Re:The forgotten ruthlessness of Canada’s Great War soldiers...
by benj111 on Sunday July 21, 2019 @01:59AM
(#20490165)
"the Albanian underground had to import a 50 cal AA gun from the US. What for? To shoot at UN helicopters attacking their citizens"
I'm trying to parse this.
Did the US knowingly export this AA gun? Why were the UN attacking the citizens.
Are you referring to this? It doesn't seem to bear much resemblance to what you're describing. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Alba
Re:The forgotten ruthlessness of Canada’s Great War soldiers...
by nradov on Sunday July 21, 2019 @09:37AM
(#20491255)
Kosovar Albanian rebel representatives living in the US at the time legally purchased a small number of .50 BMG rifles on the civilian market. Those were bolt-action or semi-automatic, not actual anti-aircraft guns. Then they illegally smuggled those rifles to Kosovo.
- at times non-American Generals were in charge of the UN forces. So what did they do? They moved their country forces to the rear, and sent "coalition" forces into battle. The reason was that any casualties (even 2 or 3 dead) would be a political crisis at home (true across most European nations.)
- the Albanian underground had to import a 50 cal AA gun from the US. What for? To shoot at UN helicopters attacking their citizens. And guess what ... it worked - the UN stopped flying helicopters after their ground search for it failed. (Think about it for a second - who else had helicopters to shoot down besides the UN?)
- the US did an airstrike on the Chinese Embassy ... because they were relaying radio signal traffic to local forces fighting the UN. This caused a major international incident, but nobody seriously denies ... that the Chinese were involved in radio signal intercepts for locals.
- The UN agreed to cease-fires with enemy forces and allowed them to enter refugee camps and hospitals. Guess what happened next. Good on the Swedes ... there wasn't much courage going around at the time.