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Recently, the House passed, by an overwhelming margin, a resolution to condemn the Russian Federation for actions considered hostile and aggressive within its sphere of influence, specifically with regard to the politically torn country of Ukraine. Ten Members voted “nay,” myself among them. I wish to explain why I took this unpopular position. Above all, while Vladimir Putin’s government may well have engaged in questionable behavior toward neighboring countries, Resolution 758 was nothing more than gratuitous, needlessly provocative and shortsighted. Moreover, reasonable observers the world over can see it as tantamount to a declaration that Russia is America’s enemy. The...

From Times OnlineOctober 26, 2007 Putin warns Europe over Iran and Kosovo at EU summit (Miguel A Lopes//EPA) Vladimir Putin at the EU-Russia Summit at Mafra Palace, near Lisbon, today Jack Malvern and agencies Tensions between Russia and the West over sanctions against Iran will be laid bare today as President Vladimir Putin attends a summit with EU leaders in Portugal. The Russian leader described supporters of tough policies as "mad people wielding razor blades" after the US imposed economic sanctions on the Islamic republic yesterday in an attempt to curb its nuclear programme. Mr Putin, who is at the...

Maria Bamieh, a British prosecutor at the heart of EULEX corruption revelations, says the only way to restore faith in the EU rule of law mission in Kosovo is by holding an external enquiry. The scandal erupted on Monday (27 October) when Kosovo daily Koha Ditore wrote, citing evidence from leaked EULEX documents, that senior officials colluded with suspects in criminal cases, took bribes to shut down investigations, and quashed internal EULEX probes. …

To make a difference going forward, Trey Gowdy and the House’s Benghazi select committee may want to ask how the U.S. got involved in Libya in the first place. What they will discover is that Barack Obama borrowed a page from the Clinton playbook on Kosovo, a lethal exercise in mendacity unparalleled in recent American history. Much of the mischief I unearthed in my forthcoming book, You Lie!, I expected to find. This nugget surprised me. In his March 2011 address to the nation, Barack Obama laid out the case for America’s surprise military intervention in Libya. “We knew that...

Kosovo police say they have arrested at least 40 people in a major operation targeting Islamic radicals suspected of fighting alongside extremists in Iraq and Syria. […] The police operation is the largest ever against suspected Islamic radicals in Kosovo. Authorities have been on alert as a growing number of ethnic Albanians have joined militants in Syria and Iraq and appeared on social media in attempts to lure more followers. …

The Battle of Kosovo 1389 “Why do Serbs celebrate defeat?” comes the question, every June 28. The short and simple answer is, they don’t. But a longer and more complicated answer is needed to explain it properly. June 28 (or 15th, in the Julian calendar), Vidovdan, is the date on which the Orthodox Christian host of Prince Lazar confronted and battled the Ottoman Turks at the Field of Kosovo in 1389. At the end of the day, both Lazar and the Turkish sultan Murat I were dead, and the Turks had left the field. Initial reports, in fact, spoke of...

..."Free" Serbia, as such, would continue to “exist” until 1459 when the Serbian lands finally and completely fell to the Turks, and a whole new chapter in Serbian history began that was to last for several centuries. During those centuries, Serbs would become integral to the “Eastern Question” involving another great empire, that of Russia. They would become increasingly significant to the Austrians, who would not only use and covet the Serbs as able warriors to keep the Turks from the gates of Vienna, but who would come to have their own self-serving agenda with regards to the Serbian lands....

Russian President Vladimir Putin charges that Western support for the newly declared state, torn from Serbia this week, is "immoral and illegal" behavior that will provoke a global storm of separatism and explode the international order. Jubilant Russian nationalists claim that "Western betrayal" has freed the Kremlin from any obligation to follow international laws in its own neighborhood. Kosovo was seized by NATO in a 1999 war after Serbia was accused of the ethnic cleansing of the tiny territory's mainly Albanian population. Russia opposed the war, but was persuaded to help negotiate a truce following 78 days of NATO air...

Could the Balkans, rather than previously accepted areas such as the Strait of Gibralter, have been the entry point for the first men in Europe? ORESHETZ, Bulgaria (AFP) - A team of 20 Bulgarian and French archeologists are trying to prove this theory after 11 years of excavation and research in the Kozarnika cave in northwestern Bulgaria. The digging up at this mountainous site of traces of human activity dating back 1.4 to 1.6 million years throws into question theories about when and where man first set foot in Europe. According to current theories, the Europeans' prehistoric ancestors came into...

Commenting on the recent recognition that NATO bombed Serbia without the permission of the UN Security Council , the Serbian president said yesterday that it is reasonable to expect that Serbia should be back on her feet by and with a compensation made ​​for injustice. Marking that the NATO bombing of Serbia 1999 was uncivilized method precedent " for ever , and for ages " , something which would shame even d barbarous nations from pre-Christian period , Serbian President Tomislav Nikolic in yesterday's speech on the occasion of the Day Of Army of Serbia at the central celebration in...

U.S. President Barack Obama has caused confusion after claiming yesterday that Kosovo held a UN-assisted referendum for self-determination – misleading people over the true origins of the country. The U.S. President used the example to hit out against Russia's annexation of Crimea, but experts have noted that no such referendum took place, and implied that Obama's "incredible mistake" should elicit a retraction or correction from the White House.

Barack Obama’s speech on Ukrainian crisis seems to have left the public confused as he claimed that Kosovo broke away from Serbia “after a referendum”. But attentive listeners quickly pointed Obama’s gaps in history – there was no referendum in Kosovo. President Obama was speaking Wednesday at The Center for Fine Arts in the heart of Brussels, Belgium, and was telling the youth crowd mostly about Russian-Ukrainian conflict over the strategic Crimean Peninsula. He lashed out at Russia for “violation of international law, its assault on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” Obama recalled the conflict around Kosovo and NATO’s involvement,...

President Barack Obama on Wednesday sought to debunk criticism that America has acted hypocritically in condemning Russia’s actions in Ukraine, dismissing any comparison to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, MSNBC reported. The president also argued that the comparison between Crimea and Kosovo makes no sense. “Russian leaders have further claimed Kosovo as a precedent, an example, they say of the West interfering in the affairs of a smaller country … But NATO only intervened after the people of Kosovo were systematically brutalized and killed for years.” “And Kosovo only left Serbia after a referendum was organized not outside...

Speaking at the press conference after the EU-US summit yesterday the US President wrongly suggested that Georgia "is not currently on a path to NATO membership". In fact the country has been on the path to membership since 2008. At the North Atlantic Council in Bucharest that year the attending Heads of State and Government agreed the following statement: "NATO welcomes Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic aspirations for membership in NATO. We agreed today that they will become members of NATO." Former Georgian Ambassador to London Giorgi Badridze, told Breitbart London: "President Obama's remarks could hardly have come at a worse time –...

U.S. President Barack Obama has caused confusion after claiming yesterday that Kosovo held a UN-assisted referendum for self-determination – misleading people over the true origins of the country. The U.S. President used the example to hit out against Russia's annexation of Crimea, but experts have noted that no such referendum took place, and implied that Obama's "incredible mistake" should elicit a retraction or correction from the White House. The error came in a speech delivered at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Brussels, and has been remarked upon to Breitbart London by regional experts from both the United Kingdom and indeed...

Fifteen years ago this week, I broke a promise I'd given to myself: After being captured and threatened with execution by Kosovar guerrillas the year before, I had sworn to give up war reporting. Now I was on my way to Belgrade to report on the effects the NATO bombing campaign was having on Serbia. When friends challenged my decision, I explained that I thought the course of history was changing at that very moment and I had to document it. I was wrong about the documenting-it part: I stayed in the region for six weeks, writing a number of...

In Kosovo and Honduras, Obama-ite foreign policy gave Putin effective precedent.‘Your independence is irreversible, absolutely irreversible.” So declared Vice President Joe Biden, thrilling a parliamentary assembly in Pristina, Kosovo. These were still the early months of the Obama administration, and the vice president was touring the Balkans to take a victory lap in the breakaway Serbian territory whose independence he’d done so much to champion as an influential senator. As Vladimir Putin tucks away Crimea, just as he clawed South Ossetia and Abkhazia back from Georgia five years ago, Kosovo is worth remembering. So is President Obama’s staunch support of...

MADRID—When Crimeans voted to secede from Ukraine and join Russia—under the watchful gaze of Russian troops—some Spaniards viewed the drama through the lens of a conflict much closer to home. Spain's Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo said "the parallelism is absolute" between Crimea and Catalonia, the wealthy industrial region that has scheduled a nonbinding referendum on independence from Spain for November. Sunday's referendum in Crimea and the one planned in Catalonia each violates its nation's constitution, Mr. Garcia-Margallo said Monday, and thus "by definition violates international law." Catalan officials ridiculed his attempt to tar Catalonia with the Crimean brush. Catalans...

Seventy-six years ago, the “Sudetenland crisis” was the headline in the world’s newspapers. This revolved around the right of ethnic Germans living in what was then called Czechoslovakia, whom it was claimed were living under an oppressive Czech government who banned their language, traditions and free speech. Konrad Henlein, the leader of the Czech NSDAP (Nazi party), led the effort for Sudeten independence, with ever-increasing demands on the Czech government. In reality, Henlein was working under strict orders from Berlin, and when the Czech government capitulated to every demand to avoid a German invasion, the demands turned into manufactured and...

KIEV - The man Russian President Vladimir Putin has cast as one of Europe's potential new Adolf Hitlers is a little late for coffee this Saturday morning. Igor Mazur, or Topoyla (Poplar) as he's known because he's 6'7" is the leader of the Ukranian Right Sector at Maidan, Kiev's Independence Square. The Right Sector are the radical nationalists of this Ukranian Revolution. There are others: the right-wing Svoboda (Freedom) Party, for one, which has an actual political following, 12 percent of the vote in the last elections. It used to identify itself as a national socialist movement, just like the...