[What you did today]

My GF is writing her master's thesis at Stanford, so she's moved out to Palo Alto. It's crazy the amount of free time you get when someone you share all your life with goes abroad.

 

In other words, I've spent a lot of time cleaning out my apartment, doing the type of stuff that I typically just postpone indefinitely. Maybe I'll go visit her if I'm not too busy with work myself.

[US attacks on Syria]

I once ate a pizza with banana, pineapple, curry and cashew nuts on it.

[US attacks on Syria]

Tell that to a friend of mine studying political science, who said he's pretty sure Assad isn't the only one capable of governing, and that what will probably happen is that mid-level government and everything below would be left intact, while an interim government would be formed at the top, in addition to organised elections. He blamed incompetence for Iraq's failure, rather than the lack of good leadership options. His commentary is usually pretty sound, but I tend to be skeptical, too, that viable alternatives are available in that Syrian cluster****. Like I've said, if it were up to me, I wouldn't touch Assad.

 

You can't just "leave mid-level government intact". "Removing Assad" does not mean that the US just presses a button, Assad is teleported away, and then the US gets to choose the next leader. Removing Assad would require a bloody, protracted conflict and a confrontation with Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. By the time you are done, there won't be anything intact. Nevermind the fact that the US would also need to turn on terrorists Assad is currently fighting and defeat them as well, so the US would need to commit ground troops themselves for this idiocy.

 

Even if you could somehow snipe Assad, we've seen what happens in that situation in Libya. Remember what Obama said was his greatest mistake in office? Khadaffi was removed from Libya and elections were held, after which the country quickly broke down into civil war with Khadaffi 2.0 versus islamic fundamentalists, with western powers leaning towards Khadaffi 2.0. Same in Egypt - dictatorship was turned into democracy only for the US to support another military coup when the islamists won the election.

[US attacks on Syria]

"There's not any sort of option where a political solution is going to happen with Assad at the head of the regime." - Nikki Haley, US Ambassador to the UN

 

"Once the ISIS threat has been reduced or eliminated, I think we can turn our attention directly to stabilising the situation in Syria." - Rex Tillerson,  US Secretary of State

 

What I take from this is that Assad is going to go. Iraq and Libya were disasters. Hopefully, they do it right this time, by appointing, and protecting a secular, democratic leader. The last thing Syria needs is to have a power vacuum filled in by a theocratic, ultra-conservative Islamic group.

 

I can't do anything other than gape at the stupidity of people who believe that "doing it right this time" with the same old regime change recipe is even a remote possibility. Have you been in a coma these last 20 years?

 

Libya had a great standard of living and was one of the most secular Muslim countries. Supposedly, this is where a removal of an authoritarian leader would work, if anywhere. But this did not happen nearly fast and painlessly enough (like in Tunisia), and we got civil war. In civil wars, the most extreme and militant factions are always the ones who will come out on top. Unsurprisingly, Libya is now divided between islamic fundamentalists and the forces of Field Marshal Haftar, who in his disposition to inflict vigilante justice against islamists is looking increasingly like a new Gadaffi.

 

The US solution to Libya if they keep bombing the SAA is essentially handing over Western Syria to al-Nusra which are just as bad as ISIS, which will result in genocide of Christians and Alawites and the war spreading into Lebanon. The Kurds in Eastern Syria are cool at the moment, but if they start to forcibly remove Sunni Arabs and Christians from their areas to declare their own state the US will have another FUBAR situation on their hands, a civil war inside a civil war. Basically, to institute democracy the US would be forced to bomb every single warring faction to corral them into their respective areas, and occupy everything on top of that while eliminating extremists, which would require immense amounts of resources, hundreds of thousands of committed troops, and hundreds of thousands in additional civilian casualties (and that's not mentioning resistance from Russia, Iran, China and North Korea).

 

Really, the best feasible solution is to ensure Assad wins in the West without inflicting atrocities on the Sunnis, and ensure the SDF wins in the East, while avoiding Kurd vs. Sunni Arab vs. Christian free-for-all when the greater threat of ISIS disappears. Then hopefully, the winning parties can commence negotiations about a UN-monitored federal solution including regional self-governance. Worst-case we will get East Syria and West Syria, which is not that bad compared to status quo.

[US attacks on Syria]

But is US intelligence that easily fooled? The truth will come out eventually.

 

Yeah, just like US intelligence wasn't fooled that Osama bin Laden lived in a Bond villain-esque cave complex in the Tora Bora mountains.

 

Just like US intelligence wasn't fooled Iraq had a WMD program.

 

Do you remember anyone being held accountable for these lies? The US has a long-standing tradition of fabricating "intelligence" on every important occasion of note. The longer this goes on with nobody being punished, the worse it will get. FFS, the standard "evidence" is currently held to is literally "videos by al-Qaida supporters", which is currently accepted without even the slightest hint of critical thinking! What the **** has the world come to?

 

Anyways, what the "US intelligence" knows or not knows is the wrong question, because it doesn't matter if you're not the president. What we are interested in is what the government is trying to hype up. Then they will lie as much as they can, regardless what the intelligence says. They will not try to be impartial. And to their aid they will use the most banal devices, which insults the cognitive ability of even the most casual observer.

 

 

Really? What do two pictures taken by al-Qaida's propaganda department have to do in a reasoned and impartial UN debate? Or might this be a dumb PR device? Is there anyone in the entire world who does not immediately associate this with Colin Powell, who has become the very embodiment of the political lie? It is clear that what is happening in the above picture has nothing to do with investigating an alleged crime, and everything to do with selling a narrative to the public.

[US attacks on Syria]

I'm just going by what our government said. Russians in their comments also seemed to admit that it was Assad. It's also reported the weapon was delivered by a SU-22, which had to be Assad. May be it's all a giant conspiracy, but I doubt it.

 

"It's reported" = al-Nusra said.

 

Even if it is true that a SU-22 was around at the time of the alleged attack, when would you allege that a CW attack has taken place if you was a terrorist wanting to bait USA into entering the conflict? Obviously at the time your enemy is attacking you. Al-Nusra territory is under constant aerial attack, so they would hardly have to wait.

 

It doesn't need to be a "giant conspiracy". All you need is a few al-Nusra guys (who will have no trouble lying for their perverted cause), give a few of them white helmets, and then take a few pictures with dead people (there will be a lot of dead people around in a warzone anyway). If you are ambitious, you use actual gas.

 

Then, all media outlets who are sympathetic to your cause (US intervention in Syria) will parrot your talking points endlessly. There's no need for them to know what is true and what is not, since they will regurgitate the propaganda which fits their agenda with zero reflection anyway.

[US attacks on Syria]

Assad launched the attack just days after we said we wouldn't try to remove him. You'd think he'd be happy but instead he commits what's seen as a deliberate provocation. So probably the thinking was if we don't respond, we're going to look weak and that's too dangerous for our other policies.

 

The conflict has been going on for more than half a decade. Assad has been going through some very dark moments, where his opponents were very powerful. He has through all of this had a huge CW stash, which he relinquished in 2014. Yet CW has never been used consistently and on an serious scale in this entire conflict (by any actor). There are only a few isolated incidents: list here. Remember in 2013 when the exact same actors predictably beat the drums of war based on very dodgy evidence?

 

Why would Assad make this tiny CW attack now - attacking a sparsely populated suburb - when he has all but won? Literally the only thing which can turn this war around for al-Nusra is if they can lobby NATO countries into attacking Assad directly. Assad has nothing to gain but everything to lose by using CW.

 

I can't believe people buy "evidence" presented by al-Nusra (who have previously smuggled CW components from Turkey - why, if not to use them?) completely without questioning it.

[US attacks on Syria]

Wow, the sheer amount of cynicism in this thread You know, I kind of appreciate that America is willing to counterattack the bad guys. It makes me think that if Kim Jong Un starts launching missiles at Japan, the US will do something about it.

 

The difference here is that Japan is a civilized country and not literally al-Qaeda. Presumably, if Japan is attacked, we will have better evidence than "witness statements" from frothing-at-the-mouth terrorists and their propaganda mouthpieces.

 

This is looking increasingly like the usual worthless media bobbleheads are pushing for another Iraq War. The difference here is that the US will be entering a war where Iran and Russia already have significant forces, and where other actors like China, North Korea and Lebanese Christian and Shia militias can also be found.

 

Also, showing pictures of dead children in the UN when talking about a conflict where 500000 people will soon have died. WTF? Showing pictures of individual victims at this point is just myopic demagoguery and completely and utterly dishonest. This was exactly what everyone who was against Hillary feared would happen if she was elected - it appears in the US it takes more than elections to change the actual politics of the country.

[Is Paradox Publishing this as well?]

Paradox has the worst fan base of any game company.

 

Paradox has the worst haters of any game company.

[Hey Obsidian, how about a sequel to Arcanum?]

Arcanum is really fun game outside of the Half-Ogre quest and it will be fun to get a new game.By the way another good rpg that is crying for sequel is Vampire

 

Oh, come on. The half-Ogre quest is one of the best in the game. It really plays with your expectations and then with what the resolution to a "quest" can be.

[Worth pointing out: Josh Sawyer is not PoE2's Lead Designer]

I don't think PoE writing (as in the composition of words in text segments, not the stories themselves) was that bad at all.

 

The difference only becomes clear when you play Torment: TToN. That game definitely has better writing than PoE. It would be unfair to compare PoE with games like the old Torment, since the issue with rose-tinted glasses always exists. But PoE was definitely held back by having writers trying to punch above their weight, so to speak.

 

Writing in PoE was still better than in just any computer game of course, but it wasn't as good as in some of the old legendary games. It's of course unreasonable to expect PoE would be the best in every aspect, but this shows that improvement is possible.

 

Also, interaction with the new weather system would be neat.  "Let's wait until this rain stops before we assualt the outdoor fireworks festival!"

 

Very interesting, but could become a rest spam abuse thing if you play as a water wizard who only ever fights in the rain, for example.

[Hey Obsidian, how about a sequel to Arcanum?]

a bunch o' reactionary crpg fans has convinced themselves o' the greatness o' arcanum, 'cause it checks the right boxes.  is a sand-box open world which lets you explore.  is, for the time released, a dynamic setting. you got freedom o' classless character creation.  got tim cain. etc.  so how could game be bad?

 

buggy, horribly balanced and dull.  is no forgiving dull.

 

It's not because it "checks the right boxes", it's because it is so fun. It is pure fun to just create different character builds (which can be very varied) and go around exploring the world.

 

The balancing of Arcanum is like the opposite of most modern RPGs. Nowadays, you just grind and get items which incrementally give +1 to your whatever stat. Arcanum is wild and crazy in that you will always discover new wacky strategies. Some things are "easy mode", some things are more hard to find. It's great fun to replay the game and restrict yourself to specializing your character in different ways. On the other hand, if you are a min-maxing dork then Arcanum must truly suck.

 

There is a huge number of NPCs, who differ from not having anything to say at all, to commenting on your every action.

 

I love that always when you talk about how Arcanum is broken, people give completely different examples of what they believe is the one broken way to play the game. Hint: you should also increase difficulty if you think the game is easy overall.

 

Also, the setting and how is realized is one of the best in any game I've played, ever.

 

Arcanum also can't read good and its mom dresses it funny

 

 

You're one convincing, man, Gromnir! After your colourful write-up, I'll heed the warding and not touch Arcanum with a stick, even. Now I understand why MCA never did live up to his KS promise of an Arcanum playthru.

 

What do you mean? MCA started on his Arcanum playthrough, and it is the best "Let's Play"s ever, in fact I would dare say that it is one of the highest expressions of art ever. He's just taking a brief pause to strategize about fighting wolves, and reading the manual, which by the way is awesome. The manual of Arcanum is better than many games are on their own. You can skip playing the game if you are an irredeemable heretic but you should at least read the manual.

[Hey Obsidian, how about a sequel to Arcanum?]

I don't know. I've never really thought Arcanum was that great of a game. Intresting story and setting to be sure, but the UI, graphics, combat, and movement was just horrible

 

Behead all those who insult Arcanum!

[The US Election, Part X]

In the end I managed to predict the winner of every state except New Hampshire. I could do this for a living.

When does betting for the 2020 election and Democratic primaries start? I am looking forward to that news cycle already.

 

[The US Election 2016, Part VII]

It's funny that some conspiracy theorists actually believe that Hillary has died, when figuratively her campaign is so close to parading a corpse around. Trump has "it" just like Bernie had (remember the Bernie tattoos?) - people chide Hillary for choosing fundraising over rallies, but it might be that it's a conscious choice because she is unable to energize enough people to justify large rallies.

 

Anyways, I'm sure they'll find her phylactery any day now, and then the election will be over faster than Bill Clinton can say "Necropotence".

[The US Election 2016, Part VI]

 

I actually think Nixon is a better person than the majority of our politicians today, based on two facts.  In 1960 the election was extremely close between him and JFK, and he could have challenged the outcome, there was plenty of whispers of fraud that might have turned the tide.  He chose not to, he didn't want to come across like a sore loser.  Then, after Watergate, he chose to resign.  I can't even imagine a politician doing that today.  Those both struck me as kind of honor among thieves moments.

He also had his "enemies lists" and a reputation for being verbally abusive of family and staff. Of course low character and high character can certainly co-exist. No one is so bad they don't have some redeeming qualities or so good they have no flaws. 

 

Still, I'd take a person which is verbally abusive over one who is corrupt and won't resign any day.

[The Funny Things Thread]

 

Worst thing is, I might even go like that to a party in a few weeks from now...

[Coup or attempted coup in Turkey]

Well, at least on this forum there seems to be nobody who believes that the Turkish offense took place for any other purpose than to keep YPG from cutting off ISIS supply lines.

[The 'Sidian Tyranny thread]

One thing I always wonder about these games set in faux medieval/ancient times is what exactly the common man thinks of the events transpiring:

 

Given that the majority of people will be lower classed, probably indentured agrarian workers, what will they think of the evil overlord Kyros and his rise to power?

What were their former masters like, and how were they treated under them?

What are the tax structures, and how harshly were they applied?

What of law and order, was it applied universally or at the whim of their former masters, could Kyros' rule be a significant improvement for them in this respect bringing stability, justice for all, new markets and peace?

How would life change under Kyros' rule for the average working man, is he and his just another set of masters to pull the forelock at and carry on regardless?

Will the Fatebinder deal with such low concerns or are his responsibilities more focused on the middle to higher classes which he is raised from?

Will their be any representative or representation of the average working man, rathe than soldiery, rulers and outsiders such as the Scarlet Chorus?

How did the previous rulers rule their lands, were they as ruthless or more so than Kyros?

Is there any institution in the world which could be clarified as good when compared to Kyros' empire, that is propogating some manner of morale society, or is Kyros simply a more successful version of the rulers who proliferate at this time, a man made for his age and its morality?

 

I'd really like to see a game explore these issues, rather than having a middle to higher class character serving the usual functions of RPGs. Then again I suppose at least in Arcanum one could explore what it was like to sit on the bottom rung of the societal ladder if one wished, by playing as a Half Orc or Ogre.

 

I second this.

[The US Election 2016, Part V]

A list of which countries have already bribed Clinton:

 

 

So... How do you think Ukrainian interests are looking to cash in on their donations?

[The US Election 2016, Part V]

You've actually made my point for me. In your previous example, with 2 liberal parties and 3 conservative ones, equally split ideologically, you'd always have a liberal and a conservative in the run-off, so no problem.

 

Wrong. With two liberal parties, three conservative parties, and voters equally split ideologically the liberal parties would both get 25% while the conservative parties would get 16,6%, which would result in two liberal parties in the run-off, just like I said. You did finish primary school, right?

 

With 16 conservative parties they would of course always lose, so unless brain dead they'd consolidate into fewer parties, just like the 2 party system works now. And that's what I said, we want 4-5 parties, not 16-100.

With one run-off election, you would in theory get 3 parties, since if we start out with the current two-party system, you could always safely vote for what at the time looks like the third most popular party without wasting your vote and letting the other side win. Most places with run-off presidential elections I can think of have proportional representation in their parliaments, so that leads to more people initially competing and thus more seemingly viable alternatives (for good or bad, since with only one run-off some are bound to waste their vote).

 

I think to achieve 4-5 parties you will at the very least need MMP or something similar.

[ICTY exonerates Milosevic of all charges]

Also if you think that what you are talking about are facts, you are delusional.

Okay. So according to you, what I'm talking about are not facts. On the other hand, your totally non-confused factual tales of Dalmatians south of Croatia who "pretty much dislike the Croat, if not hate", the Bosnian state which never existed (even though the Kingdom of Bosnia briefly conquered Serbia in medieval times), your rhetorical (I hope) inquiries about when exactly any Serbs have tried to kill Bosnian Muslims and so on are totally knowledgeable facts and statements laid forth by a 100% non-confused individual. Got it.

 

I'm not saying every fact I present is absolute and not open to debate or interpretation. But maybe you should stop blurting out very dubious "facts" out your ass yourself before you accuse me of doing so.

 

The bigger issue I have, which you ignored is the way you discuss. If you take a look at your post, you are just moving goalposts and attacking strawman, and it can be seen in the rising number of quotes in each of your posts.

I might be guilty of throwing too much ridicule on throwaway statements you make with little relevance to the core matter at hand just for the lulz, but otherwise nothing of what you write. It's very bad debating style to just say "Strawman!!!!" without pointing to any examples, much less giving a reason for why the given examples are strawmen arguments. I'm not saying I don't have patience with you, but other people reading your posts might think you are an idiot trying to substitute real arguments with name-calling and ****-flinging if you do this. Sadly, "strawman" has become the go-to word for Internet idiots when they don't understand an argument, just like "plot hole" is the go-to phrase of idiot movie reviewers who don't understand movies (you can probably Google "plot hole solaris" or "plot hole stalker" to see what I mean).

 

Me choosing to split my reply into multiple quotes is just a matter of convenience, otherwise it would be unclear which statements I am replying to. I often get irritated at people writing blobs of text with no clear points of reference to the post they are replying to. Deal with it.

[ICTY exonerates Milosevic of all charges]

The only comparison I see working there, is if you were comparing the leaders of Croatia, the Bosnian Muslims and Karadzic. They were all trying to kill as many of the other as possible. But hey, only 1 was put on trial.

 

Yes, I mean to compare all movements who acted and intended to remove/kill people of different ethnicities. What do you mean? Lots of people have been put on trial.

 

Yes, they are worse. You are crazy if you think Hitler was worse then Stalin and Mao. The Israelis are trying to cleanse the area of Palestinians, they have weapons of mass destruction while the Palestinians have sticks and rocks. If you read even a little bit of history instead of subscribing to Fox news history you would see why that was the case.

Hitler only killed so few because he didn't win the war. This is what would have happened if he had won instead of Stalin. Seriously, read about it. The effects would be worse by far than anything Stalin tried. All of them are villains in my mind, but Hitler is the worst.

 

I'm not trying to, and I don't want to defend Israel. If you have read what I write on this forum you know that I am very sceptical towards Israel, and especially the American policy towards Israel. But that does not mean that I sympathize with all Palestinians. Hamas is Israel's ace in the sleeve. As long as a potentially genocidal movement is one of the most popular among (non-Israeli) Palestinians, a sensible peace deal can't be made. If a Nelson Mandela or Gandhi-type movement gained traction, Israel's apartheid system would fall apart like a house of cards in a hurricane. Sadly, all Israeli leaders who are not idiots realize this, which is why we get the current situation.

  

But it doesn't matter as you confirmed what I said, as Austria-Hungary was on the losing side, so was Croatia.

Irrelevant. This also means that you concede that every concession forced upon Serbia in losing wars was justified. What is morally right does not change with who wins which wars.

 

Firstly look at the history of Kosovo and you will see that Albania has no connection to it, second, then why did we keep it in your opinion then and not today?

You haven't been paying attention, or you haven't understood anything of what I've written. There are two ways to decide the borders of nations. One, you look at the ethnicity of the inhabitants. Two, you look at the historical borders.

 

Looking at the ethnicity of the inhabitants is your argument for letting Republika Srpska split from Bosnia and join Serbia. By the same argument, Serbia has no right to rule the parts of northern Vojvodina where Hungarians live, nor Kosovo where Albanians live.

 

Looking at historical borders, we could possibly try to argue against splitting Kosovo from Serbia, and definitely against splitting Vojvodina, but that also means we can't divide Bosnia. And since a majority of people in Bosnia do not want to be a part of Serbia, Bosnia stays out of Serbia.

 

You are trying to use one of these principles to add more territory to your "Greater Serbia" and the other to prevent other people from using the same argument as you remove territory from Serbia. This makes you either a hypocrite, or even an idiot, or possibly even both.

 

As for what Cetniks have done, no one is denying that, but claim it was on the same scale as Ustase is delusional. As for what for what happened in the 1990, aka Srebrenica, I already talked about that, what the Muslims who were executed have done before they were caught, fully earned them death. Still it was a mistake and crime to kill them in cold blood, they should have been tried and executed.

I didn't say it was on the "same scale" (whatever that means), and that is not relevant to my argument. I'm saying that their ideologies were virtually the same. The Ustase managed to kill more people, but that is just a historical coincidence. If the Nazis had supported the Chetniks to the same extent they supported the Ustase and vice versa, the Chetniks would have killed more.

 

It's sad that you don't realize that murdering 8000 civilians and dumping them in mass graves is an immoral and despicable act. The Ustase, who thought that they were defending themselves against Serbian territorial encroachment, also did not realize that killing thousands of civilians was immoral. I'm sure they also had their "reasons", real and imagined, just like you, and the Nazis, and everyone else who coincidentally thinks that this kind of behaviour is OK only if their guys are the ones doing it. Think about it, can you give any other examples of justified mass murder of civilians, or is it just when Serbian Good Guys do it that it happens to be justified? You might begin to ask yourself if you are a hypocrite.

 

Besides, Srebnica is just a single example. Serbian military, police and paramilitary units were responsible for every kind of war crime you can imagine. From packing civilians - men, women and children - into buses and blowing them up with bazookas, to throwing people off bridges and cliffs and shooting at them like clay pidgeons, to systematic rape. It's sad that you have to coyly ask me here on this forum "When did the Serbs try to kill Muslims?" as if you didn't know this already. Didn't you learn this in school? You clearly learned about the Ustase, and about crimes against Serbs during the 1990s, so why not about crimes perpetrated by Serbs?

 

Also they held their own, lol... What war were you reading on? The west rained fire until we moved our troops back. Yeah, they held their own against unarmed civilians.

Of course they had superior allies. But so did Serbia in WW1. Who "won" by the virtue of being on the same side as Russia, France, UK and the US. Are Serbia going to give Vojvodina back to Hungary because it also was won in an unfair fight? No, I don't think so. It's not about who wins what in a fight. Don't be a hypocrite, judge everyone by the same standards.

 

If might makes right, do you agree that Austria-Hungary had been justified to annex Serbia if no other countries had gotten involved? Or do you think the Ottoman conquest of Serbia was morally right? Just because you win a war does not mean you are morally entitled to anything.

 

Wait, what. They did vote to join Serbia, do you remember us talking about the Kingdom of Serb, Croat and Slovenes (Yugoslavia)? The only reason we fell apart is because the West pressed pressure points and promised backing for the Bosnian war, they wanted to weaken Yugoslavia as they did not need a third side in Europe.

Yes, the reason you fell apart is because of people like you who think that everything your side ever does is totally justified, while the other side is utterly evil. All the West needed to do was to make sure that a Serbian (in this case) nationalist got to lead multi-ethnic Yugoslavia, and then watch from afar, laugh and crack open the champagne as Yugoslavia (a country with no insignificant clout on the international scene) crumbled into tiny warring irrelevant mini-states. To me it is absurd, repugnant and incomprehensible that you think the murder of 8000 human beings (taking only into account one single massacre) could be justified. Equally absurd it is to you that people who idolize the Ustase think the murder of 400000 (or something similar) could be justified.

 

Do you think Croats were born evil? The sad fact is that if you would have been born a Croat in Croatia, you would probably have been a lot more sympathetic to the Ustase yourself. That is because Croats are probably brainwashed by their school, media and so on with various denials and justifications to their crimes, just like you think the mass murder of 8000 was justified or at worst a necessary evil, nevermind the other war crimes you probably did not get told about in school. Of course the crimes of the Ustase are worse, but the tendencies are the exact same. And this nationalism can be extremely easily exploited, as we have seen. And the most sad and tragic thing is that people like you don't even realize what has happened afterwards.

 

Lol, if that were the case Texas would be an independent state and I'm too lazy to look but there were other cases in the US where people wanted to call for Independence in America... Might is right and if you think anything else you are delusional.

Yes, I 100% think Texas should be able to vote to secede if they wanted to. And I'm sure that there are more people on this forum who agree with me.

 

BTW: "Might is right" = "Ustase were right to kill 400000 Serbs because they had the might to do so" = Sarex fails at thinking.

 

I didn't say they would say "I am a Serb." ... They would identify as a Dalmatian people. They pretty much dislike the Croat, if not hate.

That's funny, anecdotally I know people originally from the Dalmatian coast and they do not regard themselves as "Dalmatians". By the way, Dalmatia contains 20-25% of the Croatian population. I find it absurd that 20-25% "dislike the Croat, if not hate" and yet there are no Dalmatian regionalist parties in the Croat parliament. Hell, there are even Istrian and Slavonic parties, but no Dalmatian ones. This claim of yours is looking more and more like you are being confused again. Are you sure you are referring to a current movement and not a historical one?

[ICTY exonerates Milosevic of all charges]

How did you manage to connect Karadzic to Ustase I have no clue...

Both were trying to ethnically cleanse their way to "Greater Serbia"/"Greater Croatia". Tomato, meet potato.

 

I mean, no one cares about Karadzic in Serbia, nor has there been any open support for him.

Would be great if correct I guess, I was only basing what I wrote on what I've heard from various Balkan expatriates I know IRL.

 

Croats who wear the insignia of Ustase are celebrating their crimes. I'm a hypocrite for judging Ustase? Are you out of your mind? Do you know what Ustase have done? Why the **** are you defending people who celebrate them...

No, you are not a hypocrite for judging the Ustase. You are a hypocrite for not judging the Serbian nationalist militias with ideology similar to the Ustase. I'm not defending people who celebrate them. I'm accusing people who seem very aware of the faults of the Ustase ideology, but are unable to see the errors of the same ideology when its proponents are of a different ethnicity.

 

We are talking about the crimes they committed not the ideologies they had, big difference.

Okay. So you mean to judge people purely by their crimes, how many they killed, and not by their motives or their relative means.

 

So, that means you also must agree that Stalin and Mao were worse than Hitler. The Israelis are clearly worse, even several orders of magnitude worse than the Palestinians, by this measure. I could go on - by subscribing to this incredibly simplified and naive worldview, where you do not take intent and ideology into account, you are limiting yourself to the point of making yourself blind.

 

How were we lucky to get Vojvodina from Hungary and keep Kosovo from Albania (What does Albania even have to do with Kosovo), please explain?

 

The answer to your first question is obvious. Vojvodina was very ethnically mixed, and at the time, Serbs were a minority. Vojvodina would never have become a part of Serbia if not for the fact that Austria-Hungary was on the losing side in the war.

 

Similarly, Kosovo contains - and at the previous turn of the century contained - a majority of Albanians. If people would have decided to give areas to the people who live there, Kosovo would have become independent from Serbia or been given to Albania.

 

Again there are no Bosnian people and how were the Serb looking to genocide the Muslim?

 

That's some mighty revisionist history you have there...

 

According to the Yugoslavian census, Bosniaks, or Yugoslavian Muslims, were the third largest group of people in Yugoslavia. Who were these people who answered that they were Muslims or Bosniaks when the census was made?

 

Come on, you are extremely ignorant of the crimes committed in the region by others than the Ustase. The Serbian Chetniks went after the Muslims first during WW2, and then later the army of the Bosnian Serbs, the JNA plus various militia groups did so in the 1990s. Get up to date with the list here. That list obviously does not include every killing of a civilian, but it provides enough examples.

 

Wanna bet? You think that after WW1 where Croatia came out as a loser and then WW2 where they again sided with the loosing side, they would have been left alone?

 

This is stupid. Winning a war does not entitle you to ethnically cleanse the opposition from your lands. Basically, you are saying that Croatia was in the right in the 1990s, because they clearly held their own in that conflict and so could remove Serbs from their lands.

 

Yeah culture doesn't work like that and besides apart from religion there were minimal differences in our culture and language. The modern "Croatian language" is a recent invention, if you go back in time, their language is much closer to Serbian than it is today. The modern Croatian is again just their complex about us going full throttle.

 

Yes, but if they are so similar, why don't they vote to join Serbia? Clearly, if your thesis is correct, all you would have to do is wait for the eventual reunion. I don't think you are making that more likely by accusing all Croatians of being Ustase sympathizers and talking about waiting for the next war, all you are doing is perpetuating the conflict.

 

British English and American English are also virtually identical as languages. But that doesn't mean it gives one people any claim to the lands of the other. Right? It's silly to engage in that type of chauvinism. If they feel they are Croatians, they are Croatians.

 

...South of Croatia as in southern Croatia as in coastal Croatia, as in Dalmacia and Split. Those 2 have a vastly different culture then central Croatia and somehow they are still not an independent country, huh, go figure.

 

Okay. So not "south of Croatia" but "the South of Croatia". In the present. Let us re-examine your claims - it's not very hard, since a lot of maps have been made detailing what groups of people live where.

 

Circa 1998. Circa 2000. Circa 2008. Circa 2010.

 

Nope. No significant numbers of non-Croatians anywhere on any part of the coast of Croatia. Looks like you are talking out of your ass again.

 

You are probably referring to the areas in south and central Croatia which had significant Serbian populations before the war.

 

I have to say that this discussion feels like you just read my comment and opened a Wikipedia page to read up on Balkan history. I mean you can't go backwards from today and get why things are how they are in the present. A lot of things happened in Balkans past and no matter who's revision of the history you read, it's easy to figure out who's is blacker.

 

Sarex gets found out on being confused about factual matters - accuses other person of reading at Wikipedia (shock!!!).

[ICTY exonerates Milosevic of all charges]

The Croatian government is rehabilitating people who committed heinous crimes, supporting Thompson (a band that sings Ustasa's sons and anti-Serb songs in general) and not punishing people who wear Ustasa's insignias and defiling war memorials.

 

In Germany people go to jail for shouting "Zig hajl" in the street, let alone the stuff that is happening in Croatia.

 

So, here's the deal: you want people to be persecuted for wearing Ustase insignia, but you dismiss any court which would look into war crimes committed by Karadzic and others as a kangaroo court. How many people in Serbia openly support Karadzic? How should they be persecuted? What do you think Croats and Bosniaks think about them going without punishment? Do you think Croatians who wear Ustase insignia deny the crimes of the Ustase? Are you starting to see your hypocrisy?

 

 

 

As far as what the Cetnik's and Ustasa's have done, it's not even comparable. The fact that you are comparing them show how little you know.

They have a virtually identical ideology based on ethnically cleansing areas where other people live to make place for their own ethnic group. Their main difference is whom they hated the most - the Chetniks hated Muslims the most and Croats not so much, while the Ustase hated Serbs the most and Muslims not so much. One might have been more competent than the other, but they would have killed just as many given the chance.

 

I mean the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs as wikipedia calls it, which is also wrong and funny as it's real name is the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. See what's missing from that name? That's right, Bosnia. Bosnia is an artificial state made up so that Republic of Srpska (again a funny name from wiki...) would not be able to join Serbia. Why do you think Bosnia and Herzegovina is a federal state today, it sure as hell isn't because it was an independent country before? Before the Bosnian War no one in the world thought that Bosnia was ever a independent state, that's simply revisionist history. Bosnia was at best a province that from time to time changed hands. There are no Bosnian people, there are only Serbs and Croats and Serbs and Croats who changed religion during the Ottoman occupation.

 

Uh... Are you sure you are not confusing

 

State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs

 

and

 

Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (interwar Yugoslavia)?

 

It's not odd at all that a Christian state would omit mentioning its Muslim inhabitants in its official name.

 

Bosnia and Serbia have existed for about as long as states who at various points have been parts of other countries. It's very funny that you as a Serbian (a country which has a very short history of independence) should try to dismiss Bosnia as an independent state. A lot of people from countries with longer history of independence and/or unity probably think Serbia is a joke country stitched together from equal parts ethnic cleansing and luck with international treaties, based on the memory of some province which existed before Ottoman conquest of the Balkans.

 

It would be very unlikely that Serbia could reasonably have long-term ended up with a lot more territory than it has currently. Interwar Yugoslavia was lucky as it is to receive Vojvodina from Hungary and keep Kosovo from Albania. The territory that was at play was pretty much the Eastern parts of current Bosnia. I guess if the borders between provinces inside post-WW2 Yugoslavia would have been redrawn differently, Serbia could have hanged on to parts of Bosnia. As things were, a few facts guaranteed Bosnian independence: One, there were more Bosniaks than Serbs (and the Croatians also favoured Bosnian independence) in Bosnia - just plainly absurd and insane that you dismiss this fact with "there are no Bosnians". Two, the Serbian militias were looking to genocide the Bosniaks, with them having no adjacent state of their own. Obviously the non-Serb population in Bosnia would vote for their independence, if only to save their own skins.

 

If you wonder why Serbia couldn't have gotten just the Easternmost parts which have the highest concentration of Serbs, ask yourself why Serbia has not ceded north Vojvodina to Hungary yet. It's the same question.

 

I didn't say the Croat people would disappear I said that Croatia would have disappeared. They would have been swallowed by one of it's neighboring countries, probably by all of them. After WW1 they were pretty much a non entity.

 

LOL. You know, there are a lot of people in larger countries who would say that Serbs are pretty much a non-entity which could just disappear. That is just typical chauvinism on your part. Of course the Croats, and Croatia, would just not disappear. That's not how things work. You know very well how culture, language, and religion can remain even after long occupations.

 

Had what I have said happened there would not have been nearly as many casualties, the economy of both Serbia and Croatia would have been comparable to the rest of the Euro countries. But the thing is that Croats always had a complex about Serbs, but that happens when you are on the loosing side of 2 World Wars and when you see a country stick to their religion even after 500 years of Ottoman occupation. So what happened in the Bosnian war was what Croats wanted to happen, it would have been even worse for the civilians if the West have not held them back from going completely overboard.

 

Ok, so the content of this extremely mature block of text is essentially: "The Croats are jealous of us Serbs because our religion is so awesome, that's why they made us fight the Bosniaks". Way to go.

 

Why should I be happy, had we made a kingdom of Serbia we would have held most of the Adriatic coast all of Bosnia and most of the territory north of Bosnia and Monte Negro would still be part of Serbia. I don't think you know who's side Croatia was during WW1. Besides if you go to the Adriatic coast (south of Croatia) and ask the people there: "Who are you?", they will not say "A Croat".

 

 

I don't get it... I showed you the map from 1920. There are no parts of the Adriatic coast outside Montenegro which are not majority Croatian.

 

Yes, of course people south of Croatia will not say that they are Croatians. South of Croatia is Montenegro. They will say they are Montenegrins. Duh.