Bush praises Kosovo independence, angry Serbs torch US embassy
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/02/21/europe/kosovo.php
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080219/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_kosovo_2
I'm tired of foreigners just deciding on a political whim when to grant minorities a state and where to draw borders. Yeah on paper it sounds great to give the Kosovar Albanians independence and whatnot. Lord knows they have suffered enough and may do well with their homeland if given a chance. Bush is all for that kind of stuff and making a better world or whatever. But what about the thousands of ethnic Serbs suddenly finding themselves the new Kosovar minority, and militant Albanians haven't exactly been forgiving with them for the horrors of the 1990s. Serbs suffered terribly in the wars too, especially from the NATO bombings/sanctions and reprisal attacks (Albanians killed over 1,500 Serbs after the "ceasefire").
Not every Serb was a war criminal, and their people deserve to express healthy nationalism/pride just like us. It's not right to burn embassies and border crossings in protest, but they deserve to be upset. Their people voted Milosevic out of power and have tried to slowly reform to Western standards, but it is not an easy process after hateful wars. We shouldn't provoke them to regress, or give hardliners ammunition to gain traction with the mainstream. Serbia is a tiny fraction of its former Yugoslavian self, and it's most prosperous regions are now under other flags (plus those new nations don't exactly love Serbia). All they got from the partition were a bunch of tanks and angry young men, and they sure as hell used them. Very little international aid and foreign investment are coming in. They proudly hosted the Winter Olympics in the 1980s, and now some live worse than Ethiopians.
How would we Americans feel if the UN suddenly gave California back to Mexico or the plains back to the Indians? That's partly why white American settlers tried to purge the Latinos and Native Americans from the best lands, so they could become the new majority, claim sovereign rights, and lower the chance of revolt. So are we surprised that Bosnian and Kosovar Serbs attempted similar ethnic cleansing with their minorities? Sure George Custer wasn't as bad as Ratko Mladic, but the US military committed its share of criminal activity.
The UN is already a joke for creating a failed state in East Timor, and Balkanizing the former Yugoslavia with bizarre ethnic borders that make the map look like modern art gone wrong (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Breakup_of_Yugoslavia.gif). Did it help the groups get along any better? How about partitioning the Karen Burmese, Tamils, Basques, Tibetans, Kurds, black Darfurians, or dozens of other groups revolting for solidarity or basic human rights? Who has the right to move people around like they were chess pieces? One stroke of the pen, and thousands (if not millions) of people suddenly have their dreams come true or totally shattered. We can't just partition the entire world on tribal lines – it's not the suburbs where every family gets 0.2 acres and a fence! People can get along and form multiparty representative governments if given the proper opportunity and support (e.g. not like the US in Iraq!). We have to coexist or we will cease to exist.
"Yet for all the hostility in a country seeming to turn inward on itself, Serbian political observers and Balkan experts predicted that the despair over the loss of Kosovo would eventually subside. They said economics would overcome emotions as a majority of Serbs came to realize that mooring Serbia to the European Union was the only way the country could prosper." -NYT
Yeah I guess that's one way for the Serbs to get over it: bribe them into compliance with enticement of EU membership (but Serbia is even more backwards than Turkey). Unemployment is above 20% and the average income is under 6,000 Euros. Though I hope the lessons of Nazi Germany, Rwanda, Israel, Iraq, and many other places show us that even old, supposedly buried anger/resentment may get exploited by extremists and avenged in a sea of blood later on.
There can be no lasting peace without a just settlement.
(paraphrased from MLK)
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I'm glad you decided to mention Kosovo; I think the fact that Kosovo is now an independent nation is a big thing especially when considering their relationship to the U.N. I want to hear more of what J thinks about the news regarding Kosovo which emerged this week but my impression (as a Model U.N. nerd) is that "nation building" (or independence, if you prefer) stands a much better chance when done with the cooperation of the international community.
Also, towards the ends of addressing T's question - I do think there is a better way: reshape our consumption to be not only sustainable but conscious of its global impact. You're correct in pointing out our hypocrisy in relations with respect to Russia and Venezuela, though I venture to say we could be much less concerned with their domestic affairs if our fortunes were less intertwined with access to their resources; after all, our relationship with Palastinean leadership is unabashedly two-faced (arguably as a result of a perceived lack of benefit to normalized relations). I think it's also worth considering the case of Brazil and how Brazilian leadership has channeled profits from monetization of resources into a very real energy independence; such efforts lead me to believe our support of the Brazilian economy (through consumption of exports, including energy commodities) is ultimately good for everyone (i.e. in human kind's best interests). While judgment of the morality of our consumption is (in my humble opinion) a community undertaking I know I sleep soundly knowing my footprint (both carbon and otherwise) is not only sustainable but always tending towards a more utopian ideal.
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Thanks for the comments gents. Yes it would be nice of the polsci PhD's could chime in, but I know they are busy trying to figure out how to avoid future wars, poverty, and China's domination! Yes of course I agree that nations with a tradition of functional social institutions and the rule of law are more predisposed to embrace and benefit from democracy and the free market. Germany and Japan were former world powers, so of course they would recover from WWII and embrace reforms better than say, post-Soviet Russia or post-colonial African states. Tribal cultures like Pakistan or Iraq, where in some cases there is very little notion of national identity, make democratic processes and fair nationwide elections into a major headache. But let's not forget that all is not well in the former Axis. West Germany heavily subsidizes East Germany, and Westerners dominate politics and commerce. Easterners are often treated as second-class. We can't really blame communism for that one since it's been over a decade since the wall fell. Minorities and foreigners have very little representation and rights in Japan (if any minorities are left, maybe at the tip of Okinawa?). In order to be a Japanese citizen, you have to have documented proof of some Japanese ancestry. Is that democratic? I guess there is always that tradeoff between freedom and order in Western nations, or any nation really. Order is easier to achieve in more homogeneous societies, which is one of the purposes of ethnic cleansing, a practice that Japan, China, Germany, the US, and other world powers perfected long before the Balkans wars.
H: well, I think the best recent example of multi-ethnic cooperation and bring extremists back into the political mainstream is Northern Ireland. Sirc's brother is the expert on it (and the Balkans conflict too), but from my basic understanding, Sinn Fein/IRA were in all-out war with the English for decades. All those security cameras and other surveillance in London? They were originally installed to protect against Irish terrorists, not Muslims! Thousands of people died or were displaced in the British Isles, one of the most powerful nations on the planet with a long history of civil order. But Tony Blair, a Catholic moderate English PM, was able to bring both sides together and work out a compromise settlement and legit power-sharing government (to be fair, his predecessor John Major was the one to first revive the peace talks). Heh maybe Bono helped too! I'm sure the economic boom in Ireland of the past decade, as well as the success of the EU, have contributed as well. But before peace was achieved, there was a hell of a lot of face-to-face negotiation in good faith. Sure the sides bickered and walked out on each other plenty of times. But there was a sustained dialogue, which is what we DON'T have in Iraq, Yugo, Iran/Cuba with the US, and other places. Blair coined the term "bicycle diplomacy" for dialogue that must keep going forward or it falls over. Even amidst bombings and public protest, you have to press on. That is true leadership and what gets remembered in the history books. If humans fight each other to the death through crazy hardship and long odds (see Thermopylae), why can't we be equally committed to peace? We can't just pause and restart peace talks in between bloodshed, like the Israelis and Palestinians do. "Peace when convenient" is just jerking everyone around. If all sides aren't serious about progress, than they might as well wipe each other out and save the rest of us the worry.
The Bush-Rice "cold shoulder diplomacy coupled with toothless unilateral sanctions" foreign policy strategy is absolutely counter-productive to the reconciliation process. Blair was the first UK leader to receive Sinn Fein officials since the 1920s! No wonder war ravaged on for so long! How can you stop a war if you don't talk? I guess when both sides are committed to absolute victory, it can only end badly for one side or both. If you want real peace, you have to seek a good outcome for everyone, even your enemy. Israel and the US will probably never comprehend this truism. Shared goals and threats are much more desirable than mutually exclusive objectives. Peace/appeasement/compromise is a gamble and a risk, but so are hostility and sustained conflict. I guess your economics background can appreciate that nations and peoples should strive for maximum efficiency and weigh the cost-benefit of their actions. During war, efficiency tanks and there are heavy costs. Peace is the only way to prosper, unless you work for Boeing and Halliburton.
Maybe that's why the poor peoples of the world will never stop fighting against the rich nations as you alluded to. Whether under the flag of nationalism, religion, environment, or whatever – people who are unjustly economically marginalized will not just bend over and accept it. As you said, future resource wars for oil, water, or even the means of production will get nasty. China and India can't sustain double-digit growth forever (nor can the US really sustain 5% growth), so when things slow down people are going to be pissed and desperate. In fact, can the emerging Asian nations even support a US-style middle class? We're already experiencing the global effects of sky-high oil demand and the housing bubble fallout. It's a very UNSUSTAINABLE situation if our wealth is dependent on exploitation and unfair trade with the Third World. So if rich nations could instead tamp down their greed/consumption and couple their welfare to poor nations, I think we can achieve a better balance to globalization. It's not that the rich get richer at the expense of the poor, but the cumulative prosperity of global commerce should be shared and distributed fairly. Yeah I know; I must be smoking something. Globalization is not inherently evil; it's probably totally necessary and beneficial in this era. But how it is regulated and the manner it is conducted leave much to be desired in many cases.
But going back to peace among factions, it's difficult no doubt, and probably there hasn't been an archetypical example of how to do it properly. People are angry, and you have to substitute the fighting in the streets for fighting in the halls of government. Former militant leaders can become civilian leaders. They already have so much grassroots support and public trust; it makes perfect sense. Of course people like Saddam and Pol Pot may be beyond rehabilitation, but there has to be some way to incorporate former fighters into the peaceful political process. This applies for Kosovo as well as Iraq. Yes in principle it is a good idea to have a multi-ethnic representative government, but not one imposed from abroad and stacked with corrupt puppet cronies. If the US provisional coalition government under Bremer actually gave the Sunnis some legit rights and privileges, then maybe the insurgency wouldn't have flown off the handle in 2005. An independent Kosovo can work, but Kosovar Serbs have to be granted at least minimum protections and representation. There also has to be a reasonable relationship with Serbia. This is a cultural and historical necessity. Albanians already have Albania, and now they have Kosovo too? As Condi Rice even said about Western involvement in the Middle East, we sacrificed freedom for stability. We can't sacrifice justice for convenience in the Balkans. The EU doesn't like social unrest and violence on its back porch, and it craves the cheap laborers and untapped markets of Eastern Europe. But as Hen said, let's hope that the future Serb inclusion in the EU isn't just another avenue for exploitation. In general, I think the EU has behaved quite well and is a far cry from the Colonial Era. They have a genuine partnership where all are involved and all share the cost-benefits, and the EU founders do deserve to win a Nobel Peace Prize (the most war-ravaged place on Earth has now maintained 2 decades of peace and prosperity post-Cold War!). What compromise can the EU and Albanians strike to give Serbia some compensation? Economic aid, trade, treaties? It's a start, and much better than the UN just deciding one day to redraw the map.
On a semi-related note, many powerful nations have been totally INEPT at counter-insurgency, dating back to Roman times. But one example where the occupying power totally cleaned house was the communist uprising in former British Malaya after WWII. This link below or Wiki has a good synopsis. Maybe we can discuss it next week? I'm sure Bush doesn't know shit about the history, though our country could really benefit from the lessons.
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