Kosovo: Back to Square One
The United States government and its West European partners have given up on calling a U.N. Security Council vote on their joint resolution supporting Kosovo’s independence. They will initiate direct talks between Belgrade and Pristina instead, as Serbia and Russia have demanded all along. U.S. Ambassador at the UN Zalmay Khalilzad said there would be four months of negotiations between the parties under the auspices of the Contact Group. “We hope that during the course of those negotiations, the parties will come to an agreement,” Khalilzad said; but no one is saying what would happen if no agreement is reached after those 120 days.
In other words, we are back at Square One on Kosovo—exactly where we had been at the end of 2005, before Marti Ahtisaari started his ill-fated mission to gerrymander an independent “Kosova.”
It would be amusing and instructive to compile a collection of quotes made since that time by assorted politicians, pundits, bureucrats, academics and legislators to the effect that Kosovo’s independence is inevitable and imminent. Amusing, because so many luminaries—Tom Lantos, Joseph Lieberman, Nicholas Burns, Daniel Serwer and Richard Holbrooke, among others—were so obviously wrong; and instructive because their single-minded push for Kosovo’s independence is turning into yet another foreign policy disaster for the United States.
But old habits die hard. Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Daniel Fried went to Belgrade last month to tell the Serbs that the game was up:
Kosovo will be independent. That is not simply an opinion; it is also a statement of where we think the result will be. Serbia’s leaders need to get beyond denial. They need to stop telling the Serbian people that it will not happen. They need to tell the Serbian people the truth which is that Milosevic lost Kosovo when he went to war with NATO and committed atrocities against the Kosovars. I will tell the truth if the Serbian leaders cannot, and that truth is that Serbia will not rule in Kosovo any more than Hungary will rule in the Vojvodina. It’s gone. It’s over.
Fried’s shrill tone, bordering on hysteria, reflected weakness, rather than strength; it brought to mind Goebbels’s famous Totalen Krieg speech in the aftermath of Stalingrad. In a similar vein, at the end of June President George W. Bush was in Tirana, telling his enthusiastic hosts that America has made up her mind on this issue (“our support is solid, firm”); and only last week Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said, “We are committed to an independent Kosovo and we will get there one way or another.”
The time has come to shake Bush, Fried, Rice et al from their pseudo-reality and explain to them what they dare not tell themselves: “we” will not get there this year, or next, or any other, any more than “we” did in 2006. In other words, it is time to tell them that Kosovo will NOT be independent. That is not simply an opinion; it is also a statement of diplomatic and political reality. America’s leaders need to get beyond denial. They need to stop telling themselves and the world that it will happen. They need to tell the American people the truth which is that Bush lost his Kosovo gambit when he turned it into a test of Russian resolve, after all the atrocities his predecessor committed against the Serbs. Chronicles will tell the truth if the U.S. Administration leaders cannot, and that truth is that their proteges will not rule in Kosovo any more than America will rule in Vietnam. It’s gone, Mr. Fried, it’s over.
It is by now evident that independence will not be steamrolled through the Security Council, and no feasible scenario to bypass the UN is on the horizon. The time has come for some real negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina—with no time limits and no preordained outcomes.
What the advocates of Kosovo’s independence fail to grasp is that for the first time in two decades a great power is able, willing, and even determined to support and meaningfully defend a Serbian position in the mosaic of post-Yugoslav disputes. That power is Russia, and Putin’s motivation is not Orthodox or Slavic solidarity. It has little to do with Kosovo per se, or Serbia as such, and a lot to do with Russia’s return to the world stage as a self-confident great power that has had enough of American faits accomplis and dictates typical of the Yeltsin era.
Throughout those two decades the United States’ position has been admirably consistent. As Doug Bandow points out, successive administrations’ policy amounted to the question “What the Serbs want?” and, upon hearing the reply, a firm and unrelenting decision that they cannot have it and never will have it.
Franjo Tudjman’s ethnic cleansing of hunderds of thousands of Serbs from the Krajina was thus aided and abetted by the U.S. on the grounds that Croatia had the right to protect her sovereignty and territorial integrity against Serbian separatism. Islamic fundamentalist Alija Izetbegovic was supported on the absurd pretext that he wanted to build a multi-ethnic, multi-confessional, liberal-democratic Bosnia-Herzegovina. Albanian terrorists, war criminals and church-burning, dope-smuggling pimps were supported in Kosovo on the grounds that they had the right to self-determination.
UNDERSTANDING PUTIN’S GRIEVANCES
The Soviet Union came into being as a revolutionary state that challenged any given status quo in principle, starting with the Comintern and ending three generations later with Afghanistan. Some of its aggressive actions and hostile impulses could be explained in light of “traditional” Russian motives, such as the need for security; at root, however, there was always an ideology unlimited in ambition and global in scope. At first, the United States tried to appease and accommodate the Soviets (1943-46), then moved to containment in 1947, and spent the next four decades building and maintaining essentially defensive mechanisms—such as NATO—designed to prevent any major change in the global balance.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has been trying to articulate her goals and define her policies in terms of national interests: peace and prosperity at home, stable domestic institutions, secure borders, friendly neighbors. The old Soviet dual-track policy of having “normal” relations with America, on the one hand, while seeking to subvert her, on the other, gave way to naïve attempts by Boris Yeltsin’s foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev to forge a “partnership” with the United States.
By contrast, the early 1990’s witnessed the beginning of America’s strident attempt to assert her status as the only global “hyperpower.” This ambition was inimical to post-Soviet stabilization and kept Washington from entertaining the suggestion that Russia might have legitimate interests in her own post-Soviet backyard. The United States adopted her own dual-track approach. When Mikhail Gorbachev’s agreement was needed for German reunification, President George H.W. Bush gave a firm and public promise that NATO wound not move eastward. Within years, however, Bill Clinton expanded NATO to include all the former Warsaw Pact countries of Central Europe.
Another round of NATO expansion came under George W. Bush, when three former Soviet Baltic republics were admitted—and the process is far from over. Last April Mr. Bush signed the Orwellian-sounding NATO Freedom Consolidation Act of 2007, which extends U.S. military assistance to such aspiring NATO members as Georgia and the Ukraine. The rationale for NATO’s continued existence was found in the nebulous (and revolutionary) concept of “humanitarian intervention” used against the Serbs in 1999. Further expansion, according to Zbigniew Brzezinski, is “mandatory—historically mandatory, geopolitically desirable.”
In the wake of September 11, President Bush talked Russia into sanctioning the U.S. military’s presence in Central Asia and the Caucasus, but then, in the name of the “War on Terror,” tried to make that presence permanent. In 2002 President Bush unilaterally abrogated the ABM Treaty. His goal was to push forward elements of the U.S. anti-ballistic-missile system closer to Russia’s borders, with the spurious claim that radar stations in Poland or Bohemia will protect the West from Iran’s ICBMs.
The collapse of Russia’s state institutions and social infrastructure under Yeltsin, accompanied by a hyperinflation that reduced the middle class and pensioners to penury, was a trauma of incomparably greater magnitude than the Great Depression. Yet its architects—Anatoly Chubais, Yegor Gaidar, Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ryzhkov—were hailed in Washington as “pro-Western reformers,” and their political factions and media outlets were duly supported by the U.S. taxpayers, by way of a network of quasi-NGOs.
The wholesale robbery of Russian resources by the Moscow oligarchs and the fire sale of drilling concessions to the oligarchs’ Western cohorts became a contentious issue in U.S.-Russian relations only a decade later, with the arrest of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. Those spewing furious allegations of “Putin’s revenge” and “heavy-handedness” against the Yukos boss disregarded the fact that, quite apart from his political ambitions, Khodorkovsky was guilty of fraud and tax evasion on a massive scale.
While never missing an opportunity to hector Russia on democracy and criticize her human-rights record, the United States has been notably silent on the discriminatory treatment of large Russian minorities in the former Soviet republics In Latvia and Estonia, the Russians are subjected to arguably the worst treatment of any minority group by a member of the European Union or (with the exception of Turkey) of NATO. The demonstrations in Estonia against the government’s provocative removal of a Russian World War II memorial from Tallinn were but a symptom of a deeper malaise. As Anatol Lieven of the New America Foundation wrote recently, Latvia and Estonia “have been allowed by the West flagrantly to break promises made before independence.”
Washington apparently still views Russia as a state with limited sovereignty even within her post-Soviet borders. Chechnya is the obvious example: The White House routinely condemns Russian “violations” while demanding “dialogue” and studiously refraining from designating the Chechen child-slayers as “terrorists”; but no other aspect of Russia’s domestic policies, from education (“ethnocentric”) and immigration (“restrictive”) to homosexual rights (“appalling”) and jurisprudence (“corrupt”), has escaped scathing criticism. On the eve of his G-8 meeting with Putin last May, Mr. Bush declared that “reforms that were once promised to empower citizens have been derailed, with troubling implications for democratic development.”
On current form, things will remain the same, or perhaps become worse, no matter who comes to the White House in 2008. Richard Holbrooke, the Democrats’ perennially designated secretary of state, wants a firm response to “a series of Russian challenges to the stability of Europe” — such as the refusal to accept Kosovo’s independence. He descries Putin’s “increasingly authoritarian, often brutal, policies,” yet cautions that, “until President Bush weighs in strongly with Putin (as President Bill Clinton did a decade ago with Boris Yeltsin), there is a serious risk Moscow will not get the message.”
MOSCOW STRIKES BACK
Far from being deterred by Mr. Bush’s apparent commitment to Kosovo’s independence, Russian President Vladimir Putin sees it as a God-sent chance to embarrass Mr. Bush and show the world that Russia can no longer be treated with the mix of disdainful arrogance and the way it was treated under Yeltsin. With the Administration’s options diminishing, Putin’s are increasing.
On the diplomatic front, Russia can and will veto any resolution presented to the Security Council that is based on Ahtisaari’s moribund plan and that assumes independence as the final outcome. Resolution 1244 cannot be legally bypassed, and it is unequivocal about Serbia’s sovereignty. If the European Union (under American pressure) tries to bypass the UN, however, Putin can retaliate by playing his energy card. According to Russian and global affairs analyst George Friedman of Stratfor,
The Russians would cut supplies if provoked. Kosovo really is that big an issue to them. If they gave in on this, all of Putin’s efforts to re-establish Russia as a great power would be undermined. Putin wants to remind Germany in particular—but also other former Soviet satellites—that thwarting Russia carries a price. If the European Union were to unilaterally act against Russian wishes, Putin would have to choose between appearing as if he is all talk and no action, and acting. Putin would choose the latter.
According to the same source, Putin also has a military option. Contrary to popular belief, the Russians retain increasingly effective military units. The Russian military retains an excellent core, particularly in its airborne regiments. The Russians could fly a regiment of troops to Belgrade, use Serbian trucks to move to the administrative line dividing Kosovo from the rest of Serbia, and threaten to move into Kosovo to take their place in KFOR.
The Europeans would protest, but they would not react. Western Europe is heavily dependent on Russian natural gas, and it cannot afford to follow Washington into an open-ended confrontation over a peripheral issue. Signals from Moscow indicate that challenging Kosovo’s independence militarily would prompt Russia to call NATO defense capabilities into question, which could leave the Europeans even more fractured. “Do not assume that the Russians would not dare try such a move,” the Russian source insists: “The Russians are itching for an opportunity to confront the West—and win. In the case of Kosovo, should they choose to make an issue of it, they have the diplomatic, economic and military options to force the West to back down. Condoleezza Rice has said that Kosovo will never be returned to Serbian rule. Putin would love to demonstrate that it doesn’t matter what the U.S. secretary of state wants.”b
In short, Kosovo is an asymmetric issue. Mr. Bush cares about it only as it relates to U.S. “credibility.” Accepting the assurances of inherited Clintonite bureaucrats of Mr. Burns’s ilk that the Serbs would cave in and that the Russians would budge may well prove to have been the second greatest blunder of his presidency.
If push comes to shove, Mr. Bush will face Moscow all alone. There is a great deal of dissent in Europe, from Madrid to Athens to Bucharest and Bratislava, but not even those Europeans who are nominally pro-independence—notably Germans—would not sacrifice a single day’s supply of natural gas over Albanian claims. By contrast, for Serbia this is an existential issue and for Russia it is a litmus test of her ability to be once again a great power, and to be seen and respected as one, after the dreadful Yeltsin interlude.
A NEW U.S. PARADIGM URGENTLY NEEDED
It is not prudent for the United States to insist that Kosovo should and will become independent—as President George W. Bush did in Tirana last June, followed by Dr. Rice and her aides on an almost daily basis—even as it is obvious that Russia will veto any attempt to achieve that goal through the United Nations’ Security Council, and even as the European Union is increasingly reluctant to participate in any scheme to bypass the UN. Statements by American officials that Kosovo’s independence is “inevitable” are a classic case of irresponsible policy-makers painting themselves into a corner on a peripheral issue, and then claiming that the issue had morphed into a test of American resolve.
A responsible leadership in Washington would never allow Kosovo to become such a test for three reasons.
1. Quite apart from historic, cultural, moral and legal aspects, the issue of who controls the southern Serbian province is perfectly irrelevant to American interests. It is a small, land-locked piece of real estate, of dubious “objective” value, away from all major Balkan transit corridors, and not nearly as rich in natural resources as both Serbs and Albanians like to imagine. If Kosovo were to disappear tomorrow, no ordinary American would be able to tell the difference.
2. The change of Kosovo’s status against the will of Belgrade, in addition to being a clear violation of the Law of Nations, would set a precedent potentially detrimental to U.S. interests. To enable an ethnic minority to secede from an internationally recognized state on the grounds of that minority’s numerical preponderance in a given locale would open Pandora’s box of claims all over the world, not least among Russian speakers in the Crimea, parts of Estonia and Latvia, northern Kazakhstan, and eastern Ukraine. It could also affect the future of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and perhaps even California, when Mexicans achieve simple majority in those states. (On current form the question is indeed “when,” not “if.”) State Department officials Nicholas Burns and Daniel Fried still insist that no precedent would be set by creating an independent Kosovo, but they cannot control reality and their assurances are nonsensical.
3. The likely cost of persevering will exceed any conceivable benefits of such policy to the United States. The Muslim world will not be appeased by Kosovo today any more than it was appeased by Bosnia a decade ago. America will not earn any brownie points among the world’s “Jihadists of all color and hue” (Rep. Tom Lantos) for creating a new Muslim state in the heart of Europe. Albanian “gratitude” would prove as valuable to America today as it has been, over the years, to Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Communist China. On the other hand, the failure to create an independent, internationally recognized Kosovo would be yet another sign that Mr. Bush has no clothes and that America has no sureness of touch. Furthermore, favoring the imposition of a “solution” from the outside against the will of one of the parties could set a dangerous long-term precedent for Israel.
The U.S. policy is not sensible. It panders to the aspirations of a small and primitive, yet shrewdly opportunistic nation with territorial pretensions against all of her neighbors. Mr. Bush’s histrionics in Tirana were greeted almost as enthusiastically as Benito Mussolini, Nikita Khrushchev, and Chou En-Lai had been greeted by the Albanians over the decades. As Nicholas Stavrou noted in The National Herald, Mr. Bush fits into the Albanians’ talent for choosing patrons who fulfill three criteria: they must be big enough, far enough, and willing to offend the interests of Albania’s neighbors.
It is plainly irrational to insist on Kosovo’s independence, with all the risks such policy entails, while the United States faces so many other “unfinished businesses” around the globe. The list is well known, and depressing. Iraq is a disaster, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel. Afghanistan is a lesser calamity only when compared to Iraq. Any solution to the challenge presented by Iran will depend on Washington’s ability to have Russia on its side as a partner, which is impossible if Moscow’s concerns over Kosovo are treated as illegitimate. Russia is also an essential partner in helping control Kim Jong Il and devising a sustainable long-term energy policy for the Western world.
Geopolitical and pragmatic arguments notwithstanding, the most important reason the United States should not support Kosovo’s independence is, and always has been, cultural and civilizational; but trying to explain that to the chief executive who is fanatically supportive of a blanket amnesty for tens of millions of illegal aliens in the United States is as futile as trying to reform Islam.
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It seems to me there are four major ingredients in this issue:
1) simple power politics;
2) residual suspicions left over from Cold War years;
more importantly, though:
3) Americans in general, and the American government in particular (under many administrations), has little understanding of the Balkans, Eastern Europe, Russia and Russia's periphery;
and, most importantly:
4) Bush's attitude, whether it be towards foreign nations or his own Republican base, is "My way or the highway." Bush's arrogance in particular must leave Russia fuming; it has certainly left rank-and-file Republicans fuming.
Furthermore, it seems to me that an independent state in Kosovo would be a major blunder in our defense against Islamic terror. As it is, that general area of the Balkans is a major transshipment point for narcotics and arms smuggling, the profits of which fund criminal organizations that are essentially Islamic mafia, akin to Al Qaeda. I can't imagine an independent Kosovo doing anything other than worsening the situation.
"a classic case of irresponsible policy-makers painting themselves into a corner on a peripheral issue, and then claiming that the issue had morphed into a test of American resolve." -- Very well put, but I disagree in this case.
It seems to me the real reason behind this is that certain elements in the American government owe their allegiances not to the United States, but to those for whom they hope to work after their public service ends. I think I smell some Turkey here, and I think this is an example of what Sibel Edmonds can't warn us about because of all the gag orders on her.
An excellent article, Dr. Trifkovic!
Although I too am opposed to an independent Kosovo, I do not see how the current situation would allow a resumption of sovereignty by Serbia. The province is now overwhemingly Albanian and Muslim. They will not accept Serbian rule. Perhaps a rump Serbian state could be carved out of an area of Kosovo that still has a sizeable Serbian population and be re-united with Serbia, with the rest independent or united with Albania. The only other alternative I can see is "ethnic cleansing", i.e., the deportation of Albanian Kosovars to Albania. I have no problem with this personally (the Albanians are, after all, invaders and obnoxious to boot!) but the "world community" will not see it that way. Humpty Dumpty is broken!
Mr. Van Osbree is correct as the "world community" as expressed in the US establishment, doubtless agrees with Clinton's ex-apparatchik John Podesta who wrote a propaganda piece on Kosovo in today's WaPo (noticeably omitting any reference to Albanian ethnic cleansing of Serbs since seizing control of the province).
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/22/AR2007072200883.html
Podesta (unknowingly) exposes the hypocrisy of "progressive" claims to oppose interventionism and warmongering.
The only language a bully understands is being bullied. The United States has been my home for decades and it saddens me to see such blunders in spite of what I consider to be ample resources (intellectual and intelligence gathered). The Albanians have played all their cards and gotten nowhere, in spite of Serbian lack of resolve.
The Putin’s “strike back” (as worded by Dr. Trifkovic) is a perfect example that “might DOES make right” at some rather nasty times. I think it is such a time for Serbia as well. Consider a massive military deployment (for theatrical purposes or otherwise). Invite a few Russian divisions of nuclear artillery to participate in “joint maneuvers” inside of Serbia proper towns of Bujanovac, Preseva, Medvedja. Sit back and see what happens.
Residual information release has to be carefully dosaged to the world’s media, stating that military action has never been ruled out to reclaim country’s own lands. At the very worst another theatrical solution could be considered (Albanians are well familiar with this) dig up some killed or recently died persons; put some bullet wounds in the dead body’s Serbian clothing and launch a massive artillery fire on anything that moves. There is absolutely no reason on Earth that Serbians should sit back and wait for “Higher Power” to decide their fate. These are just some of the most naïve arrangements that any high school kid could conjure up, which is not to say that a more elaborate and a more detailed plan wouldn’t be more effective and even more just.
Exactly as Theodore noticed, Albanians are pretty deserving of being given a one way ticket to Hell or Albania (both nouns interchangeable). It’s not like Albanians are landless people – they have a home which they left in hopes of gathering attractive loot. Too bad that dream will never come true. What most of us in the United States fail to realize is the sad fact that some of the recently “freed” Eastern block countries are their own worst enemies. From the frying pan – into the fire. Yes they were eager to escape the Russian yoke, but a good few of the “new democracies” find themselves lost without direction within the EU’s Frankenstein. At present, nobody, (to the best of my knowledge) has considered the strong likelihood of the EU being dismantled (from within). Looking to Russia as a pretext for their innate flaws the EU has only secured a quicker disintegration. Kosovo and Serbia are just such fine instruments to be used in this upcoming newest battle of political midgets and intellectual dwarves in their pedestrian attempts to “re”-stabilize, “re”-juvenate their present contraption. Albanians make perfect natural allies to such a disjointed world, but there is pronounced human tendency to find a better harmony with the forces of gravity and spend life on Earth in a more balanced manner – quite opposite from the present direction of the EU.
Let's all remember one thing. Nationalism caused two world wars, both of them starting with Slavic issues, and one in the Balkans as a result of with Russian intervention on behalf of Serbia (we've seen it all before). Both wars caused untold suffering, and ended with even worse results than the status quo ante. They were also totally ineffectual and useless. The purpose of these two world wars was to keep Germany from being the hegemonic power in continental Europe. Today, what is the hegemonic power in Europe?: Germany! -- and that after two world wars. If this result was what was going to happen ANYWAY, why bother with the wars? cf. Niall Ferguson, The Pity of War
These facts should make us pause when confronted with nationalist conflict. To date, such have been "resolved" ONLY in the way described in my above paragraph or in these additional ways:
1. Group A removes by bloodshed group B from territory that group A regards as its own, either by expulsion or (more often than not) extermination, no matter how long group B has been resident. Examples of this solution abound.
2. Partition. Land is given to Group A; other land is given to group B; A is by force removed from B's land, B from A's. This was the solution in 1922 between Turkey and Greece. It was cruel, mean, unfair, unjust -- and we haven't had war between them ever since.
3. Group B just simply secedes from group A and takes land that group A once controlled. Then Group B becomes strong enough to keep A away. Thus the USA 1793. Dixie tried and failed in 1861-5. Israel, with mixed results, in 1948. Cyprus since 1975, which seems to be now only a battle of occasional pot shots.
3. Northern Ireland. Group C is sovereign in an area where A and B are trying to do #1 supra. Group C (a) learns how to fight 4th Generation War; (b) is resolved for the long run, with enormous reserves of patience, awaiting a solution decades and many lives away; and (c) either wins of over the majority of the populations of A & B, or the same majorities just get tired of the bloodshed; (d) finally a generation passes and the killers of A & B, now a minority, realize that they will never achieve their goals, and negotiate a modus vivendi.
4. Everyone else just stays out and watch to see who of A & B bleeds to death.
5. We denigrate nationalism and ostracize nationalists with every breath in our bodies, and stress that which unites us (if anything).
I can think of no other solutions in the history of nationalist conflicts, a history that begins with the Spanish uprising against Buonaparte. Which of the above does Dr. Trifkovic endorse?
Sorry to have to say what follows, but the history of nationalism compels me: Trust no one who has a dog in A and B's conflict. Do not trust the Czar's police and its Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Do not trust the reports of the British Press Bureau about the Germans in Belgium in 1914 or about the Lusitania. Do not trust the Reichspropagandaministerium about Czechs in 1938 and Poles in 1939. Do not trust Eric the Red Foner about Dixie (he a friend, by the way, of Russian annexation of Estonia -- or so Tom DiLorenzo says). Do not trust any attempt to de-humanize the other group. They may be animals indeed; but don't take it from the reports of the other side. Maybe send in, say, Japanese observers, and lets see what they say about the Balkans. If you do trust A & B, pay your respects to The Turner Diaries.
Also have the courage to tell the supporters of bloody nationalists exactly what you think of them. We should have excoriated Bob Jones University for its support to Paisley (at least the latter seems to have come to his senses). And well I remember a St. Patrick's Day celebration where, at one booth, I was invited to buy a bullet to kill English soldiers in Northern Ireland. I never felt so ashamed at being Catholic, or of what Celtic Blood that I have. Be ashamed. Keep clean hands.
Excellent essay, with which I have only one minor quibble. You write:
"The time has come to shake Bush, Fried, Rice et al from their pseudo-reality and explain to them what they dare not tell themselves: “we” will not get there this year, or next, or any other, any more than “we” did in 2006. In other words, it is time to tell them that Kosovo will NOT be independent. That is not simply an opinion; it is also a statement of diplomatic and political reality. America’s leaders need to get beyond denial. They need to stop telling themselves and the world that it will happen. They need to tell the American people the truth which is that Bush lost his Kosovo gambit when he turned it into a test of Russian resolve, after all the atrocities his predecessor committed against the Serbs. Chronicles will tell the truth if the U.S. Administration leaders cannot, and that truth is that their proteges will not rule in Kosovo any more than America will rule in Vietnam. It’s gone, Mr. Fried, it’s over."
I would edit this paragraph to insert the clause "or is ruling in either Baghdad or Kabul" after "any more than American will rule in Vietnam."
May I offer a more adequate translation for Dejavu? The following text
"Let’s all remember one thing. Nationalism caused two world wars, both of them starting with Slavic issues, and one in the Balkans as a result of with Russian intervention on behalf of Serbia (we’ve seen it all before). Both wars caused untold suffering, and ended with even worse results than the status quo ante. They were also totally ineffectual and useless."
This would sound equally correct if it was worded:
Most cases of battered wives had a 50% female element at the root of the conflict.
More accurately WW1 started since Germany had no colonies which gave the French, the Dutch, the British, the Spanish even the Portuguese a far greater economic edge throughout 18, 19 and early 20th Century.
WW2 was based on outright Hitler's, not quite German "justified" reunification of German people (Sudetan Lands had a considerable German population, Austria was annexed before any other hostilities began - so there was absolutely no "Russian factor". Naturally much of Germany had inheritted the Roman empire's importance (in their own mind only, throughout the Middle Ages).
Sadly enough your ideas seem most popular among the poorly educated New World - simplistic, inaccurate, flawed and rooted in Russophibia. Now that Putin has flexed his pinky, there will be even more proponents of such flawed thinking.
I don't mean to be ridiculous but the geopolitical importance of the Balkans figured rather prominently in earlier times. Even the Roman Empire was divided pretty much along the lands of former Yugoslavia. Some of those earlier divisions contributed to the intolerance of Roman Catholics towards the Eastern Orthodox Christian, Muslims and Jews, and the other way around. Even the Nazis found this location to be ripe for recruitment on acccount of pre-existing conditions. Your thought is completely flawed, there can not be even a remote sense of balance in spite of me "having my dog in that race". Common sense attests to an entirely different causation of present day conflicts. The native American Indians were nearly completely wiped out without any of their own volition. I would hate to give you, or anybody else lectures in (what I consider) greatest American values:
1. Is it democracy if two wolves and a lamb vote what to have for dinner?
No, it is not.
Democracy only follows liberty, once the lamb is armed to the teeth and demands the voice recount.
Your text has betrayed the thinking that has been found from Polybius, Machiavelli, Francis Bacon, Hobbes, Adam Smith, John Locke, Alexander Pope and implemented by our founding fathers.
The American administration and its western allies have admitted being wrong in insisting that Iraq had WMD, but to the incredulity of millions of us who follow events in the Serbian province of Kosovo, they deliberately continue misleading the world about the motive for their immoral support of an independent Albanian Kosovo.
Excellent column, Dr. Trifkovic! I’ll send it to my member of Pariament.
Well, then, Iliya Pavlovich, which of View's 5 solutions (with universal world war the 6th) do you endorse for the Balkan conflicts? And please offer some answer other than ad hominem and red herring.
Kindly clarify your question Rodney, I don't mind answering and I see no red herring anywhere. The "Dejavu article" is completely flawed in his/her overview of European history which is not atypical for the New world. No, war is not the only answer. One of our founding fathers claimed "better to have unjust peace, than a just war". However we must be cogniscent enough to realize that wars are a source of tremendous profits (Brown & Root to dregde the Cahm-Rahn bay was paid millions of dollars, it just happens that (by default - non-elected) President Lyndon Johnson was also a Texan.
The article number 5 is flawed at inception there is no right part in it. Some remotely unclear (half-empty/half-full issues), but lack of clarity aside there is not a single proven historical fact, while there is an abundance of historical fallacy.
It is pretty obvious that my "abrasive approach" garners me more opponents before they even start to think about the substance, but that's my nature and I respectfully decline to change it (I wouldn't if I could).
Would you mind an awful lot if I called you Reginald Denny?
Believing that history is simply a matter of identifying "root causes" and then stamping them out, is a fallacy repeated again and again (and serves only to create more conflict). Contrary to deja view(?), Wilson believed WWI arose from competition among empires and the solution was to permit national sovereignty according to the wishes of the subjects (at least, that's how I'd characterize him). Didn't work, as WWII showed. Other foolproof plans for perfecting the world have similarly failed.
Now, back to what Dr. Trifkovic actually discussed, this obsession of the American ruling class with an obscure little country (setting aside the merits of of the dispute) is an indulgence that could only be made by a country with no genuine competitors or enemies. If we were genuinely threatened (as we were to at least a strategic degree by the USSR) we wouldn't sacrifice national interest for such irrelevant causes as "Kosovo independence." (As in fact, we didn't throughout the Cold War, by happily treating with Tito).
Americans should view such indulgences in irrelevancy as a sign that the ruling class is attempting to justify its position and inordinate expenditures on the defense complex. What could be a surer sign that American can "come home" (as McGovern framed the matter in the best campaign slogan of the 20th Century--at least that wasn't a lie), then the ability of our nation to expend her prestige and resources on something as absurd as Albanian self-determination.
Srdja, Bravo! An Excellent and well documented Article (as usual). p
An excellent analysis by Dr. Srdja Trifkovic. Concerning "... no feasible scenario to bypass the UN is on the horizon ...", a question: what was the point of all that Zalmay Khalilzad's noise this past Friday about moving "... outside the Security Council framework ..."? (See the last two paragraphs in http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/16B38E27-2B94-431E-88AC-B336BBC575F0.htm )
One guess would be that Khalilzad's roars are just as mousy as Fried's. Still...
I call on the author of the article and the commentators who support him to give up on sophistry. Kosova is on its way to independence despite the new Czar, Putin's and Serbs' threats. A show of force by the Serbs and the Russians will surely fail.
Those who support Kosova's independence and the United States' policy of helping the Albanian people of Kosova should not be intimidated by Pan Slavism, which is breathing its last in the Balkans.
"More accurately WW1 started since Germany had no colonies which gave the French, the Dutch, the British, the Spanish even the Portuguese a far greater economic edge"
Germany had no colonies before WWI? Is the Caprivi Strip is the name of a steak? Was the Congress of Berlin about dividing up Antarctica? Portugal was richer than the Kaiser's Germany? The Moroccan Crisis, the Kruger telegram, the Tirpitz Plan, the Berlin to Baghdad Railroad, Czar Alexander I Pan-Slavist program, French ambitions to get back Alsace, The Austrian annexation of Bosnia, Gavrilo Princip's shooting skills, Austria's absurd ultimatum to Serbia, Russia's backing Serbia, Germany's backing Austria, France's backing Russia, and Lord Grey's Francophile policy, and a Europe racked with nationalism -- all had nothing to do with it? Pray tell, Mr. Iliya Pavlovich, just who is "poorly educated simplistic, inaccurate, and flawed"? You should have been read your Miranda rights before hitting the keyboard. You prove my case that nationalist propaganda isn't to be trusted. And learn how to spell "Russophobia".
Sorry I was under the mistaken impression that starting with the Second Boer War 1899–1902, Germans were trying to gain a foothold in Africa (India was way too far), most of South America was gone to the Spanish and the Portuguese, annexation of Austria were all purely Germany initiated actions, without any Slavic presence. Glad you mentioned Caprivi Strip (my favorite steak) since German support for any anti-British war efforts was launched from there through today's Namibia and further into South Africa changing sides with the Dutch or the Afrikaans as long as they were against the British (in spite of an intimate relationship of Queen Victoria and her husband (oops, make that first cousin) Albert. Princip did shoot the ill-informed Archduke, who in all honesty had no idea that he had been volunteered by the evil German counterintelligence to visit Sarajevo (predominantly Serbian part of Bosnia) on one of the holliest of Serbian holidays June 28th - ooops again - all honest errors. I think serving pork for Yom Kippur or Seder is slightly more acceptable than the above "failures". Don't make me call you stupid because you seem to have the facts but stubbornly refuse to connect the dots, for Chris' sake. How much could have an impoverished Russia done at the onset of the 20th century. They barely survived the February revolution, only to enter the October revolution and were deeply endowed with mass starvation, and a diet of almost pure vodka. If you consider that a military threat than my grandson's nursery is an equally worthy military adversary. However, rather than call you stupid, I'll name you Albanian - since mainly Albanians are gifted with producing such feeble fabrications. If my answer was so "off-base" why such hostility? I bet you were forced to accept some of the postulates I brought out, so you answered with visible resentment (somebody already mentioned the "Albanian style"). I wonder what happened with Reginald Denny, or is this (yet again) a display of Albanian courage which mandates absolute secrecy and fear of disclosing their names (God fobid anybody mentioned an email address). Get it? Feel free to contact me directly for any overtly hostile history lessons rather than take away from the worthy views of Dr. Trifkovic. So many mediocre (and I am being generous here) persons are trying to score a measly point or two by taking one Dr. Trifkovic's sentences out of context and blowing it out of proportion. That's pretty exactly why I selected this abrasive attitude and if you have a problem with it - too bad, get used to it. I pull no punches and the history is a little stubborn if you manage to see what evens in a prior decade contributed to the ills of the present decade. Nothing on this (God's green) Earth functions devoid of all other factors. Princip was not parachuted from Mars or Belgrade with the mandate of starting WW1 - or was he? My email address is: iliija@comcast.net
Even if you are an Albanian, try to be a decent person and not burden this forum with your feeble, slanted and loaded views, feel free to take your wrath out on me personally - it is only me who failed to taste the Caprivi Strip, and failed to spel(l) Russophobia, and Americanostupidia.
Dear Slobodan Milosevic,
Are you still alive? If not, you must be his ghost. I am sure his ghost is still haunting Serbia. Poor country and poor people of Serbia!!!
France has always been your friend. Yugoslavia with Serbia within partook of all the benefits that came from the West. You were the West's darling and you relished in it.
You love Russia and Greece because you are religious fanatics. The Russians and the Greeks are your brothers in religion, typically the same as in the Middle Ages when religion came first. Poor fanatics that belong to another Age.
Offensive language is no argument, dear ghost. On the contrary, it is weakness pure and simple. To know who the Albanians in Kosova are, read "Kosovo - a Short History" by Noel Malcolm.
Good night!
Dear Alban, I see that you are painfully familiar with my contributions - that makes me reasonably happy. Please continue to read what I postulate here in the name of Truth (capital T), Justice (capital J) and with the grace of God (capital G). Thank you for noting my contriubtions, I am glad that my writing annoys you but you have nothing to anwer. I'm glad I am not in your shoes, it must feel pretty terrible to feel so painted in a corner. It was fun for me, was it fun for you too? Just wait a few more weeks for the Russian/Serbian military maneouvers to start around Presevo, Bujanovac, and see if today's advice of Dr. Condoleeza Rice was acceptable "she advised some Suroi character to refrain from any "independence moves" for the next 120 days, but refused the press conference.
If I were a Russian I would consider this a victory for the Russians.
Dr. Rice is not known to be this shy. Should you feel adventurous spirtis (or ants in your pants) ask for the military maneuvers to begin a week or two earlier so the Russian depleted uranium can be gifted to your ilk. See how well we can get along when you get buried chin deep?
Those who support Kosova’s independence and the United States’ policy of helping the Albanian people of Kosova should not be intimidated by Pan Slavism, which is breathing its last in the Balkans.
How I love drive by comments with no substance and no intelligence that address no issues! Do 500 years of brutal violence in murder at the hands of Turks and Albanians count for anything? Does the fact that Albania is a country run by terrorists mean anything to you? Maybe not. Does a country's right to defend its own national sovereignty mean anything to you? Moreover, speaking of Slavism, as if that were what was at work, what is the problem with a people relishing their racial identity? Arabs do so, Africans do so, Albanians seem to, or are only races whose names begin with "A" allowed to celebrate their racial identity?
Lastly, the position that Kosovo's independence is "going to happen" is now so far fetched as to be laughable. Good grief.
Congratulations, Dr. Trifkovic! Your article is as complete and concise analysys as it could possibly be. All options are clear and well outlined. A good lesson for Us policy makers if anybody bothers to use a common sense. However, ignorant as they may be, they have other hidden agenda in undermining their European vassals. The first thing they see in them are rivals and competitors, not friends or allies. This is why they still occupy them.
By continually infecting Balkan wounds (by them inflicted) they perpetuate instability and never ending convalescence of the European Patient-"friend" so Dr. Fix is always needed.
It is very sad that East Europeans in their senseless hate of Russians never understood the real nature of "European Union" and its false multiculturalism, cleverly used to mask it's Aryan, atheist and anti orthodox attitude. Even the Pope has realized that and rightly called it by its name"apostasy".
EU (alias 4th Reich ) is designed to be graveyard of Nations and nationalities. It is a stillborn "Giant", which will never mature, Americans now that and are very "helpful". Unfortunately we were in the way (unreformed, free and unoccupied) and unjustly payed the price of other's European's lack of spine. Another proof that Global Economics are devoid of morality and are inhuman and unchristian in nature. Jeffrey Sachs's roll in euthanasia of Yugoslavia was a pioneering experiment in that direction. Let us hope that Serbia (with Russia's help) preserves it's territorial integrity and sovereignty and never finalize that step to oblivion, by joining EU.
An excellent article. I especially like the suggestion that Mr. Fried will have to face reality now and not Mr. Kostunica, contrary to what Mr. Fried had suggested all along. However, there is a further implication for Serbs if Kosovo stays within Serbia and that is that the whole Yugoslav saga gets resurrected. For if the justice is done in the case of Kosovo why stop there? There is the question of Bosnian Serbs and the undesirability of the existence of the Bosnian federation. It will have to be dealt with somehow. If we assume a just solution is achieved there, there will be no Bosniak state there. Then we would be facing the next issue, that of Serbs in Croatia. If a just solution is achieved there, Croatia could hardly exist as a viable state. At that point Monenegro will relent as well as there will be no profit to be made by pandering to anti-Serbs, and we are back to Yugoslavia minus Slovenia. For all we know Slovenia too may relent as they make most of their money on the old Yugoslav republics and there will be no profit to be made for being against them. Of course this scenario is far-fetched but not impossible. Correcting the wrongs done to Serbs will not stop with just solution for Kosovo as there is an inertia associated with it, for it is only one of the many pieces of the puzzle.
An excellent article, thank you Mr. Trifkovic, I have printed it and will read it again this evening.
Ilia, thank you for answering "de je view"!
So not Hitler and Germany started the war, motivated with chauvinism, anti-semmitism, greed to rob and plunder Jewish and Slavic property (and for that matter, to abuse and rob also other nations, in Western Europe), but the "Slavic issues" (and "Jewish issues" ? I guess) caused the war. Wow!
If the two ("Slavs" and "Jews") had agreed to hand out their property and drop dead as kindly asked by Hitler and Germans, this nice gentleman and his adopted nation wouldn´t have gone to war, would they?, and they wouldn´t have bothered with running all those unpleasant concentration camps and wouldn´t have engaged in killing millions of Jews and Slavs, - I mean, they were forced to do all those nasty things it by the "Slavic issue", right? (Translation: Everybody knows that Czechs were just about to attack Germany, as well as Poles, Serbs and Russians and , sure, everybody knows that there was a "Jewish conspiracy" on a worldwide scale, or?)
I live in Germany and can confirm that the view of the "de je view" is quite common here, especially among the German intellectuals who are always busy to gain some capital from the Holocaust and WWII (ie exactly what they blame Israel for). But even they are still ashamed to articulate it the way the brave "de ja view" did. Instead, they engage every year in identifying a new "Hitler of the year" and in heroic fight against fascism . Guess where: in Serbia (Milosevic), Israel (Scharon, was hated even more than Milosevic), Russia (Putin) .
The interesting novelty, despite all the efforts of Angela Merkel, is that for the first time after the WWII, Germany is opening the West Front again: USA President leads the "Hitler of the year" list this year, even far ahead of Putin! According to recent polls only Turks hate Americans more than Germans do (in Europe).
The phrase often used in Germany for this sport is "Wehret den Anfängen!" (Nip things in the bud!), usually along with the assertion that being a German qualifies in a particularly suitable way for this endeavor of fighting fascism (the same way , a sentenced pedophile, out of prison, could say that being a pedophile in the past he is particularly suitable for fulfilling tasks of protecting chlidren from sexual abuse - we would all trust him and have him take care of children, would we?).
I guess that "de ja view" is an American (possibly a Western European dhimmi) , in huge need of indorsement through anyone, trying to please and appease both German Anti-Americanism and Mohammedan hate of USA by offering a revised version of history and sending them a signal that he shares their supremacist views of the Slavs.
It will not function, - Germans will continue to cultivate Anti-Americanism and Mohammedans will continue to hate USA. AND you have lost a genuine acceptance where you could have had it.
What?
No email challenges from the "brilliant" De Je View, his altar ego Svetlana and their son Alban? Should I provide my postal address, phone number so you can come and scare me?
No, just giving you my email address is noble enough (for Serbians) - for Albanain parasites NOT leaving a name is an act of bravery, while leaving a name (and an email address) is an act of a coward. I would rather not have to explain the elementary school history to these rocket scientis, but I shall oppose any nonsense - no matter who posts it.
1. Looks like I won the argument about the causes of World War I. And that leads to...
2. Q. What caused World War II? A: World War I. Indeed, it was the same war continued for the same purposes in the same theaters on the same fronts, commanded by the NCOs and junior officers of World War I. Yes, the packaging was a bit different; the substance was the same.
3. What is more, World War I is still going on, and on some of the same fronts: The Balkans and parts of the old Ottoman Empire: Palestine, Iraq. And for the same reasons: arms race, nationalism, great powers attempting to assert hegemony in places where they should stay out (as Dr. T indeed says). Indeed, in seven years, World War I will become the Third Hundred Years' War.
3. Judging by the tenor of remarks by Serbian and Albanian nationalists on this page, my "resolution" #1 looks like the likely outcome. Get ready for lots of blood. And remember what I said in my first post: In any war, and especially in nationalist wars, the first victim is always the truth.
Dejavu, you should refrain from smoking crack before you post anything on a public forum.
How in the name of God have you won anything?
WW1 was started by an overt Austrohungarian unilateral aggression against Serbia.
Did you forget my example from the first year of Law school:
"Cases of battered wives commonly have a 50% female root of inception. Therefore a matching degree of blame has to be attached to the females."
If this innanity is true, you truly did win all prior and subsequent arguments.
We concluded that Germans were warmongers from the start of the 20th Century (even as far as South Africa), let alone Europe. The Habsburgs would not do much without the Hohenzahlers and the other way around. WW1 was an outright German aggression cloaked in Austrohungarian robes. Just as Hitler having annexed Austria was an act of bloodless aggression, while the Sudetan lands and Poland expeditions required some use of live ammo. You are definitely an Albanian. Why don't you explain to me in details by using my email rather than propriatize this forum for your perverted views. I can be reached at iliija@comcast.net or if you don't line comcast you can reach me at TPT-MPT@juno.com - suit yourself.
The SS Kosova or more accurately the Good Ship Lollipop, and its creator Martti Ahtisaari are now on the outside looking in, this political saga is coming to an end, or back to square one…will the unsinkable plan for Kosova independence one way or another come to end in the turbulent waters of UN SC. Will International Law win over international thuggery? Yes, judging by the responses made by the main characters of this play…see what they had to say.
Her Highness Has Spoken: "Kosovo Will be Independent One Way or Another"
By VOA News 19 July 2007
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says Washington is fully committed to achieving independence for Serbia's breakaway Kosovo province, despite Russia's opposition.
Secretary Rice told reporters Thursday that Kosovo will get its independence "one way or another," without clarifying whether the United States is prepared to recognize Kosovo's independence unilaterally.
http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-07-19-voa52.cfm
Then we had this declaration…
Kosovo eyes November 28 independence declaration
By Fatos Bytyci Fri Jul 20, 7:21 AM ET
PRISTINA, Serbia (Reuters) - Kosovo Prime Minister Agim Ceku said on Friday the province should declare unilateral independence from Serbia on November 28, arguing that a Western bid to steer its secession through the United Nations had failed.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070720/wl_nm/serbia_kosovo_un_dc_3;_ylt=AmM6uAp89.Icuktvl1yp1dYE1vAI
Then we have some back paddling by Rice and then by the ethnic Albanians…
Rice Warns Kosovo Against Independence
Published 07/23/2007 - 11:27 a.m. EDT
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is warning Kosovo officials not to declare independence unilaterally and to continue with diplomatic efforts, the State Department said Monday.
The meeting between Rice and officials from the breakaway province comes days after the U.N. Security Council set aside a resolution that Russia called a hidden route to independence.
As the talks began, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that Rice planned to 'underline the fact that nobody gains by trying to short-circuit the diplomatic process that is under way.'
What ever happened to the "Kosovo Will be Independent One Way or Another" declaration by Rice, which followed the declaration of unilateral independence from Friday July 20th...ah I know it was just a pipe dream, and lot of smoke, and hot air. I bet the U.S. told Agim Ceku behave or you may end up just like the rest of the patsies the U.S. had from the past, Noriega, Saddam, Milosevic…do as we tell you or else.
May we say that the ethnic Albanians did what they were told.
Kosovo tells U.S. it will not declare independence
"Today the (Kosovo) unity team once again reassured the United States that we remain close partners of both the United States and the European Union in bringing the independence process to a close," Hyseni told Reuters after the meeting.
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldnews&storyID=2007-07-23T183117Z_01_N23354879_RTRUKOC_0_US-SERBIA-KOSOVO-USA-MEETING.xml
Moral of this story is don’t count your chickens before they hatch…
Iliya Pavlovich:
Correct to "Hohenzollern". But you got "Habsburg" right, as His Grace, Otto Archduke von Habsburg prefers it. I'll grant that my spelling also is often indeed perverted.
Vielen dank Herr Reginald Denny.
Ich genieße, mein Deutsches zu verbessern jede Wahrscheinlichkeit, die ich erhalte.
Manchmahl, kann ich ein bischen sprechen auch.
UND
Sieg Heil!
(für Leutnant Oberst Dejavu) es sei denn er stark gefördert worden ist von die vierte Reiches Angriff Anordnung Führer)
There was an outstanding article written by Dr. Trifkovic, last year, titled, Just a small Drang (eindrang nach Osten), which the Nazis visotors to this site should learn by heart.
It's true that Germany was frustrated by the fact that the land grab had left them behind in terms of empire-building. No wonder, Germany came into being in 1871/2 -- some 400 years after the discovery of America. The 'seafaring boom' that followed was the exclusive domain of England, Spain, Portugal and the Netherlands.
This quest for empire is not the cause of WWI. WWI was the epilogue of the decades of galloping militarization, mutual-defence-treaty-ridden international politics, etc. The blame lies with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, because they wanted to colonize the entire Balkans and secure their Adriatic ports. Their annexation of Bosnia (1908) was the drop that filled the (Serbian) bucket.
SPQR Marcvs or as the Romans would say "Aquila non capit muscas."
My spelling excellence is self evident in "visotors" from the prior post, and there will be plenty more.
I beg everybody's pardon. My conceit is so unsurmountable that I will juggle 15 languages and decline the use of spell-check. Without people like me there would NOT be real hubris and no fatal flaws that even Aristotle included as an inevitable element of a true drama (tragedy) tra-goidia (goat's song, while being slaughtered). Thank you Marcvs. I get nose bleeds trying to figure out if some of the "contributors" here are true ignorant morons or outright Nazis - but I'd say there is a healthy presence of both. WW1 and WW2 have been tailored to everybody's use by now, so that we can deduce what is truly the objective overview without being Pro-Nazi, Pro-Stalin, or pro-British or anti-anybody else. It's a real simple set of socio-political dynamics that an average high school student could command and understand.
Can someone please explain something to me .
The demographic reality of Serbia , is the Albanians in Serbia (Kosovo is part of Serbia) will form the majority of the population in the whole of Serbia in perhaps 30 years ie 5 million Albanians and less than 5 million Serbs .Why therefore are the Albanians so stupid as to want to separate Kosovo from Serbia when they can have the whole of Serbia all the way to the Hungarian border within a generation simply through increased activity in the bedroom and wont have to even lift a gun to achieve this.
Also why are the Serbs so stupid to want this to happen when they have a chance to separete from the Albanians forever.
The same thing will happen to the Jews in Israel unless they separate themselves from the Palestinians Serious answers please
Good question Mike, I don't think that I know the answer but I'd like to offer a little bit of a well balanced view in spite of my private opposition to the Kosovo amputation.
Without any flattery I think that only Dr. Trifkovic has the command of history, ethnicity, religions and other sociological components to answer this most accurately, however this is my view (kindly forgive what seems to be a vulgar self evident element here and there):
Serbia is a country populated by Serbians. During the prior decades Serbian majority was deemed a threat (by the communists first of all) and Serbian demographic dominance was slowly suppressed. This has allowed many Serbians to develop a fairly valid myth of being persecuted, because they were. A huge chunk of today’s Croatia (Krajina, Banija, Lika, Kordun) were 40% to 80% Serbian populated, but during the German sponsored and NATO pre-approved Storm (Oluja) action, upwards of 200,000 Serbians were simply kicked out.
With the subsequent Bosnian-Croatian short lived federation the number of displaced Serbians started getting a little more staggering (estimates range from 300,000 to half a million – I admit that I don’t know the correct numbers) – however that fact alone feeds well into the “mythology” of a persecuted people.
Answer to Albanian prospects: Historically speaking, throughout the entire 20th Century Albanians have not only had astronomical birth rates (11% to 14% depending on the source, while 0.2% and 0.8% are considered “normal”). Some of that demographic invasion was instituted by Tito who personally offered to be godfather to every tenth child born to any family. Subsidies given by the federal government were so attractive that most Albanians didn’t have to work (there was a child support system – “deciji dodatak” issued by the Federal government). This system looked extremely attractive to the Albanians from Albania who started crossing the ever porous border in larger numbers. To that end it is not only the demographic explosion but also an artificially induced influx of “soon-to-be-terrorists, slave-traders, heroin dealers”. It is quite possible that the United States “urban plight” was a definition for the increased proclivity towards criminal activity (including drug use and trade) within the poorer quarters of major US cities – so this should not be a very novel concept.
Once the Serbians regained their senses they allowed a continued free education (in Albanian language), free medical care from the Albanian doctors in Albanian hospitals, even a full University – these facts are undisputable even by most of the Albanians. However there will always be a few naysayers.
After the Serbians got their teeth kicked in by the ever justified Ango-German EU Frankenstein, they concluded that it is Serbia’s “fiduciary duty” to protect Serbian heritage, culture, language, etc. It is my impression that the special privileges which existed in prior decades would be phased out – hence the Winter of Albanian discontent.
With all the above in mind, many Albanians would have to take up gainful employment which is against their religion, and forego all sorts of government handouts – so the expansion rate you project is quite probably not that easily attainable.
2. Why would the Serbs want usurpers, confirmed criminals, war mongers and saboteurs in Serbia? –
They don’t but such is the nature of every society.
There are those elements that deserve incarceration, expulsion and an even-handed application of the Laws of the land – (Serbian naïve view that the rule of Law could cure all the deep rooted ills).
Therefore Serbians do have a sliver of hope, since it is their land (since about 600 BC), and they would gladly comply with all the common (EU mandated) tolerance towards minorities, religions, but without the outright handouts. That idea looks great on paper but I don’t foresee that it would work among the Albanians since their last 50 years in Serbia have been rewarded with free money, housing priorities, greater employment advantages (there were provisions which clearly stipulated that on every 8 or 10 open jobs – 2 or 3 have to be awarded to the minorities (read Albanians) – who would in turn sabotage the workings and expand through nepotism. A similar malaise exists in the United States under a different name (affirmative action).
Sociology, economy and history have always been very resilient when it comes to such an “enforced factor” against the natural balance and harmony within which they best operate (as noted a good few centuries ago by both Adam Smith and David Ricardo). Kindly forgive my spelling here and there, but I am quite surprised that I am actually satisfied with the objective answer I provided – I hope you are too. If you have any (even the smallest) respect for my view, analytical approach and objectivity, kindly email me and I’ll clarify whatever is it that I may have omitted – as not to burden Dr. Trifkovic’s most excellent overview of this complicated situation. My email is: iliija@comcast.net or tpt-mpt@juno.com
I have nothing to hide, and I’ll be glad to elaborate on any of the issues I know first hand – not from some “the elders of Zion” type propaganda.
Hi Mike,
I shall try to give a brief answer to your question because explaining it would take a lot of space and time. However, to get a clear picture of Kosova and the Kosova Albanians, their relations with the Serbs and how the latter bleeded and exploited them, I would recommend you a book, which will answer all the questions you might have. Its title is “Kosovo- A Short History” by Noel Malcolm.
Relations between Serbs and Albanians cover a very long period. About 100 years have passed after Serbia’s occupation of Kosova. The Serbs used it as a colony until the year 1999 when Serbia surrendered to the NATO forces.
As to the Albanians’ high birth rate, there are two reasons in my opinion.
First, it has to do with the policies of the Serbs in Kosova. The Kosova Albanians have always been subject to bloody suppression at the hands of the Yuogslav and Serbian governments with the exception of an interlude after the 1974 Constitution. Before World War I, between the two world wars, during the last war and after it, hundreds of thousands of Albanians were annihilated or deported to Turkey.
The high birth rate of the Albanians has been a means of survival as a nation. Thanks to such a birth rate, they survived all the plans of the Yugoslav and Serb governments to get rid of them.
Another reason for the high birth rate is economic. As a colony, Kosova, rich in mineral ores and agricultural products, was exploited by Belgrade. Almost all its wealth, the lion’s share, went to the other regions of Yugoslavia, especially to Serbia. The Albanians needed many children because as adults they would help their families either by staying and working in Kosova or emigrating abroad.
So, the high birth rate of the Albanians was a means of survival and not that it is inherent in the Albanians’ mentality. Their history indicates that if it had not been for their high birth rate, today there would have been no Albanians in Kosova. They know it and the world at large should know it. What the Serbs say about the Albanians’ ethnic invasion are outright lies. They are intended to show world public opinion that in Kosova there has been a population explosion or that most of the Albanians have come to Kosova from Albania after World War II. This is propaganda aimed at the uninformed public. It is unimaginable for hundreds of thousands of Albanians to have gone to Kosova after the war at a time when Albania was the most isolated communist regime in Eastern Europe. All those who tried to flee the country by crossing the border were shot by the frontier guards.
First-hand experience has taught the Albanians that the Serbs will never give up their plans to get rid of the Albanians in one way or another. This is what they attempted to do in 1999 when they drove from their homes about 1 (one) million Albanians who escaped Serb atrocities by crossing the border to Albania and Macedonia. The Albanians have drawn a very bitter lesson from history and they have reached a point of no return. The situation before 1999 is history for them.
The Serbs do not let Kosova escape their grip because they want to keep the territory of Kosova to continue exploiting it as they did during 100 years. Having recovered the territory, they will quietly carry out their former colonization plans by setting up Serb settlements on the Israeli kibutz model. As to the world, it will look on as the Serbs implement their plans.
As to what Iliya Pavlovic says about Kosova's land belonging to Serbs "since about 600 B.C." and that the so-called system he refers to "looked extremely attractive to the Albanians from Albania, who started crossing the ever porous border in large numbers" , I would only say that naively thinking that the readers are 'ignorant' of history, he tries to peddle his cheap ideas to them. I don't think a person in his right mind would believe such untruths. The Serbs do not mention the hundreds of thousands of Bosnians and Croats they killed in the recent years and about ten thousands Albanians, Serb citizens, they killed in cold blood during the Kosova conflict and war in 1998-1999. Suffice to leaf through history books and you'll find the truth of when the Serbs came to the Balkans as well as the truth about their distant and recent crimes and sins.
In addition to my opinion, I shall also attach an article titled “Bush Right on Kosovo Independence” a reader EMete by name has posted on this website. I found it in “Responses to The Perils of Kosovo’s Independence” on this same website (48EMete). In the article, which I have copied, you will find the answer to some of the questions that Srdja Trifkovic raises in his article “Kosovo: Back to Square One”
1.On 17 Jul 2007 at 7:13 pm48EMete
In response to the “Perils of Kosovo’s independence” by Srdja Trifkovic, who refers to statements made by one of the 315 Italian senators to back up his own theses, I shall republish an article I have written on the subject of Kosova. Some of the ideas of this article have been included in the comments I have posted on this website, but based on the reaction of the readers to my comments, I came to the conclusion that they have been unable to grasp what I have been trying to convey. I hope that the complete article, with a few changes included, published by the American and Albanian media in the USA not long ago, will help them become realists in this fast-changing world and write balanced and less passionate comments.
Bush Right on Kosovo Independence
At present, we are witnesses of Serbia’s increasing diplomatic activity to stave off the adoption of a new Security Council resolution on Kosovo’s independence under the pretext that Ahtisari’s recommendations imply “annexation of Serb territory and removal of Serbia’s sovereignty over Kosovo”. According to the Serb leaders, Kosovo’s independence would be in contravention of international law and a “classic case of secession from a sovereign state”. The Serbs and their mouthpieces have been laying greater emphasis on these theses recently, especially after the U.S. president George W. Bush’s statement in Albania on June 10, 2007 that Kosovo should have its independence now. Bush’s stance on Kosovo is a logical continuation of President Bill Clinton’s help to the Albanians during the Kosovo war in 1999 and President Woodrow Wilson’s stand at the Paris Conference in 1918-1919 against the European Powers that had planned to divide Albania up among its neighbors.
But history gives the lie to the Serb theses. Mary Edith Durham, a British scholar, points out, “the Serbs, or rather their Slav ancestors, poured into the Balkan Peninsula in vast hordes in the sixth and seventh centuries”. She says that they “overwhelmed the original inhabitant, the Albanian. But though they tried hard, they did not succeed in exterminating him. The original inhabitant, we may almost say, never is exterminated. The Albanian was a peculiarly tough customer. He withdrew to the fastnesses of the mountains, fought with his back to the wall, so to speak, and in defiance of efforts to Serbize him, retained his language and remained persistently attached to the Church of Rome.” (Mary Edith Durham, Twenty years of Balkan Tangle, p. 52)
The Nemanjids who ruled Serbia from the 12th century up to 1371 built churches and monasteries in Kosovo mainly on the ruins of Albanian Catholic churches and other religious sites, the very churches and monasteries which are used by the Serbs today as an argument to prove that Kosovo is “the cradle of their mediaeval state and the center of their Orthodox Christian faith”.
According to Noel Malcolm, “the earliest foundations were mainly in the old nucleus-territory of Rascia, to the north of Kosovo: Studenica, Nemanja’s most important foundation, which still survives today, and a monastery dedicated to St. George, the ruins of which (near Novi Pazar) are known as ‘Djudjevi Stupovi’, ‘George’s Pillars’. Further to the north, near the central Serbian town of Kraljevo, the monastery of Zica was founded by Stefan the First-crowned; this was chosen by Sava as the seat of his autocephalous Church. (Only at the end of the thirteenth century, when Zica had been burned down by a raiding expedition of Tatars and Cumans, did the seat of the archbishopric move to Pec in Western Kosovo.) After Studenica, the second most important Nemanjid monastery was Mileseva, founded by Stefan the First-Crowned’s successor; this was much further to the west, towards the Bosnian border. And the main foundation of the next-but-one Serbian king was at Sopocani, which lies just to the west of Novi Pazar. In other words, the cradle of Serbian monasticism in the first two or three generations of Nemanjid rule was located where the cradle of the Serbian state had been: not inside Kosovo, but further to the north and west. It was only later, with the development of the Patriarchate buildings at Pec, and the fourteenth-century foundations of Gracanica, Decani and the monastery of the Holy Archangels in Prizren, that Kosovo gained any real importance for the Nemanjid church-building programme”(Noel Malcolm, Kosovo - A Short History, pp 45-46).
However, in the 15th century, Serbia covered more or less the area between the Danube, the Great (Velika) Morava and the Timok, a river in Eastern Serbia and Western Bulgaria.
According to chronicles, more members of ethnic minorities such as Serbs, Turks and Roma settled in the Albanian territory of Kosovo under the Ottomans. The implementation of the Serbian colonization program in Kosovo between the two world wars helped the Serb minority in Kosovo to grow although it did not exceed the 10 percent share of its population. Under this program, the Serbs confiscated Albanian land at a time when more Serbian and Montenegrin colonists settled on Albanian territory. In the 1912-1918 period, thousands of Albanians were exterminated or deported to Turkey. In the span of 3 years, from 1910 to 1913, Serbia doubled its size at the expense of Albanian territories. On March 7, 1937, Dr. Vaso Cubrilovic, academician of Yugoslavia and minister in various departments in communist Yugoslavia after the war, presented the royal government of Stoyadinovic with his memorandum on “The Expulsion of the Albanians”. The outbreak of World War II brought its further application to an end although the Yugoslav leadership resumed its implementation in compliance with the changing circumstances after the war. Aleksandar Rankovic, the minister of the Interior, who also held the second highest post in the executive branch of the Yugoslav government until 1966, was mainly responsible for the brutal treatment of the Albanians and their deportation to Turkey. Vaso Cubrilovic’s memorandum draws on another wider-ranging program, the Serbian minister Ilija Garasanin’s work “Nacertanije” (1844), which from a blueprint to spread Serbian influence, became a geopolitical instruction for expansion into Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, the northern part of today’s Albania and Macedonia of today.
There is a host of arguments that account for the fact that Serbia’s annexation of Kosovo was illegal and that the Kosovo majority Albanian population should enjoy and exercise their right to self-determination as their national right.
Kosovo as we know it today was part of the Kosovo Vilayet, which was carved up as a result of the Balkan wars of 1912-1913 between the neighboring countries. The boundaries of the Kosovo Vilayet had been shifting as the Ottoman Empire lost territory to neighboring states under the Treaty of Berlin following the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. The Kosovo Vilayet had Skopje (today’s capital city of the Republic of Macedonia) as its capital. Serbia grabbed Kosovo from the Ottomans and annexed the province militarily without the consent of its Albanian majority population during the Balkan Wars.
Serbia’s illegal annexation of Kosovo is an argument that Kosovo’s independence does not contravene international law. It would only put an end to a flagrant injustice committed against the Albanians with the connivance and tacit agreement of the European Powers. Serbs’ arguments are made up to cover up this century-old injustice.
As Esat Stavileci, member of the Kosovo Academy of Science and Arts and professor of law, points out, Kosovo’s constitutional position in the former Yugoslavia cannot help the Serbian thesis either. Historically speaking, Kosovo has never been a legal part of Serbia. Although not a republic, Kosovo was a constituent part of the Yugoslav Federation with clearly defined territory and borders. The same as the Yugoslav republics, it was represented to the federal institutions not through Serbia but directly. It boasted the prerogatives of a federal constituent part of the Yugoslav federation, which are separate political and territorial identity and constitution. Hence, Kosovo was not part of the independent sovereign state of Serbia as recognized by the 1878 Berlin Congress. Nor was it part of Serbia at the 1943 Second AVNOJ Congress (AVNOJ – “Anti-Fascist National Liberation Council of Yugoslavia”). In 1944, this same Council did not assign Kosovo to be part of Serbia, already established as a federal unit of the second Yugoslavia. Kosovo was not part of Serbia in the structure of the Constitutional Assembly of Yugoslavia in 1945 when the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, led by Josip Broz Tito, was founded. In 1945, during its military occupation, Kosovo was not included in sovereign Serbia, but in federal Serbia within federal Yugoslavia. The abolition of Kosovo’s autonomy that resulted from the amendments in the Constitution of Serbia on the 28th of March 1989 was an illegal act. Their “endorsement” in the Kosovo Assembly was also unconstitutional because of the exceptionally political pressures brought to bear on the delegates. The Serbian army had also cordoned off the Assembly with tanks and military personnel. All the proceedings took place in a very tense atmosphere and the delegates could in no way express their free will under duress.
The Serbs, who settled the region by 630 AD, having been invited by the Byzantine emperor Heraclius to suppress the local restive populations, use history as an argument to prove their case. If history is taken into account, we would say that Greece should claim Istanbul, Bulgaria and Hungary should claim Belgrade, Germany should claim a right over Sudetenland, Sweden over Finland and Norway, Mexico over Florida and California, whereas Albania should claim the Illyrian territories which until recently were called Yugoslavia, Iraq should claim a right over Kuwait and so on and so forth. Returning Kosovo to Serbia would be the same as restoring Roman provinces to Italy and Ottoman provinces to Turkey. As an occupying power, Serbia’s claim to Kosovo would also be tantamount to giving their former colonies back to Great Britain, Spain, France, the Netherlands and Portugal.
As well as this, the independence of Kosovo does not bear resemblance to secessions in other parts of the world. According to Stavileci, the relationship between Kosovo and Serbia can be likened to that of Indonesia and East Timor. East Timor was annexed by Indonesia in 1975 contrary to the will of Portugal as the external sovereign, a fact that made its annexation by Indonesia illegal. Indonesian rule in East Timor was often marked by extreme violence and brutality, a situation which was similar to that of Kosovo situation under Serbia. This injustice was redressed when the Indonesian government recognized the right to self-determination of the East Timor people. Portugal agreed to recognise East Timor’s independence on May 20, 2002 and on September 27, East Timor joined the United Nations. Singapore is another example that should be taken into consideration. It split from Malaysia and officially gained sovereignty on August 9, 1965. The case of Kosovo is also similar to the case of Namibia. South Africa occupied it in World War I and administered it as a League of Nations mandate territory until after World War II, when it unilaterally annexed the territory. In 1966 SWAPO launched a war of independence and South Africa agreed to end its rule in 1988. Namibia won its independence in 1990. The Eritrea case too provides another example in this regard. The struggle for independence ended in 1991 and two years later over 99 percent of the Eritrean people voted for independence in a referendum supervised by a United Nations mission. Independence was declared on May 24 1993.
Kosovo’s independence can by no means be compared to secession of territories that were not annexed in a unilateral manner against the will of the people of the original sovereigns. The separatist movements in Gagauzia and Transnistria (Dnestr Republic), Southern Osetia and Abkazia (Georgia), for instance, lack Kosovo’s ethnic basis. In Kosovo about 95 percent of the population is Albanian. These regions did not have an autonomous or federal status at the time of dissolution of the former Soviet Union as Kosovo did at the time of breakup of the former Yugoslavia. The situation of the Kosovo Albanians cannot be likened to that of the Scots, Catalonians, Welsh, Corsicans or Basques either because the latter have not been ever deported en masse or massacred by the states, which control them. In addition to hundreds of thousands of Albanians slaughtered and deported abroad over one century under Serbia, about ten thousand Albanians were massacred by the Serb army and paramilitary bands prior to and during the Kosovo conflict and the war in 1998-1999.
The existence of the Albanian state cannot be an obstacle to the independence and sovereignty of Kosovo. Suffice it to mention in this context that the existence of Romania did not hinder the independence of Moldavia or that of France was not an obstacle to the establishment of the canton-state of Switzerland. In fact, the establishment of an Albanian state of Kosovo would not be an advantage of the Albanians in the Balkans compared to the option of the unification of Kosovo and the present-day Albanian state.
As to the size of territory and population of Kosovo, we can well say that there are 34 United Nations member states with a smaller territory and 58 other states that enjoy the same status with a smaller population than Kosovo’s. As regards the admission of new members, it should be noted that 34 new states became members of the United Nations from 1990 to 2002.
The already quoted and other arguments and facts prove squarely that Kosovo meets all the criteria to become an independent state and full-fledged member of the United Nations and other international bodies. Nobody can deprive the Kosovo Albanians of this inalienable historical right by turning reality upside down, misrepresenting the truth about the Serb squatters in Kosovo and questioning the morality of the United States action in the Balkans. Borrowing the so-called arguments of Serb propaganda to vilify the Albanians and their liberation struggle against Serb bondage, to distort the message conveyed by the U.S. protection of the Albanian defenseless population and insult the presidents of the United States for their so-called shortsightedness is a futile effort to concoct non-existing realities.
All I have to say is that what President George W. Bush said about Kosovo’s independence during his visit to Albania on June 10, 2007 will help redress an historical injustice to the Albanians, and that a hero’s welcome they extended to him is a tribute to the United States for its help to promote democracy in the country as well as for its protection of this ancient nation in the Balkans.
I'd like to point out that the Noel Malcolm's book is generally regarded as a part of a CIA funded propaganda against the Serbs and that as such has been fully discredited by a myriad of scholars worldwide. Contrary to the thesis of that book, Yugoslavia had been created through the efforts of Serbs to insure the emancipation of the related Southern Slavs and not as a nationalist project of the Serbs for the Serbs as this Serbofobe claims. The efforts of the West within the last twenty years to distroy this creation may have only been justified to the exstent that the West wanted to rid the area of communism. However, if this was the case, this original let's say "benign" intention was hijacked by an alliance of the worst possible kind of demimonde; EU and US bureaucrats with no stake in the outcome, mercenaries, gun merchants, war tourists and profiteers, media and secret service superstars, retired generals and diplomats, former nazis, radical islamists and catholic supremacists, all of it culminating in the end with an artificial recreation of the Albanian irridentism, the narrative of which is by and large completely spurious and fictional. But since all the wars in the area have ended and since the US has no real interest there once that communism got removed from the scene, it is time for our foreign polucy to take a new look at the Balkans. Simply put, we are now on the wrong side in Kosovo and Kosovo is not worth a drop of American blood. It is time for the US to reevaluate the balance of power in the Balkans which is increasingly not in our favor. The only way to fix this is to renew our traditional relations with the Serbs as the nation best suited to organize the area. It is time that figures like Mr. Burns and Mr. Fried start getting the sack.
You just gotta love Albanians. Not only do they LIE in a most overt fashion, but they approach issues as if everybody else just fell off the turnip truck. Get a load of this logic:
"We were suppressed, exploited and colonized. We were poor. Our land is rich but it belonged to somebody else. That's why we decided to have many children"
Who in their right mind could see any logic in such garbage. These are the typical Albanian ways where no other solution ever existed but their own. I don't foresee a bloodless outcome no matter what what UN, EU, USA or Russia choose to do. There has only been one solution to Albanians: prove that you are born on this land - or leave it. Military tribunals set up ad hoc for every Albanian who "purchased" Serbian lands over the last 100 years to prove that there was no extortion, blackmail, sabotage, cutting off from the utility services (water, electricity). If they prove it let them live and let them enjoy the free medical, free education, etc. etc.
Cute how Alban forgets that the federal Yugoslav government has provided a lot to the Kosovars only on account of being a "minority".
Thanks to Iliya and Alban
I can see that there is no way to square the circle between you if thats the correct expression.You both have deep conviction of the rightiousness of your claim to kosovo.
To me there is only one way this can be sorted and thats partition. The Serbs get the top quarter adjacent to the rest of Serbia and the Albanians the rest.This can work if the USA and Russia agree to it and force their proteges to accept.
Its particularly attractive for the Serbs as they keep a part of the area that is so symbolic to them but resolves the demographic catastrophe thats awaits them if they keep kosovo within Serbia. The way i see it if Serbia is partitioned and the whole of kosovo is removed from it the region will be unstable for ever as the a Serbs will never rest and will sooner or later try to take it back. In the same way demographics works against the Serbs what works in their favour is their geographic position. Location means Belgrade will always the the lynchpin in the Balkan Penninsula and always has been.
The Albanians will be making a big mistake if they reject an American order to partition Bosnia as they could be turned into the 'Bad Guys' virtually overnight by western propoganda.
correction - above should say Kosovo not Bosnia of course
"Alban Ziguri
Dear Slobodan Milosevic,"
Ha,ha.
The biggest albanian pain today is that there is no another Milosevic so that they could cry to the world how they are supressed, killed, raped etc, etc. by DR. EVIL MILOSEVIC. So they want to resurect him.
Cmon.
p.s. Maybe they should try with Koshtunica? Ha, ha. That will be a baaaaad PR
Let's try a magic act, now you see it - now you don't. In spite of the undisputed Ottoman Empire's conquest of the entie Balkns region this clown actually claims
"According to chronicles, more members of ethnic minorities such as Serbs, Turks and Roma settled in the Albanian territory of Kosovo under the Ottomans."
How can one nation be occupied, expelled, tortured, deported, but at the same time considered to be settled in the "Albanian territory" - Albania didn't even exist at that time, let alone the Serbian people defying the Laws of physics, being at two different places at the same time. I shall retain the stand that only an outright armed confrontation can resolve this problem. Even in theory there can not be any common ground between these pathological liars and confirmed criminals.
The more accurate stand of Serbian migration worked in the opposite direction, from the life of Arsenije III Carnojevic (who kept a written account throughout his life):
As the tide turned in 1690 and Turks advanced through Serbia, Arsenije retreated with the Austrian army and 60-70,000 Serbs to the north, in an episode later named The Great Migration of the Serbs. In April Emperor Leopold issues his Letter of Invitation, in which he invites Serbs and other Balkan nations on the run to come to Habsburg Monarchy. In front of this huge decision Arsenije III organizes the ecclesiastical and national gathering in Belgrade (Beogradski sabor) that meets on June 18 and decides to accept Leopold as Serbian king and continue war against the Turks but only on clear conditions that were sent to Vienna. Based on these, and in grave need of soldiers and farmers, on August 21 emperor issued his first Chapter on Privileges in which he recognizes Serbs in Habsburg Empire as a separate political entity (corpus separatum) under Serbian orthodox church. Driven by further Turkish advance, they flee upstream the Danube all the way to Buda and Szentendre. This migration increased the number of Serbs in the Pannonian plain and the privilegies that were given to the Serbs by the Habsburg emperor were a legal base for the creation of Serbian Vojvodina in the 19th century.
God forbid I start reading the entire volume of lies posted by this clown. I found enough lies in three sentences already, the rest of that garbage and fabrication must be equally deplorable, however it (the Albanian parasite) spells better than I do - or uses a good spell-check.
Aparently Dr. Rice declined to make any comments after the seeing SuRoi (uncrowned future king of KosovO), but being as clever as I think she is - she strongly suggested (I'd guess "ordered") absolute patience, peace and no wave making for the next 120 days in hopes of getting the Russians re-assured (according to her press secretary) that this will NOT be a precedant.
There are two great Serbian windfall profits out of this gathering:
1. The parasites will not be able to control their gangs and criminals and invite more wrath of the only 10% of the free thinking world.
2. The self-delusional attempt to "convince Russians" how this is not a precedant can not be accomplished even in theory because this is clearly and only a precedant - while Russians are now enjoying their newly discovered power and not taking kindly to being lectured, but rather suggested that the "British should have their heads examined"
linked from BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/6914522.stm
First of all i wanna thank Alban Ziguri for not answering one question i asked him but instead trying to change the subject on my name. Also, Alban i wanna say that no matter how much you write to justify that kosovo is Albanian will not make a diffrence. No one here so far agrees with you and yet you still continue to bullshit and lie. The truth is the world is finally beginning to see the real terrorists and war criminals. (The U.S and of course Albania)...I would just wanna see the look on your face when Russia and Serbia begin to act on this crime against the serbian people.
spiegazione con i fatti storici fondamentali
For as long as I know myself (over half a century) I was never in favor of any armed struggle no matter what the cause, but I must admit that arnautic parasites were too persuasive for me and forced me to abandon my “pacifist views”.
There are people who claim that Hitler should have been shot in the cradle – maybe not literally but consider the early signs that nobody wanted to see or acknowledge:
“Having become Chancellor, Hitler foiled all attempts to gain a majority in parliament and on that basis persuaded President Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag again. Elections were scheduled for early March, but on 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire. Since a Dutch independent communist was found in the building, the fire was blamed on a Communist plot to which the government reacted with the Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February which suspended basic rights, including habeas corpus. Under the provisions of this decree, the German Communist Party and other groups were suppressed, and communist functionaries and deputies were arrested, put to flight, or murdered.”
Exactly the same with Arnauts today.
We don’t see the forest from the tree. The only viable solution is an early action (military action). Hitler should have been stopped immediately after the staged Reichstag fire – it was pretty obvious what, and how he had been working in prior decade. Carbon copy of the staged work visible by today’s Arnauts. I understand that the British waited since they were not quite the military power as much as they were a naval power, but without the Indian, Australian, Canadian resources they couldn’t do much good to anybody except harm to themselves. The French were poisoned by their communist party, internal struggles and deemed Germans as half-way decent neighbors who are better equipped. Russia Molotov and Hitler’s von Ribbentrop found a common language for the first 15 minutes of devouring Poland – nobody was left to fight the German overtly militaristic, expansionistic drives.
Or, as Marcvs Agrippa puts it: “This quest for empire is not the cause of WWI. WWI was the epilogue of the decades of galloping militarization, mutual-defense-treaty-ridden international politics, etc. The blame lies with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, because they wanted to colonize the entire Balkans and secure their Adriatic ports.”
I don’t see a single reason why the civilized world would refrain from a military action if it is obvious enough that the Turks, (Arnauts) and other Mohamedanistas will threaten the stability of Europe for decades to come. Greece and Turkey have both been dancing on the same tight-rope for decades and thank God there has not been a war – but given the unstable Kosovo situation, their own proclivity to expand WAY beyond whatever two square millimeters are granted to them, they will ask for more and launch same lies, same propaganda, just as Hitler did.
OK let’s agree that as a human race we were stupid and afraid to act during the 1930s – do we really have to repeat that same error in 2007?
I accept that war is not the only solution (if the Arnauts accept to leave European soil and crawl back into Turkey or the Caspian Sea, but I don’t see that happening any time soon. The puppet masters holding the Albanian strings wouldn’t allow it. There are such nasty little things like a huge profit from any war anywhere, sales of firearms, ammo, mercenaries, etc. All those elements suit the Arnautic criminal profile very well – hence the lawlessness right now, only one step removed from a full scale war, and even the Arnauts will agree that
“Inter arma silent leges”.
Russo-Serbian military maneouvers in Presevo are long overdue.
Sorry, forgot the clsoing:
"Si vis pacem, para bellum."
I feel almost out of place as an American involving myself in this discussion. I do not pretend any insight to Balkan conflicts. My main issue is that American support for Albanian nationalism is unjustified by American interests. Further, it is contrary to our interests in that it (1) will destablize other Southern European nations against which Albanians have territorial claims; (2) exacerbate ethnic conflict in the region (in Bosnia and Serbia); and (3) create at least a potential (and many would argue currently is a) staging point for terrorist activities in Europe.
American enthusiasm for Albanian nationalism is unjustified by the American interest. It is an alien thing. Only a person who is either drunken with ideology or has an ulterior motive would view Albanian nationalism as something for the US to encourage (the third criteria would be a politician beholden to boodle from Albanian-American interests--Bob Dole, call your office).
Americans should withdraw from such conflicts. Our policy should be to promote stability in the region and avoid conflict with historic powers (such as Russia) over the matter.
Of course, that's if you're really an American. If you are a dual loyalist, or worse, a foreign agent, then you'll likely have a different view. My view, Kansas farmboys should fight for the US not alien peoples embroiled in conflicts that predate our nation and have nothing to do with us.
I shall retain the stand that only an outright armed confrontation can resolve this problem.
Congrats to Iliya. Now he’s got TWO things right!
Russo-Serbian military maneouvers in Presevo are long overdue.
And the result of such “maneuvers” will be a deluge of blood. Let us, friends, ask Iliya and Slobodan each whether he’s willing to put his blood where his mouth is, or if he’s just another tedious fraud. Let’s us ask him and his fellow saber-rattlers three questions, and let us demand answers -- very personal questions, for war is a very, very personal matter, and charges a very personal cost.
1. Do you have sons? If not, then would you be so kind as to let those who do be the ones who decide whether there is to be war? The ultimate masters of politics, the Romans, let the assembly of soldiers, those who would doing the fighting and dying, decide the issue of war. Until the Swiss granted the franchise to women in the 1960s, the Swiss male citizen soldier had the same say-so.
2. If yes, then is your son, or you yourself, enlisted in the Serbian Army? If yes, then provide please name, rank, and regiment, or don’t expect us to believe you.
3. If no, then pray tell, why not? Why, isn’t the cause of Serbia’s territorial integrity vastly more precious than your son’s life, or your own? Or, sir, do you expect someone else’s son to suffer and die for your war? Indeed in most of America’s wars the Scots-Irish, and later together with Blacks, did most of the fighting and dying. Frankly, this makes it impossible to quench indignation – the sight of such free-rider frauds so eager for someone other than their own child to pay the price. There is surely a place in Hell for such. Dante indeed provided a place in the Eighth Circle for “Creators of Strife”.
Let us ask Albanians thirsty for blood similar questions. Let us ask Zionists (and American Evangelical Zionists) if their sons are enrolled in Ivy League colleges (and Bob Jones U) or if they’re enrolled in the IDF. De Je View is wrong: It is not a question of having a dog in the fight; it’s having a child in the fight. And the god of war is Moloch.
So if, in their next posts, all these arm-chair warriors don’t answer these questions in their first three sentences, or do answer them so as to prove themselves shirkers of the burden, then let us read no further and kindly tell them to shut up. If they don’t shut up, then let’s turn to their war whoops a deaf ear and to their printed hypocrisy a blind eye.
I have one son and one grandson. My son shares my view that all Hitlers of the world should be killed before they commit their own killings.
Q:What else whould you like to know?
Half of Serbi feels exactly like I do. We are (a little frustrated) that after making massive concession to Albanians the west ignores that the very Interpol in the very heart of Europe is hunting Arnauts as the most frequent law breakers, but contemplates rewarding them with Serbian land.
Q: Was there ever a half normal person that thought there would deifinitely be no armed struggle in spite of Albanian Lies, and other attrocities?
With an ounce of sense you'll conclude that the MAD was a viable policy implemented by the West and the East (Mutual Assured Destruction). What would so wrong if this known principle would be put to work to include kosovo and Albania too. Let's see how fast the Albanians run back to a negotiationg table after they are facing a nasty end of a rifle. Killing women, nuns and children has already been tried and it didn't garner them much respect anywhere.
Q: I am surprised that a country with such a solid (logical and justified claim to Serbian land) has been waiting this long to take their own land - why do you think that is?
Now, as in all prior cases I ansered a question posed to me, let's see if you have half the courtesy to answer the few questions I posed in return. I'll make it simpler and start every question with a capital Q - so you know where to look.
But again I get cursed by noting that Albanians define bravery by the act of hiding and not disclosing either their email address or a name - while Mr. Jovicic and I have both published our email addresses - does that realy leave any doubt in your mind that I would join in the expulsion of the criminals from Serbia.
I am glad that Alban’s comments and my article that he posted on this Website again made some reader-commentators to step a little further than their previous positions. They increased their offensive, warmongering and passionate vocabulary. This is what I want of them. People, who lose their temper, lose their case too.
In these comments, I am going to give my opinion very briefly on sone points raised in the previous comments by other readers.
I do not think partition is the best solution to the Kosova problem because such a solution would benefit the Serbs only. If not the entire Kosova, the Serbs would like to get its northern part because that part is the richest in mineral deposits not only in Kosova but in the entire former Yugoslav space. The Serbs exploited the mineral wealth of Kosova for one hundred years and now they want to exploit it forever (!).
The Serbs, including I.P., have made up two so-called arguments: the Serbs came to the Balkan region in the 6th century B.C. and that hundreds of thousands of Albanians invaded Kosova after World War II. I advise readers not to believe such arguments. They can find the truth by consulting serious and unbiased authors on the Kosova issue. As Alban says, “Kosovo – a Short History” is a very good guide to the issue irrespective of the cheap talk about the author. The rejection of these arguments on the basis of historical facts is very important because it would also expose all the other Serb theses.
President Woodrow Wilson did not protect Albania at the Paris Conference in 1919 because of America’s interests in the country. He prevented its dismemberment between Serbia, Greece and Italy for the sake of a principle embodied in his Fourteen Points that “guaranteed political independence and territorial integrity to great and small nations alike.” President Clinton and the leaders of the European Union protected a small nation that was being massacred by the butcher of the Balkans not because of their special interests in Kosova. With their action, they gave a message to the dictators that they were not immune to international censure and that the free world will always stand up for those peoples and nations whose rights are trampled underfoot. President George W. Bush also has declared full American support for Kosova’s independence not because of America’s specific interests in Kosova. His statement reinforced the great principle Woodrow Wilson fought for: “guaranteed political independence and territorial integrity to great and small nations alike”. In a nutshell, what these three American presidents have done is the embodiment of American idealism. States are like people. People who are devoid of ideals and after selfish interests are the scum of society. The same goes for the states, be they big or small.
High birth rate, I would say, as Alban points out, is an innate, intuitive response of self-protection of a nation when it is in imminent danger of extinction. A nation is like a human being. It has its own protective immune mechanism that goes into action once it feels its existence threatened. In the case of the Albanians, the threat came from Serbia. That immune mechanism can work only in a nation who is full of vitality and resilience like the Albanians.
I am afraid that the partition of Kosova will cause a chain reaction in the Balkans. In other words, it would open the Pandora Box. Changing the borders of Kosova would lead to demands for the rectification of the Balkan borders and organized political and other movements will resort to every means to achieve this end.
It is the opinion of foreign policy specialists that the Albanian issue is the very essence of the Balkan question. There are Albanian territories in five Balkan countries. There is no country like Albania in Europe at least that across its borders there are only Albanian territories inhabited by Albanians. That’s why, their unification into one Albanian state would be the most natural thing and very easy for the international community to help achieve. If created, such a situation would lead to the solution of the Albanian issue and the Balkan question as well.
#45 Rodney King: I have a simple question for you: Why haven't you posed all these Q's to Slick Willy before he decided to bomb Yugoslavia? And yes, before accusing someone of hypocrisy, one needs to look at his own.