Free Kosovo!

[Fish]

Putins answer?

http://www.russiatoday.ru/news/news/17263

[elite_hunter_sh3]

Originally Posted by baggygreen

I was waiting for elite to weigh in on this one...

anyone care to remove the image of the men in military dress stowing severed heads please? I just ate, and i dont need to see that, more to the point neither does my partner.

the beauty of living down here is that there is noone else to fight over borders and land with. Sure the kiwis and poms are coming here in droves, but hey, i can live with that, cos it proves we're better!

As far as im concerned, if an ethnic group who are almost exclusive to a region of a decent size can elect a governing body, who in turn is able to produce to the UN a positive, progressive plan for economic development and stability, they ought to be given independence. Sure there'd be lotsa details to sort, but i think it oughta work like that.

EDIT: Elite, as for your 'unparrallelled savagery' comment, I'd reconsider your use of it, given the convictions for genocide against several serbs stemming from the conflict. Now to go back to topic, the current push for kosovan independence, not the history of the wars of the area.

from an article.. not mine.

[elite_hunter_sh3]

Originally Posted by Fish

Putins answer?

http://www.russiatoday.ru/news/news/17263

good stuff

Serbia needs new tanks and airplanes... a nuke would be excellent but i doubt it

[joea]

Originally Posted by CCIP

I'd be quite careful drawing this in mindless black-and-white here. Kosovo is a notoriously grey area, with my own suspicions falling more on the Albanians for foul play; and certainly the "apartheid" in Kosovo at the moment is very much of their own design. Of course noone ever accused Milosevic of being a godsend, either.

Agree 100% with this.

I hope elite_hunter_sh3's posts won't stop the rest of you from looking at the other side.

[Happy Times]

Originally Posted by AntEater

The Article is a load of crap.

First of all, there's no such thing as a nation of Kosovo.
This is a territory inhabited by the various balkans people, in varying compositions.
Borders are arbitrary on the Balkans, as every people live practically everywhere.
The historic claim of the Serbs is stronger, but demographically of course the Albanians are more, especially since 1999, as NATO enabled the Albanians to do to the Serbs what the Serbs had tried to do to them.
One of those strange examples for that before 911, western interventions always tended to be helping muslims against christians.
Any notion of a "multi-ethnical" Kosovo is simply refusing the realities. If NATO would withdraw, Albanians (who vastly outnumber Serbs now) would start massacring the Serbs. An independent Kosovo will mean an Exodus of Serbs anyway.
The easiest way out would be simply to let Serbia annex the northern Part, which is predominantly Serb while Albania gets the South.
Strangely enough the "real" Albania does not want to have much to do with Kosovo. Maybe that is because Albania is pretty secular and mixed christian and muslim, while our Kosovarian friends are quite Islamist (nice friends the US has, again).
The Serbs undeservedly are still seen as something of a bad boy of the Balkans.
Actually from my experience the average Serb is a lot more western minded than the average Albanian.

The Problem is, an independent Kosovo would be about the equal as if the US had given Pablo Escobar or Manuel Noriega their own cartel nation in latin america.
All the "Democrats" in that region are the very same people who supply Europe with drugs and prostitution.
This not claimed by the Serbs but (among others) by the German BND, an institution which is hardly suspect of being pro-Serb as it spin doctored quite a lot in the Balkans war.
An independent Kosovo would be Mafiastan, nothing less. I'm not sure why many european politicians are so hell bent on Kosovo independence. Either they're stupid or bribed, or a mixture of both.
There have been cases where the police was told by german federal authorities not to implicate certain Kosovarians in Drug busts.

It is amazing what an amount of wishful thinking is involved in the Balkans.

This is 100% same, what i think of Kosovo, thanks for writing it.

[STEED]

Dodgy thread.

[elite_hunter_sh3]

Originally Posted by Happy Times

This is 100% same, what i think of Kosovo, thanks for writing it.

i agree with everything EXCEPT the part of giving serbia only the northern part... kosovo is 100% serbian, historically it was ours and should be ours, ALBANIANS should go back to albania , simple as that...

most of what you said is on the dot

[Bum]

You cannot stop human progress. Free Kosovo!

[elite_hunter_sh3]

DEFINE HUMAN PROGRESS!!!!

is human slave trafficking, child prostitution, terrorism, drug smuggling and transportation human progress???? you have absolutely no idea what your talking about do you???

[Bum]

Originally Posted by elite_hunter_sh3

DEFINE HUMAN PROGRESS!!!!

is human slave trafficking, child prostitution, terrorism, drug smuggling and transportation human progress???? you have absolutely no idea what your talking about do you???

I do know the Serbs are not angels either. Human progress, you cannot stop it. They couldn't stop it in SA, nor in Georgia, nor in Tel Aviv, nor in east Europe. The people will always find a way to trump the dictator's boot.

[elite_hunter_sh3]

riiight.. , here is a wonderful idea, how about i pay for your airline ticket and you go live in kosovo for 1 week, i'll be surprised if you survive i'll also be willing to pay for your trip to South Africa, how about Chechnya??? you want to go there too??

[CCIP]

Originally Posted by Stuka

I do know the Serbs are not angels either. Human progress, you cannot stop it. They couldn't stop it in SA, nor in Georgia, nor in Tel Aviv, nor in east Europe. The people will always find a way to trump the dictator's boot.

Georgia? Saakashvili is a hair away from being a dictator. Nasty nationalism, threats to militarily "solve" the Abkhazia and Ossetia problems (where there is a far more legitimate, democratic and documented case for independence than Kosovo will ever have. Why don't you have a Free Abkhazia or Free South Ossetia thread? Or do I detect a certain bias at play...) and economic ruin in the country - so much for that progress! That country is going nowhere fast, courtesy of nationalism gone haywire. Isn't that what Serbia got wrong back in the day?

For the record, I don't support the "our land, our right" argument in any way. No geopolitical problem in the world will ever be solved in a humane way so long as nationalist sentiments, rather than pragmatic approaches to the real and actual situation, are accepted as legitimate justifications.

My question is: who will pay for the independence of Kosovo in the form you suggest? Is the cost to local Serbs, regional stability and European security justified? I think not. Not when you have a fairly extreme nationalist from a group that advocates violence against serbs, use of underhand (read:terrorist) tactics, and has documented links to international terrorism (read:Al-Quaeda) and organized crime elected into power. And the cost to Kosovo from this will be hard - I don't see their neighbours besides Albania having much love for it, I don't see a way for it to economically support itself as a consequence - and that means that if NATO or anyone else wants it, they'll have to pay for keeping Kosovo afloat - either directly or by having to maintain a constant mission there to ensure stability. And that means Americans and European taxpayers will probably have to pay for it. Are you sure that's a good use of their money? I also think not.

[Skybird]

I know a guy in the BND and BKA field. He said internally they refer to Albania and Albanian Kosovo as "Mafianistan". Even the media sometimes pick up that name. A UCK leader with questionable reputation from the war being elected there as the leader of Kosovo is not any encouraging at all. I think it is a mobster'S regime, nothing else. And the EU - probably would accept Kosovo "indepedence", to do another favour to Islam and the poor Muslims of the Balkan having suffered so dearly.

Emoptions are a bad advisor for policy making. My sympathy for Serbia (as a political actor, and a centre of extreme nationalism) is limited, but the EU should even consider to prefer waging another war to reduce Albanian influence in Kosovo - instead of legalizing that Albanian influence. An independant Kosovo will be an infection, spreading organized crime into Europe, more than the Balkan area already does. In Germany, Albanian Mafia ranks amongst the most aggressive, brutal and dangeorus crime organizations. Police does no longer patrol in claimed territories of the Albanian Mafia in metropoles - policemen's lives at risk, they say. The mobsters can chart and practice their business (drugs, smuggling, sex slave trading) plans almost untouched, for that reason.

[Winston Caine]

I consider the whole situation a hiatus. The conflicts there won't end, be it under Serbian or Albanian supervision. NATO or UN can't or shouldn't do much. Yet again, the area without international supervision will turn into a bloodbath, be it Albanians massacring Serbs or viceversa.

Originally Posted by elite_hunter_sh3

i agree with everything EXCEPT the part of giving serbia only the northern part... kosovo is 100% serbian, historically it was ours and should be ours, ALBANIANS should go back to albania , simple as that...

Well, the same was said for Krayina in 1991.
Anyway, war in Croatia aside, I am familiar with the situation, and I know how you feel about it, but you know it's not that easy.

[elite_hunter_sh3]

it never is, but when if someone doenst want to leave, and you point a loaded gun at them i wonder:hmm::hmm: (if we have to resort to that then blame it on the EU and the UN for being ignorant and blind)...all i know is one simple thing

independence = WAR