With Kosovo independent, Yugoslavia is finally dead.

Slate ^ | Feb. 22, 2008 | Christopher Hitchens

[Blackyce]

fighting words

The Serbs' Self-Inflicted Wounds

With Kosovo independent, Yugoslavia is finally dead.

By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Friday, Feb. 22, 2008, at 12:51 PM ET

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Someone with a good memory of the conversation once told me how Lord Carrington, then one of the "mediators" of the incipient post-Yugoslavia war, came to the conclusion that Slobodan Milosevic was a highly dangerous man. Well-disposed toward Serbia (as the British establishment has always been), Carrington told the late dictator that he understood Serb concerns about significant Serbian minorities in Bosnia and Croatia. But why did Milosevic also insist on exclusive control over Kosovo, where the Albanian population was approximately 90 percent? "That," replied Milosevic coldly, "is for historical reasons." It's a shame, in retrospect, that it took us so long to diagnose the pathology of Serbia's combination of arrogance and self-pity, in which what is theirs is theirs and what is anybody else's is negotiable.

We used to read this same atavistic proclamation by the hellish light of burning Sarajevo, and now we glimpse it again through the flames of the blazing U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, and by the glare of similar but less dramatic arsons set by Serbs in ski masks in northern Kosovo itself. But it needs to be understood that "Serbia" itself has lost nothing and has nothing to complain about. With the independence of Kosovo, the Yugoslav idea is finally and completely dead, but it was Serbian irredentism that killed the last vestige of that idea, and it is to that account that the whole cost ought to be charged.

[Cheburashka]

upon further review, the word is accepted as real and bert loses a timeout

[jeddavis]

Serbs are the closest thing there is to normal, decent, middle-class working people in the Balkans and, beyond that, they are Christians. Christians simply don't do the kinds of things Serbs have been accused of; slammites do.

Moreover the US military is stretched to the max now and Europeans wouldn't lift a finger to help albunny kosovars; you could eliminate 90% of European crime by bombing Kosovo (the albunny parts of it) and the whole world knows it. Russia is well poised to call any sort of a Jorge/Condoloser Rice bluff in this one.

[gitmogrunt]

Hitchens,just another irrelevant anglo-saxon who failed Balkans History 101 along with Clinton-Bush-Albright-Rice,McCain,et al.

[steve8714]

sorry, try agaih.

[sam_paine]

Even the US has latent sovereignty issues with its increasingly politicized Hispanic minority along its border with Mexico. It may one day experience a domestic backlash from its support for Kosovar independence from Serbia.

Of all the chatter back and forth over this, this is the most idiotic thing I've read.

If Gen. Lee and Jackson couldn't pry the south loose from the 19th century US Army, a bunch of mexican gangsters sure as hell aren't going to do any better in the 21st century.

The KKK never could gain critical mass under the -real- oppression of the US govt, so Aztlan is never going to get more than their fringe to accept "we refuse all this American welfare...we want Mexican Cleptocracy!"

[gitmogrunt]

http://www.kosovo.net/default1.html

[longtermmemmory]

divide and conquer.

This is foolish because this article was duplicated with EVERY Single little province.

Yougoslavia is not dead because all the propaganda pushed by tito for territorial aquisition is still going strong in the country-lettes.

[pgkdan]

Sorry Goober but Hitchens is a rum soaked nasty socialist, God hating bum. He doen’t convince me of anything.

[E. Cartman]

Moreover the US military is stretched to the max now and Europeans wouldn't lift a finger to help albunny kosovars; you could eliminate 90% of European crime by bombing Kosovo (the albunny parts of it) and the whole world knows it. Russia is well poised to call any sort of a Jorge/Condoloser Rice bluff in this one.

And if the US gets bogged down in Kosovo, there are any number of players willing to take advantage of the ensuing chaos. China could go after Taiwan. Iran could go after Israel.

[E. Cartman]

If Gen. Lee and Jackson couldn't pry the south loose from the 19th century US Army, a bunch of mexican gangsters sure as hell aren't going to do any better in the 21st century.

Yes, but our politicians, McCain and Bush included, haven't the testicles to stand up and defend US sovereignity. If you want to see American cowards, easiest place to find them is in The White House and in the halls of congress.

[RightWhale]

when the Russian tanks roll into Kosovo...

Only if they come on flatcar after Kosovo buys some.

[sam_paine]

Yes, but our politicians, McCain and Bush included, haven't the testicles to stand up and defend US sovereignity (sic).

Oh grow up. Sure, Bush and McCain are going to sign over everything from the Houston Ship Channel to San Diego's Naval base to the nutty narco-mexican-government for a bag of tortilla chips by executive order. What an idiotic concept.

And Ike created the Interstate Highway system merely as a way to facillitate Russian invasion troops once they were ashore.

Go sell Alex Jones somewhere else.

[JSDude1]

Its still Serbian territory even if it was (and I am not sure about your claims) were atonomous.

Do you canuck_conservative advocate for the northern half of “kosovo” to be split off from the main part of kosovo since Serbs are the predominant cultur in that part..?

[E. Cartman]

Oh grow up. Sure, Bush and McCain are going to sign over everything from the Houston Ship Channel to San Diego's Naval base to the nutty narco-mexican-government for a bag of tortilla chips by executive order. What an idiotic concept.

Like all good propagandists, you create your own strawman to knock down. In 2025,after Russian President for life Vladimir Putin recognizes Greater Azatlan, US President Chelsea Clinton, acknowledging reality, will concede that in the interests of self-determination, she will let those former states of America go in peace.

Hate to tell you, dude, most civilizations (not even Rome) don't end with a bang, they end with a whimper, exactly as our politicians are allowing ours to.

[FormerLib]

“The Kosovo-Albanians have played us like a Stradivarius. We have subsidized and indirectly supported their violent campaign for an ethnically pure and independent Kosovo.We have never blamed them for being the perpetrators of the violence in the early ‘90s and we continue to portray them as the designated victim today in spite of evidence to the contrary. When they achieve independence with the help of our tax dollars combined with those of bin Laden and al-Qaeda, just consider the message of encouragement this sends to other terrorist-supported independence movements around the world. Funny how we just keep digging the hole deeper!”—Maj-Gen. Lewis MacKenzie

[FormerLib]

Yeah, he hates Christians too.

Just like your Jihadists in Kosovo.

[Navy Patriot]

I wouldn’t stop for Christopher Hitchens or his analysis of the warm and fuzzy Albanians even if he WAS in a crosswalk.

[Bokababe]

"Hitchens has you nailed."

The only thing that Hitchens ever "nailed" was his secretary, who he left his pregnant wife for.

Hichens has a special hatred for all things Christian, and especially all things "Orthodox Christian" because the Greek Orthodox mother of his children insisted on baptizing their children, and raising them as Christians. And she financially cleaned him out when he dumped her when she was pregnant, for his younger assistant.

If there is one lesson that every man should learn early on, it is "Never piss off a Greek woman!" But Hitchens has turned his failure at that life lesson into a political crusade.

[FormerLib]

I didn’t know that about Hitchens’ wife but I’m happy to hear it! LOL!

[TigersEye]

You should, second, ask if you know of any case comparable to the Kosovo one, where a national minority was so long imprisoned within an artificial state.

Tibet?

No, I guess not as long.