National Guard deploys to Kosovo

| July 12, 2017

A battalion-sized unit of National Guardsmen from Arkansas, Texas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, California and New York is training at Grafenwoehr, Germany in preparation for their deployment to Kosovo in support of the NATO mission there, according to Stars & Stripes;

Tensions rose in June after Kosovo’s elections, in which Albanian nationalist parties made significant gains. Meanwhile, a Serbian political party loyal to Belgrade won a majority of votes among the Serb minority, which accounts for about 10 percent of Kosovo’s people.

Local Serbs, who were once furious at NATO for defeating and ousting Serbian troops in the 1999 war, now insist that the 4,500-strong international force must remain in Kosovo in order to protect their community. NATO, which remains the region’s ultimate security guarantor, recently vetoed a plan by Kosovo’s government to transform its security forces into a regular army — a move the Serbs strongly oppose.

As the article points out, the Kosovo mission has been going on for 18 years with no end in sight.

The US Guardsmen are scheduled to assume the mission on July 19th and it will last for nine months. Because we don’t have enough going on in the world, we have to take out the Euros’ trash for them.

Category: National Guard

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timactual

This is the intervention that we were assured would be over in a year. By politicians from both parties.

This is also the military force that hires civilian contractors to provide its security, since it evidently can’t provide its own.

A modest proposal; why not just hire the civilian contractors to do whatever it is the military is supposed to be doing, and save some money?

Silentium Est Aureum

To be fair, Clinton is the one who said we’d be out by Christmas.

1999.

Shows how useless the Eurotrash is when they’re unable/unwilling to clean the shit out of their own backyard.

timactual

Bob Dole and other Reps. also assured us that it was only a one year commitment. A rare bipartisan moment.

desert

Bullshyt, let these ignorant countries take care of their own problems!

Ex-PH2

Take out the Euros’ trash? Only because they’re too lazy to do it themselves, right?

I’ve got an idea. We’re having flooding from heavy rains right now. 7.6″ so far and more to come. The river is already 10 feet above flood stage and rising, and drains and sewers are backing up. There is more to come tonight after this train of storms books it out of here, so why not have the National Guard come here instead of Kosovo, and help drain basements, clear junk out of drains, and fill sand bags?

I know the taxpayers here would appreciate it deeply.

lily

I don’t see it as the “Euro’s trash” when America got itself involved in WW2. We have an obligation to help with global stability now.

Atkron

Don’t we also still send guard units to the Israeli-Egypt border somewhere in the Sinai too?

Weird way to use state/federal troops if you ask me. You’d think that would be a strictly Active Duty or Reservist job.

O-4E

We have Guard units deployed all over Africa and Eastern Europe constantly these days also

Graybeard

If we took out the trash we could bring our troops home.

It’s more like being playground monitor to control the bullies – without getting to administer a whuppin to the bullies.

USMCMSgt(Ret)

Is Camp Bondsteel still in use?

Nicki

Yes.

marauder4

I was there when it was A/O Bondsteel. Cool wheat field at the time…

1610desig

Yep, let Europeans work this out…didn’t make sense we got involved…why weren’t we equally concerned about Rwanda when the Tutsis and the Hutus were sorting things out….we knew what was happening but didn’t acknowledge it…and stomping on Serbs while protecting Muslims seems particularly quaint considering 9/11 and its aftermath…

The Other Whitey

Pardon the Nicholas Cage reference, but I think he kinda nailed that one in “Lord of War,” where he observes that Western politicians and celebrities aren’t going to care about a bunch of black Africans killing eachother when there’s a white war going on in Europe’s back yard.

1610desig

Missed that movie but great quote…I try to avoid watching slack jawed mouth breathing Dickless Cage

Toasty Coastie

God speed to those going.

Cpl/Major Mike

I’m tired of this country being drawn into all the worlds shit because the fuckheads living in those places can’t take care of their own problems. Let the fucking Europeans stand up for something for once, or let the mother fuckers all kill each other. How many countries on this earth have we NOT intervened in or at least been involved in trying to help them bail themselves out? I’m an old man and I think we have been physically fighting with someone almost my whole fucking life.

David

One caveat: if the problem can’t be solved with extensive applications of targeted HE, I suggest we ignore it.

Cpl/Major Mike

Carry on.

The Other Whitey

I’m fairly confident that we haven’t intervened in Lesotho…

AW1Ed

Careful there, TOW. Don’t give the Good Idea Fairy any fodder.

ChipNASA

“How many countries on this earth have we NOT intervened in or at least been involved in trying to help them bail themselves out?

Antarctica

/continent but not a country, I know

The Other Whitey

Just wait until the Unified Emperor Penguin Federation starts cracking down on those uppity tweety birds from the Penguin Liberation Party!

Cpl/Major Mike

If the penguins were fighting our government would pick a side.

MSgt (ret), USAF

It is to laugh. Kosovo and environs is a quagmire with a capital quag. The serbs and the muslims have been going back and forth trying to destroy each other for century’s. Let them. Sick to death of having our blood and treasure wasted on inbred pieces of garbage. If the serbs can’t handle their shit, they deserve everything they get.

AW1Ed

The more things change…

FatCircles0311

Thanks, NATO.

Skippy

Holy Crapola my old stumping grounds Graf,
they are taking it easy on them way better then Hohenfels the and that Damn MUD !!!!!
Bhwhahahahaha…

Nicki

This isn’t anything new. KFOR has been there this entire time – although, unless I’m mistaken my rotation was the last one to do a full year in 2007. They’ve been doing 9-month rotations since KFOR-9.

The mission was supposed to have shrunk a bit, because ostensibly EULEX took over, but the NATO KFOR mission never went away.

lily

USA never left Kosovo. Obama took our troops off boarder patrol and declared the mission a “Success”. You no longer get a Kosovo Campaign Medal for deployment there. Now you get the Armed Expeditionary Forces Medal for deployment to Kosovo.

lily

“As the article points out, the Kosovo mission has been going on for 18 years with no end in sight.

The US Guardsmen are scheduled to assume the mission on July 19th and it will last for nine months. Because we don’t have enough going on in the world, we have to take out the Euros’ trash for them.”

How long we been in other countries around the entire world? This is apart of what the USA does. If we leave Kosovo and things deteriorate back into another war what you want the USA to do? Sit on the sidelines and watch? How about we just keep doing what were doing and leave things peaceful as possible. A big part of the reason the Euros are the way they are is because the USA chose to make it that way after WW2.