When the going gets tough, the UN gets going.

snaggletoothie on March 17, 2008 at 1:08 PM

When the going gets tough, the UN gets gone.

Let the Serbs kick the muslims out of kosovo!

Why on earth would we even consider siding with the kosovo muslims?

SaintOlaf on March 17, 2008 at 11:23 PM

I tend to agree with you.

Why on earth would we even consider siding with the kosovo muslims?

I think this limit applies to NATO as well.

Since the Kosovo conflict dates from the 1990′s it is long beyond its expiration date and we can take no further action. We also need to clear out of Afghanistan since that too has gone on even longer than Iraq, and well past the WWII time limit.

It’s no longer the 13th century and Kosovo is gone.

NNtrancer on March 17, 2008 at 1:59 PM

Indeed – I don’t have much sympathy for the Serbs. They have only themselves to blame. Tito recognised in Yugoslavia that to hold these disparate people together one needs majority groups to make concessions to minority groups via various forms of autonomy. Kosova was an autonomous province in a federal state until 1990 when the Serbs unilaterally ended its status, and later used martial law to begin a program of ethnic cleansing. The physical force approach may have worked in the 1900s, but in the present climate there were far better ways of achieving their aim of keeping Kosova under their control.

we have managed to repeat the same mistake that the Russians made in imposing its will on Yugoslavia for 40+ years. Unless a power decides to sit on the Balkans for 400 years and put enough of its resources to keep all of the ethnic communities disarmed and quiescent, the best policy may be to have them work it out for themselves — even if that means fighting each other for the next few centuries.

I don’t concur – if anything, the soviets helped to prevent the balkans from disintigrating into chaos: it was after they fell that things collapsed. A similar argument could be applied to multi-ethnic troublespots like Iraq. Agreed, there is the added issue of the security of natural resources in the Middle East, but the problem one encounters is that it is impossible to isolate these troublespots unilaterally. History shows that it is just about impossible to prevent other powers filling the vacuum with aid or alliances with one side or another, so that the fighting escalates from an internal crisis into a dangerous regional war. Better that we impose our will on the situation than let other, more imperialistic nations begin a destablising regional war. These conficts always arise in nations where boundaries have not been drawn along ethnic lines – once this has been achieved peace becomes possible.

So many questions – so much hypocrisy – and so few legitimate answers.

the UN’s police have lost a great deal of credibility:

They had credibility to begin with?

There was tremendous pressure on the Serbs to come to a political accomodation. The Europeans were as feckless then as they are now, and nobody wanted to fight over Kosovo. Kosovo reminds me a bit of Israel. Jews may have regarded Israel as their sacred land, but the facts on the ground indicated thatit was largely occupied by Muslims. Sixty years after the establishment of Israel, their war with Islam over Palestine continues. If the Serbs had been given free reign to cleanse Kosovo of its Albanian majority, there would be untold years of bloody conflict ahead. History is replete with movements and migrations of people across the globe. That’s why it’s vital that nations who wish to retain their territory resist the influx of foreigners. Someday we might have a similar situation in the American southwest. And if Mexicans have 90% of the population, would American’s be excused for trying to kill them or at the least, drive them south across the border through threats and intimidation. The Serbs missed their time. It’s no longer the 13th century and Kosovo is gone.

U.N. Battle Cry. “RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!”

- The Cat

MirCat on March 17, 2008 at 12:14 PM

The French trained the UN Police. Non?

Kosova is a different story altogether. Even today when their unemployment stands at 50% and independence for them moved so slow their allegiance to the United States and the UK never wavered. On their independence day in Times Square NY and in Pristina, Kosova their flags waved high and standing right along side every one of their flags was one of ours, 50 stars and 13 stripes waving proudly. They shouted Kosova and USA with an equal vigor.

The reason for this love they have for us comes not from a brutal dictator we saved them from but from a massacre we lifted from their land. Kosova is a province and as such did not have weapons of war. Thanks to the collapse of the Soviet Union, Serbia was left with many of these weapons. There was no fight in Serbia’s war against the Albanians in Kosova only a genocide. The Kosovar people will not forget, which is why integration back into Serbia would never be a possibility and would only re-spark the flame of war. Kosovars are a very family orientated people and everyone who lived there during the war lost relatives and neighbors in horrible ways something that will remain in their memories for a long time.

These Serbian riots are few and far between and as long as NATO follows through with an iron fist as it has promised, these will die down. The only way war would begin again is if Serbia would dedicate its military which it has already said would never happen again as it knows the bombs would fall from allied planes again.

As for negotiations, the part the Serbs occupy inside of Kosova is a mineral rich area containing a very large gold mine and other resources.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/markmardell/2008/01/mining_kosovos_future.html

The mine is a substantial part of Kosova’s future economy and bargaining it away is not something that will materialize.

NNtrancer on March 17, 2008 at 1:13 PM

Neither sides hands were clean in this, and your very admition that it was a “sacred homeland” shows this.

That issue was never addressed in any meaningful way, and so the basis of the conflict was never attended to.

The base reasons for the conflict are still there… the invasion by one society, by another.

With dis similar societys and rules that do not match, there will be cultural conflict… and it WILL get ugly.

Problem is that Clinton, and NATO, were not willing to put any type of governmental and societal framework in place that would allow coexistance… they just blew away one sides ability to wage war… they didn’t end the war…

NATO and Clinton created an unstable situation, where they created a power vacuum… this mess has been simmering for years, and has now reached the boiling point…

The situation was created by the Serbs. NATO and Clinton reacted to a situation where Serb radicals decided to ethnic cleanse Kosovo since they deemed it overrun by Albanians. It was their brutalization of the Kosovars that provoked an intervention. If you prefer the stability of tyranny, and the quiet of mass graves, then by all means, we should have left the Serbs to retake their sacred homeland by any means possible.

Will Hillary claim this as part of her “experience” as an Executive?

NATO and Clinton created an unstable situation, where they created a power vacuum… this mess has been simmering for years, and has now reached the boiling point…

Gonna be interesting to see if the MSM give Hill a pass on this…