Talk:Kosovo War

This page seems to have been quiet for a month or so, but the neutrality tag remains - I have read the discussion archives, but it is not clear to me from them what content remains disputed, if any. I would like to suggest that we either remove the tag, or generate a list of specific issues that we could potentially resolve in order to remove it.2toise 12:35, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Where to start -just about every sentence is disputed. Rmhermen 23:13, Nov 10, 2003 (UTC)

I just don't think that it's very helpful to claim that the topic in general is disputed - start at the beginning if necessary.2toise 23:14, 10 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Is this article still disputed? The neutrality tag was added to the previous version of the article (before I rewrote it) so it doesn't seem appropriate to keep it in the new version unless someone still disagrees with it. If nobody has any objection, I'd like to remove the tag. -- ChrisO 23:45, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I don't have time to read everything, unfortunately. The few parts I did read seem OK to me, but the pictures are quite inapropriate: the article is about Kosovo war, while the photos show mostly civil targets hit by NATO missiles - the message is far from neutral.--Messlo 12:58, 10 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Russian veto?

It is not true that Russia vetoed a resolution or that there was any resolution to justify the NATO bombing. See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2828985.stm where all the vetoes of Russia are discussed

Try reading this. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/201007.stm, I think this verifies what I was saying.User:G-Man

I dont think that it does. It is a resolution adopted before the negotiations between the Serbs and Albanians, and no other resolution was considered after that. It does not say anywhere that the majority of Security concil were for a stronger resolution authorising the use of force (that is what you claim). Also, China, as well as Russia abstained from even this resolution. The issue in resolution was not signing the agreement (a reason for the start of bombing in late March) but retreating of the Serbian forces, which subsequently happened.

Unity with Albania?

Regarding the most recent edit: I don't know and don't think it's possible to find out how all Kosovar Albanians felt re: autonomy, independence, and Greater Albania. But it's definitely wrong to say that no Kosovar Albanians wanted unity with Albania, or that this desire by some Kosovar Albanians did not reflect itself in significant political movements. What did the KLA have to say about Greater Albania? What about Rugova? DanKeshet

I agree that some people in Kosovo were for greater Albania. However, it is wrong to say that Albanians always considered Kosovo as an integral part of Albania, the way Serbs did consider it integral part of Serbia. Albania didn't exist as a state until 1912. Serbia did and at the time after the Balkan wars it had conquered Kosovo, Sanjak and FRY Macedonia teritories - Kosovo was teritory of middle age Serbian kingdom, and thus Serbs did view it as a part of their state. Albanians however have their historical ties to Kosovo - rising of their nationalist movement in XIX century started in southern Kosovo under the Ottoman Empire. During the Balkan wars many Albanians were expelled by the Serbs. In WWI, Albanians took revenge when Serbian army was retreating over Albanian mountains. The origin of the conflict can be traced at least that far. During the WWII Greater Albania did exist and included most of Kosovo under faschist puppet regime. After the WWII Tito had promised Albanian communists that part of Kosovo will be allowed to join Albania. However, this did not happen, and Kosovo was set up as autonomous part of Serbia. The Albanian separatists had a goal of greater Albania, but more recently they are for Kosovo separate from Albania. Kosovo is much more developed than Albania (even today, and certainly during regime of Enver Hoxa), and Kosovo Albanians look down on Albanians from Albania proper. So, it is not entirely accurate to say that Albanians want Kosovo inside Albania - certainly, there is a dream of "Greater Albania" as it existed during WWII, and Serbs want to portray Albanian pretensions in this way, but it is not accurate description of the situation.

As for Rugova, he was always for independent Kosovo, as a separate state. KLA is mostly of this view too, although some KLA members certainly want all the Albanians inside one state. But even parts of Macedonia and Serbia proper are more likely to be seen as included in Kosovo, than in Albania as one state (there was some speculation about the exchange of teritories between Kosovo northern areas, even now populated by Serbs, and Presevo valley in Serbia proper).

Thanks for the long discussion. Could we get some of this up at History of Kosovo, History of Albania, and history of Yugoslavia? DanKeshet

Removed from article:

Yugoslav tactics that worked against NATO

Yugoslav air defences tracked U.S. stealth aircraft by using old Russian radars operating on long wavelengths. This, combined with the loss of stealth characteristics when the jets got wet or opened their bomb bays, made them shine on radar screens.
Radars confused precision-guided HARM and ALARM missiles by reflecting their electromagnetic beams off heavy farm machinery, such as plows or old tractors placed around the sites. This cluttered the U.S. missiles' guidance systems, which were unable to pinpoint the emitters.
Scout helicopters would land on flatbed trucks and rev their engines before being towed to camouflaged sites several hundred metres away. Heat-seeking missiles from NATO jets would then locate and go after the residual heat on the trucks.
Yugoslav troops used cheap heat-emitting decoys such as small gas furnaces to simulate nonexistent positions on Kosovo mountainsides. B-52 bombers, employing advanced infrared sensors, repeatedly blasted the empty hills.
The army drew up plans for covert placement of heat and microwave emitters on territory that NATO troops were expected to occupy in a ground war. This was intended to trick the B-52s into carpet-bombing their own forces.
Dozens of dummy objectives, including fake bridges and airfields were constructed. Many of the decoy planes were so good that NATO claimed that the Yugoslav air force had been decimated. After the war, it turned out most of its planes had survived unscathed.
Fake tanks were built using plastic sheeting, old tires, and logs. To mimic heat emissions, cans were filled with sand and fuel and set alight. Hundreds of these makeshift decoys were bombed, leading to wildly inflated destruction claims.
Bridges and other strategic targets were defended from missiles with laser-guidance systems by bonfires made of old tires and wet hay, which emit dense smoke filled with laser-reflecting particles.
U.S. bombs equipped with GPS guidance proved vulnerable to old electronic jammers that blocked their links with satellites.
Despite NATO's total air supremacy, Yugoslav jets flew combat missions over Kosovo at extremely low altitudes, using terrain to remain undetected by AWACS flying radars.
Weapons that performed well in Afghanistan — Predator drones, Apache attack choppers and C-130 Hercules gunships — proved ineffective in Kosovo. Drones were easy targets for 1940s-era Hispano-Suisa anti-aircraft cannons, and C-130s and Apaches were considered too vulnerable to be deployed.

This only looks like Serbian propoganda and doesn't improve this already very POV article one bit. Also given the very low numbers of NATO losses the above is rather surprising. --mav

Most of these strategies would serve to reduce Serbian military losses and waste NATO money, rather than killing NATO troops. Certainly these kinds of tactics have been used by other armies - bonfires to block laser-guided bombs compare with the oil trenches used by Iraq in the Gulf War, and I'm pretty sure that fake targets were used as early as WW2. Stealth bombers are known to be vulnerable to old-fashioned radar designs, being designed to be invisible to more modern systems, and are indeed more visible when their bomb bays are open. Plus, the Serbians did manage to shoot one down. Martin

AP news, from which this was taken, is hardly a Serbian propaganda - see

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/front/RTGAM/20021120/wless1120/Front/homeBN/breakingnews

Oh so besides being POV (sic there is no NATO response to the claims) it is also a copyright violation. That is another reason to remove the text. --mav 00:19 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

copying from AP news IS NOT copyright violation. Even parts of artistic work can be used for educational purposes, and copying from parts of news is widely done in Wikipedia, and does NOT copyright violation. Also, it is precisely NATO who was MAKING the claims - Wes. Clark is analyzing Serbian tactics in the article. You are just censoring the article to fit your POV and use copyright as an excuse, which btw is misplaced.

From the "fair use" section of the copyright law:

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include-

(1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

(2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

(3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

(4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

We are not talking about copyright law here. We are talking about the rules of Wikipedia. Are you a lawyer? If so, are you prepared to act in official capacity as counselor for Wikipedia if they are sued? Unless the answer is "Yes" to both questions, then I say the stolen text should be removed from the article. Chadloder 01:45 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

at the very least it should be attributed to its source.

what do you want, list to be rephrased a bit so that the text is not the same? it does not make sense, and it is certainly not a copyright violation as it stands - it is a very small portion of an article, in which journalist sumarizes points which various NATO generals have made to him. If you want it attributed for NPOV purposes, that would make some sense, but it is quite clear from the article that there is nothing controversial there - this is based on what years after the war some US generals said in connection with Iraq and lessons they have learned from the Kosovo war, so it is not something contested by NATO, and neither it is by the Yugoslav side. It is pretty much a list of undisputed facts about the tactics used by the Yugoslav army to minimize military losses from the bombardment.

I think it romances a bit, but the general thrust of it is somewhere within cooee of an article I read a little while ago about the NATO air campaign, which as written by a distinguished defence analysist. I'll try to remember to dig it out at some stage. Tannin 11:56 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)

Well, regardless of the NPOV discussion, there are two serious problems with the list of tactics:

Copyrighted material should not be used on Wikipedia. If you want this information to stay, you need to write your own version. Even just paraphrasing the list would be better than a straight copy. If you can't be bothered to do that, then just put in the link to the Globe and Mail story.
The list looks completely out of place where it is in the article. This should be in a separate article instead, and linked from this one.

-- Ansible

The list is now reworked so noone can say it is a copyright violation. Although I still think it was not copyright violation in the first place - unlike photos, text is something much more easily produced, and a thiny portion of some article easily reworded, so it does not make sense to worry about copyright. The whole article or a substantial portion would be different, but anyway, now it is rephrased. I have provided a link so it does justice to the military analyst who se text was used.

As for your second point, I believe military tactics used by some party in some war should be discussed in article about the war. This aspect is also important, and while it is good for the article to discuss politics, historical context, civilian victims, war crimes etc. in this war, it is also should have a section dealing with the defense against bombing. Especially because Yugoslav army had this doctrine of defense against invador for like 50 years, and a long tradition of partisan warfare from the WWII on which it was based. Low tech approach, using independent units etc. was cornerstone of Yugoslav peoples army, and the teritorial defenses were used many times during the Balkan wars in the 90s by all the sides in ex-Yugoslavia. Officers on all sides were educated in this same military school, and while it was not particilary well suited for the civil war, it was perfect for defense against invasion. Ground invasion never happened, but

the goal of preservation of the Army was achieved, and Yugoslav forces were preserved in Kosovo despite the heavy bombing - it was loss of civilian infrastucture which mattered and forced Serbian withdrawal. So, it is important to deal with this aspect of the war.

The list goes. The AP are very aggressive about making sure people don't screw with their copyrighted material. I've heard of them going after people who rewrite parts of their text just enough to pass the Google test. They also say as much: "Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All right reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed." Also our license (the GNU FDL) and the fact that we are a world-editable wiki puts serious constraints on our use of fair use text (read Wikipedia:Copyrights; look for "Fair use" headings). Basically we are limited to short, annotated and attributed quotes that help to illustrate the article and are clearly demarked as quotes so that other wikipedia editors know not to edit that text. And even if we could use the list under fair use we would have to attribute the source. Not doing so is a grave act of plagiarism. --mav

I bet they are not as aggressive as you are to protect them. Now the list is rephrased, so even you cannot use this cheap excuse to remove material that does not fit your POV, but with wich US generals, military analysts, not to mention Yugoslav side, agree. Your claims of "plagiarisam" are laughable - noone takes credit here for their work, which consists merely of reporting, and is not original research.

The new intro to "Yugoslav tactics that worked against NATO" makes all the difference as far as NPOV is concerned. Now the opinions expressed have been attributed to their adherents. It was not at all "laughable" for me to protect the legal and professional integrity of Wikipedia from a user intent on presenting the work of others as his own and not even attempt to attribute the ideas or the text to their original sources. This was both plagiarism (read that article and learn something) and a copyright violation (read Wikipedia:Copyrights and also learn something). Most of the text now at least passes the Google test. Hopefully in time it will become truly unique. --mav

Yeah, right. Plagiarisam means to steal and pass off someone's work as one's own - and noone was doing that. Wikipedia articles by definition have no author, and noone was trying to falsely present text as their own anyway. Your worrying for protecting Wikipedia makes more sense, had it been the real motive - but then you would have to take care of every part of every article which was copied from some other site - and you know well how many articles started by copy-pasting and merging (combining small parts of different articles as a basis for an article which is anyway going to evolve is hardly a copyright infrigement - or you could as well extend it to include using parts of sentences, words, or even letters to be copyright protected). I agree that fair use is not clear-cut and so one can reword text just in case - "Note that copyright law governs the creative expression of ideas, not the ideas or information themselves. Therefore, it is perfectly legal to read an encyclopedia article or other work, reformulate it in your own words, and submit it to Wikipedia." < from the link you provided yourself. So, if that is a general policy here to avoid any possible although unlikely problems, fine. But the real worry it seems to me here is about the use of photos, media files, or substantial portions of some other articles, not about few listed facts, which, as you can see, can be reworded without much trouble and which happens anyway.

Your premise is incorrect - Wikipedia articles are not anonymous works. The page history documents every edit and who made those edits. And I do check for copyright violations (which are also plagiarism if the source is not noted) on numerous new articles. It is also true that information cannot be copyrighted but the issue here was the verbatim copying of text without even noting the source. Oh and some media outlets have been trying to extend copyright to greatly limit fair use by using scare tactics which result in expensive legal fees for defendants - there is nothing wrong with trying to limit this type of liability by respecting notices such as the one Reuters. It is better, IMO, to limit our use of such resources and to extensively rewrite and reorganize any information obtained from them when no other sources are available. This makes it very difficult for them to make any case against us without looking like fools. --mav 01:38 Apr 21, 2003 (UTC)

Map of Greater Albania

Has the map of great Albania ut's place here ? Ericd 11:45 Apr 20, 2003 (UTC)

Can we move the map of Greater Albania to a ga page? I think the concept deserves treatment, but not on the Kosovo war page.

Also, the caption states that it is claimed by Albanian Nationalists - can we be more specific?

2toise 05:49, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

I moved the map of Greater Albania to a new page of that name. Hope this is ok, it just doesn't seem to be really central to the Kosovo War page. I have no particular interest in writing the ga page, but think it needs some work. 2toise 06:04, 4 Oct 2003 (UTC)

Pictures of civilian casualties

Does anyone else think there may be a NPOV problem with 3 pictures of unintended civilian casualities vs. one picture of an apparently intended target? -- stewacide 07:13 29 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Firstly, two of four pictures show intended targets as admitted by NATO (TV and electricity). Secondly, most probably all four of them were intended. Nikola 08:19 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The TV one also says "residential areas", which is why I got 3/4 - I guess 3+3=4 in this case :)

Also says. Let's conclude that 2.5 of 4 :) pictures show unadmitted to be intended civilian casaulties. Nikola 04:53 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Still, it would nice if someone could dig up a picture of destroyed Serbian military equipment. Missing image
Natotrain.jpg
Image:Natotrain.jpg

seems even more biased towards showing civilian casualities only. -- stewacide

Such images are very hard to find... Nikola 04:53 7 Jul 2003 (UTC)

See discussion at User talk:Nikola Smolenski, Serb atrocities on Albanian civilians are not hard at all to find. --Dori 18:40, 23 Sep 2003 (UTC)

This is the first time I have looked at this article, and it reads like Serb propaganda from beginning to end. I hate to think it was like before people started trying to NPOV it. I would suggest that someone knowledgeable and unbiased write a completely new article and then a vote be taken at Village Pump or somewhere on substituting it for this one, which is probably beyond redemption. Adam 07:35, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Me personally have no problem with that. However, if new article omits to mention something important that was mentioned in the old article, I will move that from the old article to the new article. Nikola 19:28, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I've been saying this for a long time, most of it is the work of User:Nikola Smolenski and User:Igor

Lie. The article was started at July 31st 2001, and my first edit was on May 18th 2003, almost TWO YEARS after that! Since then I've made 16 edits of 84 edits total. And all of my edits were quite small ones. Similarly, Igor's first edit was in April 8th 2003 and since then he made 12 edits, even less then me. So, we together have 28 of 84 edits, or about 1/3. Nikola 19:28, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

who seem to see the wikipedia as a dispensary for Serb propaganda, numerous people have complained about them.

For example? Nikola 19:28, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

You should see the other articles they have worked on - like Kosovo and Prishtina which I have attempted to NPOV. In fact just about every article they have worked on reads like Serb propaganda.

Of my last 50 edits, articles I worked on are: Kosovo War, Serbo-Croatian language, Wikipedia:WikiProject Space Missions, Republika Srpska, Non-native pronunciations of English, Differences in official languages in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia, Mathematical beauty, Orthodox Celts, Franjo Tudjman, Sony Ericsson, Saint Sava, ISO 639, Petar Petrovic Njegos, Utva, Vuk Stefanovic Karadzic, Males, Most popular names, List of most popular family names, Kosovo and Metohia, Ligature, Timeline of Belgrade, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, The Flower of Scotland, Pan-Slavic colors, List of countries by rail transport network size, Apoapsis, Periapsis. I highlighted these that struck me as prime examples of Serb propaganda.

And your "attempts of NPOV" were as much NPOV as what you've just wrote about me. Nikola 19:28, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I agree this article should be re-written from scratch G-Man 13:43, 26 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Which I'm doing at the moment. As a participant in the conflict (on the NATO side) I have something of an insider's viewpoint, and I should be able to fix most of the problems that seem to have cropped up in this article - the usual minimisation of one side's role and stressing of the awfulness of the other side. -- ChrisO 01:16, 3 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I was not in the army, but I have talked with people who were stationed in various parts in Serbia, and I think I can provide fair representation of the other side. As I guess that the layout of the new article will be somewhat similar to the layout of the old, could you please replace it section by section instead of replacing all at once? This way it will be easier to see the differences. If your layout is not similar, you could first change the layout of the old article, then replace sections with new ones. Nikola 07:10, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Okay, will do. In due course, I would like to focus the article more tightly on the armed conflict (1996-99), which will require major structural changes. I propose to move the pre-conflict history of Kosovo into the related article on Kosovo (which also needs to be rewritten, btw). The section I'm referring to is basically the text from "Kosovo was declared an autonomous region" to "unsuccessful attempts to gather a fighting force", although I've extensively rewritten and added to this as it's not entirely NPOV and omits the wider Yugoslav context (i.e. the political dispute at the federal level). I propose to cover the Rambouillet Conference briefly in the Kosovo War article and expand the separate article on the Rambouillet Agreement to provide more detail.

So far I've got as far as the breakdown of the Rambouillet talks. I'll try to post the first section over the weekend. I may simply do a straight rewrite of the entire article (including the pre-conflict and detailed Rambouillet Agreement text) and then move the appropriate blocks of content into Kosovo and Rambouillet Agreement when I'm done. -- ChrisO 13:41, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Kosovo War rewrite

It's taken longer than I had hoped, but the rewrite is about ready now (basically covering the period from post-WW2 to the failure of Rambouillet in March 1999). See what you think - comments welcomed! -- ChrisO 01:34, 28 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I've now completed the rewrite, taking in the period of the NATO campaign and its aftermath. -- ChrisO 00:57, 2 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Kosovo/Kosova?

Given that Kosovo has two recognised and legitimate names in Serbian and Albanian, I think it's only fair that both names should be given at the start of the article. Please don't remove the Albanian name. At some future point, I may also add the Albanian placenames of the towns mentioned in the article. -- ChrisO 23:28, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Nikola, could you please stop deleting the alternative Albanian placenames? -- ChrisO 11:13, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Neutrality

Does anyone still dispute the neutrality of this page, I certainly dont, It's been improved dramatically from a NPOV perspective. Can the dispute header be taken down? G-Man 00:04, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Given that the article does not really highlight the Serbian POV, and only briefly mentions the murders on Serbs and Roma living in Kosovo, I think it's best left in. Something needs to be added about how this war started as a result of the "Greater Albania" mentality that lives amongst Kosovo Albanians and how they started persecuting Serbs, Roma, and other non-muslims, and a link to how the KLA tried to carry the war to the Macedonian republic is still needed. — Jor 00:11, 2004 Jan 16 (UTC)

This raises a question: what exactly should the scope of this article be? Is it:

the conflict between NATO and Yugoslavia during March-June 1999?
the conflict between Yugoslav and Serbian forces and the KLA from 1996-1999?
the wider political conflict between Serbs and Albanians?
and if the latter, during what period? After 1989 or 1974 or 1945 or 1912? Or even earlier?
and when should we say the war ended? June 1999? Can the political violence after that date be considered part of the war?

Perhaps we should trim down the article to the period of the armed conflict and move the political debate to a separate "Politics of Kosovo" article? Suggestions welcomed... -- ChrisO 10:35, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Upon re-reading the article I see that the points I mentioned are listed, albeit briefly. I understand how difficult it is to keep it NPOV, and certainly don't think I can do better: I hesitate to edit the article myself. Still I recommend splitting the article: "Politics of Kosovo" seems like as good a name as any to carry information about the Albanian vs Serbian politics. This article should optimally only deal with the conflict from the start of KLA agression in 1996 to the end of the NATO bombing campaign in 1999. The ethnic cleansing of Serbs and Roma which has occured since could either go in the 'Consequences of the war' section, or be removed to a seperate article 'Consequences of the Kosovo War', highlighting the immense crime rate in the rebel province, the ethnic cleansing, a mention of the KLA attacks in the Republic of Macedonia, etc.. — Jor 11:46, 16 Jan 2004 (UTC)

the truth

I've been skimming some posts here, and I want to say the real truth: -Balkan Peninsula was always populated by Albanians (they've been called Illyrians before) - In the very beggining they've been 100% christian, but then they've been conqured by Otoman Empire so they've been forced to accpet Islam religion (some located in mountanois sites managed to defend their religion so that how in kosovo, and in albania are christians too) but most of population had to convert to Islamic releigion as forced by Otoman Empire... - Serbs came from capathian montains- from russia, it's beleived that they are by orginin gypsies from russia, so they moved south for a better life they found a new tarritory with high culture, and very civillized nation, so they conqured a part of Illyrian land the southern part and they claim that kosovo is their mother, but its not true... a fact : why their language is similiar to Russain? Why Albanian language is entirely independent language showing no similiarities to any language.... (some with latin), this explains that this language is very old and so is spoken by Albanian certenly they must be very old nations with very old roots in Europe. I must say that serbian nation is very sadist, bloodsucker, its very obvios having on mind where they come from... Once again :"World dont buy Serbian politics, let Albanian nation live independed as it deserves to"

I guess you also believe astronauts went into space and walked on the moon [nt]

the bottom line

Non-Albanians were kicked out from Kosovo. So much for stopping the purported ethnic cleansing. Reality speaks volumes.

The Serbs were rammed an ultimatum they couldn't possibly accept (just like in WWI), Serbian elections after the war were sabotaged by external funding of Milosevic's opposition. Milosevic was expelled from Serbia illegally (Serbian constitution does not allow trial of Serbian citizens abroad for crimes commited in Serbia) by said opposition. Civilian targets were bombed. From what I have read, Serbia has been the soccer ball of the larger powers during the XXth century, not sadist bloodsuckers. I suspect this war shall go in the anals of history as pointless drivel that only made things worse. The flame of nationalism has been rekindled in Europe. We shall reap the winds we have sown.

Merge from Humanitarian Intervention in Kosovo

I don't know if this article has any information you don't already have, if so merge, if not just redirect. [[User:Cohesion|cohesion ☎]] 20:28, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

In any case it's just a personal, highly POV essay. I fear the consequences if it is to be merged. Would probably be best to just redirect. Everyking 21:05, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Yes, i thought so too, but I am not an expert on this so I wasn't sure if it had any hidden gems of new information :) [[User:Cohesion|cohesion ☎]] 22:13, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Cause of Kosovar Albanians exodus during NATO bombing campaign

As the article properly states in a NPOV, "The cause of the refugee exodus has been the subject of considerable controversy." So why does the previous paragraph convolute this by stating "fighting worsened and produced massive outflows"? Obviously fighting worsened, but exactly why there was a massive exodus is what is controversial and I have changed the sentence to reflect a more NPOV as the next paragraph follows. - Dejitarob 23:38, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

New check

Still the NPOV tag, two months later what about a new check? --ThomasK 10:15, Dec 19, 2004 (UTC)

Page seems not bad by Wikipedia standards, except for being too long. Needs factoring. 193.60.78.118 15:33, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Political consequences

Despite the successful conclusion of the war, Kosovo exposed gaping weaknesses in NATO. It revealed how dependent the European members had become on the United States military - the vast majority of combat and non-combat operations were dependent on US involvement - and highlighted the lack of precision weapons in European armories. It also served to discredit NATO in the eyes of the US military and American right-wingers, with the alliance's cumbersome agreement-by-consensus arrangements blamed for hobbling the campaign. The experience of Kosovo was a crucial factor in the United States deciding to go it alone in Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, preferring instead to build "coalitions of the willing" rather than rely on its existing alliances.

(my emphasis)

Is this paragraph NPOV? I've highligted the portions which I think are patricularly bad.. I'm not familiar with the specifics of the effects of this conflict on us foreign policy motivations, but certainly America's military supermacy wasn't questioned before the war?

Call me crazy but, an even more crucial factor in us deciding to go it alone is that other disagreed with the war?

I'm going to go ahead and edit this to take out what I think is blatantly untrue. --Freshraisin 10:17, Apr 12, 2005 (UTC)

Links

Is it just me, or is that first link on the list a little...crazy? I don't see any need to remove it, but I don't see any need for it to be at the top of the list, above much more useful sources.

I retitled the link to the London Observer headline; yes it should be moved down the list somewhat. Nobs 20:18, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

'Right-wing, Right-wingers'

"Some right-wing and military critics in the US also blamed the alliance's agreement-by-consensus arrangements for hobbling and slowing down the campaign."

Shouldn't this just be condensed as 'Some critics' instead of the 'right-wing and military' as there are certainly critics who do not fit into those characterizations who did whats described. Personally I don't see the sentence being useful, but if its included it should at least be accurate. If there are those that would say only 'right-wing and military' were the critics, I would like to see a source. 172.131.58.54 07:35, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Many on the left of Western politics saw the NATO campaign as a sign of US aggression and imperialism, while right-wingers criticised it as being irrelevant to their countries' national security interests."

This is part of my earlier comment, but is 'right-wingers' really an encyclopedic term? Is there a better way of saying this? 172.131.58.54 07:38, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Retrieved from "https://academickids.com:443/encyclopedia/index.php/Talk:Kosovo_War"