Story here and here. Serbia and Russia are against the move, the U.S. endorses it. The UNSC is having a special session this afternoon. I can’t see a war breaking out over this, but what else might happen?
Many are worried that the precedent of Kosovo’s independence from, and against the wishes of, the internationally recognized sovereign state of Serbia could set a precedent for several “unrecognized states” in Eastern Europe.
The US endorses secession? Shit! Don’t tell South Carolina!
Yeah the whole thing is pretty sad for the Serbs. It seems OK for Serbs to have to live in Bosnia or Croatia but it’s NOT OK for the Albanians to live in Serbia.
You will notice EU countries like Greece and Spain with restless minorities of their own don’t like this.
The better solution is to redraw boundaries with Greater Serbia, Greater Albania and Greater Croatia consiting of areas where their populations live.
As a Croatian (My granparents came from there) it seems funny how divided each side was, when I went there in the early 80s it was pretty nice.
Serbia should not accept it, unlike in the late 90s, America is in no position to use force now that it’s tied up in Iraq.
Look for Chechnya, South Ossetia, and probably a few other places with grievances to try the same thing soon, if they think they can get away with it militarily as Kosovo has.
But then this is a period where globalization seems to be making national boundaries, and even national identities, less important than they’ve been in many centuries. It may be all right, in the long run.
Well the entire foundation of the American political system is based on a unilateral declaration of independence. 
Just heard on Morning Edition: The Russians say they will not now automatically recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia even though they have been supporting those independence movements.
It’s not like Chechnyans haven’t been trying!
I’m crying at my keyboard right now.
As Paddy Ashdown , the British Politician and expert on the Balkans, said “The Serbians have lost all moral right to hang on to Kosova.” This is because of the way Serbia treated the place and population over many years
Why? While I can understand nationalist sentiments (I ascribe to them myself) when you’ve got a region that has a small minority of the population, and the majority choose to leave their parent state, if nobody gets stupid and rolls out tanks, there’s no reason to be unhappy. Self determination is important to ALL people, within the bounds of reason.
My sympathies that you feel your people are… something. In danger? About to be exterminated? Now have a smaller nation?
What is it that upsets you so?
Agree
The serbs are pretty nuts thinking that the kosovars will have serbs as their rulers after the treatment they got from them in the 90’s
So what, they’re not supporting something they want to protest Kosovar independence? That doesn’t make any sense. I guess we’ll see how long it actually takes them to recognize those secessions if they happen.
How does Ashdown feel about our Indian reservations?
On the other hand the UK which has major secessionist movements in 3 of it’s 4 constituent countries and a plethora of other smaller secessionist movements has come out the strongest supporter of Kosovian independence.
Kosovo has been effectively independent from Serbia for the best part of a decade anyway and it’s questionable what possible good could come of a return to Serbian rule.
It didn’t occur till after the editing window that my post could be taken as anything other than sarcasm.
And it is bad for those of the Serbian population, the slight majority of whom are most likely not very evil, within Kosova if they do not want to break away from Serbia or think they will be discriminated by the Albanians.
But if there is any population that deserve to be treated badly as a group due to collective indifference to the plight of their neighbors at the hands of their own government, it’s the Serbs, even if most of them were not outright evil.
What the status of Serbs within Kosova should be, I don’t know. Should cities, township, streets, households, have the right of self determination?
True, but bear in mind that the ethnic Albanians drove most of the Serbs out of the province during that period, explaining why Serbs now only account for 10% of the province’s population - we’re talking several hundred thousand displaced Serbs who were hoping to go home one day. There are also still several hundred thousand Serb Kosovars still living in the region. This is basically how the wars in Croatia and Bosnia started.
I’m not saying that creating a new nation was the wrong move, but as usual, the situation is way more complicated than the mainstream media cartoon version.
The idea was that in retaliation for US support of Kosovo secession, Russia would encourage (ostensibly pro-Russian) secessionist movements in (ostensibly pro-American) states. Brainglutton’s quote seems to be saying that in a sudden access of rationality, Russia will not necessarily do this.
The political doctrine of the Church of the SubGenius is patriopsychotic anarchomaterialism: “Every yard a kingdom, every child and dog a serf!”
Great, more unrest in the Balkans, that’s always worked out well… :rolleyes:
Why does such a tiny region command so much worldwide attention, as opposed to say, Darfur? Becasue Nostradamus predicted that the slaying of an Austrian/Hungarian monarch would precipitate world war?
j/k.
But seriously, the only impact that can come of this is the diametric opposition between the Russians and the USA/UN. Nobody wants to see another ethnic cleansing episode, but at the same time, isn’t it reasonable that these small republics go on ahead and break themselves apart into mutually acceptable racial/ethnic lines?