Friday, October 28, 2005
A reallly outstanding blog by a Serbian liveing in America
This guy is really interesting, and intelligent, and well informed. He's someome else I found thanks to Gordy, and well worth a visit because he'd really done a LOT with his blogs on all sorts of subjects. I am not goint to say I always agree with every word, 1. I haven't read every word 2. I wouldn't expect him to agree with everything I said but I have liked how he writes what he writes, and he has some good stories abut himself, always a plus! Besides he's a friend of Gordys and an Otpor guy which makes him an alright guy as far as I'm concerned. He was there for all that stuff so read what he has to say about it. Good primary source material.
# posted by Katja R. @ 12:57 AM 
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Yes this is a good blog! Thanks for sharing it.
On the plane thing; thought you might like to get angry at this link;
http://www.warinfo.org.yu/natodown.html
Read this after visiting the site.
Yea, yea, I know! You don't even have to say it.
All I know is some of the things I experienced don't match up with only two U.S. planes.
I also found it hard to believe that the airman I spoke of below survived after being pulled out alive by Serb forces. First impressions would lead you to believe he would have been taken prisoner, killed and tortured.
Something else you might know is; U.S. Special Forces were, in what capacity I haven't a clue, "befreinding" some Serb units. I know of one "para-military" unit by name.
On the plane thing; thought you might like to get angry at this link;
http://www.warinfo.org.yu/natodown.html
Read this after visiting the site.
Yea, yea, I know! You don't even have to say it.
All I know is some of the things I experienced don't match up with only two U.S. planes.
I also found it hard to believe that the airman I spoke of below survived after being pulled out alive by Serb forces. First impressions would lead you to believe he would have been taken prisoner, killed and tortured.
Something else you might know is; U.S. Special Forces were, in what capacity I haven't a clue, "befreinding" some Serb units. I know of one "para-military" unit by name.
I will go ahead and say it, back then we had still the Soviet Union and this guy was or is a Russian.
I'm willing to agree that more planes than two were shot down, perhaps as well some of those drone thingies.
Actually in most cases people taken prisoner in war are not killed or tortured. Especially not airmen.
Airmen in particular, because of the much heavier investment in their training and equipment are valuable.
To this day even common people in the country of origin will follow the story of one or two downed airman more than they will of a hundred captured ground troops.
Look at all the fuss over Captain O'Grady from Spokane Washington! I'm sure other guys faced much more danger from the JNA or Serb paramilitary forces but they were on the ground, they weren't airmen.
There were definately rumors in the States about Special Forces presence in Former Yugoslavia.
Probably they were there gathering intelligence, arrangeing for things to happen or not happen.
There can't have been many of them because a good knowlege of the local language is actually really rare in the States without being ethinically Serbian or Bosnian or Croatian. As far as them getting involved with assorted Serb units that would not be a huge surprise for me.
I doubt very many NATO aircraft (translate U.S. face it most were U.S.) but I would grant you that more went down than we in the States or anyone in Europe knows.
But probably not huge numbers because the Balkans isn't that deserted really. Yes it's mountainous and stuff, but I was interested to note how many places where probably no one would live in the States had really old villages, pretty much inhabited and pretty far up the mountain.
In my personal opinion, in the Balkans, recovery of a downed aircraft is more likely to be hard because of minefields than anything else. the other factor is that dureing not just minefields from this recent war, but older ones from WWII.
Dureing the recent war a lot of different people were in charge of air traffic control for these planes and perhaps not all of them spoke enough English. This was a factor in the tragic death in an airplane crash near Stolac BiH of President Trajkovski of Macedonia.
So was fog, you get some terrible fog there and the age and maintenance of aircraft themselves can enter into the likelihood of a crash, as can the nature and equipment of airfields and airports. Some in the Balkans are quite badly maintained or situated badly by the standards of most parts of the world, a good place to put an airfield in the Balkans isn't necessarily the same as a good place to put an airfield in England, France, the U.S. or Russia.
The Russian guy is right that being over a certain altitude is bad when you are going to bomb things too,and that the Serbian equipment certainly was good enough to take down an American aircraft.
The right wing in this country AND the left-over Communists both opposed intervention in the Balkans. So there was certainly motivation to lie about how many planes went down, but again, these guys have families, and the government has to account for the missing and dead. Families have to be told if nothing else.
You are a fairly young guy, so you weren't alive for the heyday of Soviet propaganda. I was alive for the 'Cold War' I'm old enough to really remember the McCarthy era.
'In time of war the first casualty is Truth' is a very old quote and a very true one.
I do want to thank you for sending the link, I had it some years ago and lost it when my first computer died.
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I'm willing to agree that more planes than two were shot down, perhaps as well some of those drone thingies.
Actually in most cases people taken prisoner in war are not killed or tortured. Especially not airmen.
Airmen in particular, because of the much heavier investment in their training and equipment are valuable.
To this day even common people in the country of origin will follow the story of one or two downed airman more than they will of a hundred captured ground troops.
Look at all the fuss over Captain O'Grady from Spokane Washington! I'm sure other guys faced much more danger from the JNA or Serb paramilitary forces but they were on the ground, they weren't airmen.
There were definately rumors in the States about Special Forces presence in Former Yugoslavia.
Probably they were there gathering intelligence, arrangeing for things to happen or not happen.
There can't have been many of them because a good knowlege of the local language is actually really rare in the States without being ethinically Serbian or Bosnian or Croatian. As far as them getting involved with assorted Serb units that would not be a huge surprise for me.
I doubt very many NATO aircraft (translate U.S. face it most were U.S.) but I would grant you that more went down than we in the States or anyone in Europe knows.
But probably not huge numbers because the Balkans isn't that deserted really. Yes it's mountainous and stuff, but I was interested to note how many places where probably no one would live in the States had really old villages, pretty much inhabited and pretty far up the mountain.
In my personal opinion, in the Balkans, recovery of a downed aircraft is more likely to be hard because of minefields than anything else. the other factor is that dureing not just minefields from this recent war, but older ones from WWII.
Dureing the recent war a lot of different people were in charge of air traffic control for these planes and perhaps not all of them spoke enough English. This was a factor in the tragic death in an airplane crash near Stolac BiH of President Trajkovski of Macedonia.
So was fog, you get some terrible fog there and the age and maintenance of aircraft themselves can enter into the likelihood of a crash, as can the nature and equipment of airfields and airports. Some in the Balkans are quite badly maintained or situated badly by the standards of most parts of the world, a good place to put an airfield in the Balkans isn't necessarily the same as a good place to put an airfield in England, France, the U.S. or Russia.
The Russian guy is right that being over a certain altitude is bad when you are going to bomb things too,and that the Serbian equipment certainly was good enough to take down an American aircraft.
The right wing in this country AND the left-over Communists both opposed intervention in the Balkans. So there was certainly motivation to lie about how many planes went down, but again, these guys have families, and the government has to account for the missing and dead. Families have to be told if nothing else.
You are a fairly young guy, so you weren't alive for the heyday of Soviet propaganda. I was alive for the 'Cold War' I'm old enough to really remember the McCarthy era.
'In time of war the first casualty is Truth' is a very old quote and a very true one.
I do want to thank you for sending the link, I had it some years ago and lost it when my first computer died.
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