Posted on 02/19/2008 9:17:13 PM PST by Jane_N
WHEN THE Great War comes, said old Bismarck, it will come out of "some damn fool thing in the Balkans." On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip shot the archduke and heir to the Austrian throne Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, setting in motion the train of events that led to the First World War.
In the spring of 1999, the United States bombed Serbia for 78 days to force its army out of that nation's cradle province of Kosovo. The Serbs were fighting Albanian separatists of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). And we had no more right to bomb Belgrade than the Royal Navy would have had to bombard New York in our Civil War.
We bombed Serbia, we were told, to stop the genocide in Kosovo. But there was no genocide. This was propaganda. The United Nations' final casualty count of Serbs and Albanians in Slobodan Milosevic's war did not add up to 1 percent of the dead in Mr. Lincoln's war.
Albanians did flee in the tens of thousands during the war. But since that war's end, the Serbs of Kosovo have seen their churches and monasteries smashed and vandalized and have been ethnically cleansed in the scores of thousands from their ancestral province. In the exodus they have lost everything. The remaining Serb population of 120,000 is largely confined to enclaves guarded by NATO troops.
"At a Serb monastery in Pec," writes the Washington Post, "Italian troops protect the holy site, which is surrounded by a massive new wall to shield elderly nuns from stone-throwing and other abuse by passing ethnic Albanians." On Sunday, Kosovo declared independence and was recognized by the European Union and President Bush. But this is not the end of the story. It is only the preface to a new history of the Balkans, a region that has known too much history.
By intervening in a civil war to aid the secession of an ancient province, to create a new nation that has never before existed and, to erect it along ethnic, religious and tribal lines, we have established a dangerous precedent. Muslim and Albanian extremists are already talking of a Greater Albania, consisting of Albania, Kosovo and the Albanian-Muslim sectors of Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia.
If these Albanian minorities should demand the right to secede and join their kinsmen in Kosovo, on what grounds would we oppose them? The inviolability of borders? What if the Serb majority in the Mitrovica region of northern Kosovo, who reject Albanian rule, secede and call on their kinsmen in Serbia to protect them?
Would we go to war against Serbia, once again, to maintain the territorial integrity of Kosovo, after we played the lead role in destroying the territorial integrity of Serbia?
Inside the U.S.-sponsored Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the autonomous Serb Republic of Srpska is already talking secession and unification with Serbia. On what grounds would we deny them?
The U.S. war on Serbia was unconstitutional, unjust and unwise. Congress never authorized it. Serbia, an ally in two world wars, had never attacked us. We made an enemy of the Serbs, and alienated Russia, to create a second Muslim state in the Balkans.
By intervening in a civil war where no vital interest was at risk, the United States, which is being denounced as loudly in Belgrade today as we are being cheered in Pristina, has acquired another dependency. And our new allies, the KLA, have been credibly charged with human trafficking, drug dealing, atrocities and terrorism.
And the clamor for ethnic self-rule has only begun to be heard.
Rumania has refused to recognize the new Republic of Kosovo, for the best of reasons. Bucharest rules a large Hungarian minority in Transylvania, acquired at the same Paris Peace Conference of 1919 where Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia-Herzegovina were detached from Vienna and united with Serbia.
Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two provinces that have broken away from Georgia, are invoking the Kosovo precedent to demand recognition as independent nations. As our NATO expansionists are anxious to bring Georgia into NATO, here is yet another occasion for a potential Washington-Moscow clash.
Spain, too, opposed the severing of Kosovo from Serbia, as Madrid faces similar demands from Basque and Catalan separatists.
The Muslim world will enthusiastically endorse the creation of a new Muslim state in Europe at the expense of Orthodox Christian Serbs. But Turkey is also likely to re-raise the issue as to why the EU and United States do not formally recognize the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Like Kosovo, it, too, is an ethnically homogeneous community that declared independence 25 years ago.
Breakaway Transneistria is seeking independence from Moldova, the nation wedged between Rumania and Ukraine, and President Putin of Russia has threatened to recognize it, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in retaliation for the West's recognition of Kosovo.
If Putin pauses, it will be because he recognizes that of all the nations of Europe, Russia is high among those most threatened by the serial Balkanization we may have just reignited in the Balkans.
Pat Buchanan ran for the Republican nomination for President in 1992 and 1996 and was the Reform Party nominee in 2000.
Buchanan is right. We insisted on sticking with the Cold War mentality when it would have been much wiser to acquiesce to the Russians’ view (it would also have given us the high moral ground).
How about if we let Russia convince Vermont to secede? /s
“By intervening in a civil war where no vital interest was at risk, the United States,...”
There is something there that Bill Clinton wants. Some personal gain exists in this for that B-stard somewhere.
I think your major worry in America would be all the southern states going to Mexico. From what I understand the mexican/spanish speaking population is alarmingly high and can easily become a “Kosovo” in your own yard in the not so distant future. I believe every American should be concerned about this, IMHO.
It is a concern. We have a growing illegal problem in our northern states as well.
“create a new nation that has never before existed and, to erect it along ethnic, religious and tribal lines, we have established a dangerous precedent.”
Pat’s right and wrong on this issue. First yes its none of our business to get involved in these far away places. HOWEVER he’s wrong to defend this idiotic fetish with arbitrary borders. If the Kwzawa tribe can’t get along with the Zuzxu tribe due to the theft of goats 3000 years ago its silly to attempt to force them together into an arifical construct of nationhood.
“its silly to attempt to force them together into an arifical construct of nationhood.”
So why are we doing so in so many other places throughout the world?
Consider yourself lucky that you come from a huge island down under, and do not border a poor nation with low IQ peasants.
Buchanan is right. May God help the Serbs, because we won’t.
We'll take care of the situation. And, keep a smile on your face.:-)
Thinking back , I recall how you guys took care of it before, you did well. You do it again and I will smile! You were right then and you are right now.
A book by Ralph Peters, Wars of Blood and Faith: The Conflicts That Will Shape the 21st Century, may be a good tutorial on the idiotcy of post colonial borders that we have been defending with utmost uselessness.
So, you support the separation of northern Kosovo from "Kosova"?
Kosovo is the West’s sacrificial lamb on the alter of Islam.
Did it stop 9-11? Will is stop the next act on Muslim terrorism against us?
Where do countries that adopt policies of appeasement eventually end up?
I regret that it's not limited to Clinton. Bush received a hero's welcome in Albania last year.
McCain is in deep with the Albanians as well.
Utter nonsense. It will never happen.
John McCain realizes what is at stake in the Balkans. Me must isolate Russia before Putin turns her into another Nazi Germany.
“John McCain realizes what is at stake in the Balkans. Me must isolate Russia before Putin turns her into another Nazi Germany.”
What John McCain is supporting is the creation of a Muslim base for al Qaeda in Europe.
Ha ha. McCain realizes that he's long been in bed with the Muzzies.
Check this out for a little historical perspective.
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a38b7e6657eee.htm
Welcome to Free Republic Catulus. Stick around. We could use a few more posters who have their eyes open.
Respect to Buchanan for saying what needs to be said, regardless of what the ignorant think.
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