Talk:Kosovo War

This article and other articles related to Kosovo are subject to article probation in the Kosovo arbitration case. If any editor makes disruptive edits, they may be banned by an administrator from this and related articles, or other reasonably related pages.

russian intervention

i wrote up a section on the pristina airport incident, i used a BBC article to source the data

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/671495.stm

but didn't include it in the references as i'm a lousy editor, feel free to include that

gosh i'm not trying to start a fight here, i just thought i should add that part.

Main picture controversial

In infobox, you use a picture of a memorial to fallen Albanian guerilla terrorist fighters? This article is very visiual for its "one sided - role" instead of neutrality. Why dont you also put a picture of a memorial to fallen Chechens on Chechnia war article, and pictures of a memorial to fallen Tallibani forces in Afghanistan war? I propose to you that you remove that picture immediately...

This page is one sided (MADE BY PRO-KLA EDITORS)

alot of sources that have gone through age 20 years ago are being used, then alot of sources are pointed out only from the sources of one terrorist organization -KLA, while anything on other side is ignored. This page is obviously trying to show Albanians as poor and terrorized people during that war, while the attacks on serbian civilians and heritage and on serbian government institutions even before the war became is putten in shadow; trying to show KLA as "liberty fighters". This is why i dont care at all what this article says, because its just NOT RELIABLE, just wanna let anyone who comes up here to know and to read this. The article is a whole piece of nothing. Goodbye

The neutrality of this article is fine. I'm removing the 'disputed neutrality' banner on the article. If there are actual concerns about the neutrality, you can put the banner back. UncappingCone64 (talk) 15:42, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

"only several thousand victims"

What a disgusting statement. CJK (talk) 20:06, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. Resolved.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 20:23, 14 April 2013 (UTC)

Great, now it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. But hey, as long as you two aren't offended, fuck encyclopedia's, right? BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 21:25, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Changed the offending paragraph to read:

Despite initial western claims that hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians were killed subsequent investigations have recovered the remains of less than three thousand victims,[8]

In future, if you are offended by something on wikipedia, wait for some form of consensus before ripping the offensive content out and leaving a totally grammatically nonsensical passage in it's stead. What you did was compromise the entire purpose of a sixth of the lede because of butthurt. That's patently ridiculous behaviour; a little re-wording would have yielded a far superior result. There is no point in me citing the whole not censored, yadda yadda, braces hugged all capital letter doctrines of Wikipedia to vouch that arbitrarily removing things leaving everything broken is douchebaggery of the highest order, just please think before doing stuff like that in future. BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 21:30, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

typo / grammar mistake

should be "who" not "whom" in the sentence "an increased presence of Serb paramilitaries and regular forces whom subsequently began pursuing a campaign of retribution" of the opening section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.96.105.246 (talk • contribs)

Fixed. Thanks for pointing it out! bobrayner (talk) 18:52, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Islam; the super-silent partner?

How is there only one instance of the word Islam in this entire document and it's in the title of one single source right down the bottom? I mean, I may be tripping balls here, but I'm pretty sure that the tens of thousands of mujahadeen soldiers running around beheading people and gutting babies from pregnant women and shit calling themselves freedom fighters weren't all coincidentally bearded men who tripped over and fell in orchestrated fashion at seven specific times per day. I may be wrong, but I'm smelling Conspiracy Pete aboves paranoia; this definitely does read like a propaganda piece.

I've noticed in a lot of instances Wikipedia's articles on any war or conflict issues in the past thirty years are skewed, and tend to lead to edit wars and dramu if questioned, so if my comment will cause such drama forget I mentioned it; but if it doesn't and we're actually reading the same handbook and obeying the same concept of neutrality then this article needs a whole lot of modification going on! BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 21:35, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

WARNING : There is a lot of Serbian propaganda and false information in this page

There were many human rights abuses of Albanians leading up to the war. The Albanian's initially used peaceful means of protest. However, as their rights were arbitarily taken away one by one it became clear that they would have to defend their families by other means. The atrocities committed against pregnant women, children and the elderly by the Serbs are shocking and brutal. In some villages all the men and boys were simply rounded up and shot in front of their families. Serbian nationalism is still prevalent today and many millitant Serbs use the internet and other media outlets to promote their propoganda. Please use discretion when reading any account of the war in Kosovo especially if it does not come from an independant source. This kind of misrepresentation of the truth only fuels conflict and prevents healing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Marigold333 (talk • contribs) 16:39, 14 November 2013 (UTC)

Very POV

"Morale

Morale was a serious problem for Serb forces; intelligence surveys found that many soldiers disagreed with their comrades' actions. One tank commander reported:

For the entire time I was in Kosovo, I never saw an enemy soldier and my unit was never once involved in firing at enemy targets. The tanks which cost $2.5 million each were used to slaughter Albanian children... I am ashamed."

This entry is very POV, it is not cyclopedic, and it explains the morale solely on one witness, there were many who did not complain, on the contrary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.106.229.116 (talk) 09:20, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 19:39, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Not to mention that it doesn't merit an entire section and that a page number isn't provided to the source it's cited with. 23 editor (talk) 21:08, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

What does "very POV" mean? I recognise, of course, that it's not compatible with your POV. It is, however, based on a reliable source. If you're concerned about undue weight then I will happily develop more content based on this and other sources. It would be a shame to have such a lengthy article on a war without mentioning morale. By the way, 109.106.229.116, you should log in when you edit. We have enough nationalist sockpuppets already.bobrayner (talk) 00:04, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

• "NATO officials ....the apparently strong morale among Serbian troops.... the Serbian force of nearly 47,000 men seemed less demoralized than allied accounts had led people to expect. " link.
• Bruce Nardulli; Walter L. Perry; Bruce R. Pirnie (5 June 2002). Disjointed War: Military Operations in Kosovo, 1999. Rand Corporation. p. 54. ISBN 978-0-8330-3231-7. Yugoslav units appeared combat effective with high morale {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• And the quick exit of Serb forces showed they were still a fighting force with high morale. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 08:05, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

All of which are specific to the retreat after allied intervention; it is a longstanding tradition on en.wikipedia for Serb nationalists to pretend that the Kosovo war was all about Allied Force, and gloss over trivial detail like ethnic cleansing, widespread brutality &c. Nonetheless, I'm sure we can expand the section. bobrayner (talk) 19:58, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Dear Bab, if you cannot see the POV you keep protecting, I am truly sorry for you, maybe you should let other objective people edit this article, you are too emotionaly involved. All the best...... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.178.228.14 (talk) 08:57, 20 November 2013 (UTC) </span

Serbs have a strong link with Kosovo, so it´s absolute nonsense that morale was even a slight problem for Serb forces... Some people just cannot keep a line of logic here. When necessary, they want to present Serbs as barbarian killing machines of woman and children, but now suddently Serbian forces morale was low? Imagine then if it was high? They would be truth Super Mans then... Anti-Serb editors should really get some better strategy, cause this just looks like they are simply collecting all negative ever written about Serbs, whatever it is, even if contradictory with (their own) story line. FkpCascais (talk) 05:54, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

BTW, these "hot" articles should be speacially dealt with extreme care, because our point here should be to make them as neutral as possible for en.wikipedia credibility. Inserting propaganda, as clearly that account on how Serb forces had low morale is, will simply move readers away from the article and make en.wiki loose credibility. Antidiskriminator already found 3 sources claiming the opposite, so the alleged words of one alleged commander don´t really have a place here. FkpCascais (talk) 06:05, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Bob, please provide a page for this edit of yours. Also, seems higly pushy to make a one sentence section. FkpCascais (talk) 16:45, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

The page number is not so important. I presented scholarly sources which refute the low morale assertion. Slaughtering of Albanian children with tanks belong to another section which deals with massacres.--Antidiskriminator (talk) 18:28, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

Oh, I'm not to bothered about FkpCascais. 23 editor complains about the lack of a pagenumber, so Fkpcomplains about the lack of a pagenumber. Zavtek complains about me removing unsourced listcruft elsewhere, so Fkpcascais complains about me removing it too. There aren't any new insights here.

More concerning is that Zavtek removed the content as "badly sourced", even though it's from a reliable source, published by a university press. For content that Zavtek wants to add, the standards of sourcing are far lower - no source is required at all. Isn't that tendentious editing? It seems that some editors just make up any old reason to justify changing content to fit one nationalist perspective. It doesn't matter what the reason is; quite often it's outright false, all that matters is pushing articles in one direction. bobrayner (talk) 12:40, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

It's not the source, it's your deliberate misrepresentation of the source. Naturally if the source mentions "Serb soldiers" then its reliability will not so much come into question as be thrown in the bin since it would contain false information. Zavtek (talk) 18:30, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

Equipment of the Serbian Army is irrelevant here. You were explained that it is wrong to give undue weight to what one no name alleged commander said. You were also explained that what you added to the article contradicts to other sources which explain that during the withrawal of Yugoslav forces it became obvious that they had strong morale which contradicted what allied accounts had led people to expect. Please be so kind to stop with personal attacks and flag waving fallacious comments on this talk page by which you attempt to attribute nationalism to other editors. You were already warned more than once because of your disruptions at Kosovo related articles. I politely ask you to please take a better care in future or you might be warned again. Thank you. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 13:13, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

For me it doesn´t really matter who makes one edit, it is allways the content that matters to me. As you could see Bob, I may agree with others on some edits, and agree with you on others. So I support edits, not editors. Now regarding the edit, that edit is sourced by Judah´s book with no page mentioned to confirm it and it doesn´t certanly deserve a separate section by itself. Also, even if written by Judah in his book from 1997, that edit screams propaganda (written before NATO intervention, some alleged commenader allegedly said... hmmm). Maybe Judah was introduced to someone who claimed to be YA commander and said that so he naively transponded that into his book, but anyway, are there more sources to confirm that? Such a hot issue as it is Kosovo War with so much writen about it and so much to write certainly can´t have one entire section reliying on one sentence from one source. Plus, making no much sense to anyone well familiarised with the issue, and with sources claiming otherwise. FkpCascais (talk) 14:13, 23 November 2013 (UTC)

The assertion about Yugoslav army using tanks to slaughter Albanian children is exceptional and should be referenced with exceptional sources. --Antidiskriminator (talk) 14:48, 23 November 2013 (UTC)