BlackMoria

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

If Putin actually did ask to join NATO I'm sure there was a fairly cool response to the request, so it all seems probable. Now Putin actually asking really does make sense looking back now. It wouldn't have been an attempt for Russia to cozy up and move closer to the west, it would have been an attempt at subversion. Afterall, if one NATO country attacks another there is no article 5 response, right? So if Russia had been let into NATO it would have pretty much made it null and void as an organization as Russia could have attacked anyone it wanted and not feared NATO retribution. Maybe I'm being really cynical in my evaluation of Putin and Russia but it actually makes sense that he asked and hoped to be accepted as it would have made the advance of his goals possible and at the same time took the main opposition to those goals off the table.
 
Come up for air. Instead of playing politics here in a thread that does a pretty good job of not going down that rabbit hole, why not look at the past 15 years or so at the politics of the west in general and ok, the US in particular. Leaving Iraq to Isis. Minimal and non-military response to Crimea. Tepid support of Arab Spring. Benghazi. Half hearted Syria mish mash while bowing out to Russia in the middle east. Then top it all off with the Afghanistan fiasco and it is pretty easy to form the opinion that US resolve is weak and their response will be half a**ed. This is an apolitical look as these things happened under both party's control. If we want to cherry pick events we can find more under democrat control than republican, but that isn't the point. It is the consistently weak position that the US has given itself, and the west, for the last couple decades.
Now tie that into the domestic political mess that is seen in the west. When looked at through Russian or Asian eyes our domestic strife is laughable, and it is. There is a lot of turmoil about virtually non-existent problems inside the US and other western countries that has fractured their appearance of strength to the rest of the world. (pulls out the tinfoil hat) Makes one wonder with some of the new found evidence of Russia meddling in foreign politics how much of a catalyst they have been in a lot of the movements we've seen, especially the Marxist based ones. (takes off tinfoil hat)
So when looked at as a whole and not as a politically biased perception, when was there ever a better time to invade? Truthfully it was probably a flip of the coin how the US and west would react and if Ukraine would have folded in 3 days like a lot of the western leaders and pundits assumed, I think it would have folded. Maybe another sanction or two and moved on with life. That was what Putin was counting on. He knew there would be a cost but that is why they amassed a large war chest to cover the cost in the short term until the sanctions fell off. I really don't think the reaction from the west would have been any different under either party, what changed the reaction was that Ukraine didn't fold and the popular support for their cause amongst the free peoples blossomed. 
So please, no matter what your opinion of the current a**hat or the former a**hat, leave the a**hattery to the politicians or at least the political threads. I'll do my best to do the same.  
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.   
 
 

Some of the conversation over the few pages have referenced the former Yugoslavia.  Which brings back... well, not so good memories.
I was a Canadian peacekeeper in Bosnia in latter half of '93.   During the Croatian offensive in the Medak in Sept of '93, I was with the 2 PPCLI when we went into the sh*tstorm to try to stop the ethnic cleansing going on.  The Croatian army attacked our unit during that operation, a thing that the Croatian government denies to this very day.  Despite us photographing the Croatian dead after the battle and collecting their ID, etc.    We had god damn evidence and to this day, the Croatian government position is that they never attacked us.
Part of our job, beside trying to keep the warring factions apart, was to document evidence of ethnic cleansing and I was in charge (I was an officer) of a evidence collection team.  So, literally thousands of photos, videos.  Transcripts of interviews with witnesses and victims.  Six months exposed to that living hell, day after f*n day....
So I had the evidence, because sometimes our official recording devices ran out film or tape and we used our personal recording devices to finish up at a site.
After I got out the military, I found myself sometimes on various military forms about games, such as this one.  Arma forums, military wargame forums... that sort of thing.  And as it happened, I ran into forum members from Croatia and Bosnia Serbs and we would get into it.
Universally, every Croatian or Bosnian Serb forum poster denied what happened there.  And I was called a liar on many occasions for telling them them the truth of that war as I was there and they weren't.  And I have evidence to back up my claims.  No one believed me and if I offered visual proof, they didn't want to see it or they disclaimed it as fake.
I remember a particular Bosnian Serb who was not in the war but we got deep into the weeds discussing what happened during that war.  Deny, deny, deny.  It never happened.  Until videos that the Bosnian Serbs took of them killing civilians and dumping them in mass graves what was recorded by the very soldiers who committed the atrocities surfaced and made it onto their local media and they couldn't deny it any longer.  Those videos were part of the process besides sanctions that resulted in some notable Bosnia Serb / Serbian leaders being turned over to the ICC for prosecution for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.  After the revelation came out, this individual on that forum who I had spent hours engaging with about the culpability of Serbs in the atrocities simply ignored me from that point onwards.  I will never know why.... was it that he discovered that I was right all a long and he was wrong and he was ashamed (as he would have been) or he simply wanted to hang onto his delusion of what narrative he wanted to believe was true and he knew that I would keep chipping away.   
Denial is a powerful thing.   I don't understand why it has such power but it does.  People can dismiss an outright objective reality because to accept the truth is to undermine what they think reality is or should be.   I don't get it and is beyond madding to see the denials in the face of objective reality happen over and over.
Sigh.   I don't know why the hell I rambled on with this.  Maybe it was a story I need to tell to remain sane in light of the same brutality I witnessed back in Bosnia happening in Ukraine now.  Or maybe I still am the greater fool for believing my experiences in Bosnia can be an object lesson to others about holding onto a narrative that is personally comfortable but runs counter to all the real evidence to the contrary.   DMS, I am looking at you....
The truth will come out after all this is over.  At least, I hope it does.  The truth of this war needs to be told and codified so generations that follow can know what really happend.
Now at the end of this and reviewing it, I feel that I should have deleted this or apologize for it.  
I am hitting post. It is my truth.  Let people accept it and learn something from it or ignore it.  I needed to say this for a long time.