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Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: George Papadopoulos who wrote (3232)	4/10/1999 12:58:00 PM
From: Stormweaver	Respond to of 17770

Great post George: here's a great read from ABC ... Deploying an air war against a sovereign nation that didn't attack first is unprecedented for the alliance. It is also a first for NATO to begin hostilities before seeking approval from the United Nations. And soon there may be ground troops charging in to take on Yugoslav forces. “NATO has never attacked before, but now it had blood on its hands,” observes Balkan expert and NATO history professor David Nelson of Old Dominion University. “It is no longer an organization that deters war. It attacks.” More Daunting Than Predicted Most thought achieving peace in Kosovo could happen relatively quickly. A few days' bombing might be needed, as it had been before Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosovic signed the agreement to end the Bosnian civil war. But that didn't take into account the ferocity of the Serbian response, or the flood of refugees out of Kosovo. Last February, during the Rambouillet peace talks in France, NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said that resolving the Kosovo crisis represented a critical hurdle for the future of the alliance. “We couldn't continue like this, making plans for the next century while we had left unsolved a problem from the 19th century,” Solana said. NATO members tentatively agreed, but some within the alliance expressed reluctance even before the bombing began. Italy continues to voice reservations, while the Dutch dutifully agree to participate with ambivalence. If NATO sends in ground troops, experts worry, age-old cultural differences could erupt between alliance members Greece and Turkey, although officials from both countries have said such fears are unfounded. Hungary, one of the NATO's newest members, may get the jitters because some 350,000 ethnic Hungarians live in Serbia. Europe United for Now For the time being, Yugoslavia's alleged atrocities against ethnic Albanians have bolstered the alliance's resolve, and European nations so far have remained united. That, too, is an unprecedented first when dealing with the war-torn Balkans, which for thousands of years has been divided and conquered again and again. “In the past, nations would be tripping over each other to carve up the place and take the spoils of war,” says Charles Kupchan, a Balkans expert with the Council on Foreign Relations. That they aren't this time “is to the credit of NATO.”