Thank you Howard! See? I can be polite when I want to be! Especially if the conversing party is as reasonable as Howardsternisgod!

So if you got rid of "god" in that region, would the people be more inclined to respect the decision of the United Nations? Would they tend to be more tolerant of each other now that religious bigotry has been eliminated?

The former Jew, the former Christian, the former Muslim, and all other former religions can be united under Reason and Science.

Great! Marco, can you tell me what the battle was called that Napolean fought where he won against another army about 4 times the size of his army without firing a shot? I heard that somewhere but could never sort through all the rubbish in old history books.

Gimme all of the details gramps!

Thanks!

You should ask yourself how many people died at the hand of Ustasa(Croatians) in concentration camps through out 1941-1945. Concentration camps like Jadovno, Kruscica, Loborgrad, Djakovo, Tenje, Osijek, and Jasenovac... ( http://www.ushmm.org/museum/exhibit/online/jasenovac/ )and that was wayyy before Milosevic, but hey Yugoslavians died... so who gives a fuck ehh? Milosevic just like Franjo Tudjman and Alija Izetbegovic was defending his country.
The country was doing way better before NATO bombed chemical factories in Pancevo repeatedly on 23 different days, cloud of poisonous smoke stretched 15 kilometres (over 9 miles) and lasted for ten straight days at one point. The toxic fumes choked and suffocated the thousands of people who were unfortunate enough to live in the area. Tons of poisonous chemicals leaked into the Danube river. All the fish in the river were killed. The ground in and around Pancevo is now saturated with ammonia, mercury, naptha, acids, dioxins and other toxins that leaked and burned out of the factories. Instead of military targets American/NATO pilots hit power plants and power lines, television and radio towers. When the main Yugoslav T.V. station in Belgrade began to broadcast coverage of the growing number civilian casualties, American/NATO pilots bombed the T.V. station, murdering everybody inside. YES the country called YUGOSLAVIA two weeks ago (now SERBIA and Montenegro) was doing better before NATO bombed them for 79 consecutive days.

I am visiting my cousins in Ottawa, and yes I am going back to Serbia and Montenegro( Yugoslavia ) in 3 months.

Howardsternis and Don Marco, how old are you 2 guys?

Howardsternis? Who is that? I'm HOWARDSTERNISGOD, not howardsternis. That said, I will tell you I am 20 years old. I don't know how old Don Marco is but he certainly knows much more about history than you or I do. And another thing: why do you skirt the issue in your response to Don Marco? You conveniently asked questions and disregarded all of the points he made! Not a very good way to argue.

You are unable to answer a question without asking another question to divert the focus? I asked about civilians that died at the hand of your leader and you talk about concentration camps from World War 2. He has been indicted for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people simply for being of the wrong ethnic group. That was a very admirable "defense of his country". A summary of the charges: Throughout the 1990s Milosevic's policies, his paramilitaries and his armed forces incited violence and ethnic hatred that would destroy Yugoslavia.

Hundreds of thousands of people were killed, millions forced to leave their homes and wander the world as refugees. Civilians were the primary targets in this attempt to redesign Yugoslavia along purely ethnic lines.

The term ethnic cleansing became synonymous with Bosnia, as Serb forces there loyal to and paid for by Milosevic tried to carve out a separate state by forcibly moving the non-Serb civilian population.

They did it by bombarding towns and cities like Sarajevo with heavy artillery, beseiging villages and massacring civilians.

Snipers targeted men, women and children. Markets full of people shopping were shelled.

And in scenes unknown in Europe since World War II, there were concentration camps, mass rape and the forced prostitution of women and very young girls.

This orgy of war peaked with the Bosnian Serb assault on the tiny Muslim village of Srebrenica. The International Red Cross says about 7,000 Muslim men and boys remain unaccounted for there.

Maybe I'm missing the good in this man. You can search all you want for it, and you're not going to find it. At least you can give Hitler credit for building the autobahns and promoting the invention of the VW. Milosevic's only redeeming quality would be as fertilizer after he is dead.

I'm 45.

Don Marco, Croatian authorities, far from the eyes of the world public, have initiated in mid 1991 and have continued to this day their ethnic cleansing of the Republic of Croatia from ethnic Serb population, so the largest part of territories controlled by these authorities may be considered as ethnically cleansed by now... This ethnic cleansing was first conducted in larger urban areas and in those countryside areas which were inhabited by ethnic Serbs for centuries and where ethnic Serbs constituted the majority, while ethnic Croats were a minority or only a relative majority. Later on, areas in which ethnic Serbs were a minority already were subjected to the same procedures... In spite of trying, Croatian authorities could not succeed with their ethnic cleansing only on those territories which subsequently became parts of the Republic of Serbian Krayina. ...

The true proportions of ethnic cleansing in the Republic of Croatia will be possible to determine only if the world community forces the Croatian authorities to conduct a census under international supervision on territories they control and if they permit investigations on harassment and expulsions of ethnic Serbs to take place on those territories. Such investigations, which would include representatives from organizations dealing with human rights and representatives of both sides in conflict, should be conducted in all places where there is founded doubt that ethnic cleansing took place, since this is the only way to fully expose the unacceptable practice of harassing members of other ethnic groups, which cannot be reconciled with Christian morality and is punishable by the Convention on Preventing and Prosecuting Crimes of Genocide, adopted on the session of the UN General Assembly on December 9, 1948 in Geneva.

This report deals with ethnic cleansing in western Slavonia because that was the first area of ex-Yugoslav territory where this practice was begun and was almost completed, including harand totally brutal ethnic cleansing. The success achieved by the Croatian authorities in using violence and feeling of insecurity in ethnic Serbs to ethnically cleanse one of their strategic and economically speaking most important territories has encouraged, and continues to encourage, all those who use the same practices in other ethnically mixed regions of old Yugoslavia. The procedures of ethnic cleansing in western Slavonia was reconstructed on basis of written documents, gathered statistical data, polls taken among victims of ethnic cleansing and written statements of witnesses of individual crimes.

According to data as of August 15, 1992, and regarding western Slavonia, 10 city and 183 countryside settlements have been completely ethnically cleansed of ethnic Serbs, while a further 87 settlements have partially been ethnically cleansed. New data, gathered on a daily basis by associates of the Serbian Council Information Center, indicates that the number of totally and partially ethnically cleansed settlements will soon be much larger, since Croatian authorities are far from halting the harassment of ethnic Serbs on territories they control, and on territories under the protection of UNPROFOR, but subject to the Croatian legal system. We already have data, albeit in raw form as yet, on several tens of settlements where ethnic Serbs were a majority or were ethnically mixed, for which it will soon be reliably known whether they have been completely or only partially ethnically cleansed.

During the first months of 1991, and until this day, complete ethnic cleansing was affected in almost all ethnic Serb majority settlement on the rim of the mountains of Papuk, Psunj, Dilja and Bilogora, all places where ethnic Croats until this time remained in express minority. By means of ethnic cleansing of western Slavonia, from Osijek and Vinkovci in the east to the river Ilova on the west, all of Slavonia has now become an almost ethnically pure Croat territory. This has to a large extent been the culmination of a grand project to create an ethnically pure Croat state in which, as formulated by the Croat state project from XIX century, there is no place for ethnic Serbian, orthodox population. For it to be completely realized, in preparation is the final stage of ethnic cleatization of Western Slavonia: certain ethnically completely cleansed but little damaged ethnic Serb settlements are being settled these days by ethnic Croats from Janjevci (Kosovo and Metohija, Republic of Serbia). Several hundred of them, who sold out their properties on Kosovo or have left it to family member use, have already settled in Miokovicevo, Katinac, Nova Krivaja and Puklica, recently ethnic Serb settlements. In Zagreb, there are plans to use financial aid from Europe to construct refugee settlements on the remains of what were once ethnic Serb settlements.

Croatian authorities were not satisfied to simply drive ethnic Serbs from their homesteads, but went to, as much as it was possible, to remove all traces of their centuries long life and cultural existence in those areas - most churches and other religious buildings belonging to the Serbian Orthodox Church, including the cathedral and episcopal court in Pakrac, were looted and either heavily damaged or completely leveled. Almost all priests of the Serbian Orthodox Church were driven off, while parochial homes were mostly mined. Because of this, all religious life of ethnic Serbs has been inhibited to the point where even the deceased cannot be buried as Orthodox Christians. There are records of harassing the relatives and all too rare Orthodox priests who remained during religious ceremonies during burials of deceased ethnic Serbs. For example, on May 9, 1992 in Podravska Slatina, members of the Croatian National Guard threatened the local Orthodox priest during the burial ceremony by saying: "Sing, sing, you won't for long". Murdered ethnic Serbs are, as a rule, buried by Croatian authorities without the presence of any relatives and in unmarked graves. The bells of even the small number of remaining Orthodox churches are now completely dumb.

Don Marco, did you know that Serbia and Montenegro (Yugoslavia) today are made up of Orthodox 65%,Muslim 19%,Roman Catholic 4%,Protestant 1%,other 11%

Before the war there were Muslim 22%, and Roman Catholic 5%

However Croatia(present day) on the other side is made up of Catholic 76.5%, Orthodox 11.1%, Slavic Muslim 1.2%,Protestant 0.4%, others and unknown 10.8%
Did you know that before the Balkan War in 1991 that Croatia was made up of 26.8% Orthodox?

hmmmmm...I am wondering which country did more of ETHNIC CLEANSING

"The 'ethnic cleansing' label, which is routinely used to describe Serb actions, is misleading as well as inflammatory. U.S. officials, aided by large portions of the Western news media, have sought to equate it with genocide. But as skeptics point out, what is going on in Bosnia cannot accurately be termed genocide. Daryl G. Press, a political scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, notes that genocide has a very specific meaning: "the systematic annihilation of a racial, political or cultural group Instead of exterminating members of other ethnic groups, the Serb objective has generally been to expel them from certain territories as part of an effort to create a "Greater Serbia." Although that is certainly a loathsome practice-and is sometimes accompanied by acts of murder, rape, and other human rights violations-it does not constitute genocide. Press is correct when he concludes that 'the goal of the combatants in the former Yugoslavia is to drive the enemy from the land, not to capture and kill every man, woman and child.'"

My father is Serbian, and my mother is Croatian.
I have been forced out of my home in CROATIA DUBROVNIK, just because my father is a Serb.
There were 3 attempts to kill my father in Dubrovnik. Thanks to GOD none of the attempts were successful...That's when we had enough and left to Yugoslavia.

However as I previously stated my mother is Croatian, she thought she will have problems in Yugoslavia because she is Croatian. Me, my mother, brother and my father have been living in Yugoslavia for 6 years now. Neighbours around my house accepted my mother just like she was Yugoslavian, even though she is Croatian. They didn't care! It was a way different situation with my father when we lived in Croatia.

I am not saying that Ethnic Cleansing was not seen in Yugoslavia. Both countries had ethnic cleansing. Croatians killed, and ethnic cleansed more than Yugoslavians did.

I am 17.
I wish you all a good weekend!

...And yet they seemed so peaceful together prior to the collapse of the Soviet Empire, Serb and Croatian living as neighbors just as normal persons should live.

Then I saw this:

They could not believe who the sniper turned out to be, but their own beloved neighbor, the one they used to say "good morning" to everyday. What caused him to start blasting away at us? We used to sit together as friends...now he is dead, and for what?

GAMBINO - That was fascinating and all, and I'm sorry to hear that you were forced to leave your house in Croatia, but did you even write all of that? Furthermore, you didn't even remotely answer Don Marco's questions!

You know that Serbs killed in Srebrenica. But you dont know the reason for the action. Well I will explain it to you...

Srebrenica 2 years before the Serbs killed Muslims was used as a small military base. Bosnian Muslim forces located in Srebrenica frequently raided the surrounding Serbian villages. They would attack small Serbian villages with no mercy, killing men, women, seniors and KIDS. Cutting throats to all of them. On the other side when Serbians entered Srebrenica they killed only men that were able to carry a machine gun and go to war. What did they do to the kids, women and seniors? Well...they put them on trucks and sent them to Foca( a muslim city). As you can see
Serbians were more human then Muslims.A little more than a week after Srebrenica, Zepa, a second Moslem enclave (and UN Safe Area) was taken by Bosnian Serb forces. Hundreds of the "missing" soldiers from Srebrenica were among the defenders of Zepa in the last days of fighting...

When you said about the killings in Srebrenica, I assume you are blaming Milosevic for the actions...
Don Marco, The killings in Srebrenica was a primary responsibility for the massacres is assigned to Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic,
who has so far evaded a war crimes arrest warrant.

But former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic - on trial at The Hague on a genocide charge citing Srebrenica - is not
linked to the killings by the researchers.

Srebrenica: Up to 7,000 Bosnian Muslim men killed in July 1995. 600 Dutch UN peacekeepers based at Potocari failed to prevent the massacre
Bosnian Serb General Radisav Krstic given a 46-year prison sentence by Hague tribunal in August 2001
Town remains under Bosnian Serb control Srebrenica timeline
"No evidence had been found that suggests the involvement of the Serbian authorities in Belgrade," the report says...

Hello everybody, be sure to read this my article for The Daily 49er this week on cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal, and why he should never be released from prison alive. You can read it at http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n71-mum.shtml .

While you are there, also be sure to read the Letter To The Editor, in response to my pro-Atheist article, where Derrick Engoy proves to me that there is a "god". Wow, you really got me there Derrick! Look closely at his last paragraph, which mimics the last paragraph of my article...it looks like Derrick has figured out how to use satire! His letter can be found at http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n71-let.shtml .

Living in the Philadelphia area, I hear a lot about this case and the periodic pleas for re-trials and amnesty. He even gave a college commencement speech via tape a few years ago.

The attention given this guy is disgusting. Once again, I have to agree with you, HSIG (just stay off the religion topic!). This guy is the lowest form of life there is.

There are black guys that come to my school in suits and try to sucker you into supporting assholes like Mumia Abu-Jamal and Louis Farrakhan. It's amazing how college students always have to protest something, in an attempt to seem cool and well-informed...

Wow, for the second day in a row, there was a letter to the editor printed in The Daily 49er in regard to one of my articles.  This time it was from some girl who is against my stance on war...you can find it at http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n72-let.shtml but be ready to laugh!  It is laughable how she didn't even get the title of my original article right when she mentioned it!  I'm also so sick and tired of people saying that we caused 9/11 by training Bin Laden and al-Queda...was is our fault that the bastard flew planes into our buildings?  He made that choice, not us.  Freaking pacifists...

Hey all, click on http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n74-let.shtml to see a response to my last article on Mumia Abu-Jamal, the cop-killer. I'm gonna have to cross-check some of the points this individual brings up in this rebuttal, because I'm interested in knowing the authenticity of their claims.

Edit: Well, I've done some homework on this letter that was printed in today's paper ( http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n74-let.shtml ) and it is laughable at best. Obviously the person who wrote this is another apologist for Mumia who doesn't want to look at the facts...go to http://www.geocities.com/justice4faulkner/arnold_beverly.htm to read a very interesting article about this man, Arnold Beverly, who "admitted" to the murder that Mumia himself committed! Then, for a real laugh, go to http://www.freemumia.com/6-8-99beverly.html and read what some Mumia supporters have to say. It's amazing how contradictory their logic is...whatever little doubt this letter to the editor caused has been totally erased. Mumia is guilty, plain and simple.

This article is definitely one of my best to date. However, because it presents the truth, something some people find so hard to accept, I am sure it will generate more controversy. Nonetheless, to read this week's article, go to http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n75-pal.shtml .

While you're there, be sure to go to http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n75-let.shtml and look at the letters to the editor for today. Scroll down to the bottom and read the article entitled "Word retarded demeans disabled." This is in response to the letter to the editor about my Mumia Abu-Jamal argument. While the girl doesn't directly challenge my views, she does say how it was kind of absurd for this Asad guy to use the word 'retarded' in his critique of my argument. This is even more funny due to the fact that Asad is a supposed English major!

Well folks, today's (Tuesday's) paper has not only my new article in it but an extremely anti-Jewish response to my article about why "Palestine" is a myth. The new article can be found at http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n79-awa.shtml while the response to last week's article by an angry Arab can be found at http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n79-let.shtml .

As always, feel free to send me any comments you have!

Well, it seems I have struck a nerve with another angry Arab. Today there was another Letter To The Editor in response to my "Palestine, A Condradiction In Itself" article. Read it here: http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n81-let.shtml (you need to scroll down a bit to get to it).

Well, it seems that a Jewish student was outraged by what Seid Hourani said about my article in his letter to the editor. After I read Hourani's article, I, too, thought it was blatantly anti-Semitic and racist, and I guess I wasn't alone. The article today can be found at http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n82-let.shtml . The original letter to the editor which provoked this response can be found at http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n79-let.shtml .

Hey we all have our own opinions, right? But the fact that you failed to bring up ANY valid points at all in your first one - namely the fact that Iraq wasn't behind 9/11, that the USA DOES infact have a lot of blood on it's hands and that the smelly hippies you talk of in fact span the globe in immense numbers - trust me, we're not all smelly hippies. You're simply not looking at the facts.

I don't know - I'm going over points others have made, but I feel you write too aggresively, and while I agree with your second article about religion, it's written in such a way that you can feel anger and confusion about the writer - wondering who the hell this guy is and what his arguments really are.

That's all. I'm not going to argue about this thing, because I know people want this topic left alone. I'm done.

-Penguin

Well, we are all entitled to our own opinion but just let me clarify a few things for you Anton:
In my first article, I never said the USA doesn't have ANY blood on it's hands, just less than other countries. I guess it all depends on the way you look at it and where you were raised though. I do write aggressively and that's what has provoked so many responses from people. The whole idea of this article is to present a different, controversial viewpoint and to hopefully have some good letters pour in from angry readers. As far as I'm concerned, I've been doing my job right. Another thing: there is no confusion here, all my points and beliefs are genuine and real. I have thought through all the things I have said and I stand by them. With special regard to the religion one, let me just say this: I believe you have the right to practice any religion you want, it's prefectly fine by me, but I don't have to agree with it. Finally, I'd like to comment on the letters that have come in from other people: most of their points have been either off-base or totally taken out of context. Furthermore, most of their responses don't even address what I originally wrote! They love to go off on tangents, which is what my article this week is about...

Hey folks, for this week's article I decided to go back to political commentary, namely by bashing the campus liberal movement and showing how hypocritical they are. The article can be found at http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n83-hyp.shtml .

Hey everyone, today there are two hilarious replies from some angry people regarding my latest article and my Israel/Palestine article. After reading these two letters, however, I can say that I have learned some things: 1.) Bleeding-heart liberals don't check their spelling, as the guy who wrote in referred to my cited examples as "sighted" examples...2.) Remind me never to take classes from the two history professors that wrote in regarding the Israel thing, sorry, but I don't subscribe to revisionist history...3.) I really know what buttons to push to make people mad!

The letters can be found at http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n85-let.shtml .

Until next time!

Well folks, it's a day late because of President Maxson's article, but it's in there today! This one is really gonna infuriate some people at my school, and I know it will create some great letters to the editor! Read it at http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n88-hum.shtml .

You make valid points - it would be wonderful for a paralyzed prson to walk, or for all needy people ot receive the organs they need to reclaim their health. The problem is: what about the person that the organs are take from? Even if the person is cloned for the purpose of harvesting tissue or organs, aren't they still a full fledged and viable life, or am I missing something?

You know, someone asked me the same thing on another forum and here was my answer: we should develop a way to use the organs and parts and such until there is nothing left to use, then we should dispose of them efficiently...one idea is to recycle them to feed starving children...

Well, you know you have caused some waves when your name begins to be mentioned in OTHER PEOPLE'S articles. Read the article by Jeb Sprague (a campus Progressive lunatic) and how he conveniently lumps me in with the College Republicans, simply becuase I have similar beliefs as them on some issues. The article can be found at http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n89-stu.shtml .

Well folks, for this week I did an expose on one of the clubs here on campus, in which I brought to light something I found extremely anti-Semitic and hateful that was posted on the Muslim Student Association's website. Read the article at http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n91-mus.shtml . I know there will be some backlash from this one...

Hey everyone, I've got two mentions in the paper tomorrow! The first one is a response from the Muslim Student Association's president regarding my article about the anti-Semitic joke that was posted at their website. It's amazing to me how they still won't admit that the joke shouldn't have been there to begin with. They claim that due to the high volume of posts there, they can't catch all of them...that's a joke, since the site barely gets any posts to begin with, and furthermore, the joke had been there since October of LAST YEAR!!! Oh well, I guess they will never understand what my point was: it was unprofessional of them to have the joke there to begin with. It wasn't a smear campaign I was embarking on and I don't hate Islam, but I guess that is irrelevant to them.
The second mention is in an article from a buddy of mine in the College Republicans club, Jason Garthoffner. He mentions me and says what we're really attempting to do with our articles: inform the public on why the president and this war is justifiable. To read them, go to: http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n94-let.shtml .

Hey everyone, just letting you know that my current article is up and on the 49er webpage for all to see. It's a good one and it shows more reasons why the current liberal (read communist) position on war is totally ludicrous. Read the article at http://www.csulb.edu/%7Ed49er/archives/2003/spring/opinion/v10n95-dis.shtml .