In principle, when a substantial group of people want to have their own country, trying to stop them is expensive, bloody, and futile. So, good on ya, Kosovo. Hmm, the government seems to be online at ks-gov.net, which suggests they’d like to have .ks for their top-level-domain. It’s available.



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From: Fazal Majid (Feb 17 2008, at 16:04)

When the Confederacy tried to secede from the United States, subduing them was expensive, bloody and morally imperative.

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From: Mark (Feb 17 2008, at 17:35)

I read a book on the history of the Balkins about a decade ago. Nothing is that simple there. Every piece of land is currently occupied by people who killed or relocated other people some generations back. Memories are long. It makes the Middle East look like child's play.

Keeping it as one country won't work. Breaking it up won't work. Relocating people won't work. That place is just hosed for the foreseeable future.

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From: Ed Davies (Feb 18 2008, at 02:59)

As Mark says, it's not simple. Craig Murray (ex-British ambassador to Uzbekistan - yes, that one) is a bit sniffy in the first paragraph of this post:

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2008/02/kosovan_indepen.html

The rest of the post isn't relevant but the second and third comments are.

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From: Kosovar (Feb 18 2008, at 04:56)

Some of the context you may be missing:

http://www.kosovo.net/destruction.html

Over-simplifying isn't helping here.

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From: fg (Feb 18 2008, at 05:18)

I agree with Mark. It's not that simple and it's not just the Balkans. There are many regions in the world with nationalist factions claiming ownership of overlapping patches of land. That's a dangerous thing and the only solution is probably to shape the dialog in a peaceful way so that no side fears losing out entirely. I'm very ambivalent about Kosovo. No reason to celebrate in my opinion.

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From: Ryan Platte (Feb 20 2008, at 14:42)

The desecration of Orthodox Christian churches is a terrifying aspect of this. US forces certainly didn't spend too much effort helping us out while they bombed and otherwise defaced centuries-old holy sites. Some suspect worse.

It may sound like good news to you, but it's no time to be glib for the Orthodox, especially in America.

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From: yipyip (Feb 20 2008, at 16:43)

The comments on Mr. Murray's blog are fascinating and spot-on.

Clearly this is not about self-determination, as pointed out by others. There's ample evidence of that right in the Balkans. If it were, then the West wouldn't have forced Serb-majority regions in present day Croatia to remain in Croatia (or be depopulated, as the case may be), nor would the West be propping up the sham state of Bosnia.

There have been rumours for decades of significant natural resources to be found in Kosovo, under all those Serbian holy sites. Now that the Serbs are about to be driven out once and for all, it'll be interesting to see if there's truth to the rumours.

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