Comments on: Kosovo Splitting From Serbia with World Cooperation

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 05:56:36 +0000

What Serbia showed was that they had learned from the previous conflict, and were doing their best to prevent civilian casualties while fighting a Muslim organization that had up to that point been considered terrorists. Clinton's legacy, besides getting blowjobs in the oval office, was blowing up large portions of a democratic nation and killing Chinese diplomats all while protecting Islamic terrorists. He was a real winner, that guy.

By: David M. McCLory

David M. McCLory — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:11:48 +0000

Serbia has solidly and consistently shown that it cannot protect its minorities. These areas must be hived off. Serbia is the author of its own misfortune.

By: Sephiroth

Sephiroth — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 07:06:45 +0000

The whole Kosovo saga is yet more evidence, as if any more was really needed, that the entire US foreign policy apparatus is fundamentally broken to the core. It's almost difficult to decide just was what the worst aspect, from the perspective of America's national interest, of the "intervention." Firstly, there were the sickening lies told by nearly everyone from Clinton to Kristol to Cohen that "hundreds of thousands" of Muslim Albanians were being "systematically slaughtered" when, in fact, HRW, AI (among others) all later determined that the pre-invasion civilian death totals were only in the hundreds, at most. On the other hand, Western client states such as Turkey, Indonesia, and Mexico carried out counter-insurgencies in the 1990's, against Kurds, Timorese/Acehians, and Chaipans repectively, that killed orders of magnitude more civilians with American and European weapons, to say nothing of the NATO bombing of Belgrade which killed thousands of innocent Serbs. To hold out Milosevic as an exemplar for what was wrong with the world in spring of 1999 was idiocy any person should have seen through. It would have been cheaper and less deadly to stopped selling Ankara, Jakarta, and Mexico City weapons, and it would have saved far more lives. Another unpleasant outcome of that debacle was the spread of the European Union's sphere of influence into the Balkans. The American elite's removal of an important obstacle to the expansion of an adversary's power has never been properly accounted for - in no small part because so many laughably see a decaying and frail Russia as our key rival in the region, rather than our real strategic adversary in that area, the European Union. There were, of course, many other baleful results of that operation, not least of which was the alienation of Russia and other Orthodox nations, but this is enough. I'll end by asking this: how exactly did the Kosovo war benefit the US national interest in any material way?

By: Nicole

Nicole — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 14:30:20 +0000

Sami,

Precisely the horse trading I was talking about. I wasn't saying that Russia particularly cares about Serbia, but I definitely see Moscow positioning itself to take up Belgrade's cause in order to exact some tradeoffs from the US and EU in other areas. If it comes to that will we be willing to sell out Georgia and Moldova to secure an independent Kosovo? I hope not, and I actually don't think we will. Kosovo probably will get its independence in the end, but it won't be nearly so simple.

By: Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator

Unpartisan.com Political News and Blog Aggregator — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 05:51:05 +0000

Bush to Propose Reducing Gasoline Consumption...

President Bush will propose reducing gasoline consumption in the United States by 20 percent over t...

By: Sami

Sami — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 03:06:25 +0000

Russia is already trying to "trade" Kosova for the breakaways in Georgia. Russia doesn't give two sh*ts about Serbia, it is only concerned about itself. The will of the U.S. and the E.U. will be followed.

By: yetanotherjohn

yetanotherjohn — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 20:32:48 +0000

Its a quagmire. We need to bring back Tito and "move in a new direction". /snark off

By: Political Animal

Political Animal — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 17:46:30 +0000

Kosovo...

KOSOVO....James Joyner comments on the latest from the Balkans:Fifteen years ago, when then-Yugoslavia was falling apart in a series of ethic civil wars, those of us who opposed American military intervention argued that no significant threat was posed...

By: Nicole

Nicole — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 16:56:44 +0000

I think the US and EU are counting their chickens a bit too early here. Russia's been making loud noises for a long time that it's not going to let this go through with out Belgrade's consent - or, to translate from diplo-speak to English, without some major concessions on our part which we may not be willing to make. In any case, I don't see this actually coming to fruition without a showdown at the Security Council, or some major horse trading behind the scenes.

By: small dead animals

small dead animals — Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 +0000

An Independent Kosovo James Joyner; Fifteen years ago, when then-Yugoslavia was falling apart in a series of ethic civil wars, those of us who opposed American military intervention argued that no significant threat was posed to U.S. vital interests. The caveat was always that, if