Central Europe & Balkans

What could I say. Despite I'm from Poland (central Europe) I discovered quite recently the majority of lies told us about Balkan war. The crimes of few Serbian was exaggerated. I don't said it doesn't happened but this is only one side of the coin. In fact Croatia was this state who made first step and many other to make this war complete mess. But Croatia had great US and European support and for majority of western politics treated this war as a war between western and Russians influence completely ignoring human aspect. In fact Serbian tried to keep integrity of the whole country but as the war progressed all sides made everything in more barbaric way. Reaction of international forces was complete fail. They just let them kill each other. International law was broken by all sides but as the war ended they putt Serbia face of pure evil and isolate them and Croatia is now popular tourist destination and nice country almost as they never take part in this me$$.

Of course this was not war of two sides, it was much more complicated but I show you only extreme example. The same anti-Serbian propaganda was used to take their Kosovo which in fact is historic heart state of their nation. After that majority of Serbs were thrown away by Albanian people. To compare this situation to US reality is like cut off Boston and surrounding from US and told Americans that they have to move out.

This is only sample of history of few countries. What I wrote can't give overall view about central Europe and Balkans but it is a piece of information. In fact history of that region is much more complicated than history of western Europe with few large countries. Here we have such many nations which historically mixed with each other, they were changing borders so many times, fights with so many influence, accommodate so many cultures that you could not be sure fore anything except that the history is mostly written by liars.

reply to post by Stefanbrzi


Thank you! You're the second one to correct me about Gurdjieff- I was wrong about that (sorry!)

And thank you for the historic background. I've only just begun to really study all this in earnest- and I appreciate your patience. I picked up a few books at the library yesterday (the librarians are searching for more books for me too!) and I've printed off quite a bit of information from this and various other sites.

So the real studying has begun. I'm glad I started this thread so that I was able to meet some of you. You've all been so very helpful and kind to me. I really appreciate that.

An article I was reading last night said that the biggest mistake Yugoslavia made was borrowing money from the western banks and consequently getting ripped apart by destructive IMF policies. Would you agree with that?

This touched directly on what I was thinking when I started this thread and my studies. I'd been reading about just exactly this sort of thing happening in some of the more north-central European countries right now. And, of course, it's actually been happening to the US too- our Constitution was sold out a long time ago. We just haven't quite yet been feeling quite the full extent of the squeeze and hardships that others have felt. But it's coming for us too I believe.

How are things there now?

I remember so well how it was portrayed in the news over here. Pure evil- simple good/evil good guys/bad guys situation. I found it rather suspicious, but so many people I knew just accepted it blindly!

I found myself feeling very uneasy about the US and NATO involvement back then. It was all over, for us anyway, rather quickly, so I didn't get around to reading up on the background. I just didn't like what I was hearing, and had it filed away in my head that if it ever started looking like trouble again I'd be sure to educate myself so I'd at least know something of the truth (even if so many of the people around me don't know or care).

There has been a very deliberate action by outside forces to create instability and pit people against each other. It's been happening all over.

By the way- question to all (and I don't want to touch off anything really explosive here, it's just question from somebody who wasn't there and just trying to find out). I read that the mass graves we, as Americans, were told absolutely existed (to justify the "humanitarian" mission), were not, in fact, ever found.

Originally posted by seaside sky

Thanks for that correction!

You are welcome. Gurjieff is indeed a very interesting figure.
I believe that his origins are important in order to understand how he formed his unique views.

By the way, I'm thinking about changing the title of the thread to Southeast Europe and Balkans, as I think I mis-spoke a little there- I was originally considering the connections throughout a very large area, but it's really looking like it's an enormously complicated thing, and perhaps ought to be limited in the scope?

I don't think it is necessary to change the title, because Central Europe with Austro-Hungarian monarchy was one of the major players in this drama. Croatia and Slovenia were parts of it, with Croatia in the role of defending the borders with Otoman Empire.
It is worth to mention that formation of Kingdom of Jugoslavia after the fall of k.u k. monarchy was largely inspired by the panslavic movement. Panslavism cannot be excluded from the attempt to gain the understanding of the broader perspective with inclusion of Central Europe. Interesting question for the historians, what would have happened withouth the idea of south slavic unity (Jugo (=south) slavia )

reply to post by seaside sky


Hi Sky,

back on track so lets answer few questions.

I have never heard for the premonition of Archduke. Interesting, gone check letter on if there is some more info. Even though, I believe that people do have set of natural warning triggers when they are in danger. On the second hand, maybe he just had some information about the assassination.

Everything about the octopus and this region is correct. Furthermore, Yugoslavia was a thorn in the eye of the west, it had to dismantled because it was a powerful country in the past with a communist regime at the helm.
As a god example of TPTB present in this region I would like to tell you the story how our governor of central bank got an award as the best governor of all banks in the world. That was like two years three years ago. Try to imagine that he gets a reward from world bank while our country is economically speaking on the knees. The only god thing this governor has done, was for the corporations but that's a another broad topic.

I have to correct you but in the 17th century there was no holy roman empire. However, you where very close when saying we where squeezed. Indeed we where squeezed between Austrian monarchy, Venice (according to Tarply, successor of Roman empire) and Ottoman empire.

Therefore, I have a neat story for you.

Below you can see the map of Croatia and the neighborhood country Bosnia and Herzegovina.

[atsimg]http://files.abovetopsecret.com/images/member/fcee3f5bea5d.jpg[/atsimg]

Follow the coastal line of Croatia. Almost at the end of the south part where city of Dubrovnik is located you can see that the red line dividing the countries is broken.

That part is today Bosnian. You can say that Croatia is physically divided in two parts because that territory is Bosnian. So when we travel to the city of Dubrovnik we have to take our passports to get to the other part of Croatia. The length of Bosnian coast is 15 to 20miles. For easier following let's cal it Neum.

Dubrovnik was a separate republic from Croatia in 17th century very well known in the world for its trade skills. The Neum part was an ownership of Dubrovnik republic till 17the century. At the time the Venice was a war hungry empire an was on the quest for resources all the time along Croatian coast.
20 miles from Neum there is a small city named Ston. It was also internationally well known at the time for salt production for the republic of Dubrovnik. At the time salt was more valuable then gold for trading. Venice planned to steal the salt plant from Dubrovnik republic but Dubrovnik could not match the army of Venice.

Therefore, Dubrovnik made an alliance with Ottoman empire, in fact they gave the Neum land and approach to sea for the Ottoman empire just to place the Ottoman empire in between Venice and their salt plant. Since Ottoman empire was a large cake for the Venice, Venice decided it was not worth the resources so Dubrovnik kept their salt factory so even today that part stayed in Bosnian ownership.
Theree is a historical feature about the city of Ston,where even today you can see the salt factory but there is more. The city of Ston has the second largest built wall after the China wall. Been there, and it is beautiful.

Since you asked how is it here, I am just gone say that John Malkovich is an every year guest near the Ston village. Dubrovnik was visited in the past five years by Roman Abramovich, Jay -Z, Beyonce, Kevin Spacey, Tom Cruise and more. In fact there is an American college in Dubrovnik, it is a subsidiary of Rochester institute and know some American students there which are exchange students.

The hardest question to answer is do we hate you. No I do not think so but when American are visiting our country their behavior is not something to be proud of. We are a hospitality economy so we get tourist from all over the world. Americans are also among them and they usually do not behave like at home. Can tell from my own experience since I worked in New York 5 years ago.

If we speak about politics, our people consider Americans brainwashed to the max. I am not generalizing because we have them as well. But the shear stupidity we can encounter when speaking with young people from USA is unbelievable.

For the end a killer question was posed to me by an American when I was working in the states. We where sitting outside taking a smoke he looked at the sky and asked me, do you have stars in Croatia. I almost ate my cigarette from LOL-ing.

Kind regards

EDIT: unfortunately I do not know ho to re size the pic but the territory in question is exactly at the end of the coast in the lower right corner!

reply to post by seaside sky


Hi,

no that is not correct. There are multiple mass graves on Balkan. From the latest war but also from WW2 which are being excavated right now.

For the modern mass graves just google Srebrenica in Bosnia. Srebrenica mass grave accounted for around 7000 executed Muslims in most horrific ways.

For Croatia google Vukovar and Ovcara.

Kine regards

reply to post by odyseusz


Hi,

with all due respect but what you have posted is pure rubbish.

First of all, just to state, all countries have broken war rules when the war was in full motion. This is valid also for USA which used depleted uranium ammunition.

However, please indulge my curiosity. Where have you been fed those lies. Serbia attacked 4 different countries in 10 years. Not one bomb has fallen on Serbian territory from neither of those countries.

So please tell me, how is that exaggerating. One country attacks 4 countries, commits multiple genocides and many other horrible stuff. How come they wanted a peaceful solution?

The only country which peacefully left Serbia is Montenegro and that is only because the war has passed for few years. So let me ask again, if the Serbian country was a such "Lamb" why oh why would 6 different nations want to be left alone!

reply to post by seaside sky


I have been reading history since I was 16, I am now 67, still reading, still finding out new stuff, British history is just a bloody as Roman history, also archaeology plays a big part in history, helps to understand why things were done that way. History is cause and effect from what I have read and watched on the idiot box.

Originally posted by Kretenoid

Originally posted by seaside sky
reply to post by Kretenoid

 

Thank you for replying so quickly! I look forward to hearing from you later when you have time. I don't understand what's going on in the videos- are you saying these are lies and propaganda, or that something else is?

I'll ask questions just as soon as I can figure out enough to know what questions to ask, and I'm very happy and excited that I've found some people who can give me some answers and educate me on what is no doubt a very complicated situation. But a couple of questions for starters: what's the history? Are these fairly modern issues or do they have deeper roots? What was your opinion of the US and NATO involvement over there? And, by the way- are you over there?

I'll get out my maps and start looking for some books so I can follow what you say.

Serbia war path:

1# Slovenia - small skirmish for 2 weeks, army moved to Croatia
2# Croatia – few years and dozen of genocides
3# Bosnia and Herzegovina – few years and many genocides ( city of Srebrenica named by Euro countries the largest genocide from WW2)
4# Kosovo – less than a year but also few genocides

ARMY MOVED TO CROATIA....? You are saying that Serbs started this war? If so, you are talking bs then. Slovenians and you wanted your own country, so you started killing soldiers of YUGOSLAV army. It was not Serbia that declared independence from Yu.

2# DOZEN OF GENOCIDES? Any proof? I would say that only genocide in Croatia was done by your people, against Serbs, in 1995, operation Oluja, remember that...??? No?

3# "many genocides". Look who is talking about genocides. Not even your people is responsible for many genocides in WW2, just one, JASENOVAC (360,000 dead, mostly Serbs).I agree about Srebrenica, but there were no other genocides, and the numbers (if they are true at all...) are ridicilously small compared to Jasenovac.

4# "Kosovo – less than a year but also few genocides" NO PROOFS AT ALL. Just lies.


"how come is Serbia being attacked according to your vids when not one foot of any army did not went into Serbia. Serbia was present in all those countries committing multiple genocides but not one foreign soldier has went to Serbia."

I didnt say that my country was attacked, I said OUR ex country (obviously you Croats never considered itas your country) was falling apart.

"not one foreign soldier has went to Serbia"
FOREIGN soldier. It was a FKING civil war, there were no FOREIGN soldiers!

Ok, let's be rational now: How many Serbian refugees from Croatia? 230000. Thousands dead.
How many Croatian refugees from Serbia? Maybe 10. Dead? 0 (ZERO).
That tells a lot who was the agressor.

"Propaganda created the war, that is why I cannot comprehend that people are still divided by politics." I agree.

Originally posted by odyseusz
In fact Serbia tried to keep integrity of the whole country but as the war progressed all sides made everything in more barbaric way. International law was broken by all sides but as the war ended they putt Serbia face of pure evil and isolate them and Croatia is now popular tourist destination and nice country almost as they never take part in this me$$.

Of course this was not war of two sides, it was much more complicated but I show you only extreme example. The same anti-Serbian propaganda was used to take their Kosovo which in fact is historic heart state of their nation. After that majority of Serbs were thrown away by Albanian people. To compare this situation to US reality is like cut off Boston and surrounding from US and told Americans that they have to move out.

This is only sample of history of few countries. What I wrote can't give overall view about central Europe and Balkans but it is a piece of information. In fact history of that region is much more complicated than history of western Europe with few large countries. Here we have such many nations which historically mixed with each other, they were changing borders so many times, fights with so many influence, accommodate so many cultures that you could not be sure fore anything except that the history is mostly written by liars.

edit on 8-6-2011 by odyseusz because: (no reason given)

I ABSOLUTELY AGREE with your opinion.
Except:
"history is mostly written by liars". Liars AND victors, in the same time...

Originally posted by Kretenoid
reply to post by seaside sky

 

But the shear stupidity we can encounter when speaking with young people from USA is unbelievable.

For the end a killer question was posed to me by an American when I was working in the states. We where sitting outside taking a smoke he looked at the sky and asked me, do you have stars in Croatia. I almost ate my cigarette from LOL-ing.

edit on 8-6-2011 by Kretenoid because: (no reason given)

OMG



I am not surprised...

Originally posted by Stefanbrzi


ARMY MOVED TO CROATIA....? You are saying that Serbs started this war? If so, you are talking bs then. Slovenians and you wanted your own country, so you started killing soldiers of YUGOSLAV army. It was not Serbia that declared independence from Yu.

I would advice you to read the report called Milosevic vs. Yugoslavia released by the serbian branch of International Helsinky Federation for human rights. In this lenghty report you will find some interesting facts about Yugoslavia and its army. You will also find about constituional twist performed in the year before the war by the president of Presidency of Jugoslavia . B: Jović, along with Milosevic that was not at all legitimate, They have changed the part of the constitution related to the rulership of Army in the way that was unconstitutional itself. The army of Yugoslavia was by all means ment to be ruled regionaly, and was not centralized until Jovic has changed that particular paragraphs. The only thing which puzzles me the most is - why other members of the Presidency didn't object, or rightfuly press charges, if necessary, in order to prevent falsifying the Constitution.
About your attempt to justify serbian military actions on the grounds of Croatia and Slovenia wanting independance, I woud like to inform you, that according to the same Yugoslavian constitution, each republic had the legal right to separate itsef from the Federation, withouth any objection from the other members.
Interesting enough, Jovic didn't change that paragraph.

Originally posted by Kretenoid
reply to post by odyseusz

 

Hi,

with all due respect but what you have posted is pure rubbish.

First of all, just to state, all countries have broken war rules when the war was in full motion. This is valid also for USA which used depleted uranium ammunition.

I have other opinion about what is rubbish. I said all countries so I mean also US. Thats the problem. You read NO where is written YES.

Answer me one question. Why Croatia attacked Republic of Serbian Krajina after referendum where over 99% population wanted to divide from Croatia. I know that Croats boycott that referendum but they were not a majority in Krajina so this does not change anything. This answer is a key because all this war could never begin. Yugoslavia honored at last Croatian independence, but Croatia didn't respect decision of Serbian Krajina. Why? Misery? I would solve it.

In my opinion the answer is that Croatia would never had done this without silent support of the US and the western Europe which promised them that when the things would go bad they would take action. In fact US need an excuse to show Russian to whom Balkans belong now.

Originally posted by Stefanbrzi

Originally posted by Kretenoid

Originally posted by seaside sky
reply to post by Kretenoid

 

Hi Stefan,

I see this is going to be a nice discussion, hope other people jump in from this region and ad some thoughts especially facts since you have made arguments which are just funny!


ARMY MOVED TO CROATIA....? You are saying that Serbs started this war? If so, you are talking bs then. Slovenians and you wanted your own country, so you started killing soldiers of YUGOSLAV army. It was not Serbia that declared independence from Yu.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

@Stefan
What is wrong with wanting our independence from a regime which was a communist regime? Why is it your Serbian problem that we wanted to be independent from an aggressive communist regime with Serbian and Belgrade the dominating nation.

Yes, I say that Serbian started the war! As agreed by Serbian and Croatian historians, Croatia is inside its legal borders from past. Serbian people inside our territory blocked 1/3 of the country by organizing armed militias who took over some parts of Croatian territory 1 year before we even officially asked for independence.
Also, we where right away recognized as a independent country from most of the international auditorium. Therefore, I condone all aggressive militias who took over territories inside our country.

Serbian uprisings in Croatia began in August 1990 by blocking roads leading from the Dalmatian coast towards the inland almost a year before Croatian leadership made any move towards independence. These uprisings were more or less discretely backed up by the Serbian dominated federal army (JNA). The Serbs proclaimed the emergence of Serbian Autonomous Areas (known later as Republic of Serb Krajina) in Croatia

Yes it took three months for the army to move from Slovenia. Indeed they moved while Serbian militias in mostly Serbian populated parts of the Croatian territory took over our teritory, Croatian teritory. It doesn't give them the right. It's like if china town in USA would arm themselves and take over the control of the parts where they are the majority of population. You see, we already new when it started in Slovenia that we are going to be attacked by the Yugoslavian army. From the begging until the end of wars in this region Yugoslavian army fought for Serbia, that is a fact. A reasonable conclusion would be that Serbia controlled the only army in this region which was by the way among top three in Europe. Therefore, Croatia had only police at the time as an armed defense system. Naturally, we started arming our selves because obviously we did not had to contact "Baba Vanga" or look into a crystal bowl to know you are going to attack us.

There was a suspected incident of a war crime, as the Austrian ORF TV station showed footage of three Yugoslav Army soldiers surrendering to the Territorial defense, before gunfire was heard and the troops were seen falling down. However, none were killed in the incident. There were however numerous cases of destruction of civilian property and civilian life by the Yugoslav Peoples Army — houses, a church, civilian airport was bombarded and civilian hangar and airliners inside it, truck drivers on the road Ljubljana — Zagreb and Austrian journalists on Ljubljana Airport were killed. Ceasefire was agreed upon. According to the Brioni Agreement, recognized by representatives of all republics, the international community pressured Slovenia and Croatia to place a three-month moratorium on their independence.

During these three months, the Yugoslav Army completed its pull-out from Slovenia, but in Croatia,

en.wikipedia.org...
--------------------------------------------------------------

2# DOZEN OF GENOCIDES? Any proof? I would say that only genocide in Croatia was done by your people, against Serbs, in 1995, operation Oluja, remember that...??? No?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------


@Stefan
Again, you seem to ignore facts. So let's check this video.

www.youtube.com...

Prologue: A Serbian president comes to Vukovar in Croatia for the first time after the massacre of 250 people (most of them from the town hospital) in 18 years during the annual grief ceremony and publicly apologizes in the name of Serbian people for the war atrocities. Also to add, I am not counting thousands of dead and injured during a attack of Serbian militias and Yugoslavian army (renamed into Serbian army, funny again, Serbian army) on a Croatian city named Vukovar till it was turned to dust.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3# "many genocides". Look who is talking about genocides. Not even your people is responsible for many genocides in WW2, just one, JASENOVAC (360,000 dead, mostly Serbs).I agree about Srebrenica, but there were no other genocides, and the numbers (if they are true at all...) are ridiculously small compared to Jasenovac.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

@Stefan
That is an entirely another issue but you should not use it to excuse Serbian genocides.

The majority of dead where Serbians and Jews since the Ustaša fascist (Croatian nationality) worked with Nazis. However, Partisans who where considered at the time the largest resistance to the Nazi WW2 in Europe have been assembled by both, Croatian and Serbians.
Serbians had also their fascist militia named Chetniks, you conveniently forgot to mention that.
The medal has two sides. We fought both sides. I hope that you have read my posts earlier and could recognize that I despise all wars especially genocides(children, women, men....)! I am not proud of it nor should anyone with a half brain. However, this was when probably both of us where not even an embryo.

Wov, you take the numbers of Srebrenica under suspicion when an excavation of bodies has been made from the mass grave. Today those numbers are accepted by the Hague court! Multiple foreign independent groups where present when documenting the excavation as official one.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4# "Kosovo – less than a year but also few genocides" NO PROOFS AT ALL. Just lies.


@Stefan
Kosovo territory which was an autonomy inside Yugoslavia with a 80% of their own population inside their recognized borders from former Yugoslavia had also right to self governance. All your arguments fall in the water because you cannot comprehend that territories of all Yugoslavia countries have been accepted since the inception of Yugoslavia in the parliament of Yugoslavia, also by Serbian side. Therefore, who gives you the Serbians the right to oppress wishes from other countries around you to self govern them. Countries with their own territories which are different from yours by religion, culture, language, ancestors!
And yes, genocide war purported, again multiple international sources. Either you are pretending dumb or you are listening only extremist propaganda. Obviously both due to your videos which can disputed with so many arguments that one would not know where to start.

-----------------------------------------------

"how come is Serbia being attacked according to your vids when not one foot of any army did not went into Serbia. Serbia was present in all those countries committing multiple genocides but not one foreign soldier has went to Serbia."

I didnt say that my country was attacked, I said OUR ex country (obviously you Croats never considered itas your country) was falling apart.
--------------------------------------------------------------

@Stefan
We did not want that country!
Of course we did not consider it our country when we wanted democracy not a communist regime centralized in Serbia. Again a logical fallacy. Who are you to force a regime on a another nation different by religion, culture and ancestors with our own territory.

How can you say your country, when it does not exist. Which country had a similar problem, let me enlighten you SSSR! What have they done, separated peacefully. We could have done the same thing, especially because the trends show that we will both be in the EU.
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"not one foreign soldier has went to Serbia"
FOREIGN soldier. It was a FKING civil war, there were no FOREIGN soldiers!
---------------------------------
@Stefan
Serbian army former Yugoslavian army attacking, in my modest opinion I consider it a hostile foreign army which has lead 4 wars in less then 10 years!
How can it be a civil war whit a military involved! There are tons of videos which support that.


Ok, let's be rational now: How many Serbian refugees from Croatia? 230000. Thousands dead.
How many Croatian refugees from Serbia? Maybe 10. Dead? 0 (ZERO).
That tells a lot who was the agressor.

What have you expected when according to you "civil war" lead by Serbs has resulted with bombing of minimally 10 major Croatian cities with MIG's, Tanks and other artilieries on civilian targets.
Did you expect the Croatian people will say ok, let's bomb us but we will not fight against you.
Of course you where "escorted out of our territory.
And, again please explain how come do I have many Serbs friends who where born here in Croatia, never went to war stayed hear and continued to live and will in the future.
I am not sure where are you pulling up all of those numbers but until you support them with some sources, I am not going to address them due to Srebrenica numbers!

Please provide a link!



"Propaganda created the war, that is why I cannot comprehend that people are still divided by politics." I agree.

edit on 8-6-2011 by Kretenoid because: (no reason given)

reply to post by Kretenoid



I'll also see if I can find that story about the Archduke. It was a little spooky- I love things like that. My mind is sort of a disorganized filing cabinet of those things.

I called it the Holy Roman Empire but you're right- perhaps I should've just said the Hapsburgs- they were still doing the "King of the Romans" thing then though, so I thought it was essentially the same empire. What did they actually call it during the 30 Years War? I think along the way it sort of drifted into more of a hereditary title for the Austrian Hapsburgs (good job if you can get it!).

What a lot of pressure to be between that and the Ottoman Empire!

Bethlen Gabor had a hell of a time keeping things balanced. He seemed to be a pretty good leader.

reply to post by Kretenoid


I had to wait until I stopped laughing after reading your story about the stars. Wow. I think I'd have nearly choked on the smoke on that one too! What did you finally tell him? I hope is was sarcastic.

I actually have had plenty of experience with the "ugly American" traveller myself. I'm a native of one of the major East Coast summer tourist places, and there are an awful lot of Americans who are rude, pushy, ignorant and demanding wherever they go. We get them all the time around here. And, very sadly, it is true that an awful lot of Americans (particularly the younger ones) are emotionally immature and rather stupid- comes from watching too much television, going to too many theme parks, getting a poor education and not bothering to do anything about it. But we aren't all like that.

It sounds very beautiful over there.

reply to post by Kretenoid


thanks for the info.

reply to post by pikestaff


Like the English Civil Wars? That would be a good topic for a new thread, you know- How Civil Wars Happen- we could start with that and perhaps compare it to some of the other wars too. Civil wars are always the worst- nobody fights like family.

reply to post by seaside sky


Hi,

of course I was sarcastic. It told him that is one of the reasons I came to USA . However, couldn't left him living with his illusion I tried to explain to him some basics about Earth's position in the space.

You have perfectly described how we see American visitors, But like I told you, we cannot generalize. You should go to some Croatian isolated villages. There are everywhere such people but there is one major difference with Americans and it is the main reason they do not learn. The reason is they think that everything revolves around USA. Nothing can be better then American so they consider there is nothing to sea and hear!.

Then I remind them that few items that people use daily come from our country. For example a pen, necktie ect.

Yes, Croatia is very beautiful.

You can check the this gallery from Dubrovnik since we talked about it earlier!

American college.

www.acmt.hr...



Here is a nice video of our coast you should watch it.



First embedding, hope its ok.

reply to post by Kretenoid


I like your response to the remark about the stars- quick thinking!

The arrogance of Americans is the problem, isn't it? I'm so glad you (and the others on this site) realize that we aren't all like that.

I've been thinking quite a lot about it all, and I've been doing quite a lot of reading. I'd like to ask you and everyone else here to try answering what might sound like a strange and naive question- If you could have any sort of political/social/economic structure, what would it be? Not what you feel you need to have in order to cope with outside factors, but imagine if you could do things whatever way you want without having to compromise at all.

It's a philosophical thought experiment- and also the way we all approach ordinary life, too, isn't it? We ask ourselves what we'd really like, and then work out from there- what compromises we might need to make, what inconveniences and sacrifices we need to make in order to meet the realities we can't change. In a real sense, the same sort of approach could be applied to the larger social pictures too.

The situation, as I see it, is one that really everyone in the world is in, though most of us have not had to face the situation in such a direct way as those of you in the Balkan region have throughout history. And so your perpective is of particular value for us all.

Big empires force choices on us all- we choose one or the other not necessarily because they're a "good"system- only that they're the lesser of the two evils. A large empire is not necessarily successful because it's good, it may be successful simply because it's aggressive. Making a choice between one extortion racket and another is a necessary choice, but, idealogically, it's a false choice.

But, if you could imagine for the sake of philosophy that you could have any system you wanted, would that choice be one of the dominant empires or something else? And, if you could have what you wanted, would the local divisions in the Balkans simply resolve themselves on their own?

Would you say you'd prefer a society with a large centralized government for its own sake, encompassing a wide range of social/ethnic/religious subcultures in a workable whole (a reunited Yugoslavia for its own sake) or would it be preferable to have separate autonomous states that cooperate with each other in a loose fashion (if hypothetically they could survive)?