Posted on 01/08/2008 7:31:08 PM PST by Bokababe
WASHINGTON -- A former U.S. secretary of state says there are "strong reasons for opposition" to Kosovo's independence.
Lawrence Eagleburger, who was also the United States ambassador to Belgrade, pointed out Monday that "the disagreement over Kosovo can in fact be narrowed down to a conflict of the principles of self-determination and sovereignty."
"It is deeply distressing that the international community, including the U.S., is advocating the carving away of a part of the territory of one country, and is supporting the proclamation of that part of territory as an independent state," Voice of America quoted Eagleburger as saying.
"This is not something that the world would want to be established as a tradition. There are very good reasons for the opposition to the international efforts to separate Kosovo from Serbia," Eagleburger said.
While "it can be argued that there are problems" between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians, he said, "the actual problem is in creating a practice where the international community would take upon itself the right to order or secure through pressure the seizing of certain territory from nominal hosts, and to strip them of their sovereignty over that particular territory," Eagleburger concluded.
Meanwhile, The New York Times reported Sunday that "early this year, United States President George Bush and the European Union are likely to recognize the independence of Kosovo, with heavy opposition from Serbia and Russia, but such a decision may have unwanted consequences."
"If Kosovo successfully achieves statehood, the Republic of Srpska, the Serb entity in Bosnia, will be tempted to follow suit in reprisal, slicing Bosnia almost in half."
"Meanwhile, Belgium has been gripped by talk about repeating Czechoslovakia's 1993 'velvet divorce', with Flemings and Walloons possibly splitting and forming their own little states," a piece entitled "Independence Daze", written by Gary J.Bass, a Princeton University professor, points out.
"Without clear standards of justification, Western approval for Kosovo's statehood could make it even harder to persuade the recalcitrant Sudanese government to allow joint UN-African Union peacekeepers to deploy effectively in Darfur, lest a protected Darfur one day seek independence, too," Bass said.
"The costs of fogginess are too high, and we aren't the ones who pay them," said Bass, stressing that "the claims for the independence of Kurdistan from Iraq or Chechnya from Russia or Transdniestria from Moldova should not be ignored, either."
Just wait until ethnic Mexicans move to carve out the Southwest. It will Kosovo cubed.
Eagleburger is not one of my favorite memories. But he deserves great credit for saying this when virtually everyone has been backing the Albanians. There has been almost total silence or complicity on the part of conservatives.
Bush, on the other hand, has been acting like an idiot on this issue. Saying that the US will recognize an independent Kosova is an invitation for the terrorists to declare independence unilaterally. Clinton, Blair, and Schroeder are mainly to blame, but Bush now will share that blame if he doesn’t change his position pronto.
I can think of many reasons why clinton helped the Muslim terrorists in the Balkans, but I don’t know why on earth Bush is following in his footsteps.
After Kosovo, which terrorist group will be next to get it’s new “homeland”?!
Mmmmm! Eagleburger!!!
Reversing the major political action of the USA, an action that involved a war in Europe and got many people killed, will be not only humiliating but also legally dangerous. It is understood, of course, that Albanians played the US like a fiddle, and yet another blowback from this CIA-advised disaster is inevitable. Everyone said at day zero, why don't we leave Yugoslavians (whoever they are) settle their problems amongst themselves? But no, a certain person wanted to show the world who is the boss (it was kind of unclear at the moment.) Well, it only cost the US one stealth fighter lost and then recovered by the opposition for reverse engineering.
And now the only good solution is to back out, to return Kosovo to Serbia and to say nothing about how it restores the law and order in the province. This good solution is also not without danger because what is the US-funded and NATO-trained KLA is to do? The militants are likely to fight (can't make their 72 virgins wait) and that will be the real war now, not those police actions that Belgrade was running back then (and got bombed for that.)
My prediction is that this slow-moving train wreck will continue happening as we watch because nobody in the US administration, or in Europe, is sufficiently brave to do anything. Seeing this lack of action, the KLA proceeds to separate, after which Serbia sends the troops in. Fearless NATO peacekeepers will quickly retreat, wisely unwilling to fight other people's war, and then the real battle begins between the KLA and the Serbians. Serbia will win, assuming lack of further interference, and KLA retreats into Albania to hopefully stay there forever. Europe saw too many of those "liberation armies" to tolerate another one.
If news reports are accurate, it's worse than that. Yes, there's a certain lack of action on the international front because Russia would block a UN resolution in the Security Council.
But Bush has told the KLA that he will recognize them if they declare independence unilaterally. That's what I really, really don't understand. It's an invitation to trouble. Bad enough to sit back and do nothing, but this is worse than doing nothing.
I see that as a quite accurate analysis. Barring another NATO/mostly US intervention, Serbian army will prevail, their weakened state not withstanding. Furthermore, NATO and US being quite occupied in the middle east/Afghanistan, they’re not in a position to really intervene in Kosovo, while Russians have staked a good amount of their foreign policy credibility on opposing Kosovo independence. Unilateral support for that by US and EU is, in my opinion, a sizeable miscalculation of opposing parties (Russia & Serbia)’s stakes in this particular game, and, those are elements that real crisis are made of.
Ultimately, Russians cannot accept Kosovo independence without appearing to be completely impotent having staked so much opposing said independence, and, have significant levers to apply against the EU in retaliation, the least of which could be an actual light military option in Kosovo (per Stratfor analysis). I tend to agree. They have way too much at stake within their remaning sphere of influence, and way too much to lose should such precendent be set. The US and the EU don’t expect such commitment on behalf of Russians, and, that spells trouble.
Because the government is essentially run by career bureaucrats - not by the elected officials. That's why.
I wonder if that stealth technology went to Iran (and Russia).
I can’t think of any reasons Clintoon helped the Muslems of Kosovo...except he wanted some kind of “war” that included only planes dropping bombs on innocents just to make himself look like a big, strong ruler....
"It is deeply distressing that the international community, including the U.S., is advocating the carving away of a part of the territory of one country, and is supporting the proclamation of that part of territory as an independent state," Voice of America quoted Eagleburger as saying.
A little too late, youBFB
Thats odd, I personally could care less.
The State Department incompetence knows no bounds.
Today Madaline Albright raised her craggy vissage to pontificate about hillary. Her incompetence lead the quagmire in the balkans.
This kosovo independence BS is about salvaging the STATE DEPARTMENT not serbia.
You have to wonder what the bone heads are thinking at teh state department.
Then again this could be a set up for an easy lose for the USA in order to give the USA a “defeat” which the left can use to strenghten their positions inside the bureacracies of the USA.
Saudi Campaign Contributions.
Bush goes to Saudi Arabia, magically kosovo pops back into the news.
Same with Rice and Clintons recent trips.
There are a number of plausible reasons. For one, it was presented as an NWO thing. Tony Blair gave the big speech in Washington at the NATO anniversary. Clinton has always wanted to be seen as a One Worlder. For a second, it was a distraction from Monica. For a third, it was multi-culti to help the Muslim terrorists against the Christian Serbs. For a fourth, the Albanians are big-time drug smugglers, and when they took over Kosovo heroin smuggling into Europe doubled. I can't imagine that clinton didn't get a cut of the action, since he had worked with the big drug cartels ever since he was a teenager in Hot Springs, and retained his connections with international drug smugglers while he was in the White House.
The bureacrats run everything unless their orders are countermanded from the top. So foreign affairs that are under the radar are mostly run by bureaucrats, true.
But Kosovo isn’t under the radar. It is an obvious threat to stability, and it’s well known. So Bush has at least had the opportunity to decide whether or not to back the bureaucrats.
Moreover, whether or not he cares about Kosovo, he certainly cares about Russia, and he is aware that Putin is very angry about this.
Finally, this is the kind of thing that can break out of control and really bite his administration in the *ss. He still has nine months as a lame duck as he struggles to retain control. Why would he want something like this to blow up in his face just as the election is approaching? You can see why some of the careerists in the CIA and at State would want it, because they work for the clintons. But why would Bush help them undermine his own administration?
All this is apart from the justice of the case and our own national interest, both of which argue against allowing, let alone being complicit in, a breakaway.
In my opinion, I just don't think Bush either cares - or has time to care.
That is, since the 2000 election, he's had 9/11, two wars (Afghanastan-Iraq), Iran, North Korea, the Middle East (Syria-Lebonan-Israel), Hurricanes (Katrina-Rita), Immigration etc. to contend with.
It seems to me that Bush et al don't see that allowing Kosovo to become an independent state as a threat to stability down the road. And, like you, I happen to disagree.
I can: it’s called appeasement. Feed Orthodox Serbia to the Islamist crocodile in hope of being eaten later.
Don’t anyone try to tell me Klintoon or any of the Euroweenies actually believed there was a genocide going on. AFP and the LA Times debunked it in real-time, and any intelligence agency worth spit knew as much, too.
Back in 1998, it took about 10,000 police (3,000 anti-terror; JSO and PJP troops mostly) to pretty much take the entire KLA out. This was from early August to mid-October. The (then) Yugoslav Army was used to seal the borders and block any escape/infiltration routes and occassionaly for artillery support (should any individual action take longer than say 48 hours).
In November, Richard Holbrooke arrives in Belgrade for "peace talks" and saves the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) from complete annihilation. The KLA was at that time on State Dept's list of terrorist organizations (they removed it soon after).
Left alone, Serbia would need about 90-120 days of joint Gendarmerie/military action to eliminate the KLA (now called the Kosovo Protection Corps, a sort of police force under international tutelage).
Eagleburger is a has-been, he has nothing to lose politically so he can afford to make the statement. Maybe the first time he’s been on the right side of an issue in a long time.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.