Friday, February 22, 2008

Kosovo independance & our embassy

The more I read about the area comprising the former Yugoslovia the more I am convinced that I do not, and probably will not ever, fully understand it. There are Hatfield and McCoy hatreds in that part of the world that go back centuries. I was unsure if our intervention in the 90's was a good idea. Mind you, I was not convinced it was a bad idea, but given the folks in charge then and the fact that I wasn't convinced that it was clearly a good idea.....

That said.... what set of morons had to come together to put us in the situation where a bunch of rioters set fire to our embassy.

1. It may or may not have been a good idea to support the independence declaration but the fact that the proposed "constitution" was clearly written by the UN wonks and not a bunch of devout Muslims should have been a clue to withhold judgment until the dust settled. I am guessing the illustrious State Department was heavily at work here.

2. It should have been clear to everyone that there would be significant opposition in Serbia.

3. If we were going to be "out in front" and ignore #1 above we should have guarded against what should have been an obvious potential for violence against our embassy and put in place appropriate security measures to avoid being overrun by a mob of civilians armed with rocks, sticks and bottles. A couple of squads of marines, for instance, could have avoided our embassy being overrun. This would likely have come at a cost of a couple dozen pissed off civilian Serbian lives but there must be a cost to invading US sovereign territory because you are pissed off. I have been pissed off at Castro and the ChiComs for decades but it never occurred to me that it would be a good idea to try to ransack a Commie embassy in NY because I really don't want to meet my maker quite yet.

On the up side I have seen no reports of any embassy personnel being killed, kidnapped or harmed so maybe we did the non-confrontational thing of bailing out before the violence started. This is a distant second in the reasonable choice category. It really matters not if we should be supporting the Christians or the Muslims in their little Hatfield and McCoy history. We must defend our sovereign territory against invasion. We will have no standing to bring to bear to settle the violence in the eyes of the Serbs or the newly declared Kosovo state if we allow a handful of pissed off Hatfields to overrun our embassy and set it ablaze. Need one be reminded of how quickly Ackmedinawhackjob and crew bailed on their hostage situation in our Iranian embassy as Reagan was taking the oath of office? The people in that part of the world (regardless of religion and ethnic heritage) do not seem to understand compassion and empathy from Goliath but they seem to understand military strength just fine.

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