Hi Vladimir,

>
>No, it is no ones back yard. You are taking dagnerous liberty of poking
>inside other country sovereign territory (not even you Americans are
>disputing that). It might backfire badly, sooner or later...
>
Possibly we have a terminology issue here. I'm using back yard not in a
territorial/possession sense rather in a near neighbor along with spillover
issues. Hence Serbia/Kosovo are not in the U.S.'s backyard but are in
Italy/Germanys.

>
>I can tell you that. Because you are racists. You do not give a damn
>about million of blacks slaughtered by another blacks. And because
>Rwanda is no strategic point in this world - whether 'niggers' are
>killing themselves there or not is none of your concern. Nor the rest of
>the world, for that matter. That is why no one intervened.
>
>I did not ask the question because I knew the answer.
>


I wouldn't say we're racists anymore than I'd say all Serbians are
ethnicists. We had (and still have) a strong pressure to do something
(don't ask me what) about Rwanda. There are race issues in the U.S. but
they are closer to class (social/economic) issues.


>
>Let me illustrate what I am saying by article fragment from BBC (i.e.
>NATO country source of information):
>
>Assumptions proved wrong
>
> It is now clear that Nato went into the war hobbled by
> three major assumptions, all of which have been proven
> wrong:
>
> The Alliance believed that the Yugoslav military
> will never risk a confrontation with the West and
> that Milosevic will back down at the very last
> moment. The result of this assumption was that
> Nato hyped-up its threats but curiously did not
> undertake the necessary preparations for carrying
> them through.
>
> Secondly, there was the vaguely racist belief that
> the "little people" in the Balkans are no match for
> Nato air power: drop a few bombs on these
> "natives" in Yugoslavia and they will sue for
> peace. The idea that Milosevic would simply
> refuse to compromise and absorb the air strikes
> was not seriously considered.
>
> Finally, Nato was addressing two audiences at
> the same time. While threatening Milosevic with a
> military Armageddon, the same Alliance
> commanders were reassuring public opinion in
> the West that their operation would be "surgical"
> and limited in scope.
>
> The outcome was that the Yugoslav dictator knew
> from the start the risks he was undertaking and
> concluded that they were worth taking.
>
> The story of the last two weeks is, essentially, one of
> Nato trying to disentangle the knots which were of its
> own making.
>
>Right to the point... and coming from your partner in crime (or ally),
>it should sound serious.
>


It is a very valid summary. Thanks,

-Jay