Comments by "Emir" (@irongron) on "James Ker-Lindsay" channel.

  1. I think that second last question you got Paramahansay Yogonanda, which sounded very pro-Russian, speaks volumes to the lack of empathy that gets back to what you said Professor about when it comes to international relations, to put yourself in the heads of the people involved which this Paramahansay Yogonanda, character is incapable of doing. It's easy for him to ask such primitive 19th century nonsense when it's not his 2 Donbas homes, like the one's my wife & I lost in 2014 and recently in Pokrovsk, that will be given away to Russia for free, because he thinks borders should just be redrawn to end a war, because of his simplistic "lines on maps" way of thinking that totally leaves out the people and lives affected.
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  2.  @JamesKerLindsay  Thank you. Indeed, I think your approach to educate these people who ask this kind of question is the right way to go about it, I personally find them irritating for the obvious aforementioned reasons. These same questions comes up commonly all over the world in many countries. Americans who are "anti-American/NATO" for instance. I am not sure where that listener was from maybe the sub-continent or Indonesia where the anti-western sentiment is very prevalent as you mentioned.
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  3.  @jovanitisns  ma da, ali ja isto mislim da on se shalio bre!
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  4. The two questions on the former Yugoslavia were interesting. My father's side of the family is Bosnian, Mother's side Serbian. My father's side all from a town called Bosanski Novi - now renamed Novi Grad (New City) and it is in Republika Srpska. My father's side were displaced all over the world, to Canada, the USA and Australia, I grew up in Aus), they're never going back. My mother's side are living their lives as usual in Beograd. I moved to Ukraine from Australia in 2014 (bad timing, my father passed on in December 2013, so I left Aus) and the doom followed me. 😉 My mother's side of the family disowned me when I loved to Ukraine. I'll leave it at that. You'll see as many Russian flags flying in Serbia at rallies as you will in Russia. I will never go back to the former Yugoslavia ever again, too much baggage. My Ukrainian wife and her colleagues from her university in Ukraine visited Montenegro in summer. I stayed home with our 2 cats. Complicated questions to answer, you gave as good an answer as could be given Professor. Hvala lepo! (thanks very much).
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  5.  @kara88bg  The KLA was never listed as terrorists, Arkans Tigers were the real terrorists. You'r just peddling Serbian lies and agitprop of Milosevic. - "During the Kosovo conflict Milošević and his supporters portrayed the KLA as a terrorist organisation of militant Islam. The CIA advised the KLA to avoid involvement with Muslim extremists.The KLA rejected offers of assistance from Muslim fundamentalists. There was an understanding within the ranks of the KLA that foreign assistance from Muslim fundamentalists would limit support toward the cause of Kosovo Albanians in the West."
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  6. On shifting the centre of gravity of NATO east, pending membership for us in Ukraine (if ever), I think the centre might already be starting to shift towards Poland, they've got a huge military and building it up. When you mentioned the UK's weakened military,, interestingly, if you separate out the nuclear forces spending of the UK, the GDP spent on the UK's conventional forces is only 1.6% of GDP, which is considerably less than some other NATO countries spending on military that don't have nukes and spend all of their cut of GDP on conventional forces. Estonia's up to 4% for instance. No wonder the UK's conventional forces are not doing so good with a realistic 1.6% GDP figure spent on them.
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