financing was abolished and investment funds were separated from the state budget. Starting with the meager concession of being able to elect or dismiss the workers' councils, by the end of the fifties the enterprises planned their production independently, marketed their products, bought raw materials, decided on employment, made their own arrangements with foreign firms, and enjoyed increasing freedom in investing their capital and distributing their profits. Though projected bold reforms in 1961 were temporarily frustrated by bureaucracy, the enterprises could henceforth divide their net earnings independently once they had paid their federal and local taxes.

Parallel reforms in 1953 to 1964 gradually introduced a working market mechanism with government control maintained through price and investment, fiscal and monetary policies. State administration was drastically reduced; the six republics and the communes (there are at present 517 such local administrative districts) were given increased powers in political and economic decisions. Ministries were abolished and only a few administrative state secretariats remain. Enterprises are no longer in any way subordinate to the central institutions; they form their own branch associations and set up business chambers to represent their interests.

The constitutional reform of 1953 established a bicameral basis in local self-government and also at republican and federal levels, and the new Constitution of 1963 made the entire system even more complicated, with a corporate structure resembling in some ways Mussolini's Italy.... [with] a so-called Council of Producers elected on a vocational basis in enterprises, thus excluding self-employed peasants and artisans..."
(Ibid. pp. 98-99.)

"In short, the cooperatives that are based on voluntary association in the form of contracts with peasants resemble the cooperative ventures one would expect to find in the Scandinavian countries and have hardly anything in common with the collective farms of the Soviet Union or elsewhere in Eastern Europe."
(Ibid. pp. 112-113.)

"It was evident from the beginning that if workers' councils were to have unlimited authority in each individual production unit the result would be a system of free competition differing from the nineteenth-century model only in the ascription of ownership to particular concerns; no economic planning would be possible. Accordingly, the state reserved to itself various basic functions concerning the investment rate and the distribution of the accumulation fund. The reforms of 1964-65 further reduced the powers of the state without abandoning the idea of planning; the state was to regulate the economy chiefly through the nationalized banking system.

... The gap between more and less economically developed parts of the country tended to grow wider instead of narrowing; pressures on wages threatened to push down the investment rate below what was socially desirable; competitive conditions led to the appearance of a class of rich industrial managers whose privileges excited popular discontent; the market and competition caused an increase in inflation and unemployment."
(Lezsek Kolakowski. [I]Main Currents of Marxism: Its Origin, Growth, and Dissolution Vol. III. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1978. pp. 475-476.)

Things did not seriously deteriorate into the state you seem to attribute to him until after his death.The USSR wasn't in any danger of breaking up under Khrushchev and Brezhnev. What's your point? It's pretty obvious that it was Tito's system which laid the foundations for its own dismemberment into civil wars and genocides.

JAM

31st May 2012, 01:24

What, are you serious? Do we need a linguist here? You're the one who started all this English talk and now you call me a troll? There is a difference between "to guide" and "to control". If you can't see it, then clearly it's you who has a problem with English, not me. Like I said, "to guide" someone means to influence someone into doing something. For example, "I guided a blind man across the street." I didn't force him to go across the street. I gently took his hand and helped him walk across the street. If I say "I commanded a blind man across the street." the meaning changes drastically. Now it means that I put a gun on his forehead and told him "Get across the street." Do you really not see the difference or are you the one who's trolling?

Your comparison with the blind man is trolling. Do you think Tudjman needed to put a gun in the head of Boban to control him? And yes, by saying that you guided a blind man across the street is the same as saying that you commanded or controlled the old man passage to the other side. What is missing you is that all this words have a common meaning: directing or leading. Is in this sense that the words are applied in this context. For you probably words have just one meaning, but they don't.

This is getting very absurd indeed. The only thing that keeps you from recognize it is your non-sense. I already gave you the definition of steer and you ignored after your boat example. It's simply ludicrous to say that Guide and Control have different meanings.

Meanwhile, I have another source to give you: "Extreme Croatian nationalists in western Herzegovina, under the nominal leadership of Mate Boban but in fact controlled by Tudjman in Zagreb, turned against Bosnian Muslims forcing them out official positions..."

Twilight of Impunity: The War Crimes Trial of Slobodan Milosevic, by Judith Armatta, 2010.

Another scientific study. Are you gonna keep yourself in that "guide" non-sense?

You just said it yourself.... But the last sentence makes no sense, though. Countries of Croatia and Serbia were allies, but not the country of Croatia? What then?Yes, it was a mistake while i was writing in the keyboard. I wanted to say that both countries were in fact allies in Bosnia, yes. I have already erased "not Croatia".

What post? Quote the exact sentence where I defended him."I'd rather that world saw all the truth behind the conflicts then if they just took that Milošević was the Hitler of the Yugoslav wars while everyone rest was innocent."

If you're allow me to quote yourself, "Absurd and damn ridiculous is your interpretation of my words." LOL. What is absurd in it? Your interpretation added things that I didn't say. My interpretation didn't add nothing. See the difference between an absurd interpretation and a correct one?

Maybe it's a misunderstanding then, because you didn't state the exact Croatian faction you were referencing (notice how I always say "HRHB", "Croatian government", "HVO", RSK, "RS" etc.). It's a very big oversight, even if we only concentrate on Bosnia. I can actually say "Bosniaks were fighting Serbs and Croats and were allied with them at the same time." and I wouldn't say anything that's not true. Because, while Bosnian government was in a war with both RS and HRHB at the time, SAPZB (Samostalna Autonomna Pokrajina Zapadna Bosna).I didn't thought was necessary since we were talking about Bosnia and the thread is only about the Bosnia War.

Then it's pretty damn harsh. All I said was that Milošević wasn't the only bad guy, that Boban, Alija and Franjo weren't innocent as well. Like someone criticising USA for dropping the atomic bombs on Japan. Well, I hope I won't get banned for this, but: I'm not very supportive of USA throwing those nuclear bombs on civilians.We weren't talking about what was done in the war but the responsibility for the conflict. If Hitler hadn't start the war you wouldn't have the atomic bomb on Japan or the Dresden bombing. That was what I meant.

You quoted a source from wikipedia that said "On May 6, 1992, the Graz agreement between Mate Boban and Radovan Karadžić was signed, establishing a cease fire between Croat and Serb forces and the division of Bosnia and Herzegovina into Croatian and Serbian units". When I said that it was just an agreement to limit some military activity, not an alliance, you replied withi: "LOL. You sign a treaty to limit your fighting with each other??? LOL. They signed the treaty to stop all military actions against each other and not just some of it." Do you see where Graz comes into play now?As far as I can remember you mentioned in your previous post this: "You marked the beginning of your alliance with the Graz agreement. Even this whole argument happened with you asking me "Graz agreement rings any bells?""

This post that I written was long before the post that you now mentioned with the LOL thing. It was my second post if I am not mistaken.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on this one and admit: HVO maybe did sometimes cooperate with the Serbs in the Bosniak-Croat War. The fact remains that this was never recognised by any of the two sides, even after the war, but as I said, benefit of the doubt. Now, I hope you realized by now (did you?) about the complexity of the war, and don't still claim that it was an organized fight where it was a straightforward: Bosniaks vs. Croats vs. Serbs. One month they were looking at eachother through the sights, and the next they were playing chess together while being treated in a hospital. There wasn't a formal alliance between HVO and VRS, at least not a known one. The units did cooperate sometimes in exchange for fuel, money or just because they had a need to. It was like that, that's as much as I'm definitely sure.The issue here is that Milosevic did in fact allied with Tudjman in Bosnia through an alliance between Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats and this is what you refuse to fully acknowledge and I don't know why. I showed it to you so many different sources of it that I can only assume that you have some hidden reason to refuse to see it. My point was always to show that there was an alliance between Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats at the beginning of the war. Did you see what said the HVO official in the excerpt that i gave you in my previous post? The alliance didn't last too much time but existed.

Which leads me to my last question you never answered: Do believe that any of the Croatian and Serbian factions (especially HRHB and RS) had a formal alliance or do you believe it was just cooperation between different units?As I said above after what I red from all those sources I believe there was an alliance in the whole territory between Croats and Serbs under direct instructions of Tudjman and Milosevic.

PS: You said that if I gave you a Battle were Croats and Serbs had cooperated in Bosnia you would admit that I've won the argument. I just did it. I guess that you didn't keep your word.

Yugo45

31st May 2012, 07:23

Your comparison with the blind man is trolling. Do you think Tudjman needed to put a gun in the head of Boban to control him? And yes, by saying that you guided a blind man across the street is the same as saying that you commanded or controlled the old man passage to the other side. What is missing you is that all this words have a common meaning: directing or leading. Is in this sense that the words are applied in this context. For you probably words have just one meaning, but they don't.

This is getting very absurd indeed. The only thing that keeps you from recognize it is your non-sense. I already gave you the definition of steer and you ignored after your boat example. It's simply ludicrous to say that Guide and Control have different meanings.

No, no, they do not. For the final time. They are synomims but in different context, and the right context when they are synonims is about things, not humans. Like the ship. Tuđman steered the ship. Tuđman controlled the ship. Tuđman commanded the ship. Tuđman guided the ship. If I commanded someone across the street it's me forcing him. If I guided him it's me helping him to go across the street. It's not trolling, it's having to use childlish analogies so you can understand the huge difference between two wods.

If you can't understand the differences, I understand you, your English isn't perfect. But hey, at least you try!

Meanwhile, I have another source to give you: "Extreme Croatian nationalists in western Herzegovina, under the nominal leadership of Mate Boban but in fact controlled by Tudjman in Zagreb, turned against Bosnian Muslims forcing them out official positions..."

Twilight of Impunity: The War Crimes Trial of Slobodan Milosevic, by Judith Armatta, 2010.

What if I give you books (or "scientific studies" as you refer to them) on Croatian or Serbian that claim otherwise. Will they be considered "scientific studies" as well?

"I'd rather that world saw all the truth behind the conflicts then if they just took that Milošević was the Hitler of the Yugoslav wars while everyone rest was innocent."

lol? That's defending Milošević? Alright, if you say so :laugh:

LOL. What is absurd in it? Your interpretation added things that I didn't say. My interpretation didn't add nothing. See the difference between an absurd interpretation and a correct one?

A correct one? I said that Karadžić was under a lot more command then Boban was. That can also mean that while Karadžić was under total command, Boban wasn't under no ones command. How hard can it be?

I didn't thought was necessary since we were talking about Bosnia and the thread is only about the Bosnia War.

It is necessary because even in Bosnia when you say "Bosnian Croats" or "Bosnian Muslims" you think about a lot of different factions which may or may not have cooperated.

As far as I can remember you mentioned in your previous post this: "You marked the beginning of your alliance with the Graz agreement. Even this whole argument happened with you asking me "Graz agreement rings any bells?""

This post that I written was long before the post that you now mentioned with the LOL thing. It was my second post if I am not mistaken.

No, it was long after that. Almost at the end of the 3rd page.

The issue here is that Milosevic did in fact allied with Tudjman in Bosnia through an alliance between Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats and this is what you refuse to fully acknowledge and I don't know why. I showed it to you so many different sources of it that I can only assume that you have some hidden reason to refuse to see it. My point was always to show that there was an alliance between Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats at the beginning of the war. Did you see what said the HVO official in the excerpt that i gave you in my previous post? The alliance didn't last too much time but existed.

Because it's not possible. Because not all Croatian factions were fighting against the Bosniaks and with RS. Not even all of HVO. Because there's not an agreement between Tuđman and Milošević about this. It was either Boban making deals directly with Karadžić and issuing orders to his HVO (and still not everyone listened to him), or different units commanders cooperating with the Serbs for their own gain.

As I said above after what I red from all those sources I believe there was an alliance in the whole territory between Croats and Serbs under direct instructions of Tudjman and Milosevic.

Whole territory in Bosnia? But not even all of HVO was fighting. HVO around Sarajevo, Tuzla, Bihać and Usora were still allied with ARBIH. And when exactly did that alliance start? On what meeting? Or what, was it by a phone call?

PS: You said that if I gave you a Battle were Croats and Serbs had cooperated in Bosnia you would admit that I've won the argument. I just did it. I guess that you didn't keep your word.

I already said they cooperated at least three pages ago. I was hoping you will give me something that prooves that at least HRHB and RS had a large scale alliance.

JAM

31st May 2012, 14:51

No, no, they do not. For the final time. They are synomims but in different context, and the right context when they are synonims is about things, not humans. Like the ship. Tuđman steered the ship. Tuđman controlled the ship. Tuđman commanded the ship. Tuđman guided the ship. If I commanded someone across the street it's me forcing him. If I guided him it's me helping him to go across the street. It's not trolling, it's having to use childlish analogies so you can understand the huge difference between two wods.

If you can't understand the differences, I understand you, your English isn't perfect. But hey, at least you try!

I can see clearly here that you are desperate. Now guided in that context can only be applied to things?:laugh:

That is the most laughable argument I ever heard here.What a joke.

Just the fact that you hung up to this semantic thing shows how poor your arguments are and why you were beaten here. You didn't counter my arguments and sources with proves, quotes, sources or anything like it. You merely hung up to the semantic of a word. LOL

What if I give you books (or "scientific studies" as you refer to them) on Croatian or Serbian that claim otherwise. Will they be considered "scientific studies" as well?

Yes. If it's one scientific work why not? The matter is that you failed to present any and I presented more than two.

lol? That's defending Milošević? Alright, if you say so :laugh:

Aren't you defending Milosevic against those who view Milosevic as the Hitler of the Yugoslavia wars??? Your poor English skills are betraying you again. The fact that you added that smile only makes yourself more ridiculous. Be more careful when using those things. Make sure you're right.

A correct one? I said that Karadžić was under a lot more command then Boban was. That can also mean that while Karadžić was under total command, Boban wasn't under no ones command. How hard can it be?

Here are you being ridiculous again. You stated that one was under more command than the other. That is saying that Boban was under command as well but in a less degree than the former. You admitted here that Boban was under the command of Tudjman what makes even more laughable your semantic thing above. You must think that I have your age to be playing with you here.

It is necessary because even in Bosnia when you say "Bosnian Croats" or "Bosnian Muslims" you think about a lot of different factions which may or may not have cooperated.

When I said Bosnian Croats or Bosnian Serbs I was referring to the whole of them in Bosnia, yes. Why I would make distinctions within them? Existed more official militias than the HVO or VRS in Bosnia for both Croats and Serbs?

No, it was long after that. Almost at the end of the 3rd page.

Are you drunk or something? You are completely disoriented. That post where I said "ring the bell" is in the first page and is the #13 (http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2454092&postcount=13) post of this thread. Was my second post in the thread. Go to the first page and see it.

Because it's not possible. Because not all Croatian factions were fighting against the Bosniaks and with RS. Not even all of HVO. Because there's not an agreement between Tuđman and Milošević about this. It was either Boban making deals directly with Karadžić and issuing orders to his HVO (and still not everyone listened to him), or different units commanders cooperating with the Serbs for their own gain.

Boban was under control of Tudjman as you already admitted. Karadžić was under control of Milosevic as you also admitted. It's not very hard, dude. I presented you at least 10 different sources to prove the alliance. How many did you present? NONE.

Whole territory in Bosnia? But not even all of HVO was fighting. HVO around Sarajevo, Tuzla, Bihać and Usora were still allied with ARBIH.

The alliance between Bosnian Croats and Muslims collapsed shortly before the alliance between croats and serbs. My sources which I've shown you make irrefutable references to that. During the timeline of the alliance between Croats and Serbs there was no alliance between Croats and Muslims.

And when exactly did that alliance start? On what meeting? Or what, was it by a phone call?

This shows how naive you are. Do you think that for make an alliance in the battlefield you need public ceremonies and official treaties signed in a public ceremony by two persons? I gave you already the timeline of the alliance several times. I won't continue repeating myself here until exhaustion. If you want see my previous posts.

I already admitted they cooperated at least a page ago. I was hoping you will give me something that prooves that at least HRHB and RS had a large scale alliance.

I did it several times. See all the sources that I gave you from the beginning of our arguing. Like the Croatian official said and I loved to red it:

"There are three sides. You cannot fight both of them. Therefore you must ally with one."

You didn't counter any source that I presented you. Not even one.

You are being dishonest as well. You said that I needed to show only one battle and I presented you two.

Leftsolidarity

31st May 2012, 15:19

Interesting conversation going on guys but would you 2 (mostly talking to JAM) stop saying everything from one another is just trolling? Pretty annoying and obviously shows that you don't know what trolling is.

Anywho, another question for everyone. What would have been the best solution to this conflict. (and I don't want "communism")

Ismail

31st May 2012, 17:55

Anywho, another question for everyone. What would have been the best solution to this conflict. (and I don't want "communism")Not have a Yugoslav leadership which encouraged capitalist competition between unequal republics and tolerated Serbian nationalism. IIRC Bosnia had much of the federation's arms industry (and notable corruption in it in the 80's), which is a pretty big imbalance in itself. You'd still probably see the demise of Yugoslavia after 1989, but I rather doubt it'd be nearly as violent.

Yugo45

31st May 2012, 21:31

I can see clearly here that you are desperate. Now guided in that context can only be applied to things?:laugh:

That is the most laughable argument I ever heard here.What a joke.

Just the fact that you hung up to this semantic thing shows how poor your arguments are and why you were beaten here. You didn't counter my arguments and sources with proves, quotes, sources or anything like it. You merely hung up to the semantic of a word. LOL

Desperate? No. I don't believe the source is valid since it isn't clear what the author meant with that sentence. That's it. Now can we get this behind us? Like you said, it's becoming a bit absurd.

Yes. If it's one scientific work why not? The matter is that you failed to present any and I presented more than two.

Alright then! The last time I posted sources on Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, you claimed them as invalid since they weren't on English. But since you say it's alright now, expect seeing sources on the language from now on. I'll give you full translations of the sources I post, and if you don't believe my translations, feel free to make a topic in "Zapadni Balkan" language forum and ask are the translations valid (that's allowed, right?).

Aren't you defending Milosevic against those who view Milosevic as the Hitler of the Yugoslavia wars??? Your poor English skills are betraying you again. The fact that you added that smile only makes yourself more ridiculous. Be more careful when using those things. Make sure you're right.

I'm not defending anyone. I'm just showing you that not everything is naivly black or white. Milošević is not the Hitler of the Yugoslav Wars. There either was no Hitlers or there were multiple Hitlers (including Tuđman and Izetbegović). It's that simple.

When I said Bosnian Croats or Bosnian Serbs I was referring to the whole of them in Bosnia, yes. Why I would make distinctions within them? Existed more official militias than the HVO or VRS in Bosnia for both Croats and Serbs?

Yes, they existed. JNA was operating in Bosnia at the beginning of the war. RSK almost the whole war as well. HV too, and don't forget HOS. Most of these factions at times did not see eye to eye. Even the same factions did not see eye to eye or did completely different things on different fronts. While one part of VRS was cooperating with Croats in the war, one part was cooperating with Bosniaks. While one part of HVO was fighting Bosniaks, the other part was fighting Serbs with Bosniaks. Confused yet? Like I said, complicated conflict.

Are you drunk or something? You are completely disoriented. That post where I said "ring the bell" is in the first page and is the #13 post of this thread. Was my second post in the thread. Go to the first page and see it.

No, I'm sober, but thanks for your concerns. I'm not talking about the "ring the bell" post, I'm talking about the exact post where you quoted a source stating that Graz agreement marked the beginning of the big mean Croat-Serb alliance.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/made-bosnian-wari-t171997/index3.html

(read the whole 3rd page again if you want though, to remind yourself of the Graz discussion).

This shows how naive you are. Do you think that for make an alliance in the battlefield you need public ceremonies and official treaties signed in a public ceremony by two persons? I gave you already the timeline of the alliance several times. I won't continue repeating myself here until exhaustion. If you want see my previous posts.

No, it shows how close minded you are. You still see this as a conflict with well defined sides where it was side A versus side B for well defined reason. Again, not even close to what it was really like. The Serbs were cooperating with both Bosniaks and Croats at the same time. Yes, this also fits your "timeline" of the Serbian-Croatian alliance, late '93 - mid '94 right?

I did it several times. See all the sources that I gave you from the beginning of our arguing. Like the Croatian official said and I loved to red it:

"There are three sides. You cannot fight both of them. Therefore you must ally with one."

No, you just prooved that there was cooperation between HVO and VRS at times. I never denied that. I denied that there was a large alliance with the two sides against the Bosnian side. Like I said at like page 2 or 3, all sides cooperated with each other at times. These "alliances", if you really want to call them that way, changed constantly, as any side seen fit. It was a matter of wishes, needs and how much DM (Deutsche Marks) the sides had. The idea of the Serbian side was to help the weaker side of the Bosniak-Croatian war, so it would continue as long as it can. One day the Croats were weaker, one day the Bosniaks were weaker. One day Bosniaks had more DM then Croats, one day Croats had more DM then Bosniaks. On one front the Croats were weaker (Zepče, Maglaj, N Travnik) so they helped them, on other fronts Bosniaks were weaker (Hercegovina), where Serbs helped the Bosniaks. It's very absurd to claim that it was this simple: Croats and Serbs allied at the beginning of the war to fight Muslims. You just don't see how dirty this war was. Coffers full of DM were carried over night to the "other" side, so that they would, with artillery, aim for the "third" side. It didn't matter how, as long as the money kept rolling. While VRS was helping HVO in Maglaj and Žepće, they were helping ARBIH in Hercegovina. All of this is very well documented.

See here:
http://www.dnevniavaz.ba/vijesti/teme/74288-svjedoci-otkrivaju-istinu-o-tajnoj-vojnoj-saradnji-armije-rbih-i-vojske-rs-srbi-su-za-novac-branili-mostar.html

I'll try and give you the best translation I can:

Translation:

Witnesses show the truth about military cooperation between ARBIH and VRS: Serbs defended Mostar for money!

That the Serbian forces, in the climax of the conflict between ARBIH and HVO during 1993 to the beginning of 1994, stayed neutral is more or less known to the public. However, even after two decades, the story about the then secret military cooperatin between Army of BIH and Army of RS on Podveležje above Mostar is still mysterious or not fully known to the public of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to the dispatch which the command of 4th corpus of ARBIH sent to the main headquarters of ARBIH on 8th August 1993, which content was described in his book "Operacija Jesen '94" (DES Sarajevo, 2007) published by a war reporter Šefko Hodžić, day before the documents were written happened a contact between ARBIH and representitives of Hercegovian corpus of VRS.

"On our side to the meeting went: Džiho Šefkija, deputy of the commander, Alikadić Alija, member of the Military presidency of the municipality, Hofo Tima (Fatima Leho), member of the corpus command. From the Serbian side came a delegation of six members with colonel Milošević, deputy of the Herzegovinian corpus commander, on the top. Our side iniciated the question of exchange between dead fighters and civilians... We also started the question about transport of those seriously wounded, and also the pass of convoy to Bar - Podgorica - Mostar", was, among other things, in the dispatch.

The deputy of the commander for security of 4th corpus ARBIH, Šefkija Džiho, who first started cooperation with members of VRS, in his interview with Dnevni Avaz, said that it was a fight for survival.

"We invested great efforts, then, in summer of '93, to make sure that the front with the Serbs was quiet. Because, in the climax of the conflict with HVO and HV, we couldn't afford to do anything that would provocate the sitation on the east front, the Podveleški plato. It's still unexplained, but maybe Croats weren't fighting Serbs either because Mate Boban and Radovan Karadžić agreed so. Maybe we will find this out in the future.", says Džiho.

"We don't exclude the posibility that the Serbs estimated that we were here fanatical fighters, because the members of ARBIH fought desperatly."

"There is no stronger weapon in the world then when you don't have an exit! We did not have one. Mostar was completely blocked on all sides. Our defeat would also be our disappereance. It was the core and that was our strongest weapon in Mostar. We, simply, didn't have no where to go. Especially in the situation when on eastern Mostar fell more granades in '93 then rain." - claims Džiho.

Mostar fighters in Podveležje, as confirmed Džiho, even earlier established a contact with Serbian soldiers. Especially with those in the valley of Neretva. They communicated and recognized each other. There was even an illegal "mail" across security points in Podveležje between Bosniaks in Mostar and mostar Serbs in Nevesinje.

"People bought flour, salt and other supplies. For the interests of not fighting on two fronts, we did not provocate their lines. We sent them one indirect message.", explains Džiho.

The idea of cooperation between two warring sides came in July 1993, from the commander of 8th motorized nevesinje brigade of Novica Gušić.

Gušić indirectly called for his longtime former colleague in JNA, late Arif Pašalić, to meet secretly in Busk near Mostar. Pašalić refused at first, because croatian propaganda has tied him to KOS, and a meeting with Gušić would be proof for this. So, this meeting was cancelled until Džiho. Because Pašalić still refused to go personally, Gušić sent his "security man", colonel Milošević.

Milošević at the beginning of the meeting asked Džiho with confusion:
"Man, is there anyone alive in that Mostar? I watched how Ustašas raised your city to the skies.

Džiho answered him that "there are those still alive", and that they "can't do anything to us.", but that they won't allow food convoys to pass.

Džiho tells us about the meeting very openly, saying how he was told that Milošević will with his troops come from the direction of Trebinje.

"At the night we went to the command of our batallion in Gnojice. The night was very warm. While we were sitting there, I noticed an onion sticking from the ground. On that place, probably, were sometimes earlier planted onions. I started digging through the dirt and found a few onions which we ate, because we were terribly hungry. We were the command of the corpus, but we didn't have nothing too eat" - tells us Džiho.

While he talked with Milošević, remembers Džiho, few meters ahead was a skeleton of a man in a wheelchair. Behind him was a corpse of a woman in a skirt. It was later shown that those were remains of Bosniaks in Nevesinje which in 1992 tried to run to Mostar."

That horrible sight beat him, so he suggested Milošević to hand them the bones of those unfortunate people. Milošević agreed, but asked bones of colonel Toma Pušar in return.

As a sign of goodwill, Džiho, with Pušarino remains, gave the army of RS remains of 8 more people. Then began a long meeting. Džiho asked for a convoy with food across Crna Gora and Nevesinje. The officer said that itt was a "big thing" and that he has to "talk with his guys" about it.

Mostarians then came to an idea to make another, as Džiho says, "catch".

"We sent a dispatch to the main headquarters and the presidency of Bosnia, where we suggesed president Izetbegović how it would be good to say in the media about our contacts with the Serbs. That way, we would give Croats to knowledge that we can get food over Serbian controlled territory. Izetbegović published this news in the media, after which came a convoy across Metković which Croats let pass. Those talks also had a humanitarian character and were tied with an exchange and passing of the convoy" claims Džiho.

But it didn't end on this. Serbs offered another meeting of commander Gušić and Pašalić.

"Arif Pašalić this time agreed to go, and us two went to the meeting. We drove in a Golf MK II, which we later gifted to Gušić. He then offered Pašalić to attack HVO together. He offered a big sum of 1.200 soldiers for the operation. They asked for a sector from Vranjević to Dračevica, to attack the territory of Buna, and for us to attack the rest. Arif refused to do this." continued Džiho."

Gušić asked Pašalić why they did not want to help, and the first man of 4th corpus answered honestly:

"When we get rid of Ustašas, what will we do with you?" Gušić replied to Pašalić that he's a "hard player."

When after heavy attacks of HVO on Blagaj and Kočine near Mostar Safet Oručević through Mostar Serbs Milan Kovačević "Garo" and Stojan Dakić got in contact with Ratko Mladić personally, and asked for his help, the war criminal on 16th July 1993 from Bratunac broadcasted news through Tanjug. "Glas Srpske" day later published: "Muslims ask for Serbian help."

"Merciless muslim-croat conflicts, which last for more then two months, continue with all its strength, and muslim forces ask for Serbian military helped" - published Tanjug.

Mladić gladly said that he will review the "appeal of muslims". And really, the acquisition of projectiles from Serbs lasted for months. Of course, that was being payed for heavily. There were talks of coffers full of money whih ended in Serbian bunkers in Podveležje. The cooperation was so advanced that in September 1993 was agreed between Serbian artilery men to give mortar support to ARBIH for a whole week without stopping. Serbs and fighters of ARBIH even slept together in bunkers!

There was an express line established, and it was enough for the command of the corpus to ask a certain ammount of granades and they would get them immediatly. Serbs still "on order" fired granades on HVO positions. It even happened that their artillery men fired extra granades and say "It's on the house" VRS members even fired for free.

Džiho does not have any dillema that this kind of cooperation with VRS was needed, because ARBIH in that time was feeding more then 30.000 civilians and army men. No one had anything to eat.

"We very conciously, with our wits, in a situation when a horrible conflict with HVO was raging, were forced to make a contact with the Serbian side. We prayed to God that they didn't ally and attack us together. That was the core of the cooperation, pure bare survival rate. Because, that what I answered to general Ramiz Dreković, when he claimed that he will "spoil our love with četniks", maybe best describes our reasons. I told him, "General, for the love of God, what love? Its's our formula of survival in Mostar and us in the city. We can't war on both sides. You're not a really good military expert if you claim otherwise. It just was not possible" - explains Džiho for Avaz.

He claimed that "time showed corectness of our precedures".

"Because, to all people who were in the war, on any way, it's apsolutely clear behind that there wasn't anything which was not allowed to be", concludes Džiho.

Still, many ask themselves today why the Serbs did not use the difficult position of ARBIH and allied with HVO to attack Mostar together. That is one of the biggest mysteries of the last war.

Especially because HVO, at the same time as VRS was aiding ARBiH, also closely cooperated with Serbian forces. They even moved across their territory freely. They on one occasion asked VRS to allow them to attack ARBiH from the back. Maybe those who claim that if the Serbs gave Mostar to Croats, they would without a need die for a territory which they would before or later lose.

Mayor of Mostar, Safet Oručević, had a meeting in the fall of '93 with Ratko Mladić personally!

"Mladić asked of me to betray Hercegovina like Fikret Abdić betrayed Krajina. He talked to me how Izetbegović left me, how Herzegovina is sold to the Croats. He pressured me and offered everything to do it," said Oručević to Šefik Hodžić.

That the military aid of VRS was agreed on the highest level, illustres the ispatch which on 17th August 1995, to command of the 4th corpus sent the commander of ARBIH, the late general Rasim Delić.

"Secure that Safet Oručević in Mostar is noticed that he should expect a call from a man who he seven years ago sold a green cady to. This man will call him with a motorola from The Hill and will introduce himself as Mićo's godfather. Transfer the message URGENTLY!", says Delić in the dispatch.

Mićo's godfather was a Mostar Serb Milan Kovačević, and the Hill was Podveležje.

When Džiho was sent to negotations with Croats in Međugorje, Fatima Leho took his role.

"As soon as I came to Međugorje, the Croatian negotiator asked me "What is it Džiho, yesterday you were in Busk with the četniks", to what I replied to him "That now means your cooperation with us is unquestionable."

Feel free to also research the book "Operacija Jesen '94", or the operation in general. The book goes into detail about this, and other, Bosniak-Serbian cooperations. It's about the Operation of Fall '94, where it was almost impossible to convince ARBiH units in Herzegovina to attack the Serbs, because they considered them their saviors. You can also investigate aid from Iran to Bosnia, which was supported by the Serbs.

Do you see the real nature of the war now? It just wasn't simple as "Milošević was the Yugoslav Hitler and he attacked everyone to expand Serbian living space." While there's some truth in it, it's not the whole truth. The real truth is much, much (and I can't stress this enough) complex.

So, at the end, I think we should define a difference between an alliance and
a short term cooperation.

Alliance, at least to me, is when Milošević and Tuđman, Karadžić and Boban, sit down and shake hands on how they will beat the Bosniaks. The definition of alliance matches this: "2. a formal agreement or pact, esp a military one, between two or more countries to achieve a particular aim." A formal agreement. An agreement which didn't exsist between VRS and HVO.

Cooperation, trade, or call it as you will, is what I described in my posts above. Is it not?

JAM

31st May 2012, 22:45

Alright then! The last time I posted sources on Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian, you claimed them as invalid since they weren't on English. But since you say it's alright now, expect seeing sources on the language from now on. I'll give you full translations of the sources I post, and if you don't believe my translations, feel free to make a topic in "Zapadni Balkan" language forum and ask are the translations valid (that's allowed, right?).

Just don't forget that you were talking about scientific works and a wikipedia article is far from being one as you can imagine. Nevertheless, I never said that your wikipedia source was invalid for being on Bosnian.

I'm not defending anyone. I'm just showing you that not everything is naivly black or white. Milošević is not the Hitler of the Yugoslav Wars. There either was no Hitlers or there were multiple Hitlers (including Tuđman and Izetbegović). It's that simple.Not everything is black or white but the responsibility of Milosevic shouldn't be diminished in any circumstances. He was the main responsible for all the war just like Hitler was for the WW2. The guy was fascist and genocidal. For me he is in the same category of Hitler, no better or worst than him and I am not the only one here with this opinion.

Yes, they existed. JNA was operating in Bosnia at the beginning of the war. RSK almost the whole war as well. HV too, and don't forget HOS. Most of these factions at times did not see eye to eye. Even the same factions did not see eye to eye or did completely different things on different fronts. While one part of VRS was cooperating with Croats in the war, one part was cooperating with Bosniaks. While one part of HVO was fighting Bosniaks, the other part was fighting Serbs with Bosniaks. Confused yet? Like I said, complicated conflict.I should have mentioned specifically the Croats and Serbs under the control of Croatia and Serbian governments but since I always mentioned HVO and Tudjman I thought that was irrelevant.

No, I'm sober, but thanks for your concerns. I'm not talking about the "ring the bell" post, I'm talking about the exact post where you quoted a source stating that Graz agreement marked the beginning of the big mean Croat-Serb alliance.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/made-bosnian-wari-t171997/index3.html

(read the whole 3rd page again if you want though, to remind yourself of the Graz discussion).First of all, this confusion happened because you clearly said that it was I who marked the alliance in that date what is not true.

Second, the source talks about a cease fire and not an alliance. There is no single mention to any alliance in that specific source. Why you assumed that the source establish the began of the alliance there? I never said "the alliance began in 6 of May 1992" nor the sources states that but rather talks about a cease fire. Here are you adding words were they don't exist. Pretty low.

It was precisely the contrary, I always talked about late 1992 as my initial source precises it.

No, it shows how close minded you are. You still see this as a conflict with well defined sides where it was side A versus side B for well defined reason. Again, not even close to what it was really like. The Serbs were cooperating with both Bosniaks and Croats at the same time. Yes, this also fits your "timeline" of the Serbian-Croatian alliance, late '93 - mid '94 right?Dude, you ate already all messed up of your mind. I said late 92 - mid 93. Go check my previous posts if you want.

No, you just prooved that there was cooperation between HVO and VRS at times. I never denied that. I denied that there was a large alliance with the two sides against the Bosnian side. Like I said at like page 2 or 3, all sides cooperated with each other at times. These "alliances", if you really want to call them that way, changed constantly, as any side seen fit. It was a matter of wishes, needs and how much DM (Deutsche Marks) the sides had. The idea of the Serbian side was to help the weaker side of the Bosniak-Croatian war, so it would continue as long as it can. One day the Croats were weaker, one day the Bosniaks were weaker. One day Bosniaks had more DM then Croats, one day Croats had more DM then Bosniaks. On one front the Croats were weaker (Zepče, Maglaj, N Travnik) so they helped them, on other fronts Bosniaks were weaker (Hercegovina), where Serbs helped the Bosniaks. It's very absurd to claim that it was this simple: Croats and Serbs allied at the beginning of the war to fight Muslims. You just don't see how dirty this war was. Coffers full of DM were carried over night to the "other" side, so that they would, with artillery, aim for the "third" side. It didn't matter how, as long as the money kept rolling. While VRS was helping HVO in Maglaj and Žepće, they were helping ARBIH in Hercegovina. All of this is very well documented.

See here:
http://www.dnevniavaz.ba/vijesti/teme/74288-svjedoci-otkrivaju-istinu-o-tajnoj-vojnoj-saradnji-armije-rbih-i-vojske-rs-srbi-su-za-novac-branili-mostar.html

I'll try and give you the best translation I can:

Translation:

Witnesses show the truth about military cooperation between ARBIH and VRS: Serbs defended Mostar for money!

That the Serbian forces, in the climax of the conflict between ARBIH and HVO during 1993 to the beginning of 1994, stayed neutral is more or less known to the public. However, even after two decades, the story about the then secret military cooperatin between Army of BIH and Army of RS on Podveležje above Mostar is still mysterious or not fully known to the public of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

According to the dispatch which the command of 4th corpus of ARBIH sent to the main headquarters of ARBIH on 8th August 1993, which content was described in his book "Operacija Jesen '94" (DES Sarajevo, 2007) published by a war reporter Šefko Hodžić, day before the documents were written happened a contact between ARBIH and representitives of Hercegovian corpus of VRS.

"On our side to the meeting went: Džiho Šefkija, deputy of the commander, Alikadić Alija, member of the Military presidency of the municipality, Hofo Tima (Fatima Leho), member of the corpus command. From the Serbian side came a delegation of six members with colonel Milošević, deputy of the Herzegovinian corpus commander, on the top. Our side iniciated the question of exchange between dead fighters and civilians... We also started the question about transport of those seriously wounded, and also the pass of convoy to Bar - Podgorica - Mostar", was, among other things, in the dispatch.

The deputy of the commander for security of 4th corpus ARBIH, Šefkija Džiho, who first started cooperation with members of VRS, in his interview with Dnevni Avaz, said that it was a fight for survival.

"We invested great efforts, then, in summer of '93, to make sure that the front with the Serbs was quiet. Because, in the climax of the conflict with HVO and HV, we couldn't afford to do anything that would provocate the sitation on the east front, the Podveleški plato. It's still unexplained, but maybe Croats weren't fighting Serbs either because Mate Boban and Radovan Karadžić agreed so. Maybe we will find this out in the future.", says Džiho.

"We don't exclude the posibility that the Serbs estimated that we were here fanatical fighters, because the members of ARBIH fought desperatly."

"There is no stronger weapon in the world then when you don't have an exit! We did not have one. Mostar was completely blocked on all sides. Our defeat would also be our disappereance. It was the core and that was our strongest weapon in Mostar. We, simply, didn't have no where to go. Especially in the situation when on eastern Mostar fell more granades in '93 then rain." - claims Džiho.

Mostar fighters in Podveležje, as confirmed Džiho, even earlier established a contact with Serbian soldiers. Especially with those in the valley of Neretva. They communicated and recognized each other. There was even an illegal "mail" across security points in Podveležje between Bosniaks in Mostar and mostar Serbs in Nevesinje.

"People bought flour, salt and other supplies. For the interests of not fighting on two fronts, we did not provocate their lines. We sent them one indirect message.", explains Džiho.

The idea of cooperation between two warring sides came in July 1993, from the commander of 8th motorized nevesinje brigade of Novica Gušić.

Gušić indirectly called for his longtime former colleague in JNA, late Arif Pašalić, to meet secretly in Busk near Mostar. Pašalić refused at first, because croatian propaganda has tied him to KOS, and a meeting with Gušić would be proof for this. So, this meeting was cancelled until Džiho. Because Pašalić still refused to go personally, Gušić sent his "security man", colonel Milošević.

Milošević at the beginning of the meeting asked Džiho with confusion:
"Man, is there anyone alive in that Mostar? I watched how Ustašas raised your city to the skies.

Džiho answered him that "there are those still alive", and that they "can't do anything to us.", but that they won't allow food convoys to pass.

Džiho tells us about the meeting very openly, saying how he was told that Milošević will with his troops come from the direction of Trebinje.

"At the night we went to the command of our batallion in Gnojice. The night was very warm. While we were sitting there, I noticed an onion sticking from the ground. On that place, probably, were sometimes earlier planted onions. I started digging through the dirt and found a few onions which we ate, because we were terribly hungry. We were the command of the corpus, but we didn't have nothing too eat" - tells us Džiho.

While he talked with Milošević, remembers Džiho, few meters ahead was a skeleton of a man in a wheelchair. Behind him was a corpse of a woman in a skirt. It was later shown that those were remains of Bosniaks in Nevesinje which in 1992 tried to run to Mostar."

That horrible sight beat him, so he suggested Milošević to hand them the bones of those unfortunate people. Milošević agreed, but asked bones of colonel Toma Pušar in return.

As a sign of goodwill, Džiho, with Pušarino remains, gave the army of RS remains of 8 more people. Then began a long meeting. Džiho asked for a convoy with food across Crna Gora and Nevesinje. The officer said that itt was a "big thing" and that he has to "talk with his guys" about it.

Mostarians then came to an idea to make another, as Džiho says, "catch".

"We sent a dispatch to the main headquarters and the presidency of Bosnia, where we suggesed president Izetbegović how it would be good to say in the media about our contacts with the Serbs. That way, we would give Croats to knowledge that we can get food over Serbian controlled territory. Izetbegović published this news in the media, after which came a convoy across Metković which Croats let pass. Those talks also had a humanitarian character and were tied with an exchange and passing of the convoy" claims Džiho.

But it didn't end on this. Serbs offered another meeting of commander Gušić and Pašalić.

"Arif Pašalić this time agreed to go, and us two went to the meeting. We drove in a Golf MK II, which we later gifted to Gušić. He then offered Pašalić to attack HVO together. He offered a big sum of 1.200 soldiers for the operation. They asked for a sector from Vranjević to Dračevica, to attack the territory of Buna, and for us to attack the rest. Arif refused to do this." continued Džiho."

Gušić asked Pašalić why they did not want to help, and the first man of 4th corpus answered honestly:

"When we get rid of Ustašas, what will we do with you?" Gušić replied to Pašalić that he's a "hard player."

When after heavy attacks of HVO on Blagaj and Kočine near Mostar Safet Oručević through Mostar Serbs Milan Kovačević "Garo" and Stojan Dakić got in contact with Ratko Mladić personally, and asked for his help, the war criminal on 16th July 1993 from Bratunac broadcasted news through Tanjug. "Glas Srpske" day later published: "Muslims ask for Serbian help."

"Merciless muslim-croat conflicts, which last for more then two months, continue with all its strength, and muslim forces ask for Serbian military helped" - published Tanjug.

Mladić gladly said that he will review the "appeal of muslims". And really, the acquisition of projectiles from Serbs lasted for months. Of course, that was being payed for heavily. There were talks of coffers full of money whih ended in Serbian bunkers in Podveležje. The cooperation was so advanced that in September 1993 was agreed between Serbian artilery men to give mortar support to ARBIH for a whole week without stopping. Serbs and fighters of ARBIH even slept together in bunkers!

There was an express line established, and it was enough for the command of the corpus to ask a certain ammount of granades and they would get them immediatly. Serbs still "on order" fired granades on HVO positions. It even happened that their artillery men fired extra granades and say "It's on the house" VRS members even fired for free.

Džiho does not have any dillema that this kind of cooperation with VRS was needed, because ARBIH in that time was feeding more then 30.000 civilians and army men. No one had anything to eat.

"We very conciously, with our wits, in a situation when a horrible conflict with HVO was raging, were forced to make a contact with the Serbian side. We prayed to God that they didn't ally and attack us together. That was the core of the cooperation, pure bare survival rate. Because, that what I answered to general Ramiz Dreković, when he claimed that he will "spoil our love with četniks", maybe best describes our reasons. I told him, "General, for the love of God, what love? Its's our formula of survival in Mostar and us in the city. We can't war on both sides. You're not a really good military expert if you claim otherwise. It just was not possible" - explains Džiho for Avaz.

He claimed that "time showed corectness of our precedures".

"Because, to all people who were in the war, on any way, it's apsolutely clear behind that there wasn't anything which was not allowed to be", concludes Džiho.

Still, many ask themselves today why the Serbs did not use the difficult position of ARBIH and allied with HVO to attack Mostar together. That is one of the biggest mysteries of the last war.

Especially because HVO, at the same time as VRS was aiding ARBiH, also closely cooperated with Serbian forces. They even moved across their territory freely. They on one occasion asked VRS to allow them to attack ARBiH from the back. Maybe those who claim that if the Serbs gave Mostar to Croats, they would without a need die for a territory which they would before or later lose.

Mayor of Mostar, Safet Oručević, had a meeting in the fall of '93 with Ratko Mladić personally!

"Mladić asked of me to betray Hercegovina like Fikret Abdić betrayed Krajina. He talked to me how Izetbegović left me, how Herzegovina is sold to the Croats. He pressured me and offered everything to do it," said Oručević to Šefik Hodžić.

That the military aid of VRS was agreed on the highest level, illustres the ispatch which on 17th August 1995, to command of the 4th corpus sent the commander of ARBIH, the late general Rasim Delić.

"Secure that Safet Oručević in Mostar is noticed that he should expect a call from a man who he seven years ago sold a green cady to. This man will call him with a motorola from The Hill and will introduce himself as Mićo's godfather. Transfer the message URGENTLY!", says Delić in the dispatch.

Mićo's godfather was a Mostar Serb Milan Kovačević, and the Hill was Podveležje.

When Džiho was sent to negotations with Croats in Međugorje, Fatima Leho took his role.

"As soon as I came to Međugorje, the Croatian negotiator asked me "What is it Džiho, yesterday you were in Busk with the četniks", to what I replied to him "That now means your cooperation with us is unquestionable."

Feel free to also research the book "Operacija Jesen '94", or the operation in general. The book goes into detail about this, and other, Bosniak-Serbian cooperations. It's about the Operation of Fall '94, where it was almost impossible to convince ARBiH units in Herzegovina to attack the Serbs, because they considered them their saviors. You can also investigate aid from Iran to Bosnia, which was supported by the Serbs.

Do you see the real nature of the war now? It just wasn't simple as "Milošević was the Yugoslav Hitler and he attacked everyone to expand Serbian living space." While there's some truth in it, it's not the whole truth. The real truth is much, much (and I can't stress this enough) complex.

So, at the end, I think we should define a difference between an alliance and
a short term cooperation.

Alliance, at least to me, is when Milošević and Tuđman, Karadžić and Boban, sit down and shake hands on how they will beat the Bosniaks. The definition of alliance matches this: "2. a formal agreement or pact, esp a military one, between two or more countries to achieve a particular aim." A formal agreement. An agreement which didn't exsist between VRS and HVO.

Cooperation, trade, or call it as you will, is what I described in my posts above. Is it not?

So much word for nothing. For some time I was worried that I would have to read all that but then I look at the dates and I relieved. All the operations mentioned there don't coincide with the timeline of the Serbs-Croats alliance in Bosnia. Therefore is irrelevant for what we are discussing.

Regarding the alliance definition, once again you are about to be owned. You gave the number 2 definition of alliance. Let's look at the first one:

1. a. A close association of nations or other groups, formed to advance common interests or causes.

I believe my source is the same that you presented. Next time give all the definitions of the word alliance and not only the most convenient to you, ok?

Yugo45

31st May 2012, 23:20

Not everything is black or white but the responsibility of Milosevic shouldn't be diminished in any circumstances. He was the main responsible for all the war just like Hitler was for the WW2. The guy was fascist and genocidal. For me he is in the same category of Hitler, no better or worst than him and I am not the only one here with this opinion.

If I say that he wasn't the only fascist in the war, that isn't diminishing his role. Besides, he wasn't the main reason of the war. The war would of happened even if Jesus was president of Yugoslavia. He only made it worse.

So much word for nothing. For some time I was worried that I would have to read all that but then I look at the dates and I relieved. All the operations mentioned there don't coincide with the timeline of the Serbs-Croats alliance in Bosnia. Therefore is irrelevant for what we are discussing.

What kind of battle are you playing now? I gave you sources which proove that RS was cooperating with both HVO and ARBiH at the same time. You gave me these sources:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/muslims-hit-hard-as-croats-and-serbs-unite-bosnias-maglaj-finger-is-cut-off-as-zepce-falls-to-new-allies-1482617.html

3rd July, 1993 and onwards. The same time when Herzegovina happened. Also, you said they had an alliance until mid 1993. Mostar fits this timeframe perfectly. Not only that, but if an alliance between Croats and Serbs existed, it didn't end in 1993. Cooperation continued until Bosniaks and Croats united. Proof:
http://i53.tinypic.com/2itil1v.png
Dated 9th August 1993. Here, it shows how HVO sends an "order" (as in, a shopping order, not a command) to RS command. (I'll translated it fully in my next post, I don't have time right now). Did you even read the article I posted? It looks like you're the one who messed up the dates. And how is it irrelevant? Even if it is(but it's not), it only prooves my thesis that the war wasn't not even close as you imagined it.

a. A close association of nations or other groups, formed to advance common interests or causes: an alliance of labor unions opposing the bill.

So wait, are you saying that it wasn't a military strategic alliance, but a sort of a union?

Just for the sake of the argument and understandment can you tell me what are your exact views about the issue of the cooperation between VRS and HVO. If the alliance existed, why was it made and when did it end? Why did it end? etc.

JAM

1st June 2012, 00:09

If I say that he wasn't the only fascist in the war, that isn't diminishing his role. Besides, he wasn't the main reason of the war. The war would of happened even if Jesus was president of Yugoslavia. He only made it worse.

Yes it is. It's just like the Nazis saying regarding Hitler's role in the II World War: "Hitler wasn't the only bad guy in the war, you know?" Don't you think this is defending Hitler?

What kind of battle are you playing now? I gave you sources which proove that RS was cooperating with both HVO and ARBiH at the same time. You gave me these sources:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/muslims-hit-hard-as-croats-and-serbs-unite-bosnias-maglaj-finger-is-cut-off-as-zepce-falls-to-new-allies-1482617.html

3rd July, 1993 and onwards. The same time when Herzegovina happened. Not only that, but if an alliance between Croats and Serbs existed, it didn't end there. It continued until Bosniaks and Croats united. Proof:
http://i53.tinypic.com/2itil1v.png
Dated 9th August 1993. Here, HVO command sends an "order" to RS command. (I'll translated it fully in my next post, I don't have time right now). Did you even read the article I posted? It looks like you're the one who messed up the dates. And how is it irrelevant? Even if it is(but it's not), it only prooves my thesis that the war wasn't not even close as you imagined it.It's irrelevant because it doesn't concern the period of the timeline of the alliance between the Serbs and the Croats. I already said this a million times by now.

So wait, are you saying that it wasn't a military strategic alliance, but a sort of a union?You know that was an example, right? Otherwise why the word Nations would be mentioned in definition? Do you think the authors thought that Nations are Unions?

Just for the sake of the argument and understandment can you tell me what are your exact views about the issue of the cooperation between VRS and HVO. If the alliance existed, why was it made and when did it end. Why did it end? etc.I will tell you my view after all I red from the sources I gave it to you.

I believe that Tudjman was at the time more interested in dividing Bosnia with Milosevic because it would have given more territory to the Croatia administration of Bosnia. He was also interested in ending the Croatia War and probably thought that an alliance in Bosnia with the Serbs would compelled Belgrad to give up from Croatia. Tudjman was also hoping that Milosevic would lost the presidential election for Panic in December 1992.

What changed this was the fact that Croatia War didn't end, Milosevic pursued its nationalistic line and especially the involvement of the USA in the war. USA was more interested in the weakening Yugoslavia than in preserving its power. Therefore, they intervened for the Muslims and pressured an alliance between the Croats and Muslims which happened in 1994.

That's my general view on it.

Yugo45

1st June 2012, 13:56

Yes it is. It's just like the Nazis saying regarding Hitler's role in the II World War: "Hitler wasn't the only bad guy in the war, you know?" Don't you think this is defending Hitler?

If Nazis say it while making other arguments defending Hitler, then it is defending him. But I'm sure most people will agree that not only the German side commited attrocities in WW2. Besides, like I said before, Yugoslav Wars are barely comparable to Hitler and WW2. And I can freely say that Milošević was not the cause of the war.

It's irrelevant because it doesn't concern the period of the timeline of the alliance between the Serbs and the Croats. I already said this a million times by now.

Then Maglaj and Žepće don't either. Those happened at the same time as Mostar happened. What now?

Because, like I proved you in my most above, if Croats and Serbs had any kind of military cooperation, it continued until at least late '93:
http://i53.tinypic.com/2itil1v.png

This is a dispatch from an HVO brigade "Bobovac" to The HVO headquarters.

It's dated on 9th September 1993.

Dear sir general!

We came into contact with the minister of defence of RS, mister sir general Dušan Kovačević in the question of military aid to the HVO Vareš and the command of the brigade. Mister Kovačević sent us to the adress of gen. Milovanović in GSS VRS Pale with the explenation that they are discussing our requests and the sending of the military aid to the units of HVO.

From the before mentioned generals we were told that for HVO Vareš, brigade "Bobovac", they did not recieve any requests lately.

About that, I turn to you with a plead to send a request to GSS VRS for sending military aid in shape of military supplies, military and technical supervision and military coordination of combat towards HVO Vareš and "Bobovac" brigade.

In the aim to make this faster and more efficiant, we suggest that you send the request via the "PACKAGE - RADIO" on the adress of "Bobovac" brigade so that we can forward the same to mister gen. Milovanović in GSS VRS in Pale. We also suggest that you authorize us to negotiate about the ammount and the type of the military aid with the highest officers of VRS personally. We expect your full understandment and a quick response.

With respect
God and Croats! [Nazi salute that Ustaše use]

Signed: The commander of the brigade, Emil Harah.

This prooves that the cooperation between VRS and HVO did not end, like you said, in mid '93. It continued all the way until Bosniaks and Croats united, for the reasons I mentioned above. Another reason your timeline can't be right is because the Bosniak-Croat conflict started April '93, which is almost already mid-93'. In late 1992 trough mid 1993 ARBiH and HVO were still mostly cooperating. HVO was defending Sarajevo with ARBiH for whole '93, until november. ARBiH allied with HVO held the front towards Brčko early '93 (HVO Sarajevo). At the same time when Serbs were "allied" with the Croats, they were also "allied" with the Bosniak side. It's a well known public fact that VRS was more or less neutral in the Bosniak-Croat conflict, that it was not taking sides. All of these prooves that it is juts absurd to talk about any kind of large scale alliance of Croats and Serbs against Muslims. If you didn't already, read my above post and the article which states the reason of them not picking sides, but helping both sides, depending on the conditions of the fronts and the money and fuel each side had.

USA didn't pressure Croats into an alliance, though they did play the role of a mediator. Mate Boban was the only person who wanted the Bosniak-Croat war to continue, while almost everyone else, including the Croatian government, the Catholic church in Bosnia (which had strong political influences) and most other officialso f HRHB, were against the conflict, some even almost from the start. When one of the peace meetings in Geneve started, and when Tuđman openly declared he was for the peace, Boban didn't want to give in and he publicly asked Croats in Croatia to declare Tuđman a traitor and to remove him from power. As not many people supported Boban, he was shortly removed from power in HRHB and peace was signed and Zubak, who was fully a Tuđman supported, took his place. Some even say that the Pope and the USA were played a big role in Boban's ouster from power. This is the only part where USA forced anything about the peace. But did USA force Tuđman to agree to a peace, like you said? No.

JAM

1st June 2012, 14:48

If Nazis say it while making other arguments defending Hitler, then it is defending him. But I'm sure most people will agree that not only the German side commited attrocities in WW2. Besides, like I said before, Yugoslav Wars are barely comparable to Hitler and WW2. And I can freely say that Milošević was not the cause of the war.

How he wasn't the cause of the war if he was the president of Yugoslavia who followed a nationalistic agenda and opposed to the independence of the former Yugoslav Republics waging war against them?

Then Maglaj and Žepće don't either. Those happened at the same time as Mostar happened. What now?Mostar was a fight between Croats and Muslims and happened within the timeline I provided you. In this case I don't see any contradiction.

Because, like I proved you in my most above, if Croats and Serbs had any kind of military cooperation, it continued until at least late '93:
http://i53.tinypic.com/2itil1v.png

This is a dispatch from an HVO brigade "Bobovac" to The HVO headquarters.

It's dated on 9th September 1993.

This prooves that the cooperation between VRS and HVO did not end, like you said, in mid '93. It continued all the way until Bosniaks and Croats united, for the reasons I mentioned above. Another reason your timeline can't be right is because the Bosniak-Croat conflict started April '93, which is almost already mid-93'. In late 1992 trough mid 1993 ARBiH and HVO were still mostly cooperating. HVO was defending Sarajevo with ARBiH for whole '93, until november. ARBiH allied with HVO held the front towards Brčko early '93 (HVO Sarajevo). At the same time when Serbs were "allied" with the Croats, they were also "allied" with the Bosniak side. It's a well known public fact that VRS was more or less neutral in the Bosniak-Croat conflict, that it was not taking sides. All of these prooves that it is juts absurd to talk about any kind of large scale alliance of Croats and Serbs against Muslims. If you didn't already, read my above post and the article which states the reason of them not picking sides, but helping both sides, depending on the conditions of the fronts and the money and fuel each side had.First, the alliance between Croats and Muslims collapsed in the late 1992 as I already gave you sources from recent investigation works appointing for that. This coincides with the beginning of the alliance between Croats and Serbs. No contradiction here.

Second, the conflict between the Croats and the Muslims started before the Croat-Bosniak War. "The situation became more serious in October 1992 when Croat forces attacked Bosniak civilian population in Prozor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prozor,_Bosnia_and_Herzegovina) burning their homes and killing civilians. According to Jadranko Prlić (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jadranko_Prli%C4%87) indictment, HVO forces cleansed most of the Muslims from the town of Prozor and several surrounding villages.[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croat-Bosniak_war#cite_note-ICTY:_Prli.C4.87_et_al._.28IT-04-74.29-7)"

Who is being narrow minded now?

USA didn't pressure Croats into an alliance, though they did play the role of a mediator. Mate Boban was the only person who wanted the Bosniak-Croat war to continue, while almost everyone else, including the Croatian government, the Catholic church in Bosnia (which had strong political influences) and most other officialso f HRHB, were against the conflict, some even almost from the start. When one of the peace meetings in Geneve started, and when Tuđman openly declared he was for the peace, Boban didn't want to give in and he publicly asked Croats in Croatia to declare Tuđman a traitor and to remove him from power. As not many people supported Boban, he was shortly removed from power in HRHB and peace was signed and Zubak, who was fully a Tuđman supported, took his place. Some even say that the Pope and the USA were played a big role in Boban's ouster from power. This is the only part where USA forced anything about the peace. But did USA force Tuđman to agree to a peace, like you said? No.Dude, here are you burying yourself again for the 10th time at least in this arguing:

"SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - With Bosnia's Muslim-Croat federation at a volatile juncture, its leaders looked Thursday for ways to keep their shaky alliance together and prevent Bosnia from plunging back into war.
The federation - formed under U.S. pressure in 1994 after a yearlong Muslim-Croat war"

"The Croat-Muslim federation was formed under U.S. pressure in March 1994 after the two ethnic groups engaged in a nearly yearlong war."

"But when the U.S. combined incentives with pressure, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman bent. If Croatia pushed for a Muslim-Croat federation in Bosnia & Herzegovina, Tudjman was told, the U.S. would support Croatia’s applications for membership in European institutions, and would mobilize aid for the country, especially for its army."

"BOSNIAN Muslim and Croat forces intend to sign a general ceasefire today and end one of former Yugoslavia's most vicious wars, in which the Serbs played little part. The initiative owes much to US pressure on the Muslims and Croats to stop a war which has devastated much of central and southern Bosnia, including the Ottoman city of Mostar. "

Once again you got embarrassed by a foreigner about your own history. If somebody did me something similar with Portugal I would be pissed.

Yugo45

1st June 2012, 15:39

How he wasn't the cause of the war if he was the president of Yugoslavia who followed a nationalistic agenda and opposed to the independence of the former Yugoslav Republics waging war against them?

The cause of the war was nationalism. Nationalism started long before Milošević came to power. Like I said before, if a weed smoking hippie Jesus came to power, the war would still happen. Even if the president of Yugoslavia didn't attack now independent republics, RSK and RS would still declare independence and wage a war. If the republics didn't seceed from Yugoslavia on nationalist basis, there wouldn't be a war either.

Mostar was a fight between Croats and Muslims and happened within the timeline I provided you. In this case I don't see any contradiction.

Wow. You don't even read the sources I post? The Muslims in Mostar were aided by RS in the Croatian-Bosniak war, like we established before. Didn't we? At the same time when VRS was helping Croats in Maglaj, VRS was helping Bosniaks in Mostar.

First, the alliance between Croats and Muslims collapsed in the late 1992 as I already gave you sources from recent investigation works appointing for that. This coincides with the beginning of the alliance between Croats and Serbs. No contradiction here.

What sources? The "Europe to the Urals" thing? Dodgy source from the start. The alliance didn't break, like /my/ sources proved. HVO was united for all of '93 with ARBiH in the Sarajevo, Tuzla, Usora and Bihać areas. At the beginning of January, they were allied with ARBiH in Brčko and Orašje area.

Second, the conflict between the Croats and the Muslims started before the Croat-Bosniak War. "The situation became more serious in October 1992 when Croat forces attacked Bosniak civilian population in Prozor burning their homes and killing civilians. According to Jadranko Prlić indictment, HVO forces cleansed most of the Muslims from the town of Prozor and several surrounding villages.[8]"

Not officially. The conflict between Serbs and Croats started in 1990, but that doesn't mark it the beginning of the war. The fact remains that HVO was allied with ARBiH until the beginning of the Croat-Bosniak war. And even during the war, there were still many HVO units which were cooperating with ARBiH.

I don't really like it how you ignore my arguments and only pick the unimportant things, while completely ignoring the big picture.

So let me ask you directly:
Are you denying that VRS was cooperating with both HVO and ARBiH at the same time? Also, are you denying that the military cooperation with both HVO and ARBiH continued until the end of the Croat-Bosniak war? If you are, what are your claims based on? I already prooved to you but those documents, news articles and a scientific study. This is the core of this discussion, not when the conflict between Bosniaks and Croats started. The discussion is: Was RS allied with HRHB against RBiH for common interests, or was it just cooperating with both RBiH and HRHB to extend the Croat-Bosniak conflict and for profit.

You seem like the one who's desperate now.

Dude, here are you burying yourself again for the 10th time at least in this arguing:

US pressured both sides to sign a peace. That much I said in my post. What does that proove? How does it proove what you're saying? How does it proove that Tuđman was in favour of the conflict to continue, but stopped it because USA was pressuring him? If that is the truth, how come Boban spoke out against Tuđman publicly, because he considered Tuđman to be a traitor of an etchnically clean Croatia?

You said that Tuđman supported (actually, that he was the main person behind it on the Croat side) the Bosniak-Croat conflict and that he was interested in dividing Bosnia with Milošević. But Tuđman's policy towards Bosnia, at least during the Croat-Bosniak war, is well known. He was against it from the start, since he thought that he wouldn't be able to beat Serbs in Croatia alone. While he was all for a united Croatia and Herceg-Bosna in case Bosnia lost the war, he knew it wasn't possible at the time given the circumstances. All of this is well documented in following works:
Geneza jedne zablude by Ciril Ribičić (which he made on the request of the Hague), Stenogrami o podjeli Bosne (1. - 2.) by Predrag Lucić, Istina o Bosni i Hercegovini: dokumenti 1991. - 1995. by Miroslav Tuđman, Bosna i Hercegovina - podijeljeno društvo i nestabilna država by Mirjana Kasapović and finally, Tuđman's official biography by Zdravko Tomac. Beside this, while Boban was fighting ARBiH, Croatian government, with Tuđman, was closely cooperating with Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Once again you got embarrassed by a foreigner about your own history. If somebody did me something similar with Portugal I would be pissed.

By a historical revisionist foreigner, there's a difference, is there not? Beside, embarrassed? Ha!

JAM

1st June 2012, 16:42

The cause of the war was nationalism. Nationalism started long before Milošević came to power. Like I said before, if a weed smoking hippie Jesus came to power, the war would still happen. Even if the president of Yugoslavia didn't attack now independent republics, RSK and RS would still declare independence and wage a war. If the republics didn't seceed from Yugoslavia on nationalist basis, there wouldn't be a war either.

A weed smoking hippie Jesus would be nationalist? I don't think he would be. Milosevic was a nationalist? Yes, and a strong one. I think this narrows it down. Besides, RSK and RS were supported by Milosevic who refused to recognize Croatia independence. He was the only person who could have avoided the conflict since he was President of Yugoslavia.

Wow. You don't even read the sources I post? The Muslims in Mostar were aided by RS in the Croatian-Bosniak war, like we established before. Didn't we? At the same time when VRS was helping Croats in Maglaj, VRS was helping Bosniaks in Mostar.Your source talks about a cooperation between Muslims and Serbs precisely in the period in which the alliance broke mid-93. They didn't cooperate since the beginning of the Mostar conflict. You are trying to mess the dates but that won't work.

What sources? The "Europe to the Urals" thing? Dodgy source from the start. The alliance didn't break, like /my/ sources proved. HVO was united for all of '93 with ARBiH in the Sarajevo, Tuzla, Usora and Bihać areas. At the beginning of January, they were allied with ARBiH in Brčko and Orašje area. Dodgy source that you counter with nothing. This is enough for me. Besides, what you call dodgy is a scientific work written by two reputable University teachers experts on the region. Do you really think that you are more authority than them?

Not officially. The conflict between Serbs and Croats started in 1990, but that doesn't mark it the beginning of the war. The fact remains that HVO was allied with ARBiH until the beginning of the Croat-Bosniak war. And even during the war, there were still many HVO units which were cooperating with ARBiH.Now wars began when conveys to you? You didn't have declarations of war so how you can mark them as officially?

Look at the date in the wikipedia article about the Bosniak-Croat war:

Date: June 19, 1992 – February 23, 1994

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croat%E2%80%93Bosniak_War

Now look at the date for the Croatia war:

Date March 1991 – November 1995

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_War_of_Independence

I don't really like it how you ignore my arguments and only pick the unimportant things, while completely ignoring the big picture.

So let me ask you directly:
Are you denying that VRS was cooperating with both HVO and ARBiH at the same time? Also, are you denying that the military cooperation with both HVO and ARBiH continued until the end of the Croat-Bosniak war? If you are, what are your claims based on? I already prooved to you but those documents, news articles and a scientific study. This is the core of this discussion, not when the conflict between Bosniaks and Croats started. The discussion is: Was RS allied with HRHB against RBiH for common interests, or was it just cooperating with both RBiH and HRHB to extend the Croat-Bosniak conflict and for profit.

You seem like the one who's desperate now.LOL. Why so? You didn't prove a damn thing so far and I never saw a research work presented by you while I already presented you 3 at least. This is very conclusive for me. I already proved my point several times: Croats and Serbs allied at the beginning of the war against Muslims in Bosnia. This is the center of the discussion. I presented you more than 10 different sources supporting this. Why I would be desperate?

US pressured both sides to sign a peace. That much I said in my post. What does that proove? How does it proove what you're saying? How does it proove that Tuđman was in favour of the conflict to continue, but stopped it because USA was pressuring him? If that is the truth, how come Boban spoke out against Tuđman publicly, because he considered Tuđman to be a traitor of an etchnically clean Croatia?

You said that Tuđman supported (actually, that he was the main person behind it on the Croat side) the Bosniak-Croat conflict and that he was interested in dividing Bosnia with Milošević. But Tuđman's policy towards Bosnia, at least during the Croat-Bosniak war, is well known. He was against it from the start, since he thought that he wouldn't be able to beat Serbs in Croatia alone. While he was all for a united Croatia and Herceg-Bosna in case Bosnia lost the war, he knew it wasn't possible at the time given the circumstances. All of this is well documented in following works:
Geneza jedne zablude by Ciril Ribičić (which he made on the request of the Hague), Stenogrami o podjeli Bosne (1. - 2.) by Predrag Lucić, Istina o Bosni i Hercegovini: dokumenti 1991. - 1995. by Miroslav Tuđman, Bosna i Hercegovina - podijeljeno društvo i nestabilna država by Mirjana Kasapović and finally, Tuđman's official biography by Zdravko Tomac. Beside this, while Boban was fighting ARBiH, Croatian government, with Tuđman, was closely cooperating with Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.You were completely caught on this one(again). Look at what you said:

"USA didn't pressure Croats into an alliance,"

Now you say:

"US pressured both sides to sign a peace. That much I said in my post."

And because I am already predicting what you're going to say "they pressured for peace but don't for an alliance" (which is clearly wrong but analysing your previous posts I imagine that) I am going to clarify it as it was for an alliance as well:

"The US puts pressure on the Muslims and Croats to fight their common enemy, the Bosnian Serbs. A Muslim-Croat federation is formed and, under current international proposals, would receive 51 percent of Bosnia."

"The fighting between the two sides was halted in March 1994 when Washington pressured them into forming an alliance against their common enemy, the Bosnian Serbs."

By a historical revisionist foreigner, there's a difference, is there not? Beside, embarrassed? Ha!Milosevic would agree with you in that revisionist accusation against me. University research experts on the issue agree with me. This reveals to much of this arguing.

Yugo45

1st June 2012, 20:54

A weed smoking hippie Jesus would be nationalist? I don't think he would be. Milosevic was a nationalist? Yes, and a strong one. I think this narrows it down. Besides, RSK and RS were supported by Milosevic who refused to recognize Croatia independence. He was the only person who could have avoided the conflict since he was President of Yugoslavia.

Read what I said again. I said "even if the president of Yugoslavia didn't attack the independent republics [for example, a weed smoking hippie Jesus], RSK and RS would still declare independence and the war would still happen" This just prooves how much you really know about the war. The war would of happened regardless of who the president of Yugoslavia was. The republics would still declare independent, and Yugoslav government would still try to stop it. Serbs would still want to stay in Yugoslavia and they would still break independent.

Your source talks about a cooperation between Muslims and Serbs precisely in the period in which the alliance broke mid-93. They didn't cooperate since the beginning of the Mostar conflict. You are trying to mess the dates but that won't work.

Woah, how convinient for you! My sources also proove that VRS was still cooperating with HVO until the end of the Croat-Bosniak conflict. Yes, this obviosuly also includes Mostar. While your "alliance broke in mid-93" claim isn't based on anything. Isn't it funny how you, for 3 posts, have been ignoring an official document which prooved that cooperation between VRS and HVO wasn't ended until at least late '93? I thought it was pretty funny.

Dodgy source that you counter with nothing. This is enough for me. Besides, what you call dodgy is a scientific work written by two reputable University teachers experts on the region. Do you really think that you are more authority than them?

I countered it at the first (2nd?) page, you might want to re read it. The "scientific work", or at least what you posted of it, is inconsequential and full of spotty arguments.

Now wars began when conveys to you? You didn't have declarations of war so how you can mark them as officially?

Because HVO was still cooperating with ARBiH on all sides. Until the alliance broke, there wasn't a war. Stop trying to mess with the dates even more then you already did.

Look at the date in the wikipedia article about the Bosniak-Croat war:

Date: June 19, 1992 – February 23, 1994

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croat%E2%80%93Bosniak_War

Now look at the date for the Croatia war:

Date March 1991 – November 1995

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatia...f_Independence

Splendid! A page ago I gave you a shit tone of battles during the second half of '92 which HVO and ARBiH fought together against the Serbs. This even further acknowledges my fact that the cooperations between different factions meant nothing.

LOL. Why so? You didn't prove a damn thing so far and I never saw a research work presented by you while I already presented you 3 at least. This is very conclusive for me. I already proved my point several times: Croats and Serbs allied at the beginning of the war against Muslims in Bosnia. This is the center of the discussion. I presented you more than 10 different sources supporting this. Why I would be desperate?

Yes I did. "Operacija Jesen '94" goes into deep detail about it, and I gave you parts from it. You can't expect me to translate a whole book for you. You just gave me a bunch of western "investigations" based on rumors and what they saw on TV. While my sources were not only written by participants of the war, but also go into detail about the complexity of the war. Your sources dumb it down to "Big bad mean Serbs child killers wanted to kill all Muslims".

So, you are denying, as you just admitted, the fact that VRS was cooperating with both HVO and ARBiH at the same time. Even though my sources prove exactly this (which you still didn't counter, if I may remind you). There are no sources, beside news articles written in the west, in the middle of the war which don't prove nothing, that deny this. Those journalists, appereantly just like you, didn't understand the complexity of the war. Especially because it was written in the middle of the war. All sides, all former commanders and fighters of the wars aknowledge the fact that everyone was fighting everyone. That Serbs were aiding both sides in the Croat-Bosniak war, but that they remained largely neutral in the conflict. But, appereantly, you and a bunch of journalists which never set foot in Bosnia know better. Well, if you say so, okay. It must be true, you're from Portugal, you have to know better about the Yugoslav conflicts then us, Yugoslavs, the people who were actually in the war. That's just how things work.

You were completely caught on this one(again). Look at what you said:

"USA didn't pressure Croats into an alliance,"

Now you say:

"US pressured both sides to sign a peace. That much I said in my post."

A few posts ago you were attacking me for going into semantics because that meant that I didn't have any arguments. Now look at yourself. You know bloody well what I meant with that. You also quote my sentences and take them out of context. With what sentence, "US pressured both sides to sign a peace, that much I said in my post", I was referring to my initial reply to you when you got the US involved. When I said that the US didn't intervene for the Muslim side, like you claimed, but that they were just a mediator who had to pressure both sides. That post, I started with "USA didn't pressure Croats into an alliance," and later explained that they had to pressure the both sides.

JAM

1st June 2012, 21:36

Read what I said again. I said "even if the president of Yugoslavia didn't attack the independent republics [for example, a weed smoking hippie Jesus], RSK and RS would still declare independence and the war would still happen" This just prooves how much you really know about the war. The war would of happened regardless of who the president of Yugoslavia was. The republics would still declare independent, and Yugoslav government would still try to stop it. Serbs would still want to stay in Yugoslavia and they would still break independent.

This just proves you know shit about what happened in the war. RSK and RS were clearly supported by Milosevic. It was Milosevic who supported the Serbians actions in Bosnia and Croatia. A less nationalistic Yugoslav government wouldn't try to stop the independence of the Republics.

Woah, how convinient for you! My sources also proove that VRS was still cooperating with HVO until the end of the Croat-Bosniak conflict. Yes, this obviosuly also includes Mostar. While your "alliance broke in mid-93" claim isn't based on anything. Isn't it funny how you, for 3 posts, have been ignoring an official document which prooved that cooperation between VRS and HVO wasn't ended until at least late '93? I thought it was pretty funny.Your source doesn't mention any alliance. I am talking about an alliance between the Serbs and Croats started by the late 92 as my sources mentioned it. Since the alliance wasn't settled by any formal treaty it's impossible to establish a precise date for its dissolution. Since you presented me Battles between Serbs and Croats starting in mid 93 I assumed that this was the period for the breakdown of the alliance.

I countered it at the first (2nd?) page, you might want to re read it. The "scientific work", or at least what you posted of it, is inconsequential and full of spotty arguments.You call "counter" calling it dodgy? I call "counter" presenting sources denying the statement. You must think I am playing dolls with you.

Because HVO was still cooperating with ARBiH on all sides. Until the alliance broke, there wasn't a war. Stop trying to mess with the dates even more then you already did.
Splendid! A page ago I gave you a shit tone of battles during the second half of '92 which HVO and ARBiH fought together against the Serbs. This even further acknowledges my fact that the cooperations between different factions meant nothing.This data stuff only started because you were the one who said that Karađorđevo agreement was possible because the Croatia War didn't started at the time yet and I said that had nothing to do it. You must have little memory.

Yes I did. "Operacija Jesen '94" goes into deep detail about it, and I gave you parts from it. You can't expect me to translate a whole book for you. You just gave me a bunch of western "investigations" based on rumors and what they saw on TV. While my sources were not only written by participants of the war, but also go into detail about the complexity of the war. Your sources dumb it down to "Big bad mean Serbs child killers wanted to kill all Muslims".

So, you are denying, as you just admitted, the fact that VRS was cooperating with both HVO and ARBiH at the same time. Even though my sources prove exactly this (which you still didn't counter, if I may remind you). There are no sources, beside news articles written in the west, in the middle of the war which don't prove nothing, that deny this. Those journalists, appereantly just like you, didn't understand the complexity of the war. Especially because it was written in the middle of the war. All sides, all former commanders and fighters of the wars aknowledge the fact that everyone was fighting everyone. That Serbs were aiding both sides in the Croat-Bosniak war, but that they remained largely neutral in the conflict. But, appereantly, you and a bunch of journalists which never set foot in Bosnia know better. Well, if you say so, okay. It must be true, you're from Portugal, you have to know better about the Yugoslav conflicts then us, Yugoslavs, the people who were actually in the war. That's just how things work.You just lower yourself to the most ridiculous argument of them all. My sources came from journalists, UN personnel and even military officials who were fight in the battlefield and you say they were watching the conflict on TV? How absurd can you be now?

Moreover I gave you recent scientific studies coming from people who made an extensive research about the subject. You can't blame me for believing more in them than in a random forum user, can you? And saying that all these people didn't know the complexity of the war is funny to hear at least.

Regarding the cooperation between VRS and the other two sides, after the alliance broke down with the Croats why it couldn't happened? I don't see anything special here.

A few posts ago you were attacking me for going into semantics because that meant that I didn't have any arguments. Now look at yourself. You know bloody well what I meant with that. You also quote my sentences and take them out of context. With what sentence, "US pressured both sides to sign a peace, that much I said in my post", I was referring to my initial reply to you when you got the US involved. When I said that the US didn't intervene for the Muslim side, like you claimed, but that they were just a mediator who had to pressure both sides. That post, I started with "USA didn't pressure Croats into an alliance," and later explained that they had to pressure the both sides.You are all messed up again. I said that the US pressured for an alliance and you even said that I said US forced Tudjman to sign peace with the Muslims. Now you are blaming me for not understanding you? You are the one since the beginning of this that adds words to my texts. If you say one thing in the beginning of your post and in the final you say another thing completely different is not my fault.

You never said that the US didn't intervene for the Muslim side but if you want we can engage in this discussions as well if you want. I have already sources backing the US support to Izetbegović..

Yugo45

2nd June 2012, 13:15

This just proves you know shit about what happened in the war. RSK and RS were clearly supported by Milosevic. It was Milosevic who supported the Serbians actions in Bosnia and Croatia. A less nationalistic Yugoslav government wouldn't try to stop the independence of the Republics.

lol! Are you listening to yourself? Of course they were supported by Milošević. Milošević was the president of Yugoslavia. RSK and RS wanted to stay in Yugoslavia and were against Bosnia and Croatia getting independence. Of course the president of Yugoslavia would support them. If anyone else was the president, he would do the same.

Your source doesn't mention any alliance. I am talking about an alliance between the Serbs and Croats started by the late 92 as my sources mentioned it. Since the alliance wasn't settled by any formal treaty it's impossible to establish a precise date for its dissolution. Since you presented me Battles between Serbs and Croats starting in mid 93 I assumed that this was the period for the breakdown of the alliance.

Now it's come to that? For whole of this argument you've been claiming that any kind of military cooperation is an alliance. While I was claiming that it has to be a formal one for it to be a real alliance. My sources proove that HVO still cooperated with VRS in late '93. Since there wasn't a formal agreement, like you just admitted, then we also can't put an end date to the "alliance". They were still cooperating. My sources prooved that the alliance existed at least until end of '93. I don't see anything that prooves that the cooperation between HVO and VRS ended precisely mid '93, before August, like you claim. There weren't any battles between HVO and VRS until the Croat-Bosniak war ended. There were only battles between HVO and ARBiH. In those battles, Serbs stayed on the side, neutral, unless they were paid by any of the sides. Sometimes, they were paid by Croats and they sold them military equipment and provided artillery support. Sometimes they were paid by Bosniaks, and they did the same for them.

This data stuff only started because you were the one who said that Karađorđevo agreement was possible because the Croatia War didn't started at the time yet and I said that had nothing to do it. You must have little memory.

It doesn't matter where the "data stuff" started, I was just showing you the places where you contradicted yourself, and how your arguments further aacknowledge mine.

You just lower yourself to the most ridiculous argument of them all. My sources came from journalists, UN personnel and even military officials who were fight in the battlefield and you say they were watching the conflict on TV? How absurd can you be now?

Most of your arguments are newspaper articles, as you just admitted. UN wasn't a direct participant of the war. They had no idea what the fuck was happening, they were just there for the show, and Srebrenica prooves this. Not only Srebrenica, but Sarajevo as well. Well, the whole war does. If ARBiH, HVO, HV, JNA and RS participants say what it was really like, like they did in my sources, I'll pick them over UN charlatans every day. Because they were really fighting the war, they know what it was about and they don't dumb it down to make it easier for the west to understand it.

Moreover I gave you recent scientific studies coming from people who made an extensive research about the subject. You can't blame me for believing more in them than in a random forum user, can you? And saying that all these people didn't know the complexity of the war is funny to hear at least.

I can't blame you for not trusting me, but I can blame you for not trusting the actual people who were fighting the war. Besides, all of those books can be easily taken out of context. Even if there's truth in them, it's hard to claim one sentence out of it as facts.

Regarding the cooperation between VRS and the other two sides, after the alliance broke down with the Croats why it couldn't happened? I don't see anything special here.

Because it didn't break. Cooperations happened at the same time for both HVO and ARBiH, just on different fronts.

You are all messed up again. I said that the US pressured for an alliance and you even said that I said US forced Tudjman to sign peace with the Muslims. Now you are blaming me for not understanding you? You are the one since the beginning of this that adds words to my texts. If you say one thing in the beginning of your post and in the final you say another thing completely different is not my fault. .

You didn't say that directly, but in the same post you said that Tuđman had ultimate control over the Croat-Bosniak conflict, on the Croatian side. Then you said that the US intervened for Muslims and pressured the Croat side to sign a treaty, with that it I assumed you meant Tuđman. If you didn't understand what I meant, then sorry, I'll try to be more clear next time.

JAM

2nd June 2012, 15:53

lol! Are you listening to yourself? Of course they were supported by Milošević. Milošević was the president of Yugoslavia. RSK and RS wanted to stay in Yugoslavia and were against Bosnia and Croatia getting independence. Of course the president of Yugoslavia would support them. If anyone else was the president, he would do the same.

What you are trying to hide is that Milosevic was the one who pushed for the rebellion of serbs in Croatia and in Bosnia when this republics declared independence. Not only he orchestrated those rebellions but he also support them in the war effort which makes him the responsible one for the war. I have already a bunch of sources for backing this argument.

A less nationalist and fascist president wouldn't have done that. You are here openly defending the nationalism and fascism of Milosevic, minimizing his responsibility.

Now it's come to that? For whole of this argument you've been claiming that any kind of military cooperation is an alliance. While I was claiming that it has to be a formal one for it to be a real alliance. My sources proove that HVO still cooperated with VRS in late '93. Since there wasn't a formal agreement, like you just admitted, then we also can't put an end date to the "alliance". They were still cooperating. My sources prooved that the alliance existed at least until end of '93. I don't see anything that prooves that the cooperation between HVO and VRS ended precisely mid '93, before August, like you claim. There weren't any battles between HVO and VRS until the Croat-Bosniak war ended. There were only battles between HVO and ARBiH. In those battles, Serbs stayed on the side, neutral, unless they were paid by any of the sides. Sometimes, they were paid by Croats and they sold them military equipment and provided artillery support. Sometimes they were paid by Bosniaks, and they did the same for them.No, my sources clearly talked about an alliance, not just cooperation. The study that I presented you and other articles clearly mention alliance, not cooperation. I never said that they just cooperated with each other.

It doesn't matter where the "data stuff" started, I was just showing you the places where you contradicted yourself, and how your arguments further aacknowledge mine.LOL. You were the one contradicted. You were the one saying that the agreement between Milosevic and Tudjman in 1991 was only possible because there was no conflict between Croats and Serbs and showed you that the conflict had already started.

Most of your arguments are newspaper articles, as you just admitted. UN wasn't a direct participant of the war. They had no idea what the fuck was happening, they were just there for the show, and Srebrenica prooves this. Not only Srebrenica, but Sarajevo as well. Well, the whole war does. If ARBiH, HVO, HV, JNA and RS participants say what it was really like, like they did in my sources, I'll pick them over UN charlatans every day. Because they were really fighting the war, they know what it was about and they don't dumb it down to make it easier for the west to understand it.Newspaper articles written by journalists in the battlefield. The UN officials were also there. Not only that but also military officials fighting in the locals. Moreover, I also presented scientific studies written very recently.

What was your main source in this arguing: Wikipedia. LOL.

You even got the nerve to say that all negative stuff about my sources when yours was Wikipedia?
You got completely owned in this one.

I can't blame you for not trusting me, but I can blame you for not trusting the actual people who were fighting the war. Besides, all of those books can be easily taken out of context. Even if there's truth in them, it's hard to claim one sentence out of it as facts.Now books are taken out of context. You can search the books if you want and read them. I didn't transcribe anything out of the context as my quotes show but if you want you can take a look and see if I took anything out of context. But wait a minute, you now don't consider the book dodgy anymore? Now you say the book was taken out of the context? LOL. This shows how ridiculous and incoherent you have been in this arguing.

Because it didn't break. Cooperations happened at the same time for both HVO and ARBiH, just on different fronts.Now you are saying that they were allied after all? I always talked about alliance as my sources said, not just cooperation. You were the one assuming that I was interpreting cooperation as alliance. My sources say specifically "ALLIANCE"

You didn't say that directly, but in the same post you said that Tuđman had ultimate control over the Croat-Bosniak conflict, on the Croatian side. Then you said that the US intervened for Muslims and pressured the Croat side to sign a treaty, with that it I assumed you meant Tuđman. If you didn't understand what I meant, then sorry, I'll try to be more clear next time.Tudjman was behind the Croats in Bosnia as I said in this entire argument. So yes, the US pressured Tudjman. I have here sources too for backing this if you wish to see it.

Yugo45

3rd June 2012, 08:15

What you are trying to hide is that Milosevic was the one who pushed for the rebellion of serbs in Croatia and in Bosnia when this republics declared independence. Not only he orchestrated those rebellions but he also support them in the war effort which makes him the responsible one for the war. I have already a bunch of sources for backing this argument.

A less nationalist and fascist president wouldn't have done that. You are here openly defending the nationalism and fascism of Milosevic, minimizing his responsibility.

Yes, yes he did. Any president of Yugoslavia would support them rather then separatists. They wanted to stay in Yugoslavia. So, the president of Yugoslavia supported him. Makes sense, doesn't it? Beside that, given the situation, it's impossible that a non-nationalist came to power. Given the influence of SANU, which had a great deal influence on Milošević, not the other way around. But even if a non Serbian nationalist did become a president, he wouldn't support that his country fell apart.

No, my sources clearly talked about an alliance, not just cooperation. The study that I presented you and other articles clearly mention alliance, not cooperation. I never said that they just cooperated with each other.

Because your sources don't make a difference between a cooperation and an alliance. Check the first two pages, where you say that any kind of military cooperation is an alliance. Even an exchange of war materials. Beside, you said for 100 times that alliances don't need to be signed. That they do not need to be formal. Which implies that any kind of military cooperation is in fact an alliance, does it not? Now, don't just reply to only that. Tell me, if my sources proove that the "alliance" continued until at least end of '93, how come you say that they ended mid '93? There's nothing that prooves this, especially because it wasn't a formal alliance. If they cooperated with each other in late '93, then we can freely say that the alliance did not end.

LOL. You were the one contradicted. You were the one saying that the agreement between Milosevic and Tudjman in 1991 was only possible because there was no conflict between Croats and Serbs and showed you that the conflict had already started.

Um, no. That argument has nothing to do with Karađorđevo one. This one started when you said:

Second, the conflict between the Croats and the Muslims started before the Croat-Bosniak War. "The situation became more serious in October 1992 when Croat forces attacked Bosniak civilian population in Prozor burning their homes and killing civilians. According to Jadranko Prlić indictment, HVO forces cleansed most of the Muslims from the town of Prozor and several surrounding villages.[8]"

Newspaper articles written by journalists in the battlefield. The UN officials were also there. Not only that but also military officials fighting in the locals. Moreover, I also presented scientific studies written very recently.

You just pretty much showed me why this discussion is impossible. If journalists and UN officials who were actually there can't understand the conflict, I doubt you can either. Like I said, UN had no idea what was happening. Their opinion doesn't matter. Opinion of the participants of the war does.

What was your main source in this arguing: Wikipedia. LOL.

No. LOL! I posted official documents, interviews with participants of the war, books by participants of the war, which all support my arguments. While your only sources are "scientific works" and newspaper articles written 3000 miles away from Bosnia, in the middle of the war.

Now books are taken out of context. You can search the books if you want and read them. I didn't transcribe anything out of the context as my quotes show but if you want you can take a look and see if I took anything out of context. But wait a minute, you now don't consider the book dodgy anymore? Now you say the book was taken out of the context? LOL. This shows how ridiculous and incoherent you have been in this arguing.

You don't have to take them out of context on purpose. For example, your source that says that Croats and Serbs had an alliance could of meant something different then what you meant. If he goes into explaining that in depth, maybe it's true. Either that, or it's dodgy as hell.

Now you are saying that they were allied after all? I always talked about alliance as my sources said, not just cooperation. You were the one assuming that I was interpreting cooperation as alliance. My sources say specifically "ALLIANCE"

If by "allied" you mean that they had any kind of military coopeartion, then yes. That's what I've been saying from the beginning of the argument. If it's possible for VRS to be allied with both HVO and ARBiH at the same time, then yes, there was an alliance.

Tudjman was behind the Croats in Bosnia as I said in this entire argument. So yes, the US pressured Tudjman. I have here sources too for backing this if you wish to see it.

I also have sources that proove he was against the Croat-Bosniak conflict. This prooves that, even if he had any influence on HRHB, he couldn't completely control them.

JAM

3rd June 2012, 17:48

Yes, yes he did. Any president of Yugoslavia would support them rather then separatists. They wanted to stay in Yugoslavia. So, the president of Yugoslavia supported him. Makes sense, doesn't it? Beside that, given the situation, it's impossible that a non-nationalist came to power. Given the influence of SANU, which had a great deal influence on Milošević, not the other way around. But even if a non Serbian nationalist did become a president, he wouldn't support that his country fell apart.

You just admitted that Milosevic was the responsible for the Yugoslavia war. And no, a non Serbian nationalist would have recognized the independence of the Republics and not plunged the Serbian minorities into war.

This is why this forum turned out to be joke. A guy was immediately banned just for posting a small ideological content from Strasserism not because he approved or supported it but to show that there is some similarity in it with some left wing movements. Another one who is openly defending Milosevic nationalism and actions as "normal" is not even warned by the mods. As I said what a joke.

Because your sources don't make a difference between a cooperation and an alliance. Check the first two pages, where you say that any kind of military cooperation is an alliance. Even an exchange of war materials. Beside, you said for 100 times that alliances don't need to be signed. That they do not need to be formal. Which implies that any kind of military cooperation is in fact an alliance, does it not? Now, don't just reply to only that. Tell me, if my sources proove that the "alliance" continued until at least end of '93, how come you say that they ended mid '93? There's nothing that prooves this, especially because it wasn't a formal alliance. If they cooperated with each other in late '93, then we can freely say that the alliance did not end.My sources don't make a difference between cooperation and an alliance? Do you think when those university experts written "military alliance between Croats and Serbs" they meant "incidental cooperation for money or fuel?" I don't know what hole you did come from but whatever it was go back to there.

Um, no. That argument has nothing to do with Karađorđevo one. This one started when you said:Um, no. This one started when you said:

Since there was no declaration of war between what was left of Yugoslavia and Croatia, like my point at beginning was, there was nothing to stop Karađorđevo meeting.

You just pretty much showed me why this discussion is impossible. If journalists and UN officials who were actually there can't understand the conflict, I doubt you can either. Like I said, UN had no idea what was happening. Their opinion doesn't matter. Opinion of the participants of the war does.And didn't I gave you source of military officials as well? Besides, your argument against journalists and UN officials shows very well what was the quality of your arguing: ridiculous. These men who were in the battlefield knew 100x times better than you what was going on since they were there in the first place. Stating that you understand the war better than they did just shows how ridiculous you are.

You just didn't address one point: those experts that I quoted from recent research studies they also don't understand the war as you do?

No. LOL! I posted official documents, interviews with participants of the war, books by participants of the war, which all support my arguments. While your only sources are "scientific works" and newspaper articles written 3000 miles away from Bosnia, in the middle of the war.Don't get too desperate. You showed me a document and a book from stuff that happened after the timeline of the alliance and in none of them you proved that Croats and Serbs didn't ally themselves in the beginning of the war. All the sources that I gave you concerned the timeline of the alliance. See the difference?

You don't have to take them out of context on purpose. For example, your source that says that Croats and Serbs had an alliance could of meant something different then what you meant. If he goes into explaining that in depth, maybe it's true. Either that, or it's dodgy as hell.And you are some sort of academic authority to call dodgy those experts? LOL. Stop putting yourself in a ridiculous position.

If by "allied" you mean that they had any kind of military coopeartion, then yes. That's what I've been saying from the beginning of the argument. If it's possible for VRS to be allied with both HVO and ARBiH at the same time, then yes, there was an alliance.No, that's not what i meant in the case of Serbs and Croats in the beginning of the war. I always said alliance and not just cooperation.

I also have sources that proove he was against the Croat-Bosniak conflict. This prooves that, even if he had any influence on HRHB, he couldn't completely control them.LOL. I see that once I say that I have already a bunch of sources prepared to launch at you, you scare yourself. I might not have a damn thing but you believe anyway. Is the third time I do it and you retreat back, or saying that it was a misunderstanding or deviating from the main issue. You want me to show sources that Tudjman was pressured by US or not?

Trap Queen Voxxy

3rd June 2012, 19:46

Also, what side was "right"?

I've always felt that this is a very odd model to hold especially when discussing in terms of evaluating and make sense of historical events. I don't understand this knee-jerk reaction that seems to take place, where one feels compelled to pick a side, so they know where they would have stood in history. It's much better to just evaluate and analyze from a outside perspective so both or all side can be judged based upon their own merits.

Yugo45

4th June 2012, 07:24

You just admitted that Milosevic was the responsible for the Yugoslavia war. And no, a non Serbian nationalist would have recognized the independence of the Republics and not plunged the Serbian minorities into war.

No, I didn't. I said that he supported seperatist states in Bosnia and Croatia. That doesn't make him responsible for the war. See, your interpretation skills..

It's not possible that a non-Serbian nationalist came to power. You clearly don't know a lot about what was happening then, if you can claim that. Yugosalvia had a rotating presidency. Milošević wasn't the president of Yugoslavia, he was the president of Serbia. But, as Serbia was, with Montenegro which he had de facto control of, was the only republic that stayed in Yugoslavia we can say that he was the leader of it. However, he never held the title of "President of Yugoslavia", only after the war. And it would be impossible for a non-nationalist to be the president of SR Serbia at that time, since the position was sponsored by SANU, a highly nationalistic organization. But, let's say hypothetically that a non-nationalist became the president. You think he would just let all the other countries break away, and not do a thing? Hard to say, but unlikely. Still an impossible scenario, though.

Other nationalists, including Tuđman, Izetbegović and Kučan, also take the blame. It's just so silly to say Milošević is the ultimate reason of the war.

My sources don't make a difference between cooperation and an alliance? Do you think when those university experts written "military alliance between Croats and Serbs" they meant "incidental cooperation for money or fuel?" I don't know what hole you did come from but whatever it was go back to there.

Either you took it out of context, or they're experts my ass. Take your pick. There wasn't a formal alliance between HRHB and RS. That's a fact. Also, I don't like how you ignore my question for the, what, 5th time?

Um, no. This one started when you said:

Um, no. Check a few pages above. It only leads up to that, nothing of that discussion above your "Second, the conflict between the Croats and the Muslims started before the Croat-Bosniak War." argument.

And didn't I gave you source of military officials as well? Besides, your argument against journalists and UN officials shows very well what was the quality of your arguing: ridiculous. These men who were in the battlefield knew 100x times better than you what was going on since they were there in the first place. Stating that you understand the war better than they did just shows how ridiculous you are.

No, you didn't. You gave me a quote of an unnamed soldier saying "There's three sides we have to pick one to cooperate with" or something like that. UN wasn't in "the battlefield". Unless you consider sitting around, watching people die and not doing anything about it as "the battlefield". Then, I guess you're right. Beside that, they had nothing to do with the Croat-Bosniak war. Until April 1993 they had only two assignments. To be in Sarajevo and to transport humanitarian aid. Battlefield my ass.

Don't get too desperate. You showed me a document and a book from stuff that happened after the timeline of the alliance and in none of them you proved that Croats and Serbs didn't ally themselves in the beginning of the war. All the sources that I gave you concerned the timeline of the alliance. See the difference?

Those documents and scientific studies clearly state that the Serbs were neutral during the Croat-Bosniak war, when you set your alliance. They also proove that VRS cooperated for money with HVO and ARBiH at the same time. Where's an alliance in that? What kind of proof do you need? You're clearly loosing this argument, the sooner you admit it the better for both of us.

No, that's not what i meant in the case of Serbs and Croats in the beginning of the war. I always said alliance and not just cooperation.

In that case, no, there wasn't an alliance.

LOL. I see that once I say that I have already a bunch of sources prepared to launch at you, you scare yourself. I might not have a damn thing but you believe anyway. Is the third time I do it and you retreat back, or saying that it was a misunderstanding or deviating from the main issue. You want me to show sources that Tudjman was pressured by US or not?

Oh yeah mate, I'm shitting myself over here. It's up to you if you want to post them or not, why would I have to tell you? If you had any kind of solid sources you would of posted them days ago.