September 30, 2005: The worst thing about Kosovo is that there has been no progress in the last six years. After NATO military force got Serbia to pull their troops out of the province, because of Serb attempts to expel the Albanian majority population, the Albanians came back and successfully forced out most of the Serb minority in Kosovo. Now, only about five percent of the population is Serb, and they live in enclaves guarded by 17,000 NATO peacekeepers. Violence and crime are common, and jobs are not (about two thirds of the workforce are unemployed.) The only big business is crime, with organized gangs heavily into smuggling, drugs, prostitution and whatever else will earn money. Islamic charities have set up religious schools, and are turning thousands of young Albanians into enthusiastic haters of all things Christian. Because it's bad for business, the Albanian gangsters let it be known that Islamic terrorism is not welcome in Kosovo. But the groundwork is being done.
An intervention based on compassion has not earned us any credit. We went in with good motives and though I opposed the war at the time, I never sided with the enemy or said we were morally wrong to attack. It was a European problem and I had no confidence that we would earn any credit for saving Moslems from Christians.
Nor did I believe it was a one-year commitment as President Clinton claimed. Sure, the Europeans screwed him over by promising that they would take over after a year and then failing to do so, but that should tell us not to rely on European promises.
So now, under NATO's watch, the Moslems of Kosovo are being radicalized. But instead of hating the Serbs the Moslems are learning to hate all Christians generally. We should really just turn this over to the Europeans to fulfill the EU defense ambitions and let them deal with it. We are busy elsewhere and I'd rather the EU take the hit for dealing with this EUrabia foothold than NATO.
And please remember, when you aren't trying to win, you court defeat.
