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

To: goldsnow who wrote (11184)	6/5/1999 12:09:00 PM
From: Yaacov	Respond to of 17770

I doubt if the province will be partitioned. I also doubt if Serbs will ever go back to Kosovo. Look at it this way, the Serbs lost Kosovo, but they get to keep Milosovic! What a bargin! gg

To: goldsnow who wrote (11184)	6/5/1999 12:52:00 PM
From: George Papadopoulos	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 17770

Results of the crisis...and how Milosevic and the Serbs won while letting Clinton "appear" as the winner. Number one result is that Kosovo stays as part of Yugoslavia, its borders will not be altered. This is the main point on the peace agreement. That was the Serbs' main geopolitical goal which was achieved. No referendum after 3 years for independence, this point was dead as soon as the bombing started... Number two is that the ethnic makeup of Kosovo has been PERMANENTLY altered...A lot of refugees have gotten on planes to the West and these people are not going back. All the refugees in the camps are dying to get on one of those planes too and it is highly unlikely that most of them will go back...If they do, it won't be for a while. Anyway, it won't be long until all the lucky refugees who immigrated to the West start sponsoring their family members (which consist of many members) to come to the promised land and leave the bombed out misery behind. Thank the bombing for that; if no bombing, Kosovo would have been 99.99% Albanians in a few more years. Number three is that the peace agreement calls for the dismantling of the KLA. That, of course, will be very difficult and will probably lead to Beirut style episodes because these KLA terrorists will just not let down their weapons and join civil life (green cards anyone?)too easily. But I doubt if the Serbs will accept the peace agreement without this KLA cancer out of the way. It may take some time but KLA is history (at least I hope so). Fourth, there has been a consensus to rebuild the region, which means lots of money to repair all the damage and reintegrate the local economy to the European Union. Fifth, he exposed the inherent weakness of an alliance as NATO and discredited its "expanded" mission probably for good. Sixth, he recredited the role of the UN as the only legitimate body to solve world problems...That may not be enough, but hey it's a start. At the same time, Clinton, Blair, Allbright, Cohen, Clarke etc.. can gloat that their superior "strategy" of "massive" air power succeeded in reversing evil and saving lives without a loss of a single US life in combat...while at the same time making lots of hawks like McCain look awfully stupid....That and the stock market coming back and Clinton gets probably over 60% in the polls while having over a year to wash his stained legacy away by spending even more of our dollars there to rebuild what he bombed (unless he can pull something out in Israel). In the meantime, Milosevic will go down as a hero who stood up to the 19 nation allmighty alliance and kept Kosovo and he will be a legend 600 years from now just like 1389 was. Yes Kosovo may be occupied for a few decades but that was the price of peace for the Serbs...Raimbullet allowed independence for Kosovo, this agreement pretty much shuts that option down FOR EVER! In the meantime, so many countries have presented their bills and benefited from going along with Nato. Most importantly Russia (I wonder when IMF will anounce the next 5 package released to them<g>), Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Turkey, on and on...The US war arsenal has dwindled to alarming levels and has opened other nations to challenge the US in some other part of the world. Plus it has exposed wide rifts within the several branches of the US armed forces. Of course, this has been EXTREMELY expensive and has caused wide suffering to the Serb and Kosovar Albanian population...And sadly, international law has been discredited AND all nations realize now that arming themselves (and obtaining nuclear weapons) is essential to their security! All of this could have been achieved without the suffering the bombs caused if the US diplomats had the skills to present a fair agreement to Rauimbullet instead of issuing ultimatums... Anyway, that's my take on what has happened so far....Comments welcome. Flames will be returned to sender due to the anti-flame virtual jacket I have obtained <g>

To: goldsnow who wrote (11184)	6/5/1999 4:45:00 PM
From: Yaacov	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 17770

Antone who thinks Milosovic won is out of his mind! They were bombed to pieces, had their army down-sized, their bridges, rifineries, industry destroyed, and may have lost Kosovo! Yet some think Serbians won!! Maybe so, they lost Kosovo but won Milosovic! gg The only difference between the NATO terms and Rambuillet is that now the terms of surrender is on UN letter-heads! Is this a victory? The NATO condtion is even worse for them now than before. In the NATO terms there is no deadline for disarming KLA! And with what they put Kosovars through, they will never again rule in Kosovo. I can tell you who lost; EC lost because it had to get US involved to setlle a crisis in its backyard. Greeks lost! US, NATO and EC will not trust them! Kosovars lost, becasue they have nothing to go back to! Serbian lost because NATO bombing set them back 20 years. US won a moral victory but lost diplomaticlly what it had gained in US-Russian-Chinese relationship. (Another cold war is now inevitable!) Maybe one can argue that the only winner is Russia, they got some money from IMF! I am not sure! There are no winners! We all lost! We palnted the wind and gathered the storm! Kind regards, yaacov