Kosovo

Kosovo

Thursday, February 21, 2008

In the coming months and years as the body count rises dramatically in the former Yugoslavia over the self-declared independence of Kosovo from Serbia, leftist historians and certainly the leftist media will ask what went wrong there. The neo-liberal worldview that ethnic populations that successfully breed their way into majority status should be given their own nation-state will bring the opposite—war and the deterioration of the global order. There will not be a Prince Regent Paul in Serbia to exile this time around because the Serbs did not agree to this European Union meddling willingly. The last time Serbia was strong-armed into relinquishing its sovereignty, Adolf Hitler demanded that the Serbs join the Axis powers in the conquest of Europe. When Serbia refused, Hitler and Mussolini’s war planners sent the Axis armies into the heart of Yugoslavia following an air bombardment of Belgrade. But as Hitler learned the hard way, 200,000 crack Nazi troops simply weren’t enough.

During that struggle, Albania seized, albeit temporarily, the province of Kosovo and signed an alliance treaty with Hitler. The Albanian Kosovars then flew a very specific national flag as a symbol of terror against the Serbs that had resisted National Socialism under Adolf Hitler. That flag was seen by Serbian nationals as Serbian Jews were being rounded up and slaughtered in Nazi concentration camps that were erected on the outskirts of Belgrade in the forgotten citadel of Banjica and other locations. Over ninety-five percent of all the Jews in Serbia were identified and exterminated while the Kosovar flag flew.

Just days ago, incredibly, the Kosovars attempted to fly that very flag again at the border of Serbia at two United Nations border checkpoints. Flying that flag in Serbian territory, by comparison, would be like flying the Nazi flag in Jerusalem. Ordinary Serbian nationals responded quickly and razed the two checkpoints with diesel fuel and flares. The leftist western media internationalized the event as “shocking”, “amazing” and “unpredictable”. It was almost like watching an episode of the Comedy Channel as the media was reporting the event due to the level of ignorance about the history of the region. As word trickled through Serbia about what had happened at the border, Serbian soldiers began to gather and plan operations against US interests in the region. Within days you can anticipate a replacement of average Serbian nationals firebombing targets to military operations conducted by Serbian soldiers that were battle hardened in Serbia’s war with Bosnia-Hercegovina.

As of this writing, it was reported that the US Embassy in Belgrade is now burning. Symbols are powerful tools, the flags of nations and ideology being one of the most powerful.

The Russians will certainly become involved. Moscow will be burning the midnight oil (Leninist time) with its intelligence services looking for ways to fuel the conflict. The Russians are particularly sensitive to separatist movements. Anti-communist rage in Islamic populations has seen separatist movements develop in Dagestan and Chechnya. Former Soviet client states such as Georgia want their own final separation from Russia. The Russians will view the creation of an Islamic state in Kosovo as a direct threat to their own national security. Russia’s abandoning of the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty was initiated specifically for the very outcome witnessed today in Southern Europe. The Russians do not need to be a partner to a treaty that will see them move conventional forces west to wage war in Ossetia, Chechnya, Dagestan, Georgia and other locations.

There is a certain degree of ambivalence from Northern Europe over this matter too. The EU has promised to pull Serbia into the fold economically by converting the Serbian currency to Euros. But that is what Hitler promised the Serbians when he wanted to make Europe a unified socialist state, what Europe has become today under a different flag of course. The means to the end was the only real difference.

It is inherently dangerous for the global order of civilized nation-states to create new Islamic states, especially in geopolitical tinderboxes such as Kosovo. This tells the Russians that the west doesn’t particular care, and even may encourage, separatist movements that Russia is trying to contain and control. The Communist Chinese will profit from selling their conventional war material to these newly created war zones, as such munitions are killing US and allied soldiers in Afghanistan.

The most important point to me however, is the ignoring of history in pursuit of some false Utopia as planned by European leftists. Will Kosovo become a civilized Islamic nation-state? Only time will tell, but will it be worth the gamble to mobilize the Russians into fueling new wars along their western border? European leftists had come so close to bringing Georgia into the fold with NATO that such an arrangement could have protected the heart of the European continent strategically for 100 years.

The ultimate question for now is will Serbia, a former ally to the United States against Nazism in World War II, sit this one out?

Christopher Farmer

MS, National Security

Is a new war soon to be out of the hen house in the former Yugoslavia?

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