Greco-Turkish Tensions

Looks like the Balkans are being heated up once again….this time it is age old enemies of Greece and Turkey…..

These nations have fought numerous times…..1821, 1897 and 1974……I have tried to keep my readers informed…..

https://lobotero.com/2018/12/28/greco-turkish-mindset/

https://lobotero.com/2019/12/16/greco-turkic-drama/

Why do these two nations tirelessly hate each other?

Recently it has been a war fought over the island nation of Cyprus…..this time Cyprus is still in the picture but they seem to be focusing on the control of some natural resources…..

U.S. and other Western leaders have long worried about what to do if an armed conflict ever erupted between two NATO members. Rapidly rising tensions between Greece and Turkey, primarily involving a maritime dispute over oil, natural gas, and other resources under the eastern Mediterranean, have brought that nightmare to the surface once again. Germany’s Foreign Minister, Heiko Maas, warned both governments in late August against further military escalation. “Fire is being played with and any small spark could lead to catastrophe,” he stressed.

The heart of the North Atlantic Treaty is Article 5, which proclaims that an attack on any member of the Alliance will be considered an attack on all. The underlying assumption is that there would then be a collective response to repel and punish the aggressor. Obviously, that approach would not work if two NATO signatories went to war against each other. Even determining which country was the aggressor and which the victim could be quite challenging.

https://www.cato.org/blog/old-nato-nightmare-returns-possible-war-between-greece-turkey

Greece is buying weapons from France in prep for a confrontation…

conservative Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced a purchase of billions of euros in French weaponry and a large increase in the size of the Greek military. This massive increase in military spending, by a country which the European Union (EU) has devastated with billions of euros in draconian cuts to social spending over the last decade, marks a major escalation in Greece’s ongoing military standoff with Turkey.

Mitsotakis indicated that Greece will purchase 18 Rafale fighter jets, four French naval frigates with naval helicopters, and a large supply of anti-tank weapons, torpedoes and missiles. It will also ask French firms to upgrade four Greek frigates that are already in service. Finally, Mitsotakis said that 15,000 more soldiers would be recruited to the Greek armed forces.

“The time has come to reinforce our armed forces. … This is an important program that will form a national shield,” Mitsotakis declared in a speech in Thessaloniki.

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/09/14/gree-s14.html

Will be a test for NATO…..an attack on one is an attack on all…..and this time it will be two member nations fighting each other….who will the US support?

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Clinton’s Serbia/Kosovo

In the 1990s I was never a supporter of Clinton’s war in the Balkans….

The communist years

The former Yugoslavia was a Socialist state created after German occupation in World War II and a bitter civil war. A federation of six republics, it brought together Serbs, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Albanians, Slovenes and others under a comparatively relaxed communist regime. Tensions between these groups were successfully suppressed under the leadership of President Tito.

After Tito’s death in 1980, tensions re-emerged. Calls for more autonomy within Yugoslavia by nationalist groups led in 1991 to declarations of independence in Croatia and Slovenia. The Serb-dominated Yugoslav army lashed out, first in Slovenia and then in Croatia. Thousands were killed in the latter conflict which was paused in 1992 under a UN-monitored ceasefire.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17632399

It all began……

Milosevic in 1998 launched his fourth war in the former Yugoslavia, this time intending to address his “Albanian problem” by using his army to force out over 60 percent of the population of Kosovo. Given European and American inaction for years as people were killed in Bosnia earlier in the decade, Albanian Americans were fearful that history could be repeated in Kosovo. So, they organized themselves. They united different community factions, opened an office in Washington, D.C., and began engaging in one of the oldest of American traditions – petitioning their government to do something to stop the killing and rape in Kosovo.

https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/foreign-policy/435462-lessons-from-the-1999-us-military-intervention-in-kosovo

Clinton put all the hopes of Kosovo in the hands of Hashim Thaci and now this person has been indicted for war crimes….

President Bill Clinton’s favorite freedom fighter just got indicted for mass murder, torture, kidnapping, and other crimes against humanity. In 1999, the Clinton administration launched a 78-day bombing campaign that killed up to 1500 civilians in Serbia and Kosovo in what the American media proudly portrayed as a crusade against ethnic bias. That war, like most of the pretenses of U.S. foreign policy, was always a sham.

Kosovo President Hashim Thaci was charged with ten counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity by an international tribunal in The Hague in the Netherlands. It charged Thaci and nine other men with “war crimes, including murder, enforced disappearance of persons, persecution, and torture.” Thaci and the other charged suspects were accused of being “criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders” and the indictment involved “hundreds of known victims of Kosovo Albanian, Serb, Roma, and other ethnicities and include political opponents.”

Kosovo Indictment Proves Bill Clinton’s Serbian War Atrocities

Another version to above article here…..https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/06/30/bill-clintons-serbian-war-atrocities-exposed-in-new-indictment/

This makes Clinton just as guilty in my book as Thaci…..I love the closing statement of the article…..

“Bill Clinton’s 1999 bombing of Serbia was as big a fraud as George W. Bush’s conning this nation into attacking Iraq. The fact that Clinton and other top U.S. government officials continued to glorify Hashim Thaci despite accusations of mass murder, torture, and body trafficking is another reminder of the venality of much of America’s political elite. Will Americans again be gullible the next time that Washington policymakers and their media allies concoct bullshit pretexts to blow the hell out of some hapless foreign land?”

That is a rhetorical question….for I already know the answer….and the media will make sure that it does occur again…..and again……

I Read, I Write, You Know

“lego ergo scribo”

Thinking Of Albania

I have at least one visitor from Albania and this person is a regular so keeping with my tradition I want to post on the country of Albania…..to help others understand.

First for those not sure where Albania is located……

Map of some south eastern countries in Europe | Arnavutluk, Haritalar — A little about the nation from the World Book…..

Albania declared its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912, but was conquered by Italy in 1939 and occupied by Germany in 1943. Communist partisans took over the country in 1944. Albania allied itself first with the USSR (until 1960), and then with China (to 1978). In the early 1990s, Albania ended 46 years of isolated communist rule and established a multiparty democracy.

…

Albania has made progress in its democratic development since it first held multiparty elections in 1991, but deficiencies remain. Most of Albania’s post-communist elections were marred by claims of electoral fraud; however, international observers judged elections to be largely free and fair since the restoration of political stability following the collapse of pyramid schemes in 1997. Albania joined NATO in April 2009 and in June 2014 became an EU candidate. Albania in April 2017 received a European Commission recommendation to open EU accession negotiations following the passage of historic EU-mandated justice reforms in 2016. Although Albania’s economy continues to grow, it has slowed, and the country is still one of the poorest in Europe. A large informal economy and a weak energy and transportation infrastructure remain obstacles.

Now that I have introduced my readers to this Balkan nation I would like to do what I do best…..revert to the history of the region and of ancient Albania…..

Albania is located at the crossroads of the eastern Adriatic and was known as Illyria and Epirus throughout the Classical era. It played a strategic role in ancient times and was a point of contact between Illyrian, Greek, and Roman civilizations. Even though Albania is off the mainstream tourist trail, the country is now emerging as one of the most enchanting corners of Europe.

Dubbed the “Pearl of the Balkans”, Albania offers a captivating journey through time, with 3,000 years of untouched archaeological heritage.

Archaeological sites such as Apollonia, Antigoneia, and Byllis hide a wealth of historic value, while the Butrint National Park, famed for its ruins and beauty, was recognized by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1992 CE. If you happen to travel to the lands of Southern Illyria and Northern Epirus, read on for some unmissable destinations.

March 1999

Twenty years ago this month history was made…..

I recall during Desert Storm the work of our stealth planes like the F-117 ….these planes could fly in undetected and do their work and leave in total stealth mode…..

Meanwhile back to 1999……

On March 27, 1999, Lieutenant Colonel Dale Zelko of the US Air Force became the first pilot of a stealth fighter or bomber ever shot down, in fact, the only time a warplane with stealth capabilities has been shot down.

While flying a Lockheed F-117A Nighthawk on a bombing mission over Yugolslavia, Zelko had the misfortune of having his supposedly undetectable light bomber detected by supposedly obsolete radar systems and shot down when the Yugoslav air defense crews fired a battery of anti-aircraft missiles (probably about 5) at his plane, one of which exploded near enough to disable the airplane and force Zelko to eject.

https://www.historyandheadlines.com/march-27-1999-time-stealth-warplane-shot/

Recent History…….the one take away is that NOTHING is 100% stealth….sorry we do not have a cloaking device as of yet.

Learn Stuff!

Class Dismissed!

Kosovo–Balkans Back In The News

The small Balkan nation of Kosovo is been making big news lately…..they want an standing army in case of emergency…..but what of Kosovo?

More information……

NATO is not so keen on an army for Kosovo…..but the US breaks with NATO on this issue…..

Just days after NATO issued a statement expressing opposition to Kosovo’s plan to create a national army, warning of the threat that could pose to regional stability, the United States has issued its own statement endorsing the idea.

US officials say they view the creation of a Kosovar military as a “positive step,” and proof of Kosovo’s status as an independent country. They also emphasized how much aid the US has invested in Kosovo.

Kosovo is not universally recognized as independent, however, and for decades NATO has provided for its security as a de facto state. Serbia has warned they may intervene if a Kosovo Army is created, as they would view it as a challenge to their own claims to the region.

NATO’s concerns center on regional stability, and they also warn that if such an army was created, they may no longer elect to keep NATO troops in Kosovo to provide direct security. US officials are downplaying the matter, saying it would take “many years” to create an army at any rate.

(antiwar.com)

But keeping with the greed of the M-IC the US has issued a statement and Kosovo has decided it will create a grand army of the republic (is that a Star Wars reference?)…….

…the Kosovar parliament voted in favor of the creation of a 5,000-man standing army. The plan has been deeply criticized by NATO, which has warned it will force them to reexamine their own military presence.

The plan has been discussed for a few weeks, with NATO opposing the idea. The US endorsed the plan, saying it was an “historic” move for Kosovo. Serbia, which still views Kosovo as part of its territory, has warned they may have to react militarily to the new army.

The issue, from the Serbian perspective, is that the Western-backed Kosovo government is Albanian-dominated, and prone to violent crackdowns on the region’s ethnic Serbian minority. The concern is that the military will just be used to escalate this, and to try to expel what’s left of the Serbs from northern Kosovo.

NATO forcibly separated Kosovo from Serbia, and has continued to back their independence. The split left a number of Serbs who opposed separation on the Kosovo side of the NATO-imposed border, and Kosovo has been trying to prevent them trading and traveling across the border.

(antiwar.com)

If I had to guess I would say that the M-IC is jerking off at the prospects of massive profits coming to them with the decision of Kosovo…..

Just A Thought!

Closing Thought–13Nov18

As a grad of international relations I find our country’s leaders are woefully misinformed…..this time it was Our Dear Supreme Leader “Trump”……he gets confused easily…….

President Donald Trump confused the Baltic states in Europe with the Balkans—and chastised leaders of the former for starting wars in the 1990s that lead to the break-up of Yugoslavia, French daily Le Monde reported.

Trump reportedly made the mistake in a White House meeting with Dalia Grybauskaitė of Lithuania, Kersti Kaljulaid of Estonia and Raimonds Vējonis of Latvia in April.

https://www.newsweek.com/trump-confused-baltics-balkans-and-accused-confused-leaders-starting-yugoslav-1210939

In case you also are confused let me help out with a couple of short videos…….

In case the confusion is still there….yet another video……

Did any of that help in the understanding?

Class Dismissed!

Today In History!

One year ago today I went to the ER with 10 toes and woke up with only 6 remaining. And the long road to recovery began.

But since I am not all that important I will check history and see that the very First Balkan War began in 1912…..

The First Balkan War breaks out between the members of the Balkan League–Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece and Montenegro–and the Ottoman Empire.

…….another and far more serious war had broken out in the Balkan peninsula. It took the form of an attack on Turkey by the four contiguous Christian states, Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro. The alliance of Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia, and Montenegro – Christians, former rayahs of the Ottoman empire, to the end of solving the remaining problems of the peninsula, had often been suggested, but the idea had regularly suffered shipwreck on the fierce competitive nationalism of the youthful states.

The feelings harbored toward each other by the Serbs and Bulgars were amply divulged by the war of 1885, while the desolating, unofficial conflict in Macedonia among Bulgars, Greeks, Serbs, and Albanians, left no doubt as to the jealousy rampant among these four groups. But what no statesmanship in or outside Balkania working over time had been able to accomplish, the mistaken zeal of the Young Turks brought about in a few months. Their purpose, reduced to its simplest terms, was a resuscitated Ottoman empire. But this, the patriotic hope of the Young Turks, was to the Christian communities only recently rescued from Turkish bondage, nothing less than a nightmare filling them with fear and horror.

https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/balkan-1.htm

Keeping with my tradition of trying to make it easier for those that have a hard time with the study of history I have included a short video explaining the event…..

This conflict should have signaled the possibility of a wider war in Europe….but the signals were ignored and in 1914 World War One erupted and the death and the destruction was immense.

Plus 80 years later, after break-up of the former country of Yugoslavia, another situation erupted and the world reacted and once again the death and destruction came to the region.

Death In Bulgaria

Closing Thought–11Oct18

My blog, In Saner Thought, has at least one loyal daily visitor from Bulgaria….I try to keep up with the news in the countries of my loyal visitors……..

A little info for those that may not know much about this country…..a country that not many Americans know much about these days……

The Bulgars, a Central Asian Turkic tribe, merged with the local Slavic inhabitants in the late 7th century to form the first Bulgarian state. In succeeding centuries, Bulgaria struggled with the Byzantine Empire to assert its place in the Balkans, but by the end of the 14th century the country was overrun by the Ottoman Turks. Northern Bulgaria attained autonomy in 1878 and all of Bulgaria became independent from the Ottoman Empire in 1908. Having fought on the losing side in both World Wars, Bulgaria fell within the Soviet sphere of influence and became a People’s Republic in 1946. Communist domination ended in 1990, when Bulgaria held its first multiparty election since World War II and began the contentious process of moving toward political democracy and a market economy while combating inflation, unemployment, corruption, and crime. The country joined NATO in 2004 and the EU in 2007.

Bulgarian television reporter Viktoria Marinova has become the third journalist to be murdered in the European Union in the last year and the fourth since the start of 2017.

The 30-year-old’s body was found dumped near the Danube River in the town of Ruse, northern Bulgaria, on Saturday. Police said she had been beaten, raped and strangled.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2018/10/08/bulgarias-viktoria-marinova-third-journalist-murdered-eu-last-year/1563296002/

A person has been arrested for the crime……

A suspect in the rape and killing of a Bulgarian television journalist whose work highlighted corruption in the East European country has been arrested in Germany, officials said Wednesday. Bulgaria’s prosecutor general, Sotir Tsatsarov, confirmed the arrest of Severin Krassimirov, a 21-year-old Bulgarian citizen, but gave no further details of his location, the AP reports. German authorities were not immediately available. “We are currently following a European arrest procedure. The German prosecutor has arrested the suspect, they will then assess how to proceed,” Tsatsarov said. He said evidence suggested it was “a spontaneous attack, not premeditated.”

Interior Minister Mladen Marinov said investigators had found DNA evidence on the clothes and body of Viktoria Marinova, who was raped and strangled on Saturday in the northern town of Ruse. “There is physical evidence to link to the murder,” Marinov said Wednesday. He said Krasimirov, a resident of Ruse, had a criminal record for scrap metal theft. The minister said investigators had spoken to Marinova’s family and friends and “there is no apparent link to her work.” Marinova hosted a show last month featuring two investigative journalists who were detained for their work on suspected fraud involving European Union funds—a sensitive subject in Bulgaria, where corruption is endemic

TO my followers in Bulgaria…If the any information that I am missing please let me know and I will update my readers.

It’s The Balkans Again

I recently reported on the events in the Balkans and for those that do not visit IST everyday…..a reminder(may I suggest that if you do not know the history of the region then the vid in the post should help)…..https://lobotero.com/2018/08/30/the-balkans/

Serbia and Kosovo have been at odds for years and a solution has always seem unattainable…..but now …….

Conferences, meetings and summits are usually forgettable. If GPF covered the comings and goings of every leader at every European get-together, we wouldn’t have time to write about much else. But some are due a certain amount of respect. What if, say, two enemies-turned-statesmen actually agreed with each other in potentially redrawing their countries’ boundaries? Such was the case last weekend, when the presidents of Serbia and Kosovo spoke at the European Forum Alpbach 2018 in Austria. Whispers of partition have been audible for a few months now, but this marks the first public utterings of the possibility on both sides – and it happened before EU-mediated talks resume Sept. 7.

It’s not especially surprising that Serbia and Kosovo would consider partition. There are pockets of ethnic Albanians in Serbia, and pockets of ethnic Serbs in Kosovo, and any serious deal to end their dispute, the most current iteration of which dates back to the early 1990s, needs to take that into account. These pockets of political opposition may well keep a deal from getting off the ground, but the presidents are nonetheless pushing forward with what is, so far, the most serious attempt yet to resolve this long-running conflict.

https://geopoliticalfutures.com/serbia-kosovo-prospect-partition/

This region could ignite at any time….it would be best to keep an eye on the events fueling the discontent….

When the next history of the Balkans is written, these two statements will prove to be the most consequential by any U.S. officials. It was James Baker’s statement that gave the green light for Slobodan Milosevic to unleash the full arsenal of former Yugoslavia on breakaway Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. A calamitous, decadelong series of conflicts in the region—all almost wholly avoidable—was the result.

John Bolton’s statement now threatens to undo the ensuing two decade-plus international effort to make peace. Building on rumors about private talks between the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo to swap territory as a means of ending their standoff, and hints of a change in U.S. policy, Bolton has now given the green light to Serbia and Kosovo to trade territory as a way of ending their decadelong—in fact, centurylong—standoff.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/04/how-to-restart-war-in-the-balkans/?utm_source=RC%20World%20Europe%20Memo&utm_campaign=29fef567a4-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_9960d29f6a-29fef567a4-85320065

For the last 100 years the Balkans have been a tinderbox…..special attention needs apply.

The Balkans

The Balkans have been the source of much conflict since the 1990’s and the break-up of Yugoslavia…..but in case you are not aware of the problems…..

I have several followers from the region so I like to keep up to date on the events of the region…..recently Macedonia made the news as a nation that is trying for NATO membership…..https://lobotero.com/2018/06/13/macedonia-whats-in-a-name/

There is some bad news about their possible membership…..

When Fox News host Tucker Carlson asked Donald Trump last month why he should send his son to die defending Montenegro, NATO’s newest member, the president seemed to repudiate his own administration’s policy. He indicated that Americans shouldn’t be willing to sacrifice their lives for such a trivial ally. Furthermore, he warned that Montenegro “has very aggressive people. They may get aggressive, and congratulations, you’re in World War III.” As Cato Institute senior fellow Doug Bandow pointed out, Trump’s comment was odd on two counts. First, the Senate approved the admission of Montenegro on his watch in March 2017. If he thought that latest episode of adding a useless microstate to the Alliance was unwise, he could have withdrawn the treaty from consideration before the Senate vote. Second, as Bandow notes archly, that while “it is theoretically possible that the vast, aggressive, powerful Montenegrin legions might launch themselves towards Moscow,” it isn’t too likely, because Montenegrin leaders “do not appear to have entirely lost their minds.”

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/skeptics/how-macedonia-could-push-nato-war-29702

Most nations of the old Yugoslavia have become members of NATO all but Serbia……and it appears that Serbia is growing closer to Russia than its neighbors…..

Serbia’s air force received two Russian MiG-29 fighter jets as part of an arms purchase that could heighten tensions in the Balkans and increase Moscow’s influence in the region.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic attended the ceremony on Tuesday at a military airport close to the Serbian capital, Belgrade, thanking Russian President Vladimir Putin for helping make Serbia’s armed forces stronger.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/europe/2018/08/russia-delivers-fighter-jets-serbia-180821171328018.html

Could Serbia be trying to flex its military muscle again?

Serbia might reintroduce compulsory military service, nine years after abolishing it, to help improve the combat readiness of its army in the Balkans, where tensions occasionally flare, President Aleksandar Vucic said on Tuesday.

The armed forces of Serbia, which emerged as an independent state after the bloody collapse of former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, were fully professionalised in 2011, but remain poorly paid and equipped.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-serbia-army/serbia-may-reintroduce-compulsory-military-service-president-idUKKCN1L61H1

Serbia has a long history pf hatred aimed at their neighbor Croatia….but why? (a little history for your help)

In Saner Thought

"It is the duty of every man, as far as his ability extends, to detect and expose delusion and error"..Thomas Paine

Tag: Balkans