Word: kosovo
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...these contradictions have kept Washington and its allies guessing. Few believe Milosevic's attachment to Kosovo is more than skin deep. Some Serbs say he stirred up the crisis to distract attention from the foundering economy. Yet in considering whether to placate the West or defy it, he is operating according to his own calculus of the risk to himself and his regime. The issue comes down to his feeling about the place where the myth of his own power was built. "He doesn't know," says a top U.S. official in Belgrade, "whether caving in makes him lose face...
Many analysts have suggested that he wants to absorb enough punishment to provide cover for handing over Kosovo to international peacekeepers. "It's very Slavic," says the Russian observer. "He needs to be seen as compelled, so he can sell it to the 90% of Serbs who cling to Kosovo emotionally." But it is equally possible that he has something else in mind. Perhaps he thinks he can successfully endure all the bombing the West can muster and still continue to defy its plans for Kosovo, as his enemies exhaust their will before he exhausts his. "He truly believes...
...Clinton Doctrine. From the President's "nation building" escalation in Somalia to the invasion of Haiti, to the diplomatic capital spent on the Irish and Middle East peace processes, to the occupation of Bosnia and now fatefully to the bombing of Serbia in defense of Kosovo, we have the core of how the Clinton Administration sees the world and what the U.S. should be doing...
Clinton's actions and Clinton's words are the very embodiment of this idea. To justify bombing Serbia over Kosovo, he reiterates in every possible variation the imperative for the U.S. to oppose "ethnic cleansing and the slaughter of innocent people...
Krajina is Kosovo writ large. And yet, at the time, the U.S. did not stop or even protest the Croatian action. The Clinton Administration tacitly encouraged it. Croatia was being advised by a shadowy group of retired American officers who had been sent to Croatia to help it fight against the Serbs...