Free Republic

NATO commanders are now contemplating certain unfavorable scenarios that no one wanted to talk about 8 years ago when the war plans were still on the table and an exit strategy could have been forged. While diplomatic recognition can come as swiftly as the victors care to uncap their pens, real control on the ground will be a different matter. The geographic partitioning of Serbia, in this case, will look interestingly similar to another failed peace initiative: the treaty of Versailles and the disappearance of Weimar Germany. Firstly, there are simple strategic problems on the ground that will deny Kosovo...

the political consequences of a declaration of independence could be far reaching, says Dusan Reljic of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin. "Any kind of unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo violates international law," Reljic told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "And the UN and international law are going to be damaged by a unilateral declaration that is not opposed by the UN." "History does not stop the day the US recognizes the independence of Kosovo. A new phase, even more complicated phase might start," Reljic says. "We are not seeing any kind of endgame in the Balkans...

PRISTINA, Serbia (AFP) — A group of Kosovo Albanians [muslims] appealed Tuesday for donations after they ran out of money to build a statue of former US president Bill Clinton. "With this act we will express sympathy, love and respect to president Clinton," Agim Rexhepi, head of the Friends of America association, told reporters. The three-metre (10-foot) tall monument is still under construction in a studio in the city of Podujevo, 40 kilometres (25 miles) north of the Kosovan capital Pristina. "The main work that remained unfinished is casting the statue in bronze. It can only be done outside of...

WHILE most were asleep, we've walked to the brink of yet another war in the Balkans. Kosovo is a part of Serbia. That's a legal and political fact. It wants to break away and appears to have secured British and American agreement, but not, alas, the agreement of either Serbia, whose land it is, or Russia, which will veto any breakaway in the UN. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) rules the roost and has said it will make a unilateral declaration of independence soon. The Serbs cannot allow Kosovo, sacred to their orthodox Christian heritage for 1000 years, to go...

Why We Should Oppose Independent Kosovo Fjordman - 12/8/2007 Hans Rustad runs Document.no, the largest independent weblog in my country. A recent post there contained criticism of me, and I have already answered some of it. However, Mr. Rustad also claimed that I support a revisionist view of the Balkan wars of the 1990s which is "just as factually wrong, immoral and politically dangerous as David Irving's Holocaust revisionism." I consider that statement to be too awful to ignore, and decided to write a reply in English. I have said repeatedly that I believe the Balkan wars were far more...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 5, 2007 – As negotiations on Kosovo’s “final status” are expected to reach a political stalemate Dec. 10, a top commander in NATO’s Kosovo Force said today his troops are prepared for any potential conflict in the breakaway province. The commander of Kosovo Force’s Multinational Task Force East said the mood in Kosovo is “anxious” days before talks led by the United States, the European Union and Russia are likely to end in disagreement. Provincial leaders of the 90-percent ethnic Albanian enclave in southern Serbia are expected to unilaterally declare Kosovo’s independence in January or February. “When the...

Tens of thousands of Serbs are preparing to flee the troubled Balkan province of Kosovo because of fears that the region is on the brink of a devastating war. Talks to find a political solution to the future of the region collapsed last week, eight years after Nato intervened to end violence that left more than 2,000 dead. With Kosovo's new Albanian-led administration poised to declare independence from Serbia, the old hatreds are resurfacing. Many Serbs - who account for less than 10 per cent of the population - are packing their bags, fearing a new wave of "ethnic cleansing"...

On December 10, the US-EU-Russian troika seeking a mutually acceptable settlement of the future status of Kosovo will make its report to the United Nations and to the world. Given the current position of the Russian government, it is unlikely that any agreement will be reached. If this is the case, I believe that further delay would be highly inadvisable. This process, which started far too late thanks to the neglect of the Bush Administration in its first term, has run its course. With Russia threatening to veto any arrangement submitted to the U.N. Security Council, we must be prepared...

PRISTINA, Kosovo, Nov. 29, 2007 – Versus, the U.S. cable television home of the National Hockey League, has partnered with some troops deployed to Kosovo to give an early Christmas present to the peacekeepers there and their families at home. At 7 p.m. EST on Dec. 11 , everyone watching the Pittsburgh Penguins battle the Philadelphia Flyers on Versus will get to see some pictures of the American soldiers, airmen and sailors who are serving at Camps Film City and Bondsteel, Kosovo. At the same time their pictures are being shown on television in the United States, the troops will...

At a most inopportune time, the Balkans are back. On Dec. 10, the U.S.-E.U.-Russian negotiating team tasked with getting the Serbs and Albanians to agree on Kosovo's future status will report to the United Nations that it has failed. A few weeks later Kosovo's government will proclaim that Kosovo is an independent nation -- a long overdue event. The United States and most of the European Union (led by Britain, France and Germany) will recognize Kosovo quickly. Russia and its allies will not. Kosovo's eight-year run as the biggest-ever U.N. project will end with great tension and a threat of...

With no deal in sight, there are fears Kosovo may declare independence unilaterally, triggering a chain reaction of potentially violent secessions across the Balkans — and beyond. "There is a risk that the situation will destabilize" and unleash independence declarations in the ethnic Serb half of Bosnia and the ethnic Albanian-dominated north of Macedonia, said Alex Anderson, Kosovo project director for the International Crisis Group, a non-governmental group dedicated to preventing conflict.

In the book Hiding Genocide in Kosovo, the author (a worker with the international mission in Kosovo) meets some American soldiers: One interesting point to note is that when I visited the village [of Cernica] after the Kosovo-wide pogrom of March 2004, I went to the church and found that it was protected by US KFOR. There were three pleasant young soldiers from California and one from Florida. They seemed a little lost perched as they were on a hilltop beside a newly restored church that they had to defend. Three California surfers and a Miami beach veteran who really...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29, 2007 – The situation in Kosovo is “stable, but potentially fragile,” the commander of U.S. forces there said. Army Brig. Gen. Douglas B. Earhart, commander of the American contingent in Kosovo, displays a painting done by the two schoolchildren accompanying him. Earhart's unit will complete its tour of duty in Kosovo Nov. 2. Courtesy photo   (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. Army Brig. Gen. Douglas B. Earhart, commander of the American contingent in the NATO-led Kosovo Force, said he is proud of the job that his 1,500-member force has done and believes the province is...

Video montage of the Religion of Peace making a difference in the lives of children. warning: strong images of dead children killed by Islamic militants in Beslan. Never forget what not just America, but the whole world is fighting against http://shock.military.com/Shock/videos.do?displayContent=152637&page=1

29 10 2007 Tirana _ Albanian Prime Minister Sali Berisha has called on Egypt to persuade the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, OIC, member-states to recognize en bloc a possible declaration of independence by Kosovo. While presenting Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit with an overview of the situation in UN-administered Kosovo, Berisha asked his host to use Egypt’s considerable influence with the other Arab states. “After December 10, Kosovo must declare independence in coordination with the USA and the EU. It can’t be a part of Serbia because historically it has not been a part of Serbia,” Berisha said...

OUTLAWED militias are emerging from the shadows in the Balkans as Kosovo hurtles towards an independence deadline on December 10 that is likely to trigger a confrontation with Serbia. Deep frustration with the West’s stalled bid to grant the province full autonomy in the face of Serbian and Russian opposition threatens to embroil the region in another round of bloodletting. The Albanian National Army (ANA), a guerrilla group branded as “terrorists” by the United Nations in 2003, has already resurfaced, brandishing sophisticated sniper rifles and Kalashnikovs and pledging to “protect” Kosovo’s vulnerable northern fringe from Serbian aggression. Kosovo’s Serbian minority,...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6969100.stm

With Hillary Clinton surging in the polls and Democrats knifing Bush's foreign policy and praising Bill Clinton's, it's time for a reality check on a supposed triumph: Team Clinton oversimplified a complex situation in Bosnia and ended up aiding and abetting Muslim extremists. That's the conclusion of John Schindler, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College and a former National Security Agency analyst. In his new book, "Unholy Terror: Bosnia, al-Qa'ida, and the Rise of Global Jihad," Schindler reappraises the 1992-1995 Bosnian war and America's decision to come to the defense of Muslims in their conflict with Serbs. (...)...

October 27, 2007 SERBIANNA US Ambassador to Bosnia, Charles English, has issued a threat to the democratically elected President of Serb entity in Bosnia insisting that the elected Serb lawmakers must accept laws international administrator is making otherwise American response on Bosnian Serbs will be "swift and powerful". "Conflict with the High Representative is the conflict with USA. The safety and stability of Bosnia Herzegovina is in the interest of United States and we are prepared to defend it," said English in an interview to Bosnian news agencies. US Ambassador to Bosnia, Charles English, left, talking to Serb President Milorad...

September 2001, George W. Bush admonished the world, "Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." But how will the world know where to stand when America itself is with the terrorists? Such is the America that operates in the Balkans.[...] Today, this chaotic situation has moved from the unfortunate to the scandalous, with the CIA, MI6, BND [German intelligence], and others eager to build 'special relationships' with Islamic extremists bent on killing Christians, attacking Western targets, and creating a fundamentalist caliphate [...] Deliso details the bizarre arrangement by which we've allied ourselves with "nominally Muslim" Albanian...