Kosovo has declared it's independence from Serbia and the Yugoslav Federation, and has set off a political crisis at the United Nations. Serbia and Russia are moving to block recognition of the planet's newest nation.
The European Union and the United States are set to recognize it immediately.
Hopefully a new war won't break out over this.
As much as I don't like it, I think it's better that Serbia and Kosovo go their own separate ways. Both have been the transgressors in past conflicts; the two governments don't like one another, and with the recent history, it was an uncomfortable relationship at best. And in this case, Christianity and Islam don't play well in the same sandbox. I think Russia and Serbia ought to get over it and move on.
I'm still not happy with NATO's bombing of civilian targets in Serbia the last time around. NATO admitted killing up to 1,500 non-combatant civilians during their 78-day air war against Serbia. Depleted uranium rounds were used by NATO, as were cluster bombs in close proximity to civilians in both Kosovo and in Serbia.
That made NATO a co-aggressor alongside Serbia.
And we criticized Israel for using U.S.-built cluster bombs in southern Lebanon for the same thing during their war with Hezbollah last year? Our hypocrisy knows NO bounds.
No one from NATO was made to answer for the collateral damage. And I still think members of the U.S. government who helped to make up the target lists (including bombing the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade) needed to be up on war crimes charges as well. But they got away with it.
And now Kosovo has declared independence; if Serbia decides to go in and end this independence bid by Kosovo, are NATO ground troops going to get involved? This could turn into a huge mess very quickly.
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