It's not on the list I copied below, but China should be added to the "against" list. While I understand the motivations of China, Russia and Cyprus to a certain extent, I have to say I'm a little surprised to see Spain aligning itself with the aforementioned, and against its European neighbors. I'll show my ignorance and admit I assume that has to do mostly with their own problems with the Basques.

I'll go ahead and assume to that even though Bush has been very outspoken already in his support of Pristina, he will get roasted for it, because somehow this will come around to being his fault in the first place.



STANCE ON RECOGNITION
For: Germany, Italy, France, UK, Austria, US, Turkey, Albania, Afghanistan
Against: Russia, Spain, Romania, Slovakia, Cyprus


http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44434000/gif/_44434453_kosovo_alban_serb_map416.gif

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7252512.stm

They stole the land from Serbia and UN USA alliance made it happen.
Just like the stolen land of Israel from Palestine.

Except in this Kosovo scenario, UN USA alliance made a correct approach in warfare...they killed off most of their opponents. Bombs sent from the skies teared down their cities, UN soldiers shot the resistance...and they managed to kill off the opposition. Their blood filled river Ibar. Albanians now rein on the land of Serbs, Albanians now made their independence international, upon the crumbled blood filled ground.

They stole the land from Serbia and UN USA alliance made it happen.
Just like the stolen land of Israel from Palestine.

Except in this Kosovo scenario, UN USA alliance made a correct approach in warfare...they killed off most of their opponents. Bombs sent from the skies teared down their cities, UN soldiers shot the resistance...and they managed to kill off the opposition. Their blood filled river Ibar. Albanians now rein on the land of Serbs, Albanians now made their independence international, upon the crumbled blood filled ground.

WTF?

WTF?

Yugoslavia.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/02/18/world/18kosovo-600.jpg

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/19/world/europe/19serbs.html?hp

add China to against list

15ofthe19 From what I herd this afternoon your right, spain is worried about there own spertists gaining suport because of this. Im interested to see Turkey on the for list, i had thought they would be against for the same reason. I wonder what the position of our own goverment is to this and even the sheep rooters

15ofthe19 From what I herd this afternoon your right, spain is worried about there own spertists gaining suport because of this. Im interested to see Turkey on the for list, i had thought they would be against for the same reason. I wonder what the position of our own goverment is to this and even the sheep rooters

Australia is for it.

What's a spertist? is that a spanish poitical party?

As usual spell check wont even come up with the correct word (thats why i dont bother using those stupid programs, if i need something proof read i get a HUMAN to do it), a Rebel, independence surporter/fighter whatever

Spain has its own separatist movement, so I am not surprised by their position.

Kosovo is an odd region. From an emotional standpoint, it is like the "Alamo" of the Serbs. It's remembered as the place where the Serbs fought a noble, but hopeless battle, preferring death to capitulation. Imagine the uproar if people of Mexican descent flooded Texas, and then after a few decades claimed independence from the U.S., taking the Alamo with them. We fought a war over the right to secede and the "you can't" side won.

I think U.S. recognition is based on an it's-okay-for-you-but-not-over-here sense that some (like Mexican and other separatists movements in the U.S., who definitely do exist) might call hypocritical (especially if based on our view "But, we're the good guys!"). Either that, or perhaps it's based on an realpolitik sense that it's in the U.S.'s long term interest to shut that region up, and giving Kosovo independence is an easy first step in that, given that the Serbs do not have the wherewithal to challenge it. Still, we need to be prepared for Serb separatists terrorists in Kosovo now, and for mass killings of Serbs.

We fought a war over the right to secede and the "you can't" side won.
The "you can't" side was wrong, though. Or does might actually make right ?

Could someone outline the History of this chunk of land? Why does one side deserve it and why does the other side think they deserve it. Who were there first?

Here is a good article on the history:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kosovo

Nice parallel with Alamo, Pandaemoni.

What is disputable is that Kosovo never was a country actually, just a province created during the communist reign to destabilize and weaken Serbia. (Common proverb among Yugoslavian politicians in those times were "If you want strong Yugoslavia, you must have weak Serbia"). So, besides Kosovo with dominant Albanian population, another province on the north has been created: Vojvodina, with a large percent of Hungarian citizens.
This is definitely a predecent, and that's why this independence is dangerous in one hand.
This means that every region in the World (not necessarily being an autonomy) can declare independence from country it belongs to.
Reasons can be not only ethnic, but also economic.

There are opened problems now with similar provinces as Euskadi (Basque) or Catalunya in Spain, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, Quebec in Canada, North Cyprus,...
Or real countries such as Scotland or Northern Ireland.

Now Texas can ask its right for independence, but Texas is country, it has right to declare independence from USA. Mexicans now have right to ask independence from USA for their country California.
Right for independence from USA now has Second Vermont Republic as well.

In short, everyone...

But let's back to the Kosovo question.

Still, we need to be prepared for Serb separatists terrorists in Kosovo now, and for mass killings of Serbs.
There is not enough Serbs left on Kosovo to start separatist movement. Most of the Serbs have been exiled through the centuries, and especially during the communist reign 1945-1991.
Last banishment was pretty massive, when NATO forces occupied the Kosovo territory in 1999.

On the other hand, Albanians will restrain from violence, commited in previous years (especially on 17. February 2004 - Ironic isn't it) when they burned houses of the Serbs, Serbian medieval monasteries (even those protected by UNESCO) and forced Serb citizens to leave the province...
Albanians now have their country. They won't perform any violence, in order to look good in the eyes of those who granted their independence and who helped them on that way.

Possible consequences:

Some provinces will get their independence, but some won't.
It depends on one factor - Money.

Albanians had the strong lobby and (maybe this will sound harsh) 'heroin money' that bought them an independence.
Serbia has been marked with a 'Bad Guys' etiquette, when it decided instead of capitulation, to show some guts to US and NATO bombs in 1999.
Serbia was the first European nation bombed after the WWII, although being an Ally in both World Wars.

Money buys independence. So, Basque will never be independent, because Spain can pay a lobbyists and can pay other governments to dismiss independence idea. But South Ossetia maybe will have an independence and Northern Cyprus for sure.

But, will Mexicans ever get their independence for California or will ever Thomas H. Naylor succeed to raise the flag of freedom and declare Second Vermont Republic independent from USA?

They have right now.

Bush, Sarkozi, Brown and others who supported Kosovo's independence started the wheel that will crush world order we know.

Respond to Michael who asked about history facts (thanks joepistole for the Wiki link):

State of Serbia has been created on Kosovo. Taking the Kosovo from Serbia, is taking the history, culture and tradition from one proud and old European nation.
It's like stealing the Independence Hall from USA, Bastille from France or Westminster of Greenwich from England.

Even more greater.

It's stealing the core and the meaning. The heart and the soul of Serbia.

So did they have a governor who just decided he was President?

So did they have a governor who just decided he was President?
As far as I know, they had Government constituted in 1999. (when NATO arrived) consisted only of Albanians. Or huge percentage.

Albanians basically invaded part of a country of Serbia, first they caused collapse of Yugoslavia, and now they proclaimed their so called "independence" and NATO is behind all this...

how in the world is this supported by anyone? These guys took over another country, caused so much trouble and now they are causing even more havoc than before...

Albanians basically invaded part of a country of Serbia, first they caused collapse of Yugoslavia, and now they proclaimed their so called "independence" and NATO is behind all this...

how in the world is this supported by anyone? These guys took over another country, caused so much trouble and now they are causing even more havoc than before...

yugoslavia would have callapesed no matter what their were to many ethnic groups in conflict there for it to stay together

yugoslavia would have callapesed no matter what their were to many ethnic groups in conflict there for it to stay together

thats like saying USA would have collapsed no matter what...so Mexico invading USA is a good thing.

An interesting commentary by Aldous Huxley, from 1925:

Cawnpore

One of the evil results of the political subjection of one people by another is that it tends to make the subject nation unnecessarily and excessively conscious of its past. Its achievements in the old great days of freedom are remembered, counted over and exaggerated by a generation of slaves, anxious to convince the world and themselves that they are as good as their masters. Slaves cannot talk of their present greatness, because it does not exist; and prophetic visions of the future are vague and necessarily unsatisfying. There remains the past. Out of the scattered and isolated facts of history it is possible to build up Utopias and Cloud Cuckoo Lands as variously fantastic as the New Jerusalems of prophecy. It is to the past—the gorgeous imaginary past of those whose present is inglorious, sordid, and humiliating—it is to the delightful founded-on-fact romances of history that subject peoples invariably turn. Thus, the savage and hairy chieftains of Ireland became in due course "the Great Kings of Leinster," "the mighty Emperors of Meath." Through centuries of slavery the Serbs remembered and idealised the heroes of Kossovo. And for the oppressed Poles, the mediaeval Polish empire was much more powerful, splendid, and polite than the Roman. The English have never been an oppressed nationality; they are in consequence most healthily unaware of their history. They live wholly in the much more interesting worlds of the present—in the worlds of politics and science, of business and industry. So fully, indeed, do they live in the present, that they have compelled the Indians, like the Irish at the other end of the world, to turn to the past. In the course of the last thirty or forty years a huge pseudo-historical literature has sprung up in India, the melancholy product of a subject people's inferiority complex. Industrious and intelligent men have wasted their time and their abilities in trying to prove that the ancient hindus were superior to every other people in every activity of life. Thus, each time the West has announced a new scientific discovery, misguided scholars have ransacked Sanskrit literature to find a phrase that might be interpreted as a Hindu anticipation of it. A sentence of a dozen words, obscure even to the most accomplished Sanskrit scholars, is triumphantly quoted to prove that the ancient Hindus were familiar with the chemical constitution of water. Another, no less brief, is held up as the proof that they anticipated Pasteur in the discovery of the microbic origin of disease. A passage from the mythological poem of the Mahabharata proves that they had invented the Zeppelin. Remarkable people, these old Hindus. They knew everything that we know or, indeed, are likely to discover, at any rate until India is a free country; but they were unfortunately too modest to state the fact baldly and in so many words. A little more clarity ont heir part, a little less reticence, and India would now be centuries ahead of her Western rivals. But they preferred to be oracular and telegraphically brief. It is only after the upstart West has repeated their discoveries that the modern Indian commentator upon their works can interpret their dark sayings as anticipations. On contemporary Indian scholars the pastime of discovering and creating these anticipations never seems to pall. Such are the melancholy and future occupations of intelligent men who have the misfortune to belong to a subject race. Free men would never dream of wasting their time and wit upon such vanities. From those who have not shall be taken away even that which they have.

(141-143)
____________________

Notes:

Huxley, Aldous. Jesting Pilate. (1926). New York: Paragon, 1991.

thats like saying USA would have collapsed no matter what...so Mexico invading USA is a good thing.

8 different people 5 languages 3 religion and 2 alphabets sounds like the perfect place to get together. and know it isn't yugoslavia just fell apart. no invaded it when it dissappered go study your history. and the us is not a good analog to yugoslavia

An interesting commentary by Aldous Huxley, from 1925...

it was kind of offtopic, but that commentary was awesome! Aldous rules man...

someone should read this to the "mighty Emperors" of the middle east... the ones who invented math and science :rolleyes:

T, do you agree with Huxley? I have a feeling you don't.

it was kind of offtopic, but that commentary was awesome! Aldous rules man...

someone should read this to the "mighty Emperors" of the middle east... the ones who invented math and science :rolleyes:

T, do you agree with Huxley? I have a feeling you don't.

When you're talking about the Rwanda of Europe, it's difficult to genuinely accept one side over the other as being the good guys in the fight. There was so much unspeakable hatred flung back and forth over the ethnic divide in this part of the world for almost 20 years, I think it's laughable for anyone not from there to pretend to understand what is right for Kosovo.

Huxley nailed it. When you under the thumb of another, your past seems all too glorious, even if it sucked ass at the time. Forgive me if I'm just not that sympathetic to the Serbs. Karma is indeed a bitch.

Aldous Huxley is an assumptious fool

Aldous Huxley is an assumptious fool

Я люблю тебя Россия

and you are teh gayest person on sci :D

and you are teh gayest person on sci :D

you assumption is incorrect

for those of us who don't know much about either side of this conflict, at least not enough to prefer one side over the other, we should look at this from the perspective of how this will serve the interests of peace and stability (because otherwise, who gives a shit... let them do whatever they want).

here are some reasons why having an independent Kosovo is bad for the entire world:

having a separatist movement actually separate sets a precedent and could re-energize, and even legitimize other separatist movements. from ETA to Northern Ireland to Chechnya, to southern USA where in some areas there is a huge majority of Mexicans, to the Shiite minority in Saud, to the Kurds in Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, etc. etc. etc.

if all those separatist movements get inspired by the precedent, there will be more war which will take more lives, and destabilize things for the West as it will weaken the west's allies and will require the west's intervention of some more "imperialist wars" to stop the killings

Kosovo is famous for peddling drugs to Europe and being a hub of Islamic extremism in the heart of Europe. before it was Serbs, and now it is NATO troops that sort of half-assedly curb it somehow. but if Kosovo becomes a country, no one will be doing that, and both the Islamic extremism and the drug peddling that finances it will increase. again -> more destabilization.


the west is recognizing Kosovo (or are about to) just to stick a finger in Russia's eye because of Russia's dickheadedness towards the West's concerns (mainly the Iranian nuclear issue)... maybe it's the wrong way to do this thing. some sort of compromise should have been reached with Russia (and China too, who have Tibet, Taiwan, and probably other "rebellious" areas) to get those 2 to put more pressure on Iran

I wish people would quit alluding to some sort of separatist movement brewing in the U.S. It's just a silly notion. It has no relevance in a conversation about a real move for independence. The blacks, the indians (feathers, not dots), the mexicans are all securely under the thumb of the U.S. government; they aren't going to do shit, simply put. And if they tried, they would be slapped down so quickly it would be over before it started.

Back to the topic at hand, why doesn't Kosovo deserve independence? Can anyone answer that?

I wish people would quit alluding to some sort of separatist movement brewing in the U.S. It's just a silly notion. It has no relevance in a conversation about a real move for independence. The blacks, the indians (feathers, not dots), the mexicans are all securely under the thumb of the U.S. government; they aren't going to do shit, simply put. And if they tried, they would be slapped down so quickly it would be over before it started.

Back to the topic at hand, why doesn't Kosovo deserve independence? Can anyone answer that?

i outlined some reasons in my last post. as for Mexicans in southern US, they're not a threat right now. but they could become one. we could discuss this in another thread. here's just a little teaser for you: http://spanishsts.net/fast-facts.htm

I don't see Kosovo being turned loose to govern itself anytime soon. Something I read yesterday suggested that the U.N. forces would be moved out, and replaced by E.U. led troops. I'm assuming that was based on the notion that the U.N. is not going to recognize Kosovo, but the E.U. will??? Not sure how that will play out, to be honest. Russian has a veto on the UNSC, so does that mean they can block the U.N. from recognizing Kosovar sovereignty?

does it really matter if the UN recognizes them? I mean, how does that affect Kosovo?

An interesting commentary by Aldous Huxley, from 1925:Maybe an obvious point but well written nevertheless. I've often wondered why Italians rarely, if ever (more like never), go on about the great Roman Empire. Even when talking about History. It's like: Meh.. Maybe they were completely bored of it at this point? Or, maybe they ]know it was great and so there really is not point in mentioning it?

Anyway, the passage reminded me of how Chinese always make the point that every single thing the Japanese ever thought it accomplished was on the back of Chinese inventions. I like to say: Oh, like the DVD? By the By hows that telephone and electricity doing for ya :p

Then of course there's that sweet spot in Islamic History when all lived on top a Sunday cone with a golden cherry on top. See here Michael, Mountains have roots! That proooooves Muslims could have went to the moon! (if they wanted to) :p

T, do you agree with Huxley? I have a feeling you don't.

I tend to agree with Huxley on many things. Rather, I consider his a voice that still, in the 21st century, has the strength and vision to teach me. Left to speculate on why you would think I disagree with Huxley, about all I can come up with is to remind that there is a sympathy about his outlook (http://www.sciforums.com/showpost.php?p=34035&postcount=1) that is absent from many of my contemporaries. Where some, perhaps, might have found—then, as now—such notions a reason to criticize the Indian people, Huxley's take purports to explain certain things about what those others would fault. Again, I'm speculating about what I might be responding to.

We might replace in that passage Americans in the role of the British; indeed, part of what makes that chapter relevant to me in general (and not just in the thin context of Kosovo), is that I live in a community that, like the British of the 1920s, is "healthily unaware of their history". While sarcasm would be subtle, we cannot pretend that Huxley was not aware of the unhealthy aspects of blissful ignorance. While "the worlds of politics and science, of business and industry" might seem genuinely more healthy and interesting to many, Huxley's writings are oft-laden with robust fears about modernity. Antic Hay looks dubiously at what passed for the modern condition in its day; Brave New World is a standard of dystopian literature. And Huxley makes the point a couple sentences later: "So fully, indeed, do they live in the present, that they have compelled the Indians, like the Irish at the other end of the world, to turn to the past." I won't start on what this might suggest about, say, the Iraqi Bush Adventure. Let us simply hope for the best.

• • •


Huxley nailed it. When you under the thumb of another, your past seems all too glorious, even if it sucked ass at the time. Forgive me if I'm just not that sympathetic to the Serbs. Karma is indeed a bitch.

Alas, I find myself woefully unprepared for the news. It surprised the hell out of me when I caught the capsule on the complimentary issue of USA Today I took with me from the hotel to the airport on Monday. In fact, my first thought was, "Wait a minute, didn't we go through this once already?"

The timeline of my knowledge about Kosovo is weak as hell, and starts with the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. I remember there was an episode of the TV show Webster when George Pappas' character was hoping to cover the Olympics. And I remember before the decade was out seeing images of a shattered Sarajevo. I remember the 1990-91 attempts to declare Kosovar independence, and my young, revolutionary spirit wondered then why nobody gave a damn. The issue persisted at the fringe of the CNN view through the early nineties. There was some amazing footage of a funeral being shelled as a grandmother laid her grandchild to rest. Mortar rounds struck the cemetery. The news team carried the wounded grandmother to their car while the cameraman sought shelter among the headstones. And there was some public awareness of a young girl's diary; I couldn't tell you any more about that than the fact that it existed. In 1995 Savatage put out an album about the Balkan conflict (http://www.metal-observer.com/articles.php?lid=1&sid=1&id=5612) that included what most people know as the signature tune of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra ("Christmas Eve—Sarajevo 12/24 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iY4Tom6-wM)"). And then things started getting out of hand, and in 1999 Clinton wanted in, and everyone accused him of trying to erase memories of the Lewinsky scandal by going to war. I remember thinking we were late going in, that we should have acted years before. In fact, that failure is what brought me to pacifism. For too long, I had wavered on a thin line, believing that I could somehow justify certain war actions and not others. The years of institutional apathy toward Kosovo combined with the heady politics of the day simply accentuated that never again would there be any "good wars", if, indeed there ever had been.

And, like most Americans, I stopped paying attention after that.

Thus—

Back to the topic at hand, why doesn't Kosovo deserve independence? Can anyone answer that?

—while I'm not prepared to address Plazma's concerns, I'm left standing on my teenage opinion: it seems to me that independence should have been theirs years ago, and the world might be catching on this time.

This probably ain't over yet.

You're right about that. This is just the beginning of a long and bloody battle for Kosovo. Putin is spoiling for a fight, and what better place to fight than someone else's backyard. You might as well call this Chechnya West.

What's probably going to be lost in all of this is the people of Albanian descent are some of the most tolerant in that region. Basically the only place in Europe a Jew was safe during WW2 was in Albania. Fast forward sixty years and all anybody remembers about Kosovo is the KLA running drugs, and slaughtering Serbs.

I remember the Sarajevo Olympics like they were yesterday, and it's still incomprehensible that a place that looked so serene and beautiful in 1984 could have so much hatred concealed barely under the surface.

My friend the history teacher always reminds me that the Balkans are where East meets West, and therein lies the story behind the story.

What's probably going to be lost in all of this is the people of Albanian descent are some of the most tolerant in that region. Basically the only place in Europe a Jew was safe during WW2 was in Albania. Fast forward sixty years and all anybody remembers about Kosovo is the KLA running drugs, and slaughtering Serbs.


my dad said that Serbs never mistreated Jews... ever. donno nothing about Albanians though. however the ones i knowdo seem tolerant.

EDIT:
another thing: the safest place for Jews in Europe (until the Nazis invaded) was in Bulgaria, where the king refused to identify Jews to the Nazis.

-------- but, back to the topic we go.