Posted on 02/22/2007 9:19:23 PM PST by Bokababe
February 22, 2007 (Tanjug) - Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton said on Wednesday that ultimatums or imposed solutions could not be the right way to solve the future status of Kosovo.
Bolton is against an imposed solution to the Serbian province of Kosovo that would be unacceptible to the Serbian government because it is unlikely that such a resolution would ever be adopted by the Security Council.
Speaking for the Voice of America, he said that the future status of Kosovo should be acceptable to all sides.
If one side insists on independence, it is evident that there would be no agreement, Bolton said and added he believed that the Serbian government was prepared to offer a high level of independence to Kosovo Albanians and that he hoped that a negotiated solution would be reached.
Bolton said that Serbia could not be divided without the agreement of its government and that this issue was not in the competence of other countries or the United Nations, because this was the new and democratic Serbia and not Milosevic's old Yugoslavia.
It would be unprecedented if the United Nations interfered in the affairs of a country in democratic development and adopted its own solution, he said and added that China and Russia, each for its own reasons which may not have anything to do with Serbia, would not want a precedent to be set in this way.
Bolton said that many at the United Nations believed that under UN Security Council Resolution 1244, the UN Security Council had the right to impose a new resolution if the solution was not acceptable to both sides.
He said he believed that it would be very unwise if the UN Security Council tried to impose any solution - either Ahtisaari's plan or something else, because Russia or China, or both countries, would veto such efforts.
The UN Security Council should continue putting pressure aimed at continuing with the negotiations, refrain from imposing artificial deadlines and insist on goodwill approach to negotiations by both sides and finding of a solution, Bolton said.
Bolton is a good man!
That's why the Democrats hate him!
Wonder if Bolton would insist the Founders had to find an agreement that all sides would agree to, or if they had the right to independence.
I don't recall the Founders breaking any international laws or boundaries...and this is the 21st century. I'd like to think we've progressed a bit in terms of whose land is whose...I think those aforementioned laws were put in place to prevent occurrences like this from happening.
Have we 'progressed' beyond recognizing "these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
Either you believe in political self determination, or you believe 'international law' should dictate who lives under what government. I note the Founders didn't appeal to 'internation law' when deciding the boundaries of the King's power.
The Founders were not attempting to steal land from a recognized neighboring nation.
This is more akin to Mexicans in Texas, Arizona or California deciding to create an independant nation out of a piece of those States. Would you give it to them? If so, then I suggest you give them your house first!
PS The Founding Fathers didn't deal in sex slaves, drugs, and illegal arms. so don't insult them by comparing them to the Muslim Albanian Mafia stealing Kosovo!
They don't call it the Indian Treaty Room of the White House for nothing, FRiend.
This is more akin to Mexicans in Texas, Arizona or California deciding to create an independant nation out of a piece of those States.
You do know how Texas came to be right? American immigrants to Mexico decided they wanted their independence from the Mexican government. They fought for it and earned it. They didn't didn't trifle about 'international law' and 'boundaries', they appealed to the spirit of the Declaration of Independence and encouraged Americans to come and help them in their fight for self government. CA and AZ were carved from Mexico by the U.S. by force, and threat of force. You need to check out the history before trying to use it to buttress your argument.
Would you give it to them? If so, then I suggest you give them your house first!
I prefer political self-determination for all people, how about you?
PS The Founding Fathers didn't deal in sex slaves, drugs, and illegal arms. so don't insult them by comparing them to the Muslim Albanian Mafia stealing Kosovo!
The Founders were happy smugglers, breaking the Crowns diktats on trade at every turn. John Hancock, the guy with the signature on the DoI so big that the King could read it without his glasses, was a smuggler. The Constitution the Founders wrote and adopted protected the slave trade in the U.S. explicitly. The U.S. was also quite happy to trade in tobacco and rum, the drugs of the age. Insofar as the question of 'illegal arms', it was the men on Lexington Green who opposed the King's efforts to confiscate their arms that inspired Patrick Henry's "Liberty or Death" speech and sparked the Revolution.
I don't assert that all, or even most, elements of society in Kosovo are upstanding in your eyes or mine, but I do assert their political self-determination is a human right, and it's their right, not ours or the UN's, to tell them how and by whom they will be governed.
To make Texas analagous to Kosovo you would have to turn things on their head! You'd have a scenario where Mexico pretty much defeated the secessionists. That The United States and the European powers stepped in and bombarded Mexican ports and coastal towns killing civilians and military alike.
The "fighting" is stopped when Russia brokers a deal between Mexico and the US and it's allies where Mexico agrees to withdraw it's military from Texas with the proviso that it is still Mexican territory!
But in this case it was an international airforce which "won" Kosovo for the Albanians. The Albanians without incredible international help from several of the strongest nations of the world wouldn't have Kosovo - nor either, probably Albania. It was Austria which created Albania as a way to block Serbia from the sea.
So if the international community earned Kosovo and funds and supports it to the hilt, then the Albanians didn't earn it - they were/are simply tools.
The vexing question is: Under whose authority, has the UN been given, ANY right to partition, a sovereign nation, be it Serbia, or Bum Orgy, Utah? |
Defence & Foreign Affairs describes the players & scenario impeccably http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1789894/posts
What a find most interesting about the thread you just posted the link to is that the usual blow hard anti-Serb panderers stayed very clear of that thread.
Please re-write your post.
What a = What I
Good point.
Remember your words when the illegal immigrants declare self-determination for themselves in Aztlan, you will come to regret them.
The founders weren't dealing with a province that had been cleansed of its historical inhabitants by Hitler and Clinton and invaded by an influx of illegal jihadi immigrants from a neighboring third world muslim craphole.
Political self determination only applies to the legitimate owners of the land. Kosovo is majority muslim today only because muslims forcefully invaded it in the 1400's, and have been forcefully driving out its original Serb inhabitants ever since with no compensation for their stolen lands. This invasion has escalated dramatically since 1941 when Kosovar muslims enlisted the assistance of Hitler to drive the remaining Serbs out by force. They left by the hundreds of thousands, and tens of thousands of those who didn't leave were sent to concentration camps or executed on site.
Texas was a virtually uninhabited Mexican province when the Americans showed up. Prior to the 1820's its ONLY organized settlements were a cluster of pirate hangouts on the gulf coast and a couple tiny ex-mission towns inhabited by old Spanish landowner families. The majority of those Spaniards sided with the Americans during revolution.
The Hispanic residents of Texas today (as well as those in California and New Mexico and Arizona) are mostly immigrants from places like Yucatan and Chiapas or even Central and South America. They have no more of "indigenous" claim on Texas than the Eskimos do.
The actual indigenous people of the American southwest are the Indian tribes such as the Comanches, Apaches, Pueblos, Coushattas etc. all have reservations in these states today or are mixed among the Anglo inhabitants. Virtually none of them speak Spanish and none any direct relationship to the Mexican illegals that are flooding into the region today.
Santa Anna's Mexican army, just like most of the illegal immigrants today, was composed of people from hundreds and even thousands of miles away who had absolutely no ancestral connection to Texas. The only true "indigenous" inhabitants of Texas were all North American Indian tribes like the Comanches that are still around today, and none of them speak Spanish.
So the Colonies weren't built on land that was historically inhabited by Indians? You really need to think these things through. The Founders also certainly had eyes on continuing the spread West, irrespective of who lived there 'historically'.
Political self determination only applies to the legitimate owners of the land. Kosovo is majority muslim today only because muslims forcefully invaded it in the 1400's, and have been forcefully driving out its original Serb inhabitants ever since with no compensation for their stolen lands.
The Indian analogy becomes more fitting all the time, doesn't it? Unless you want to contend that the original European invaders (since the 1500's) of the Americas were atheists that didn't drive the Indians west, breaking treaty after treaty in the process. Should only the native peoples of the Americas have political self determination on this continent, since the European invaders only came a few centuries ago?
The actual indigenous people of the American southwest are the Indian tribes such as the Comanches, Apaches, Pueblos, Coushattas etc. all have reservations in these states today or are mixed among the Anglo inhabitants.
So, is the equitable solution having the Kosovar muslims create some reservations on the parts of Kosovo they don't want (today) and herding the Serbs there? Would that strike you as ok?
Personally, I think Clinton's war against Serbia, lacking Congressional authority and exceeding the statutory 'emergency' time period of the War Powers Resolution was the primary reason he should have been impeached. Sadly, the Republicans had no spine and did not force him to stop. I care as much about the refugee situation in Kosovo as I do Darfur, which is to say - zero. If you want to help the Serbs take on the Kosovar muslims, well Johnny get yer gun and go do it. Form an Abraham Lincoln Brigade of like-minded friends and do what you think is best. Just for god's sake don't drag the American taxpayer and soldier into, because it has zero to do with protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States.
Even at their peak, the North American Indians were a very diffuse and largely nomadic population. Their descendants are still around today. None of them speak Spanish though, and few if any are seriously clamouring for independence.
Should only the native peoples of the Americas have political self determination on this continent, since the European invaders only came a few centuries ago?
First off, most reservations today enjoy a degree of self determining autonomy. Second, most of them enjoy a beneficial economic relationship with the states they're located in through tourism. Third, few if any are trying to obtain independence beyond that. The Kosovo analogy fails.
So, is the equitable solution having the Kosovar muslims create some reservations on the parts of Kosovo they don't want (today) and herding the Serbs there?
First, the muslims want all of Kosovo plus a chunk of the surrounding territory. Second, they tend to want all Serbs dead or forcefully converted to islam. That makes any plan that involves cohabitation impossible. Since the muslims obtained most of the territory they have now with the direct assistance of evil men like Hitler, I'd prefer that any solution to the land ownership solution to the problem didn't attempt to sustain the Nazi-drawn borders of the Balkans. Nor should it give assistance to the jihadis, whose expansionist designs and land grabs were being held in relative check in the 50-something years between Hitler's departure and Clinton's arrival.
In other words, the U.S. shouldn't be taking sides with the Kosovars in this one. At that includes allowing the Serbs to fight back against the terrorist jihadis.
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