George,
This article from The Times perfectly corroborates what I claimed in my post #4432 on this thread: the Rambouillet meeting involved a loose partnership of democratic countries on one side, and a determined, autocratic will, on the other... Reading this article, it's even more obvious that Milosevic failed to seize the opportunity to reach to a fair agreement in Rambouillet.
The Times article further shows us that the Kosovo crisis can't be settled by Europeans alone --since they all share a common chauvinistic thread with the Serbs. The U.S., as an outsider, can best reconcile all the belligerent parties.
See, George, this whole Kosovo mess shows the world one single, simple truth: Europe has not evolved since WWII. Europeans have had over 50 YEARS to unite their diverse societies and to see beyond their ethnic divides... And where did they go from 1945? They've painstakingly united their.... currencies and their central banking system. Period!
That's why this NATO campaign in the Balkans is more and more perceived as yet another European failure.
As stage 3 of Operation Allied Force is only a few days off, I've noticed a shift in the way the European medias cover Kosovo: the spotlight is brought back on these poor, innocent Belgradians who rush to shelters every night, fearing to get bombed by Yankee airplanes...
So, the strategy of your European allies is to go on with the bombing campaign until everybody sees how wasteful such a strategy's been, then France, Russia, and even a revamped EU Commission (led by former Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi) will take the frontstage and work out some diplomatic deal with Serbia. Of course, NATO will get ridiculed in the process and the U.S. will find themselves holding the bag in Albania... The KLA will look like Arafat's PLO in 1982 when it was forced to leave Beiruth for Tunis. And, last but not least, the Albanian delegation will have to agree on a new, European-crafted peace protocol with... Mr S. Milosevic!
That's the most likely outcome if the U.S. steps back from a ground operation.
Greetings from Brussels,
Gustave.
P.S. Kosovo's total area is only 10,887 km2 (square kilometer), that's about a third of the size of Michigan Lake... Is this too tough a job for the 1st superpower on earth? If it is, then, indeed, US citizens should worry about the capability of their military to defend their country! |
