Does anyone remember Bill Clinton promising our troops would be home from the Balkans by Christmas? Something needed to be done and Europe was hesitant to take action, so of course, we sent troops, aid, & money. It doesn't seem to have been a good investment, but I believe our military used this theater to test some high-tech weapons in hostile conditions.
This may go on for generations - ask the British how long they've spent trying to resolve the Irish problem. I know one Englishwoman who suggested years ago that they "surround it with barbed wire, blockade it with warships, and check in on it periodically when the smoke & noise has stopped." This may be how Europe wants to treat the Balkans, but Britain's efforts in Ireland may be a better example .
U.S. outrage as Serb protesters burn embassy - Yahoo! News:
"BELGRADE (Reuters) - Scores of protesters smashed their way into the U.S. embassy in Belgrade on Thursday in anger at Kosovo's independence, ransacking rooms and setting fires before riot police dispersed the crowd.
Washington reacted with anger.
'I'm outraged by the mob attack,' said its ambassador to the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, who added he would ask the U.N. Security Council to condemn it unanimously in the latest diplomatic shockwave from Kosovo's secession on Sunday.
The violence -- which spilled over to other embassies and included widespread vandalizing of shops and banks -- marred a mass state-backed rally by up to 200,000 Serbs refusing to accept the loss of their religious heartland Kosovo.
'As long as we live, Kosovo is Serbia,' Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica told the crowd from a stage in front of the old Yugoslav parliament building in Belgrade.
. . .
Police, nowhere to be seen when the U.S. embassy was attacked, moved in half an hour later, firing teargas and beating and detaining rioters to disperse the crowd. Local media said 60 people were injured, a quarter of them police.
The building had been closed and boarded up after rioters stoned it on Sunday when Kosovo declared independence after nine years under U.N. administration.
Police in armored vans secured the streets and tried to cordon off the whole embassy district, just a few hundred meters (yards) from the official rally. People tried to flee clouds of painful teargas.
Serbian President Boris Tadic urged rioters to stop.
. . .
Some 200 riot police arrived later, driving the crowd away. Some protesters sat on the ground, bleeding. Fire engines arrived to put out the flames, local media reported.
Meanwhile, the main rally proceeded as planned with a march to the city's biggest Orthodox cathedral for a prayer service.
State television switched between scenes of the rioting and the serenity of choral singing at the church service.
Small groups of looters, many drunk, broke into street kiosks and shops, taking cigarettes, chocolate and shoes.
News agencies said foreign banks and McDonalds fast-food stores were also attacked and eight city buses damaged.
In the crowds at the main rally were many hardline nationalist Radicals, from Serbia's biggest party, who shouted anti-Albanian slogans.
. . .
In contrast to the violence by up to 5,000 mainly young rioters, the lack of passion in the main rally crowd appeared to support comments by Western analysts and some ordinary people here that most Serbs were bitter at but resigned to the loss of Kosovo and tired of years of conflict with neighboring states.
. . .
In other protests, several hundred Serb army veterans at a border post between Kosovo and Serbia stoned Kosovo riot police who, backed by Czech troops in riot gear, stood their ground until the protesters dispersed. No one was hurt.
NATO peacekeepers said they were determined to stop a repeat of Tuesday's destruction of two other border posts by Serbs.
In Banja Luka in the Bosnian Serb Republic, several people were injured when protesters holding aloft portraits of Russian President Putin clashed with police at the U.S. consulate."
No comments:
Post a Comment