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Congratulations to Kosovo, the newest country in the world!

Kosovo's independence was made possible through military support from NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the EU, or European Union. Fittingly, Kosovo's independence will be announced through the "Ode to Joy," Europe's national anthem.





Kosov's independence is another milepost in NATO's and the EU's expansion into the lands of the fallen Communist empire. The latest central remnant of that empire, now called the Russian Federation, It also is just the latest bit torn from Yugoslavia, a country hapless enough to decide to be a Russian satellite



Kosovo, welcome to freedom!

On the web：Catholicgauze， Zenpundit

I actually was hoping this would have happened last month, so that I could make a tradition out of watching the dismemberment of Yugoslavia every May.

The Sunni Arab regime of Iraq, by contrast, chose a quicker method of humiliation.

"The War We Haven't Finished," by Frank C. Carlucci, New York Times, http://nytimes.com/2005/02/22/opinion/22carlucci.html, 22 February 2005.

First, I was angry. Then I was horrified. Then I was resigned. Then I knew.

The world reacted in horror six years ago when the Serbian regime of Slobodan Milosevic embarked on an ethnic cleansing operation against Kosovo's Albanians, forcing 700,000 people, nearly half the population, to flee the province. Reports of massacres and images of mileslong lines of refugees fleeing into neighboring Albania and Macedonia compelled the world to act. The NATO air campaign against Serbia that followed convinced Belgrade to give up its brutal assault, and Kosovo was put under United Nations administration.

And so it remains to this day: an international protectorate, legally part of Serbia, but with a 90 percent ethnic Albanian population that would sooner go to war than submit to Belgrade's rule. Kosovars seek an independent state, and the seemingly endless delays over final-status talks are only causing deep frustration and resentment.

Their discontent is not simply a matter of hurt pride over national sovereignty; Kosovo's unsettled international status has serious repercussions for daily life. Because it is under United Nations administration, Kosovo is in economic limbo: it cannot be part of the international bank transfer system, it is ineligible for sovereign lending from development banks, and it can attract few foreign investors. With 70 percent unemployment, the province is being starved of the commerce it badly needs.

The United Nations' brutality once confused me. Whever blue helmets go, horrible suffering follows. Few organizations would disarm civilian populations and heard them into ghettos to be slaughtered, but the U.N. did. Few organizations would allow its peacekeepers to fire at refugees while the refugees are being slaughtered by machete-wielding thugs, but the U.N. did. When I thought at the uncalculating evil the United Nations represented, the only moral response seemed to be withdrawal.

But the violence is calculating. The evil is intentional. Whether or not corrupt aparatchicks like Kofi Annan know this isn't an issue. The U.N sends a clear message to the world: Act up and we will mess you up.

Tom Barnett wrote of a Wolfowitz Reconstruction as a veiled threat, but U.N. peacekeeping is far worse. The U.N has abetted ethnic cleansing, genocide (by its surreal standards), "emergency sex, and countless other evils.

The United Nations offers a hobbesian, criminally reckless system administrator to the world. By implementing Barnett's vision we can do better. In the meantime, the U.N. is better than a vacuum.

But not by much.