Saturday, February 23, 2008
Christopher Hitchens in Slate:
You will by now have read dark remarks made by partisans of the Russian and Serb Orthodox viewpoint, to the effect that if one "secession" is allowed, then what is to prevent every Gypsy or Chechen or Ossetian from proclaiming their own statelet? You should, first, ask if the Bosnian Serbs ought not to have thought of this first and been better advised by the "realist" or Kissinger school that now weeps such hypocritical tears. You should, second, ask if you know of any case comparable to the Kosovo one, where a national minority was so long imprisoned within an artificial state.
Of course, one ought to acknowledge that this is a calamity for the Serbs and indeed an injustice in the sense of an insult to their pride and history. But the injustice was self-inflicted.
Alessio Vinci in CNN "Serb protests echo Milosevic era"
It was very much a gathering aimed at showing Serb unity, but the nationalist element was very much present.
Tomislav Nikolic, the ultranationalist leader who narrowly lost a presidential election a few weeks ago was there. And so was Vojslav Kostunica, the Serbian prime minister, who led anti-Milosevic demonstrations in 2000 without ever being a big fan of the West. "For as long as we live, Kosovo will be in Serbia!" he told the crowd. These could have been Milosevic's words of a decade ago.
The Serbian government organized the rally to show the world Serb indignation and anger at Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence. People arrived from all over Serbia also thanks to free transport, including trains and buses.
Serb officials have been consistent in saying that they will challenge Kosovo's independence politically and diplomatically, and ruled out any use of force.
But images of the burning U.S. Embassy in Belgrade are making that effort, already pretty much a lost cause, much harder. Indeed Serbia's pro-West president Boris Tadic reacted saying that violence is putting Kosovo further away from Serbia, not closer.
Yet one cannot ignore the inadequate security that Serb officials put in place to protect sensitive sites at a time of high tension and passion. On Sunday, hours after Kosovo declared independence, Serb riot police fought pitch battles with thugs and violent demonstrators outside the U.S. compound as they tried to storm it a first time.
Where were they Thursday night?..
Alan Sullivan at Fresh Bilge:
Of course, the Kosovo border should have been redrawn before the independence declaration. Now there's no telling what will happen. It is well to remember where World War One began.
Paul L. Williams, Ph.D. - Bush Administration Unites with al Qaeda in Kosovo
With two governments in one tiny country, the situation quickly became downright ugly. In 1993 Milosevic ordered the arrest of thirty ethnic Albanians for planning an armed uprising. In 1995 a Serbian court sentenced sixty-eight members of Rugova's government to prison for setting up a parallel police force. ..
To aid in the struggle for independence, the ethnic Albanians turned to Osama bin Laden and the mujahadeen. Muslim warriors from Chechnya, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia traveled in droves to Kosovo. By 1995 more than sixty thousand holy warriors, including members of al Qaeda, had made their way to the Balkans to prepare for the struggle against Milosevic and the Christian Serbs.
So, if the ethnic Albanians "provoked" the Serbs, then why did the Milosevic's JNA and militia forces use their military superiority to trash Croatia? And why did the Croatians respond by trashing the Serbs, killing 14,000 Serb civilians, looting Serb property, and killing and mutilating Serb civilians?
What would have happened if American and the international community had done nothing? How far would the fighting have spread?
Muslim terrorism/fascism is a threat because they're fighting us with the equivalent of bearskins and knives, yet they manage to terrify millions. They've only gotten as far as they have because so very few people want to fight them. Islamist terrorism is also a threat because it may provoke a European reaction. When Europeans decide to fight, they tend to vote for groups that, to most American eyes, look fairly fascist. When they decide to fight, they have a history of being more aggressive than any other culture on earth.
And, when the Euros get their game going, the Balkans tend to be at the epicenter of the worst of it. That may be one reason why we originally felt the need to intervene.
The majority of American conservatives oppose fascism but for some reason that I can't begin to fathom, some are leaning towards the idea that the best way to fight Islamist-fascism is to ally with Eurofascism.
In the comment's section at Atlas, a supporter of the Serbian point of view said:
I responded:
So who am I WITH or AGAINST? I'm against the whiny bullies.
I generally like your views, but as a european I want to say that you're make some mistakes here:
1.By cutting of Serbia from Kosovo, the lifes of the serbian people in Kosovo depend on foreign troups, that probably will not stay much longer.
Under a serbian government they would have been protected and the muslim majority wouldn't be endangered, because the world is watching.
Everyone would be better off without a separate state Kosovo.
2.National fascism is the best form of government/culture that I have seen for islamisch countries in history. Introducing democracy constantly fails.
I would not consider national fascism an option for any non-muslim country, but for islamic states I see no other.
3.National fascism is limited in its will to expand. When the races or cultures in other countries differ too much, there is no longing to conquer - except for historic reasons. The unbound spread of Serbia is an illusion. On the other hand: the spread of Islam is unbounded.
4.Talking about europeans the way you do makes me ill. We're currently having really big cultural problems - though not as big as some africans or Israel. But thinking about other countries trying to intervene a moderate self defense (talking hypothetical here - not about Serbia) just because they think that they are fighting Hitler again, makes me sick.
The biggest problem in western Europe today is: that we're so afraid of being evil, that we don't do anything to stop other people for the fear of ourselves. (And that we dislike other people that do not have that fear of themselves.)
If you are against fascism in Europe, that is fine (everyone should be), but don't assert that we're evil by nature. That is not helping.
The biggest problem in western Europe today is: that we're so afraid of being evil, that we don't do anything to stop other people for the fear of ourselves. (And that we dislike other people that do not have that fear of themselves.)
If you are against fascism in Europe, that is fine (everyone should be), but don't assert that we're evil by nature.
I don't think Europeans are evil by nature. I just know that they're very good fighters when they put their minds to it. Unlike Americans, they don't seek individual or libertarian solutions to a political problem, they tend to seek collective, state sponsored solutions. That only becomes an issue when the moderates can't solve a particular problem, like crime in certain neighborhoods and Islamist aggression. If the political moderates can't find a solution, people will tend to look to the extremists. At least that's what they've done in the past.
When the Archbishop of Canterbury made his infamous statement about Sharia, some commenters said that they were former labor voters who were now going to vote for the BNP, because the present government was so passive in the face of the Islamist threat.
Most individuals in Europe are not racist, or fascist at all. Many groups that are called 'far right' by the European press are actually more like American conservatives or liberals. I've also talked to quite a few socialists in Britain and East German who have a better understanding of individual rights and liberalism than most Americans do.
But most Germans who supported Hitler weren't anti-Semitic. Most Germans, even the Gestapo, were horrified by the violence of Kristalnacht. But they supported Hitler because he offered solutions to their problems. He empowered them. When people feel that they have to turn to extremist groups for political solutions, you can have a big problem, especially when those people do tend to be good fighters.
I don't think that the Kosovan independence bid was handled well, but if the moderates don't take the initiative to deal with problems like this in a moderate way, the extremists will take control.
When the moderates are afraid to take any actions, then many people in Europe and in America see the extremists as the only solution to a problem. Then we may start heading towards a worst case scenario.
Mary, where did you get the idea that
"Most Germans, even the Gestapo, were horrified by the violence of Kristalnacht."
The Gestapo were known for their cruelty towards people who they felt were inferior.
From THE FÜHRER MYTH:
"Though Hitler's anti-Semitic paranoia was not shared by the vast bulk of the population, it plainly did not weigh heavily enough in the scales on the negative side to outweigh the positive attributes that the majority saw in him. The widely prevalent latent dislike of Jews, even before monopolistic Nazi propaganda got to work to drum in the messages of hatred, could offer no barrier to the "dynamic" hatred present in a sizeable minority -- though after 1933 a minority holding power. Much research has illustrated a diversity of attitudes towards the persecution of the Jews (most plainly visible in varied reactions to the promulgation of the Nuremberg Laws in September 1935 and "Kristallnacht" in November 1938). Nevertheless, the Nazis appear to have been successful in establishing, in most people's eyes, that there was a "Jewish Question", and in deepening the anti-Jewish feeling at the time that the external threat of imminent war was growing.
When the open violence of Kristallnacht proved unpopular, even within Nazi circles, Hitler took care to distance himself publicly from the pogrom which he himself had commissioned. But, despite extensive disapproval of the methods, there was by now a general feeling that Jews no longer had any place in Germany, and Hitler's association of Jews with the growing international danger (which he had done more than anyone to foster) strengthened -- at least did not weaken -- his image as the fanatical defender of his nation's interests.
Materially, too, many had benefited from the exclusion of Jews from German society, their economic dispossession, and their expulsion. The "boycott movement" which had begun as soon as Hitler became Reich Chancellor and, in waves, had effectively driven Jews out of commercial life, eventually ushering in the "aryanization" program of 1938 that robbed Jews of their possession, operated to the profit of large numbers of Germans. Here, too, many felt reason to be grateful to Hitler. The human cost, paid by an unpopular minority, was for them an irrelevant consideration."
- Hitler won popularity by being generous to the average German, and by giving them the land they thought was 'stolen' from them. According to this historian, most Germans weren't motivated by hatred towards the Jews, but by complete indifference.
"Unlike Americans, they don't seek individual or libertarian solutions to a political problem, they tend to seek collective, state sponsored solutions."
That is a good point.
But I don't believe the following sentence:
"When they decide to fight, they have a history of being more aggressive than any other culture on earth."
Think of Stalin, Mao, african and asian genocides and jihadists.
I think, that Americans are especially libertarian (which is good) - not the other way round.
Mary, I didn't see in your reply where the gestapo were listed as being horrified by Kristalnact.
The gestapo were not known for their empathy towards their victims.
And quoting Der Speigel reminds me of their publication of the fraudulent SHITler Diaries.
Bottom line, the gestapo were the worst.
There was a belief that the Wermacht were decent, but even that myth was destroyed. The Wermacht were shitty to Jews as well, not limited to the "faithful" gestapo.
Any attempt to soften the gestapo sounds questionable.
There are a lot of angles to the Kosovo situation, which I hadn't been aware of. Reading the comment thread appended to the Hitchens piece is really a must I think.
One aspect of Kosovar independence that startled me, is a sense among many Lebanese that this will somehow victimize them. I found this out reading Lebanese blogs and papers and was surprised. Is this a reflection of Lebanese fears of partition along religious lines?
Or - is this a fear specifically among Christians particularly in the East, in Russia, throughout Europe? I don't know - this is another aspect of the Yugoslavian question that isn't discussed here in the MSM. We took for granted that NATO was on the "right side" in the Serbia/Bosnia conflict; and the character of Milosevic made it seem an easy choice - for heaven's sake the man was appalling - but there apparently are other issues that weren't illuminated at all.
Here's something else that might prove problematic down the line, which I also gleaned from comments from the Slate thread, and that's the fact that Kosovo is dependent on the UN. Will this result in a successful, independent state or another disaster, another failed state?
Also, where does this end? Whatever happened to the idea of blending cultures, tribes, religious identities into vital democratic nations? Are we splitting into states built along identity politics?
Of course in some cases it seems like this is the only answer to brutal persecution: this is the key to modern Israel - there doesn't seem to be any way to protect the Jewish nation from being brutalized or even exterminated, besides the also perilous attempt to self-determination and self-defense in a modern nation-state. And many other states are de-facto based on powerful majorities, religious or ethnic - 56 Muslim states and counting, for example, Hindu India, the largely Christian West. Modern Greece and Turkey both reflect massive "ethnic cleansing" if you will - huge population transfers of respective Christian and Muslim minorities.
But - what of the American ideal - that of the "melting pot"? And aren't we seeing an attempt, accidental or by design, to create something like that in modern Europe?
I'm confused.
Eddie - you may be right, I think I phrased that wrong - the Gestapo were displeased with the effects of Kristallnacht, but they were probably not pleased by the fact that it wasn't a public relations success. They were also disappointed with Hitler's corruption. But that changed when Hitler won a few battles and showed the Germans how powerful they could be.
If you read the entire report, you'll see that it doesn't try to humanize the Nazis. It does show how extremists can sell themselves to a population that is basically liberal and democratic. Hitler didn't sell himself with racism, he sold himself by promising people land, power and happiness. He was the feel-good fuhrer.
A reasonable analysis of how evil gains power in a liberal society is probably the best way to prevent the same thing from happening again.
Serbia started the bloody story of Balkans in 1990s and it ends in their own backyard. Poetic justice. As for Kosovo is concerned - yes, with Raška (today better known as Sanjak) it is indeed the old heart of Serbia, but the truth is that parts of Bosnia where the Serbs are majority today and which are part of Republika Srpska are Croatian old lands... Vojvodina used to be Hungarian land at the same period of history (and much longer) Kosovo was Serbian... borders in Europe tend to change and up until now Balkan ones always changed in Serbia favor.
@ #9 Michal at: February 23, 2008 5:19 PM
You can place any conflict the way you want to. If you start looking at WW2 in 1944 you'll see the combined forces of USA, Britain and Russia crushing the German state. Wouldn't it be "poetic justice" to see USA, Britain and Russia getting ripped apart? I don't think so - and when you looking at the earlier development you see why.
Kosovo is indeed the "heart of Serbia", or better the heart of the Serbians. It is as holy to the Serbs as any non-religious place can be. It is were their identity comes from. It is were they fought the most heroic battles for their nation. It is that part of Serbia, that they are most proud of.
Is it poetic justice, when people settle in your most beloved land and (instead of integrating) violently edge out the natives? Shall the Mexicans do this to the USA? How poetic!
Remember the shock when the WTC collapsed? Try to imagine that the Arabs would have taken control over the whole of New York instead - with the help of a superior military power. Poetic justice since the US Army desecrated holy ground in the first Golf war? I don't think so.
I think the best comment I've read on this situation came from Kenneth at LGF:
There is a lesson here for the rest of Europe: when the jihad starts lapping against your shores in Belgium or Holland or France, don't turn to the racist nationalists for salvation. They offer no hope and no future. That's what the Serbs did and it only accelerated their collapse and sealed their fate.
@ #11 Mary at: February 24, 2008 1:03 PM
"when the jihad starts lapping against your shores in Belgium or Holland or France, don't turn to the racist nationalists for salvation."
True. Except for Cyprus and Serbia, there are no european countries were I would tolerate fascistic nationalists.
"They offer no hope and no future."
Not true. They can be overcome. Spain is up for a wonderfull future, since the nationlists were dumped. Spain also had a wonderfull future, after getting rid of Islam, but only because they didn't convert to it. There is no example in history for an islamic people that got rid of it. The best so far were the Turks, who suppressed Islam by nationalism. But this is changing back right now.
"That's what the Serbs did and it only accelerated their collapse and sealed their fate."
Oh, that is ridiculous: "it only accelerated their collapse"? "it"? Do you know who "it" really is?
As far as I know, the serbian nationalists were successful and I was willing to tolerate them for now. But also when you feel different, you can't say: "We stopped them and that clearly shows that their way didn't work."
Don't get me wrong. I support most US-military actions, though recently I wonder whether it should be called Saudi-Arabian-military. In the last twenty years the royal Saudi family could always be happy with US-Targets.
But Germany, Japan, Korea, Cuba, Vietnam and Afghanistan were all good targets and weapon support for Israel and Iraq were also fine.
Except for Cyprus and Serbia, there are no european countries were I would tolerate fascistic nationalists...National fascism is the best form of government/culture that I have seen for islamisch countries in history....They can be overcome. Spain is up for a wonderfull future, since the nationlists were dumped.
This is exactly what I was talking about. Europe isn't 'evil', but it's much too willing to tolerate fascism.
Who cares if Serbian Nationalists stomp all over Croatia and Bosnia? Who cares if the craziness spreads to Greece? Who cares if Balkan nationalism combined with Russian interference and Wahhabi/Hizb-ut-Tahrir Islamism causes most of Europe to be englufed in a reactionary orgy of ethnic cleansing? Spain is okay now, so fascism can't be that bad. Laissez les bons temps rouler.
When I lived in Germany during the late '80's Berlin skinheads were killing Turkish shopkeepers for the crime of being Turks. Motivated by dreams of "Greater Serbia", Serb goons attacked their former countrymen for the crime of not being Serbs. Relying on the kindness of national fascism to deal with the problem of Islamism is not a solution.
At Israpundit, Ted Belman also notes Saudi involvement in this mess:
The Saudis forced NATO to wage a war against the Serbs to get out of Kosovo.
The Saudis are supporting the new Muslim government in Turkey, and now Turkey is reintroducing the black Hijab in schools and Parliament.
The Saudis are working with some Kurds and support the deadly Wahhabi funded Islamist terrorist Ansar Al-Islam to terrorize the mostly tolerant and democratic Kurdish Sunni Muslims.
But he concludes that:
More of the same will ensue while the international community begs for the Saudi oil and money.
All roads must pass through Riyadh. Go after the root cause of the problem if you want to solve it.
Don't think that letting jackbooted thugs beat up shopkeepers and burn embassies will solve the problem. Go after the root cause.
You're substituting, with Hitchens, one capitulation for another in order to satisfy a visceral, if viscerally understandable, spur of the moment dissatisfaction with present Serbian pretensions and leanings and motivations. Serbian nationalism or fascism is not, or at least need not be, a monolithic and unmoveable stasis. Instead - while recognizing the turmoil, discontent and far worse - the realization that neither of the current choices is appealing must be allowed to fully register. Once that recognition is allowed to register a choice still needs to be made, but on the basis of which (current) choice has the potential for more fruitful and stabilizing future and long term prospects. That choice, a difficult one to be sure, is nonetheless with Serbia and against Kosova's sectarian secession.
Despite nationalism's varied excesses, the genius of post-Westphalian conceptions needs to be granted its due - and an appreciable due it is, one which allows substantial and broadly based forms of global comity, if but in relative and roughhewn terms (i.e. "realist" or pragmatic and non-utopian terms), to be established and to perdure. Serbia is a work-in-progress, to be sure, and I don't mean to gloss real-world tragedies with a mere euphemism - but nascent forms of hope are not nothing; capitulation is what can be properly classified as nothing.
It requires a certain gravitas and vision and leadership along with global polities that will, in general, be supportive of that leadership, and it requires local polities (e.g., Serbians, including Kosavars) eventually to be willing to think and change as well, in conjunction with that global and local leasership.
Nascent hopes, properly conceived and aided by responsible leadership and polities, are not nothing. That may not sound like much, and if one restricts one's vision to the present only it will in fact not be much at all, but that is the pivot point upon which much depends. To one degree or another such has always been the case. Difficult choices, in the present, is the hand that has been dealt.
Once that recognition is allowed to register a choice still needs to be made, but on the basis of which (current) choice has the potential for more fruitful and stabilizing future and long term prospects. That choice, a difficult one to be sure, is nonetheless with Serbia and against Kosova's sectarian secession.
That might be true if Serbs had not burned our embassy, and it might be true if Serbs were not currently threatening more violence. But they are.
If a nation state gives in to terroristic threats, especially from fascist groups, we become known as a paper tiger. If the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the world proves to be weak, this also endangers the stability of the nation states that depend on us for protection.
Capitulating to either side is a bad solution, but if we were forced to choose, a better precedent would be set by capitulating to the side that's not committing acts of war and threatening violence.
Yesterday? Today? Tomorrow? When? What point in time are you focusing upon?
In other words and as previously noted, a far too convenient and short sighted formula. It was, after all, Albanian Muslims who formed an alliance with Mussolini and Hitler both, e.g., the Bosnian Muslim Handzar Nazi SS Division, the Kosovar Albanian Skanderbeg Nazi SS Division. Essentially, you're taking note of the most recent set of experiences in this centuries-long conflict and leveraging it in a manner that effectively denies other and primary factors in the larger calculus, not the least of which are infamies and arguably genocides committed by Albanians against Serbs during the 20th century (genocides committed by Kosovar Albanians against Kosovar Serbs as well as Kosovar Albanians' enthusiastic service to Hitler's genocidal program).
As to the "yesterday, today, tomorrow" questions, that history is not "merely history," it very much reflects current events: Kosovo Albanian Islamic mujahedeen.
Btw, you are inherently and also posing a false dilemma, the choice is not between allowing Serbs to be bullies and granting Kosovo national independence. As a commentor over at Melanie Phillips' blog site put it:
"If Kosovo’s UDI [Unilateral Declaration of Independence] is allowed to stand, then there will be no reason why any arbitrary administrative unit at all might not declare itself a sovereign state as soon as it has a Wahhabi-led Muslim majority, or is run by Holocaust-deniers, or is controlled by heroin barons, never mind falling, as Kosovo does, into all three of those categories."
"If Kosovo’s UDI [Unilateral Declaration of Independence] is allowed to stand, then there will be no reason why any arbitrary administrative unit at all might not declare itself a sovereign state as soon as it has a Wahhabi-led Muslim majority, or is run by Holocaust-deniers, or is controlled by heroin barons, never mind falling, as Kosovo does, into all three of those categories."
I don't think Kosovo has as many Wahhabi-led mujahideen as Britain does. Should we let Britain continue to be 'independent'?
The problem isn't in Britain or Kosovo, the problem is in Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and with the terror-supporting Holocaust deniers in Iran. Appeasing those fascists is just as self-destructive as appeasing the Serbian fascists.
Our willingness to appease and ally with our enemies is threatening the status of nation states around the world. Compared to that, Kosovo and the whiny Serbs are small change.
#16 Michael B
I really dont now way you try to bash on muslims.
but in albania I dont think religon comes into calculation..its part of the cold war, or remainings of the cold war.
moreover....although albanians where supported by the USA and europe, but maybe tommorow what happened to Taleban(which was suported by USA and the west) will happen to albanians .(I dought that)
also what happened to iraq(a former USA ally in the time of saadam) and then destroyed by the US.
But to mee its fair enough that you make things simple and routine(Islam,islamfacism,jihad...) to serve your interest(Jew propagandest interests)
Mary....
I was going to respond to mary... forget it.
Mary,
Asking if Britain should be allowed to remain independent reflects a notably incongruous and inapt analogy.
"The" problem, in a singular sense, isn't in Kosovo, but one of the problems certainly exists there. As to Britain, I'd suggest that it's not a good idea to allow a burgeoning "Wahhabi-led mujahideen" to continue to grow and, at some theoretial date in the future, annex some quarter of Britain to become an independent state - which reflects a more apt British analogy. (And not that it's entirely inapt, given the recent speech by the Archbishop of Canterbury together with the Balkanization of British politics sought by self-segregating members of a sizeable portion of Muslims in Britain.)
Kosovo, Serbia, Albania, etc. reflects what, something like a six-hundred or seven-hundred year long conflict? And now, at the end of that centuries long conflict, capitulation is the remedy, a capitulation which reflects long term implications at south eastern Europe's borderland? And you think what, that such will result in peace and stability?
(Or perhaps fifty or more years from now, if British "mujahideen" are permitted to grow and self-segregate, and incitements and counter-incitements and other destabilizing influences ensue, perhaps you can foresee a time where a Kosovo-like breakaway, within Britain, might be viable? In order to placate, in order to invest in hopes for "peace and stability" again?)
As to "bashing" anyone, you'd need to excerpt a quote of mine. In recognizing a centuries-long conflict (in the one part of the world that is arguably more twisted and conflicted than the Levant) and in suggesting Kosovo not be allowed the status of an independent state is not, eo ipso, to "bash Muslims" as if a host of other factors is not involved and as if I'm arbitrarily singling out a group simply to indulge a rank prejudice. In that vein, I noticed you skipped over all the aspects of what I've forwarded that takes note of the genocides committed by Albanians and Muslims and the difficulties involved more generally.
Kosovo, Serbia, Albania, etc. reflects what, something like a six-hundred or seven-hundred year long conflict?
The relationship between England and France could be termed a Millennium-long conflict. Something similar could be said for the Swedes and the Russians, or the Irish and the British. Although there's a lull now, you never know when these perpetually warring tribes are going to go at it again.
Back in the '50s and '60s, women in Egypt and Iran were wearing miniskirts and bikinis. Under the king's reign in Afghanistan, there was a fair degree of modernization. If there is a war of civilizations going on between the West and Islam, it's had quite a few lulls.
However, in Saudi Arabia, even the introduction of television shocked and horrified the population to such a degree that it prompted an assassination attempt. Terrorism and genocide are Saudi traditions. When Britain gave the Wahhabis control of the Muslim holy places, they started a mess that recent oil wealth has recently aggravated. The so-called Muslim war is heating up again, not because Muslims are born to be our enemies, but because the people who know how to use the tactic of terrorism know that we don't know how to fight it. We appease it, we ally with it, and in doing that, we let it grow.
Some Muslims use the tactic of terrorism and some Serbs use it too. The easiest way to fight terrorism is not to appease it, and not to ally with it. Blaming "Islam" for the acts of a political infrastructure that uses religion as a recruiting tool is like blaming Catholicism for the IRA. What you going to do to fight it, ban Islam? Outlaw it?
We need to fight this military/political infrastructure in a way that's been proven to work - dismantle the infrastructure, through military or economic means, until the enemy surrenders. We're not doing that. We're letting the enemy take over our economies and we're letting them guide our foreign policy. That's a problem that's bigger than Kosovo.
Oh, and I didn't make the comment about 'bashing' on Muslims. I think that was arabian19
Mary,
We'll have to agree to disagree. I'm not too worried about England and France and do not think they or the other situations alluded to are commensurate in the least to the Serbia/Kosovo situation. Nor do I think the tactic of terrorism is the enemy; at base it's an ideological war. Too, I simplified nothing vis-a-vis Kosovo, even to the contrary. We disagree and profoundly so.
(My mistake though in terms of the "bashing" ref.)