Date: Sun, 4 Apr 1999 10:42:17 -0400
From: Unka Bart <mendicant-AT-buddhist.com>
Subject: From another list


Below is an interesting exchange for another list, a closed list, for
Professional Nose Pickers and Baby Killers.  The fellow responding is a few
years younger than me, and was a diplomat in the US state department at the
time of his experiences.  As he does not cite his source material for the
interesting observation about the history of Kosovo, I thought brother
Dave, our resident list-hysterian might like to comment.

Bart

> Pres. Bush takes a lot of flak for his Yugoslavian policy (which essentially
> ignored Bosnia), but he was right on Kosovo, realizing that it was truly the
> powderkeg of the area.  He put 200 US observers there, and "drew a line in
> the sand."  Nobody crossed the line.
>
> Apparently, President Clinton removed the observers from Kosovo as part of
> the Bosnia deal, without questioning the motives for why the Serbs wanted
> them out, and what the consequences would be.
>
> Poor policy on his part does not, in my opinion, create a moral obligation
> to spend troops and treasure in the Balkans to little effect.
>

John, not that it matters at this stage, but the peacekeeper/observers
stayed until the day Holbrook left last week.  Also, not that it
matters, I was in Albania in September 1990 (at the "urging" of our
Federal government) and spent quite a bit of time talking to people in
and out of the Albanian government.  Territorial interests in Kosovo
were almost nonexistent even among the Kosovars.  Most of the local
Albanians were concerned with how they were going to feed all those
ethnic Albanians *when* Milosevic forced them out of Kosovo.  Chris
Hill, currently the US Ambassador to Macedonia, was the Chief of the
Liaison Mission in Tirana.  If he characterizes the current refugee
situation as not of our making but part of a longrange plan of
Milosevic, I have to believe him.  Discussions I had with Serb
civilians in 1990-1991 about the strife around Yugoslavia always began
with their warning me that Milosevic had a longrange plan to move all
nonSerbs out of Serb territory and that he would be deliberate and
ruthless.  Their fervent hope was that the rest of us would not blame
the average Serb for the actions of their military.  I take it you
believe we have no moral obligation to stop genocide.  To paraphrase
Madelyn Albright, what do we need NATO for, then?  To keep the French
from fighting with the Germans?

Yeah, it's a mess, but Clinton's not the one to blame.  He wasn't even
president when this started.  As I recall, Bush sent Baker around the
Balkans (as an afterthought, Baker added Albania to the end of the
trip; I was in the second group into Albania a few months after Baker
was there).  As I also recall, Bush was the one who said, "Hands off
Kosovo," again, not that it matters today.  Maybe NATO's to blame.

And, not that it matters, if territorial imperatives are at issue, the
Albans were living in Kosovo when the slavic tribes moved across the
Danube and pushed the "locals" into the swamps along the Adriatic.
That was a long time before the Battle of Kosovo which, by the way,
the Albans fought in, too, on the side of the Serbs.  What followed
was years of peaceful coexistence, contrary to the recent myths of
"ethnic hatred" between Serbs and Kosovars.  Who wrote the myths?  A
Serb nationalist in the late 1800s penned an underground book.  Over
the years, the idea of a Serb homeland grew like other groups' dreams
grew, Jews and Palestinians being only two of them.  Milosevic tapped
this when he built his gangs in the mid-1980s.

Now that I've ranted, I feel better.  Do I see a solution?  Yeah, but
it's not a "final" one, and it does require sacrifice by moral people
outside the arena.  And, yeah, I've heard that those not at risk
should keep their mouths shut.  After all, one of the benefits of age
is that only young men and women have to go to war.

Finally, in the pictures of the refugees, I see a lot of children,
women, and old people.  Where are all the men of fighting age?