>>Why are you whining about Serb atrocities when NATO is committing even worse atrocities. NATO is the real bully here and is the primary cause for all the killing on both sides<<
Mr. Barrett, you are a jackass, not for your stand but for your insistence on assuming you know what other people think.
For one thing, to pass on stories of what is happening to ANY of these people, Serbs or Muslims, is *NOT* whining. I cried at my father's funeral, but I would not describe it as whining.
I have stated repeatedly, REPEATEDLY, that I and the people I am working with do NOT take a political stand here. Both sides have committed atrocities. It is atrocious for people to kill people. My concern is for the people, primarily the children, who are having their lives ruined forever, forEVER, by what is now happening to them. I would as quickly get a blanket to a Serb child in a bomb shelter as an Albanian Kosovar child in a camp. Can you POSSIBLY get that through your thick head or do I need to make more people angry with me by simply posting my/our position another 300 times.
We are a group utterly uninvolved in the politics here. We are trying to save some innocent lives. ALL children under the age of 6 are innocent. Are you able to grasp that?
I occasionally post sad stories of what it's like to watch your house being burned as you flee if that's what it takes to help us help the people who are helping the victims. It is not complicated. It does not require an IQ of 180. It DOES require a bit more compassion than would be found in a person who calls being touched by these stories "whining." What the hell are YOU doing for ANYBODY?
We have two men who are giving up their own income and comforts of home by risking their health to go to Skopje to deliver humanitarian aid donated by people who don't like to sit back and be glib while children are hungry and sick. And dying, yes, DYING. Our two men, Dusty and Dana, leave early next week, and they will live in deplorable conditions in order to pick up hammers and saws and try to see that a few more people have shelter.
I will probably go later in the summer if I am able to help the Mother Theresa nuns with the orphaned children. We have two more volunteers taking their hammers and heading there on June 20.
And all of us are delivering all the aid we can, as shipping is very undependable. All of us in our tiny group have given all we can, and we still need more. There is a great shortage of oil and flour and soap in Skopje.
If posting these stories ("whining", as you say) causes one person reading this board to send us their tax-deductible check for $10, Dana and Dusty will transform that check into a huge sack of flour at the Greek border and return to hand it directly to the refugees.
Now, if you are so concerned about the Serb victims, find a way to get aid to them and otherwise stop your inappropriate and endless political bantering. If you know of a direct way we can help the children of Belgrade, then let us know. If not, then please send something to the children in the camps. Send me a check for a box of soap and I will write across the top, "This is a gift from James R. Barrett, who disapproves of the NATO bombing."
Dusty leaves on Monday. Dana leaves on Wednesday. They will be sending us reports straight from the field, but it will have to do with the plight of the refugees, not politics. You can read them at our website at:
geocities.com
We raised about $6,000 - not much, but a LOT for a tiny group. We are next week delivering the laptops that will help the TV station stay afloat to process the refugees. We are also delivering several hundred blankets, and Dana and Dusty will have a pickup truck made available to them through the Mother Theresa Organization. With that they will make the possibly-hazardous 3.5-hour drive to Greece to buy flour, oil, and soap.
It may seem too late to help us, but it's not. We're hoping to wire more donations to Dana and Dusty while they are in Skopje. We hope this effort will be ongoing for at least awhile.
If you can help, in even the smallest way, you'll feel better about it when you see the pictures on TV. And someone who will never know your name will say a prayer for you.
Even you, Mr. Barrett,
Raven
K_refugees@hotmail.com
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