Captain's Quarters -

And even with the evidence of the UN's continuing failures, the MSM still proclaim that they are capable of handling Iraq as well.

The Russians are holding things up in the Balkans and China won't let anything meaningful happen in the Sudan.

I think these countries continue to operate according to whatever they perceive is in their own best interests. Very strange, I know. But maybe I have that wrong. I'm sure someone somewhere can me how it's really all America's fault. Perhaps it's just that we haven't sacrified enough of our own self-interest at the altar of the UN to inspire other countries to follow our lead. Maybe that's it.

Kosovo, hmmm, wasn't that one of bill's successful wars?

Dear Cap'n Ed: I've always enjoyed your blog, having found it about a year ago (I'm also a Minnesotan). This is my first post too.

I have to disagree with your conclusion above. I worked in Kosovo for 2 years as a Russian linguist, with the Russian 13th Tactical Group in Kamenica, north of Gnilanje. Also, one of my best friends and former roomates from the Navy is an Albanian whose family comes from Pec, on the west of Kosovo. So, I'd like to think I have some neutral analysis on this issue.

First, I disagree with the idea that the "country" has been occupied. The formerly autonomous Serbian province of Kosovo is currently occupied by international forced, because of a lie that there was ethnic cleansing going on in the area and that the Albanians were the ones being slaughtered - which turned out to be false. As of yet no mass graves nor evidence that the conflict in Kosovo between the Serbs and the Albs was anything more than a two-sided violent clash with minimal casualties (as compared to the rest of the Balkans).

Second, I don't know that we want to reward what could be instigation by a group with a new, independent national identify. Kosovo, while having autonomy over self-governance for many years, did not have independence from Serbia. The conflict remains, and probably will forever, regarding who's land it was "first." The Albanians continue to regard Kosovo, and much of Serbia, Macedonia, Montenegro and Greece as part of greater Albania, taken from them over the years. In fact the KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) is but one part of a larger organization that seeks to instigate violence and disorger in these other regions. I remember vividly an incident in Skopje (where I went to booze it up with Hottie Macedonian babes) where there was armed conflict north of the city and into and out of the city, just before I reached it, of which the KLA was part (or whatever that wing's name was). In addition, attacks on and intimidation of Serbs has continued to this day with the effect of removing the Serbian population almost wholly from Kosovo. Yes, the Serbs did treats the Albs as 2nd-class citizens, but that doesn't mean we should allow a reciprocal effect now.

Finally, removing Kosovo from Serbian possession is an poor idea for economic reasons. All, and I repeat ALL, of the industry and assertive economic activity comes from the Serbs, not the Albanians. Currently, Kosovo is a catering-industry - catering to the U.N. forces. That is it. It is a country full of stolen automobiles, goods, no working industry, serious goods (e.g., gold near Mitrovica), and great farming. Yet very little exploitation of goods, or industrial use of what they do have is done. I saw ghost-buildings of larger industrial plants, and I saw no discernible employment beyond what the U.N. offered, or what could be offered to the U.N.

I guess I come down on the Russians with this point, I frankly don't think that handing that country over to the Albanians is a great idea, but is a shoddy one. Finally, I worry about the purported (if not proven) ties to other Islamic nations that have been established through Mosque-financing and organizational ideology.

Thanks.

While I am loathe to support the Russians in anything, consider the following on Kosovo: Muslim Albanians flood illegally across an international border, breed until they tip the demographic scales, conduct their own ethnic cleansing whenever and wherever they get the upper hand, and then finally demand sovereignty.

So the Russians instinctively back their co-religionists in Serbia. How will WE feel when the same thing happens in Arizona or So. California?

Russian foreign policy is still "stuck on stupid", trying to recover the glory days of the old empire.

Just like Mussolini trying to recreate the old Roman Empire with his strutting and puffing around the stage like some vaudevillian cartoon figure. Or Hitler trying to relive his grotesque Aryan fantasies of some mystical Teutonic golden age that never was. And the Mullahs of Iran trying to bring the world back to some 7th Century never-never land. And now Putin is trying to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again and reconstruct the Empire of old.

The problem isn't necessarily the fantasy, we all have them and most adults know how to live with them without killing people. The problem is the price in lives that these dreamers are willing to extract from humanity to demand their fulfillment. Historically, the bill has been nothing short of astronomical, and therefore these dreamers are dangerous beyond belief!

quamire?

why is there no mention of Iraqnam?

Robert Arvanitis -- we'll declare an amnesty. Haven't you been paying attention?

"Kosovo, hmmm, wasn't that one of bill's successful wars?"

"A one-year tour...." Theme, Gilligan's Presidency

Trackbacked by The Thunder Run - Web Reconnaissance for 07/09/2007
A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day...so check back often.

Cap'n,

Well, my only real question is why United Staes Military forces are even in Kosovo to begin with. We have better uses for them than perpetuating a UN fiasco.

If Kosovo is of such importance to the European union, why are WE there instead of the much-vaunted European military?

Kosovo is Europe's problem. Let Europe prove it can handle problems in it's own backyard before telling the rest of the world how to act.

Bring all US forces home from Kosovo NOW! In fact, I'd even consider pulling out ALL US forces from Europe. Why are we still there, and still paying rent for the facilities we "occupy"?

Respects,

Russia's right on this one.

Just following up on Mel W's comment, I agree with him, but I come at it from even another direction.

The Sebs have received a lot of bad publicity over the last 15 years, and rightly so. They have been the authors of their own misfortune. That said, Serbia is a valid, existing member state of the United Nations, and Kosovo is legally a part of that state.As a state, Serbia has every right to refuse to consent to its own dismemberment and, indeed, it has a duty to defend its terrirorial integrity.

I am therefore quite troubled by what seems to me to be interference in the territorial integrity of Serbia by the UN. Put another way, by what right does the UN advocate for, push, organize and orchestrate the dismantling of one of its member states? What gives the US, the UK or, for that matter, Russia any standing to even discuss the borders of Serbia, let alone change them?

The US had a civil war in the last century...had the UN existed, would Americans have tolerated the UN pushing for Confederate independence?

I'm a Canadian, and we have had our difficulties with the issue of separatism (which I hope is now behind us). This was a completely internal matter to Canada. I would not want the UN to involve itself in "resolving" this issue should it ever arise again. I do not like what seems to be a precedent being set here in regards to Kosovo...I particularly do not like it in view of how France is able to manipulate the UN.

So, so far as I am concerened, the UN should butt out.

Gwedd is quite correct, and I would add that the US is missing a HUGE opportunity by staying involved in Kosovo.

Namely, the opportunity to FORCE our European allies (whom I have unfortunately been prone to call ' our "allies" ') to s--t or get off the pot when it comes to the defense of their own civilization, much less the West overall.

Are THEY going to solve the problem? Antagonize the Russians if necessary? Keep the Serbs in line? Keep the Albanians from going off the deep end? Pick a side, and thus antagonize the other, with all the downsides that entails? Put a little bit of that ‘soft power’ to work?? Explain what they are doing and why to the sanctimonious mandarins of the UN, Le Monde, and Harvard?

In short, get their hands dirty? While we stand aside and, quite frankly, at least offer more sympathy and verbal support than we have received in many instances of late?

The health of the alliance depends upon forcing Europe to solve at least THIS on their own, and we should be out of there tomorrow for that reason above and beyond all else.

I spent 7 months in Kosovo in 2004, so here's my view.
First, there were some mass graves, but most of the slaughter (from both sides) occured 10 and 20 people at a time. I talked with some of the ones that survived.
Second, the US is there because no other countries troops are effective during civil unrest. During the country-wide riots in April of 2004, only the US sector stayed pacified, and troops from my unit were sent to bail out the Greek and French troops.
Third, whatever the status of the region turns out to eventually be, the area will continue to suffer terrible poverty until some resolution is reached. No reasonable business will invest in a region that doesn't know who will govern a few months out.
And fourth, after seeing the UN in action in Kosovo, I can only say how glad I am that they declined to help in Iraq. The UN has too many chiefs, and no indians.

Dave -

While deferring to one who was there, I'd mention that "the US is there because no other countries troops are effective during civil unrest"... is in fact the entire problem with the alliance. That fact is a terrible detriment to American interests for reasons too numerous to list, and it must change. And the only way it will is if the West's sanctimony brigades, and we all in general know of whom I speak, are FORCED to deal with the real and bloody consequences of their sanctimony... such as chaos on the European frontier.

Them learning to be "effective during civil unrest" will also mean a great deal more sympathy for US actions and interests, and a great deal more willingness to, philosophically at least, thump their activists, academics, and propogandists on the skull for their constant work in support of terrorists, totalitarians, and barbarians.

Leftism is based on the idea that all hard choices are only hard because an oppressor makes them necessary, and that anything done to struggle against Western Civilization is de facto good and justified.

It is time for the purveyors of such childish nonsense to live with the hard and bloody consequences of what they do. Spare them those consequences, and they will never cease, and the West may very likely crash on the shoals they so have assiduously built.

I think I agree with Andrew here - let teh UN do it with all European troops. Let them fail until they lean how to do it right or quit. And let them suffer all of the consequences and expense.

They reflexively hate anything we do (even though they would equally hate us for doing the opposite had we chosen it).

I fail to understand under what authority the UN and NATO can unilaterally declare that a country shall be separated into two.

It was none of our business, we had no interest there, and if we felt we had to get involved, we joined the wrong side.

Russia and the Balkans?

I guess that the Russians are too dense to learn anything from the absolute devestation they suffered in WW-1, and the resulting Revolution which committed them to 70-years of Soviet dictatorship.

Someone with half-a-brain would run, not walk, away from a situation that had caused them so much pain in the past.