“Might we also not require the same from the Bosnians, and especially the Albanians?”
Absolutely. But, let’s not equivocate the mass murder of thousands by decree of Serbian government officials with acts by non-sanctioned individuals.
“Imagine this scenario: illegal and quite legal aliens become the dominant demographic in a sovereign state. After a period of autonomy, and then independence supported by foreign powers, they wish, vote, or fight to annex that state to their own neighboring country, dominating, confiscating the property, exiling, or worse all those not of their particular demographic.”
And this is exactly what the Russians have done over time in Ukraine. They shipped off thousands to Siberia during Soviet era purges. The then sent many more thousands to replace these inhabitants from Russia proper.
Now, they wish to hold “elections”, which are entirely illegal according to the Ukraine constitution, inside of Ukraine. Using the “replacements” of Russian extraction to give the ignorant-to-history crowd of useful idiots, cheap, though invalid reasoning to declare Crimea...desiring to be part of Russia.
There is a lot more rationalization available for a Russian Crimea than there is for an Albanian Kosovo ... or a Mexican Texas. Yes, the Russians, first under the Czars and then the Communists, continually removed the Tartars to resettle more Russians in The Crimea. But our own history has the Cherokee Removal in its pages, which oddly parallels the Russian treatment of the Tartars.
You are absolutely correct about the rest of the Ukraine, and for that matter the Baltic Republics. To top it off, The Russians also partitioned Poland with the NAZIs, and permanently seized Karelia from the Finns, Finland also being a former possession of the hegemonic Czars.
At the risk of echoing Pat Buchanan, what does this lugubrious history have to do with the United States? More important, what ought we to do for those in these contested lands on the edge of Europe to insure "fairness" for their inhabitants? Does this give the Russians the moral right to redress the grievances of the Cherokee? Does it give the Mexicans the right to reclaim Aztlan, that vast area which was home to a few thousand Mexicans of European descent, and is now home to many millions of Mexican mestizos who have arrived in the last 70 years?