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To: Poohbah
My main complaint with the diverse peoples of the Balkans is that they have an uncanny knack for dragging in the Great (or Not-So-Great) Powers into their mess.

The "Great Powers" were dragged into this one the same way you would have to drag a fish into water. I think that's part of the problem, we keep imposing these artifical borders on them, hence the problem keeps comming up. We should have just stayed out of it and let them settle it themselves. Unfortunately, Bill left a stain on Monica's dress and the rest is history.

141 posted on 12/18/2001 4:06:28 PM PST by bob808
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To: bob808
The problem is twofold: (a) it's RIGHT on Europe's back porch (and these sorts of issues tend to wind up spreading into Europe proper through terrorism), and (b) those "artificial borders" are about the best you can do, given the rather interesting demographics several centuries of the Ottoman Empire left.

BTW, do you know what the main difference between Bosniak Muslims, Croats, and Serbs was, BEFORE this mess got started? At least for the overwhelming majority?

If you were Croat, you skipped Catholic Mass every Sunday.

If you were a Bosnian Muslim, you kind of forgot to go to the mosque every Friday.

If you were Serbian, you flipped a coin between attending the local soccer match and Orthodox Mass every Sunday...heads you went to see the soccer game and skipped Mass, tails you missed Mass and saw the soccer game instead.

It didn't matter a hill of beans until the local a-holes (not-so-ex-Communist thugs) suddenly "discovered" the joys of ethnic identity.

(BTW, I a a devout Catholic; I am particularly disgusted by Croats using the religion they ignored for 20-30 years as an excuse to go shoot at other people.)

So I tend to blame the civil war (gosh, THERE's a malapropism) on people either being mentally or morally defective, in that they chose to throw away a civil society just to keep some retread Communist hacks in power. I wish them all an improper relationship.

142 posted on 12/18/2001 4:20:31 PM PST by Poohbah
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