re: #11 Destro

Destro, you have never been to any of the Balkan states, right?
It shows.

I have travelled quite extensively to all states of former Yugoslavia, and I am fond of all of them - including Serbia. All of them have their extremists, too.
BUT you cannot deny the primary responsibility of the Milosevic regime in the wars.

Have you ever asked yourself why the commander of the Sarajevo territorial defense (fighting, according to your fucked up narrative, for Islamic supremacism/nazism/whatever…) was… a Serb?

Have you ever met young Serbian liberals, artists etc and asked them about the atmosphere during the Milosevic years?

Have you been insulted by young Serb nationalists while taking pictures of the remains of the Ferhadija mosque in Banja Luka? (One of the most beautiful mosques in the Balkans, dynamited to the ground by the Serbs - the Serbian mayor at the time went as far as denying mosques had ever existed in Banja Luka)

I could multiply the examples.

You can be a friend of the Serbs and Serbian culture without denying the crimes of Serb nationalists in the Croatian and Bosnian wars. You can defend Serbian refugees from Krajina and Kosovo without denying that the widespread ethnic cleansing in Bosnia was for the most part the work of Serb nationalists, and without denying the quasi-apartheid that had been in place in Kosovo for ten years, followed by the mass expulsion of Albanians during the 1998 war. Witnessing the plight of Albanian refugees, an official of the Serbian church actually wept, and said later that seeing those heartbreaking scenes, he knew at once that there would be revenge, and that it would soon be the turn of the Serbs.

About Krajina and Kosovo Serbs - they are also victims, yes. In part because they have been used as pawns by the Serbian regime - and let down by the same. One of the most shameful actions of Milosevic was relocating the Krajina refugees to Kosovo, an already impoverished and over-populated region where ethnic tensions were rife, in a bid to alter the demographic balance in favor of Serbian rule. Of course it did not go well (I have been to Kosovo a few times, including the Serbian enclaves).

I usually like you, but I have this to say - I am sick and about to cry and shout and to hit the wall in anger each time you write about the Balkans.

Please stop this, really. Read from multiple sources. And go travel there, maybe, it’s a beautiful part of the world. But stop this.