Take 2:What should the United States do about the independence of Kosovo?

I thought the US (and the west in general) supported it? What does the US need to do?

 

Never mind - I don't think the poll was there yet!

 

1) Kosova has the largest untapped proven natural resources on the European Continent, including vast lignite fields.

2) The broadcast "independence" is a total farce, considering every aspect of government will continue to be controlled by EU/NATO.

3) The chief 'excuse' of ethnic cleansing that took place there was in fact the displacement of 275,000 Serbs out of Kosova over the past 3 decades.

Multinational corporations just completed the trophy landgrab of the year.

 

Bingo! They will be recognized by the US and the EU and most countries in the world, and then Kosovo will be -- finally -- open for business.

 

I need to learn more about this
cause It is interesting . . .
What is NECESSARY for a nation to be considered independent

Like. . If the Kurds in Iraq say . . . WE'RE INDEPENDENT
from Boarders A, B, and C. . . .
What makes their clain Valid or InValid

Rocket River

 

If they can win their independence wars, then it is a valid. Very simple. That's the ways it works for thousands of years.

 

Basically. . .take the land. . . and secure the land .. and it is yours?
that simple?

Rocket RIver

 

Trying to call natural Serbian migration paterns 'ethnic clensing' is more than a little disrespectful of the thousands of Albanians that were forcably evicted, raped, robbed, and/or massacred by Serbs. It's like claiming killing all Mexicans in America is justified because they are 'ethnically clensing' the US Southwest.

[rquoter]
On March 24, 1999, the eyes of the world turned to Kosovo as aircraft from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization began to bomb targets in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The start of NATO's air war against Yugoslavia was also the beginning of the bloodiest period in Kosovo since the end of the Second World War. In the twelve weeks that followed, Serbian and Yugoslav military, police, and paramilitaries expelled more than 850,000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, internally displacing several hundred thousand more. Many were robbed and beaten as they were forced from their homes, which were frequently looted and burned. Scores of women were raped. Thousands of adult males were detained, and many of them were executed, in some cases together with women, children, and the elderly, although the total number of civilians executed is still unclear (see section on Death Toll below). In more than a dozen mass killing sites, government forces tried to hide the evidence by destroying or removing bodies. The brutal campaign against ethnic Albanian civilians came to a halt only after the withdrawal of Yugoslav soldiers and Serbian police and paramilitaries and the entry of NATO forces on June 12, 1999.

[/rquoter]

source

Whether the declaration is legal or not, I have absolutely no sympathy for arguments which seek to legitimize inhuman racist butchers and war criminals like the militant Serbians during the Kosovo War. Claiming the Serb nationalist forces are misunderstood is like claiming the Holocaust was overblown.

 

Yes. But sometimes it doesn't have to be violent. A major example was India. But that's more like the Brits gave up. Previously there were also many Indian revolts before that that cost many lives. A major reason why the Brits gave up was that they were weak after WWII.

 

Basically if it's completely self-governing and no longer answers to Belgrade.

The implications are whenever something like this happens, it encourages separatist groups in the region and around the world. This is why the U.S. can't jump on the bandwagon too hard. There are PLENTY of separatist movements we DO NOT want to encourage.

In this case, the U.S. is happy with the development but has to be careful about saying so too loudly. Pretty much nobody in the world has any sympathy for Serbia besides Russia.

 

you left out:

"Celebrate, celebrate, dance to the music!"

 

Ottomaton,

There are 2 sides to every conflict and surely you don't believe that all ethnic Albanians in Kosova have been innocent while "militant Serbians" just butchered and butchered. The fact is that there has been conflict and atrocity there from both sides for decades upon decades which then began to escalate even further following Tito's passing.

I know for a fact that Serbs have been ethnically cleansed not just since '99, but for several decades now. Forced to leave for fear of their lives and not simply as part of a natural migration pattern as you state. The atrocities listed in the excerpt you posted could just as easily describe the treatment of thousands of Serb families there as well. And the reality is that there are now hundreds of thousands fewer Serbs in Kosova while there are in fact more ethnic albanians.

From the same organization you cited:

[Abuses also took place after NATO entered Kosovo in June, but this time the victims were Serbs, Roma, and other minorities who did not depart with the government forces, as well as some Albanians considered collaborators with the Yugoslav government. Vengeful Albanians, some of them Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) soldiers, harassed, beat, abducted, and sometimes killed civilians who stayed behind. The international community present in Kosovo lacked both the mechanisms and the political will to protect the endangered populations or to stop the exodus of Serbs and Roma that ensued.]

Also:

[The presence of some 230,000 persons displaced after the Kosovo conflict and 500,000 refugees from Croatia and Bosnia continued to strain the resources of Serbia and Montenegro.]


I have spent extensive periods in both Kosova and Serbia on many occasions. One of my homes is in the Balkans. Blaming regular Serbians or Albanians for all that happened is like villifying every American for Iraq. On the contrary, it was the Serbians themselves who sent Milosevic to The Hague.

Also from the same source:

[Ethnic Serbs were also subjected to persecution by the Milosevic government in 1999. Throughout the year, journalists, opposition politicians, and civil society activists were harassed, imprisoned, and sometimes beaten due to their anti-government activities or opinions. One prominent journalist, Slavko Curuvija, was murdered in April, and the police used excessive violence against anti-government street protesters in October.]

This is not much different than American forces having backed the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. Both the KLA and Milosevic were killing machines.

 

War is hell -- sometimes the winner of the land has to remove the people they defeated so they can run their country without constant strife. It's best to do it immediately as we did in the US or expect an eternity of what is happening between Israel and Palestine.

Ethnic cleansing does not equal genocide.

At any rate amazing progress overall in that region from the hell it was just 16 or so years ago.

 

Can you tell me the subtle differences between the two?

 

I sincerely promise you that there were no Albanians systematically massacring Serbs during Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was the Serbs. The KLA was a terrorist organization. They definitely preformed terrorist acts that killed Serbs. In fact, they definitely started the Serbs on the warpath. But they were not the national Army of Albania, like the national army of Serbia. It is a matter of degree. And the Serbs were 10x anything the KLA did.

As far as the Serbs sending Milosovic, I would just point out the list of wanted Serbian war criminals who have somehow managed to avoid capture for more than a decade.

The Serbs have been the instigators of every problem in that region since the Turks marched on Vienna. This is not to say that there are no good people who are Serbian. It is the political nationalist jingoists that I speak of. Ask anybody in the region besides Serbs what happened. Croats, Slovenes, Albanians, Bosnians, anybody who wasn't Serbian. The Serbs, of course, will all tell you it was a plot by big bad America, as you are doing here. I know this from personal experience speaking with individuals in all these aforementioned ethnic groups (except I've never spoken to an Albanian).

Seriously, everybody I've met from the Balkans who isn't Serbian or a Serbophile, view that squarely places the blame on Serbs. The Serbs and Serbophiles respond with what you speak of, how everybody is to blame, etc. and how America opportunistically went to war only because they want resources and hegemony. It is a serious split in perception between Serbs and the rest of the world.

I'm not hating on specific Serbs, or saying that all Serbs are bad here. I'm sure there are many fine Serbs, like every other group in the world. It just that there is an element that is very jingoistic and intent on Serbian domination of the Balkans throughout history that seems to wield undue influence in the culture.

 

By the same logic, there were no Palestinians systematically massacring Israelis also?

 

Genocide involves killing.

 

Well ethnic cleansing as I recall was a term developed to described the situation in Bosnia -- to differentiate it from the most obvious example of genocide the Nazi attempt to eliminate the Jews entirely.

I don't really care for the term ethnic cleansing -- I think it is a politically correct way to label a population that isn't fully embracing a peaceful end to the conflict (no matter how long it has lasted). Humans have been waging war since the dawn of time to win land and remove the people that were holding the land. It doesn't always mean that one side is cleansing the land of a specific type of ethnicity, but rather removing the enemy you've just defeated so they don't constantly try to win back the territory they lost.

No doubt terrible things were happening in the region, but they were constantly fighting a no win situation. Sometimes one side has to lose and be removed for the greater good of all the people involved in the conflict.