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

To: George Papadopoulos who wrote (3631)	4/14/1999 3:03:00 AM
From: iandiareii	Respond to of 17770

Serbian operations have always be directed against terrorist up until the bombing started Huh? And the past year's worth of pictures/reports of Kosovar Albanians huddled in the woods above smoldering villages...the Albanians just love camping? Even if these actions were directed at KLA strongholds -- not, by any means, the majority of the attacks -- Serbia's prosecution of its repressive rights demanded international condemnation. A year on, the massing of Serbian troops along the Kosovar border demanded international armed intervention. That the war has gone badly does not mean that it should not have gone at all, as Serbia's past actions warranted the assumption that delay would necessarily mean ethnic cleansing, burned villages, and dead Albanians. Picture slightly smaller-scale, semi-slo-mo Serb actions of today. That said, the NATO component of the Rambouillet deal revealed the diplomatic failures of Euro-American politicians. Serbia could never accept such a provision, and, more to the point, neither could Russia. The current state of disaster -- both in Kosovo and geopolitics -- springs directly from the incompetence of Western leadership. They lacked either the will or the skill -- perhaps both -- to craft political consensus among the world community. It's not enough to be a bad-ass in a B-2, you have to be a bad-ass in the General Assembly, the Senate, the House of Commons, etc. What the Kosovar Albanians got instead were allies too slow, cynical, timid and inept to garner the assent of world citizenry to a just cause; lacking broad political support, the Allies have yet to commit to a ground war, although their citizens may be ahead of them on what Kosovo requires. Some leadership. When one hears the word "Western interests" one should first cry to the rooftops. Then make a fist, and get ready to use it. These folks are never, never to be trusted beyond what we decide is right. So it's a push-button war and no thought to the ways in which our actions here could have prepared the world community to deal with intrastate genocide. One might have hoped that Rawanda would forestall Kosovo. Instead, Kosovo may leave us more ill-suited than ever to make the case for future humanitarian intervention. Say your prayers Kurds, Mayans, Timorese...our help may be on the way. ian