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Pastimes : WORLD WAR III -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hawkmoon who wrote (523)	3/25/1999 9:39:00 AM
From: GUSTAVE JAEGER	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 765

Ron, You said: Historically in US history, there are similar precedents to what has occurred in Kosovo. One only has to look at how the US obtained the state of Texas and California through dislocation of the Mexican population with former US citizens. And this activity was openly supported by elements in the US gov't. It led to the Mexica-American war, independence for Texas and then gradual annexation into the US. The serbs should vy for time, make peace, and then provide incentives for their people to move back to Kosovo in order to bring the population back into balance between Serbs and Albanians. They'd then have the full justification to engage their police and military in the region against KLA forces in order to protect their Serbian population. Regarding the historical formation of the USA (Texas, Louisiana purchase, Alaska purchase, and so on), I think that it's irrelevant to deal with the present crisis in the Balkans... If there's anything useful in the XIXth century to help us in understanding what's going on in Europe it's the notion of Nation-State as crafted in post-1815 Europe. Europeans should provide themselves with the proper, democratic political apparatus to cope with their diverse populaces. Muslim Albanians, Gipsies, Turkish folks living --and born-- in Germany, North African immigrants in France, Belgium, etc. should not be pushed around like undesirable alien miasmas... That's the real issue underlying this Balkan mess. You want to tell me about Texas? I just read the other day in the latest issue of FORTUNE Mag that George W. Bush, governor of Texas, and his brother were both fluent in Spanish and that they were consequently able to appeal to Latino voters who traditionally leaned toward the Democrats. And I remember that, back in 1992, when I was in Los Angeles (Broad Street if I remember) the only Anlgo-saxon thing around me was the $ sign! Everything else was Hispanic: passers-by, newspapers, foodstuff,... That's why I believe that the current operation engaged by NATO is not a war waged upon Serbia --it's a therapy! A sweet therapy aimed at curing Europe of jingoism. Better to get rid of the Balkans' would-be Col. Blimps today than to deal with an across-the-board ethnic (Mediterranean) row tomorrow! Now, suggesting, as you did, that the Serbs should re-populate Kosovo in order for them to restore their political clout and regain legitimacy is IMHO a wrong track. This would lead to what I call an israelization of the Kosovo conflict. Just look at how the Israelis scramble to settle in Palestine's occupied territories... As Derek Long put it on this thread, we've entered the Information Age! Wealth of nations, value-add-processes no longer rely on what Alvin Toffler called the ''First Wave'' paradigm. Unfortunately, this might not be true yet for impoverished, 2nd/3rd-world countries that still have to thrive on an agricultural, low-tech economy... Interestingly though, even here in Brussels, we do face the same prospects than the Balkan people... You might be aware of the ongoing tensions between Belgium's French-speaking populace with its better-off Flemish counterpart: the Northern Flemish bourgeoisie shares the same blood and soil mindset than the Serbs. Eigen volk eerst, ie ''Our people first'', is the motto of its most extremist jingoists. On the other hand, Brussels, the capital of Belgium that also hosts European bureaucracies and NATO's HQs, is populated by 85% of French-speaking people. Yet, the Flemish authorities claim the city as their legitimate, natural capital! I shall not dig further into these rather parochial Belgian squabbles --you'll get lost if you've never been here. Anyway, this detour through Belgium would hint you at the potentially far-reaching ripples stemming from the Balkans. Regards, Gustave.