Posted on 08/25/2007 3:04:09 PM PDT by kronos77
Balkans: Remember Kosovo? The restive Serbian province is little changed from 1999 as talks go on and warfare brews. Yet this is a reminder of the multilateralism that Democrats endorse.
U.S. involvement in the Balkan wars occurred on President Clinton's watch, and we're still waiting for results. They hardly trump the progress we now seem to be making to win the war in Iraq.
Back in 1999, Clinton ordered NATO to bomb Serb positions around the breakaway province for 78 days as the United Nations dithered. Then he passed the buck to the U.N. for final resolution of Kosovo's status.
"I think that it's obvious that we are doing the right thing, and we are going to prevail," said Vice President Al Gore in April 1999.
Eight years later, 16,500 NATO boots remain on the ground as jawboning between the three U.N.-mandated diplomatic players — the U.S., the European Union and Russia — goes on. And on.
This month, the U.N. set up a 120-day diplomatic talk "surge" with a Dec. 10 deadline to resolve whether Kosovo and its 2 million citizens will go independent or become autonomous within Serbia.
Sensing indecision, hotheaded Serb nationalists and Kosovar independence militants are hinting at renewed warfare. Law enforcers report intercepting big arms shipments in Kosovo. Indecision is creating a void and emboldening troublemakers.
It's easy to see why. The U.S. and Germany call for Kosovar independence, possibly to keep Russia from gaining a monopoly on Europe's energy via Serbia. Meanwhile, Serbia, its historic ally Hungary and even Israel have doubts about a "second Albania" in the area, worrying it may become a gangster paradise or Islamofascist redoubt.
(Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...
Ping!
There are also zombies that haunt the Democrats...like the fact that the United Nations usually causes more damage than it fixes.
If HRC wins, the Balkans will be a focus—she’ll want to “fix” Bill’s debacle, and walk in Jimmuh Carter’s footsteps and “make peace”, and in the way Carter did—doing nothing but supplying US funds, and then appearing in a photo-op and later getting the Nobel Prize for doing NOTHING.
“Balkan Ghosts Haunt Democrats”
In order to be haunted by a ghost one must have a conscience. I don’t see democrats having one.
Probably though it should be noted that GWB endorsed Clinton's interventionist policies there and has continued them. None of the GOP candidates (other than Ron Paul) has a record of opposing this intervention. McCain and Thompson were thoroughly supportive at the time, for example.
Bill
Never ever, ever, ever get involved in the Balkans.
I recall hearing about and reading about our pilots being angry because they weren't allowed to do their jobs properly.
"Balkanization" has become a catch phrase. What's going on there isn't a solution, and in fact Clinton's inability to do anything but a stopgap measure did nothing to move the area forward, as Bush IS doing in Iraq. I see bloodshed in the area's future.
Kosovo was Hillary's war. The nice Albanians in NJ was her idea, also.
True, and an excellent point.
Speaking purely from an American point of view, there is no easy answer to the mess that has been made with Kosovo.
The "right answer" is that Kosovo is sovereign Serbia, period, and if we try to undo that, we are going to screw ourselves on so many levels in so many other places in the world, we might never get out from under it. But the problem is that we have created this little Albanian fiefdom in Kosovo, complete with "a president" and "a (war criminal) prime minister", who now expect to be "a country". We GAVE them those unrealistic expectations when we had absolutely no right to do so!
Once again, it is hard for me to believe that our politicians could be this uniformly stupid and incompetent. I think that what we just did is to deliberately create the circumstances for another Balkan war. It is impossible to screw up up this consistently and systematically and for anyone to believe it is happening "by accident".
The “Kosovars” are NATO’s step-children. Just help them migrate to the NATO country of their choice!
Voila, the Kosovo problem is solved.
The republican rank and file seem to get it on this one at present; how do we convey the message to politicians??
BTTT
And of course Hillary has to be in favor of what happened in Kosovo. My God, that woman has an orgasm every time she talks about the achievements of the Clinton adminstration. And also infers that we have been in the Dark Ages since Jan. 20, 2001.
I knew about McCain but I'm very, very disappointed to hear about Fred's support of Clinton's war.
I'm going to have to look into this more.
...historic ally Hungary?!
Who is this idiot?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.