Kosovo

There's big news in the Balkans today as Kosovo declared its independence today, with the tacit backing of much of the EU and the US.

Kosovars in Mitrovica watched Prime Minister Hashim Tachi on television as he spoke at the parliament in Pristina during an extraordinary session where the unilateral independence of Kosovo was pronounced.

The Serbs and Russians are livid over the event, and it might be worthwhile to take a look at the reasons why.

For the Russians, it amounts to yet another instance of US interference in what it considers its turf as the historic ally and protector of the Serbs.

For the Serbs, it marks the finish of a long process of ethnic cleansing against Christian Serbs in the region and the creation of a Muslim enclave in a place that resonates in their history.

The Balkans were in the front lines during the Islamic invasion of the Balkans and Southern Europe in the 14th century, and Kosovo was the site of the Serbs' defeat by the Ottoman Turks under the brutal Murad I in 1389 when the Turks invaded Europe. The battle of Kosovo Field figures prominently in Serbian poetry and history and has great national significance to the Serbs.

To put it in western terms, giving Kosovo back to the Muslims for the Serbs is roughly the equivalent of the US ceding the Alamo back to Mexico or more closely,like the French ceding Alsace-Lorraine back to the Germans.

With the breakup of Yugoslavia, Kosovo was autonomous for a decade or so,but in 1989 came under the control of Serbia. The Bosnian War saw the establishment of the Kosovar Liberation Army(KLA)in 1996 with financing, arms and training from places like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Libya. The KLA began killing Serbs and burning churches in Kosovo with their main goal being to drive the Christian minority out of the province, and eventually the KLA was able to establish control over areas within the Kosovo,which did not sit well with the Serbs.

In February 1998, Serb President Milosevic sent Serbian troops to take back KLA-controlled areas, at which point NATO and the Clinton Administration got involved,bombing Serbia for 78 days in an aerial campaign starting in March 1999 designed to break the Serbs. Coincidentally, the air bombardments just happened to occur at the height of President Clinton's problems with perjury and obstruction of justice in the Monica Lewinsky affair, giving rise to the phrase 'wag the dog'.

The Serbs finally gave in on June 9th, 1999.

Since then, NATO forces have essentially acted as a buffer between Kosovo and Serbia,while doing little to halt the ethnic cleansing of Christian Serbs from the region by the KLA.

Which brings us up to today's events.

Following the unilateral declaration by the Kosovars,Russia immediately called for a session of the UN Security Council. “We expect the United Nations’ and NATO’s mission in Kosovo to fulfill their mandate swiftly … and annul the decision of the Pristina organs,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted on its web site.

The 'mandate' the Russians are talking about is UN Resolution 1244,which calls for Kosovo to remain under Serbian sovereignty in Kosovo while providing for the province's "substantial autonomy" and rejects a unilateral settlement enforced on th eSerbs without their agreement.

And Serbian President Boris Tadic said Sunday that his country would never accept Kosovo’s “unilateral and illegal” declaration.Little wonder at that one..there are small Muslim minorities in other parts of Serbia and in places like Bosnia, Macedonia, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And Tadic himself,who was billed as pro-Western only won the recent elections by a bare 51% based on the idea that he could reverse the decade and a half long policy trend in the US and EU to appease Muslims world wide at Serbia's expense.

That slim hope is gone now, and Serbia is essentially lost to the west,while the US can expect no gratitude from the Muslim world.

What the ill thought out US support for a Muslim enclave in Kosovo has done is to expend a great deal of political capital with Russia,who we can now expect to be less cooperative on issues like Iran, energy supplies to Europe and North Korea if the Bush Administration continues its backing of Kosovo and the KLA.

Aside from that, an independent Kosovo would essentially become another Gaza, supported by the International community and EU and American taxpayers to the tune of a few billions a year. And since it has no potential for a functional economy without close ties to Serbia, Kosovo would mainly exist as a corrupt recruiting depot and staging area in Europe's underbelly for crime and for Jihad terrorism. Remember Osama bin-Laden's remarks on 'white Moors' and where the jihadis who planned to kill US troops at Fort Dix came from.

If an independent Kosovo is endorsed by the US, we might just sow something we'll be sorry for later.