I wonder if there will ever be peace in the Balkans. What do you think, Striv?

2 or 3 'Albania's are certainly not a good idea, at that is where we are heading right now: Albania proper + Kosova* (+ an autonomous region within Macedonia). For all these people, 1 Albania seems like a good idea, and for all their neighbours, including Striv, our personal Greek goddess, it seems like a really really bad idea. I tend to agree with the neighbours.

Think of pre-anschluss Austria. Or something similarily horrible.

Bush is a fool to embrace Albania, which is more like its Tintin-caricature than a real country. But I don't think the EU or NATO give any credence to the Bush-administration at this point, so I don't think there is any need to worry.

*Writing Kosova instead of Kosovo is a sign that I do recognize the Kosova-Albanians right to self-governance. For the record.

~ I wonder if there will ever be peace in the Balkans.

The only way Albania can hope to get anywhere with this is if they manage to get the US to do their dirty work for them. In which case the Serbians will bring in the Russians and after that it will just be a contest of who's got the biggest dick.

But I think we're in luck for now since the US is rather occupied with their upcoming elections and Iraq. By the time they do manage to bother seriously with us again enough time will have passed for expatriated Albanians to have returned and point things in a different direction. Like mending their non-existent economy for one.

"Do I ever argue with you about things in south america RUR?
Usually I don't go shooting my mouth off about things I know little about"
Hmmm... What
I meant was that some people in the west (US/EU) want Turkey to be part of the EU Which I think is a mistake (Turkey has never been part of any definition of Europe).
The Chinatown reference beign about how that same meddling by western powers you mentioned can make thinks even worse.
As of South America please feel free to voice your opinion at any time.

quote:

Originally posted by striv:

quote:

Originally posted by Splitcoil:
You're choosing one massacre over another.

There, you made your first assumption.
Because you've spoken with a couple of people from this area, what makes you think you understand the situation or have seen the big picture? It's like saying "I know how to make things right in the Gaza strip cause I've spoken to a couple of orthodox jews."

What people really need in the Balkans is a period of stability and without conflict so they can finally rebuild the ruins and move on.
What the Albanians know and know very well how to take advantage of is one rule; the only way to shift borders here is through conflict and blood. And the Albanians want to shift borders. period.

Jesus H. Biscuit. Is argument all you know? I'm curious what assumption you thought I'd made. I'm sure I made some along the way, as it's impossible for discussion to progress otherwise. But I tend to doubt you've got it pegged correctly.

I wasn't arguing. I wasn't advocating one position over another. In fact, I see the whole Bush-Kosovo thing as nothing more than a smoke-and-mirrors exercise. He has no intention of actually standing up for Kosovo's independence. Independent Kosovo is just a pick-up line for us, to get Albania out of its pants. Anyone who thinks otherwise is probably delusional.

I was merely saying that you're choosing one massacre over another. More accurately, I might have said you're choosing one series of massacres over another series. That's not bad. That's the facts of life in any discussion of foreign policy involving armed parties. Unless you think the Kosovars and Albanians will all behave themselves perfectly if they don't get what they're after. I assumed you were too smart for that. I also assume that's not the assumption you were upset over.

I choose one massacre over another all day long. Anyone who takes a stand on any issue involving armed conflict is doing the same, even if they flinch from admitting it.

quote:

Originally posted by Splitcoil:

I choose one massacre over another all day long. Anyone who takes a stand on any issue involving armed conflict is doing the same, even if they flinch from admitting it.

Good one.

The friendly Albanians loved George so much, they 'disappeared' his wristwatch.

Allegedly.

quote:

Originally posted by RUR:
I meant was that some people in the west (US/EU) want Turkey to be part of the EU Which I think is a mistake (Turkey has never been part of any definition of Europe).
The Chinatown reference beign about how that same meddling by western powers you mentioned can make thinks even worse.

Actually Greece is part of the meddling parties (you couldn't call us a power in any stretch of the imagination) that wants Turkey to join the EU.

Also Turkey has been part of the definition of Europe for the last 1000 years at least. Turkey has a small part of land that has always been definitive in the description of this continent. Constantinople. and it might be a small part of Turkey geographically but it's actually a lot bigger. Istanbul is 17 million out of the 44 that is the entire country.
And if Turkey has too much of middle east to qualify, then so does Russia with Asia.

quote:

Originally posted by Splitcoil:
I wasn't arguing. I wasn't advocating one position over another. In fact, I see the whole Bush-Kosovo thing as nothing more than a smoke-and-mirrors exercise. He has no intention of actually standing up for Kosovo's independence. Independent Kosovo is just a pick-up line for us, to get Albania out of its pants. Anyone who thinks otherwise is probably delusional.

You underestimate the meddlesomeness of your country's foreign policy. The US has been spending a lot of mula in the region lately in small places like Slavic Macedonia for example.

quote:

I was merely saying that you're choosing one massacre over another. More accurately, I might have said you're choosing one series of massacres over another series. That's not bad. That's the facts of life in any discussion of foreign policy involving armed parties. Unless you think the Kosovars and Albanians will all behave themselves perfectly if they don't get what they're after. I assumed you were too smart for that. I also assume that's not the assumption you were upset over.

I guess I'm not that smart....
My wish is that the issue will remain on the discussion tables and conflict will be avoided.
If there is any kind of conflict started then we've all lost. There is no choosing one massacre over another.
For you this area is a blip on the map. I live here and any kind of massacre will affect me directly. I cannot afford it.

As for the Albanians of the Kosovo area and any Albanian one thing is for sure. They do NOT want to be part of Albania proper. And that will always work in our favor.

Constantinople fell in 1453. The Seljuq Turks, antecessors of the Ottomans, arrived from Central Asia in the XIIth century, first as mercenaries of the divided rests of the Caliphate, then weathering the Mongol invasion and carving their realm when they left. In those two centuries they learnt a lot from both the Ayubbids, the Rum (Byzantines) and the Franks, but they still were a nomad horsemen people. Only when they were firmly in control of Anatolia they started to settle down.

So a thousand years is a bit exaggerated.

The Ottomans beat and then absorbed all the great (and small) Balcanic kingdoms (Bulgars, Wallachians, Serbs, Albanians) and the Venetian and Genoese colonies/protectorates,including Greece. After that, for three hundred years, they were the official enemy of the European countries, the only force that let enemies collaborate to beat them, whether Catholics and Protestants to defend Vienna, or bitter trade rivals to sweep them off the Mediterranean in Lepanto.

So, for a long while, Europe was defined in opposition to the Turks (even more so in those areas slowly taken from the Ottoman Empire in the XVIII and XIXth centuries, the closest to a crusade in modern times).

It is the Turks who crafted the mix of hate and collaboration that make up the Balkans, as they were masters of the "Divide and Conquer" and fond of displacing whole populations to further their political ends of stability.

Pragmatic reasons make governments be both for and against Turkey (trade and inmigrants status the two main ones) joining the EU. But the emotional scars are too deep and difficult to forget. The USA does not want to lose influence to the Brussels bureaucracy, so they try to court those that are not happy in the EU, or those not yet admitted to the Union, to balance the euroinfluence.

As for discussions, I find that people close to the situation are less, rather than more, qualified to discuss such an emotional subject, because they surely know more, but that knowledge is unavoidably subjective and tainted by the local perspective. So they are a good source of information but useless in an objective discussion.

Maybe they are slow rather than quick, but there are massacres going in many places in the Balkans, whether Transylvania, Moldavia or Kosovo, with a minority slowly being pushed out.

The EU has chosen some to acknowledge and some to ignore, and so do each of us in our limited scope.

Most Albanese are trying to get out of their country, so it would be surprising someone would want to join them. However Albania is a powerful symbol, in Bush's eyes, a Muslim country on the US side in the War on Terror. Which shows how short-sighted he is, as they are there for simple mercenary reasons.

Now that we mention Evil Big Pharmaâ„¢...

quote:

Originally posted by Psychophant:
Now that we mention Evil Big Pharmaâ„¢...

Dear Mister Big Farma,

I am Harold Owesa Mkube, and I am the Health Minister for cabinet of Prince Mkuma Hwasa of the Republic of Nigeriaa.

It has come to my attention that you have recently performed some tests on our citizens. We are most displesed. In order to make compensation for the victims you have tested up, please send me you bank account details so that you are to be able to transfer the requisites funds to my countrymens.

I most humbly accepted you compliance with this matter.

Thnak you,,

Health Miniuster Harold Owesa Mkube.

No one wants to babysit the babysitter...

quote:

striv said:
You underestimate the meddlesomeness of your country's foreign policy. The US has been spending a lot of mula in the region lately in small places like Slavic Macedonia for example.

Yeah. To be me, right now, and to underestimate the meddlesome nature of our foreign policy-- well, that would be quite a hat trick, now wouldn't it? If you think the money being spent in Macedonia is "a lot of mula", then you have a very tenuous grasp of the scope of our foreign activities.

You're not getting my point. You don't want to get my point. You don't want to converse; you want to rant. It's not worth it. Never mind.

Everyone please return to the usual goofiness. Please do not stray into matters of consequence again.

I've been reading about Balkan history for almost two tears, trying to get a clear idea of what the hell is going on there. The more I learn, the less clear it becomes. It seems as if any particular group has a whole bundle of grudges against damn near everyone else. The who's-killing-who during WWII is specially baffling. And of course today's events derive directly from those mid-20th years. I gave up trying to pick any good guys in the Balkans. The problem now as for centuries in the past is that that area is the geographic crossroads between Europe and Asia. And most outsiders obviously have no clear idea how it feels to be native to the area. It's one of the many spots on the planet that make me feel hopeless for our species.

There is more people to talk with, you know. Pity that we usually agree to disagree.

As for Kosovo, in my view first the Albanians suffered as secondary citizens, then they suffered a lot more, and now they make the Serbs suffer (with the tolerance but restraining hand of the international community).

Business as usual, unfortunately.

I wonder why only a small percentage of the EBRD initiatives give results in Serbia, while most of them do in Romania. Chance? I doubt it. And those are the countries I know more about. And while Kosovo is in limbo, it fares worse than either Serbia or Albania.

By the way, I know the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development is the bureaucratic equivalent to the US direct moolah. I like its impersonal and totally apolitical approach, however. They care about their money, however.

The roots of the WWII fruits are much deeper than the 20th century. After all most peoples were brought or settled there by the Byzantines to beat back or press down the previous bunch of settlers (and many others that have not survived the cruel passage of time). And the Ottomans kept more or less doing the same.

quote:

There is more people to talk with, you know. Pity that we usually agree to disagree.

Aye; I'd like to have these kinds of discussions over beer, rather than on the board. And in a non-realizable world where total candor was possible.

I find these things degenerate quickly on the board. Someone flings insults here that they wouldn't fling in meatspace, or someone takes offense at an imagined insult and starts flinging insults... all of which would have been avoided in a meatspace conversation among intelligent adults.

I wasn't actually interested in discussing the Balkans. Just the meta- discussion it prompted in my mind. How we go about making decisions about which conflicts are preferable, etc. We'll file it away for a pub sometime.

Yes, all that "I know more than I should but less that I want about someone".

Well, it takes practice to go beyond proximity and personal knowledge of people to judge value. And most people do not even make the effort to try.

Really now. What was that?
Striv is worried about the US-Albania happiness. And given the incredible level of ignorance and recklessness shown by the Bush administration thus far, I can understand her worries.
Even left-handed American interest in small, mis-governed nations can be disastrous.

So now, as we have all seen clearly demonstrated that war does not equal peace, the intellectual fad de jour has become to assume that some conflicts are given naturals, and can thus never be resolved. Israel/Palestine, Iraqi secterian conflict, Sudan, etc.
So young men with over-fertilized brains can enjoy drinking beer and having meta discussions about choosing one set of dead people over an other.
To me, it is not hard to grasp why anyone actually living in a conflict zone would take this in a bad way.

I also think it's bad reasoning. The one amazing lesson of the last 60 years of history is that age-old struggles can be ended, and former enemies learn to cooperate. 90 years ago, all of Europe was like the Balkans. 40 years ago, East Asia was the Balkans, South America was the Balkans.

America has contributed to this development in manifold ways. Take Europe: America contributed greatly to the escalating conflict after WW1 through misguided idealism and impressive ignorance. Then America contributed hugely to the peace in the West after WW2 through the Marshall program and 40 years of peaceful occupation and nation-building in W-Germany.

Whatever..

I partly disagree. The Balkans are in a really bad shape, mainly due to the deliberate actions of the Ottoman Empire but also to the fact that unlike other politically/religiously divided areas in Europe there was no unifying national spirit/great leadership at work.

I can only think of Germany in 1600 as a good equivalent, and there they at least had a common language and history. And it did not end so well.

The genocides/displacements that have made Europe such a nice civilized place took place quite some time ago, which is why the return of the barbarism made the Nazis so hateful, and make this fairly uniform national cultures so ill-suited to handling permanent non-assimilated immigrants. Even people like the Dutch, who built their national spirit on welcoming refugees and being open minded, have found that a tradition of apparent tolerance based on the XVIIIth century was really only true in the big port cities, and was quickly built upon by the passing centuries.

For centuries Europe has been a net exporter of people, so there have been few menaces to the cultural/social uniformity, as those outsider the norm just moved out or died out.

This mixed cultures deliberately placed together and then deliberately pushed to hate each other was the typical Ottoman trick to keep areas restive. Just make sure your subjects hate their neighbour more than you, and they will see you as an ally rather than an overlord. This was used both in the Middle East and the Balkans, which I think makes some common points clear, such as the clear religious/geographic boundaries in Western Europe, and the hodge-podge in both former Ottoman domains...

The big push to break these social and religious boundaries came when the enlightenment philosophy spread out among the people, strengthening the state apparatus while weakening all the other group affiliations (local, religious, ethnic).

I have to go, but this looks like an interesting discussion start.

quote:

If you think the money being spent in Macedonia is "a lot of mula", then you have a very tenuous grasp of the scope of our foreign activities.

You make an insult over a point Striv has not made, then you accuse her of missing your point. Pretty pathetic really, as usual you resort to name calling. But of course you have a well established history of willful, strident insulting of europeans...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Kradlum,