#1
"cannot bring themselves to retire or revise. And by continuing to treat post-Cold War Russia as though it was still the Soviet Union, the US and UK have to a large degree caused Moscow to act in manners contrary to Western interests."
This sounds typical lefty. The world reacts to the West and not the reverse. Perhaps the Russians were acting very imperialist so the US and Britain have treated them accordingly.
#2
For Turkey's government to make overtures to Russia would be as dangerous, from the point of view of their military, as offering nuke tech to Iran. The Turkish military looks at the Russians if they were giant rabid wolverines, and with considerable justification.
I might add that this is the rationale the Turks used to massacre the Christian Armenians, then part of the Ottoman Empire, who had been making overtures to Russia to invade and capture Armenia.
Nearly a year after Vice President Joe Biden flew here to reassure Bosnians that the U.S. was back and would try to help overhaul their dysfunctional made-in-U.S.A. political system, ethnic tensions are rising again, morale has fallen and people are wondering: Whatever happened to Biden? For Bosnians, whose country was largely destroyed by the ethnic warfare in the 1990s that marked the breakup of Yugoslavia, with Christian Orthodox Serbs killing as many as 100,000 Muslim and Croat civilians, it's been a year of disappointment as the U.S. has become more disengaged and distant.
"I was encouraged by his coming here. Biden was always a man of principle," an exasperated Haris Silajdzic, the Muslim chairman of the collective presidency that presides over this fractious, stagnating multi-ethnic state, told McClatchy. "I do not know what his responsibilities are now." Biden himself doesn't know what his responsibilities are, for heaven's sake.
Mr. Biden is the vice president of the United States of America. He therefore has no responsibilities, although he may choose to take on such tasks as the president of the United States may ask him to do. President Obama is smart enough not to ask him to do very much.
Bosnians expected the U.S. to be "more active and stronger in their efforts," said Sulejman Tihic, the leader of the Muslim opposition Party for Democratic Action. "They are showing less interest. They are turning over the responsibilities to Europe, which is too complex a place and cannot define its policy." Having high expectations of Obama and Biden may be part of the problem.
Biden didn't respond to requests from McClatchy for comment. Aides said he was busy overseeing U.S. policy in Iraq and other issues oh brother!
and wasn't following Balkan affairs closely.
For which all involved should be profoundly grateful. Except the Iraqis, who are doubtless quite envious.
Instead, he's handed matters to the State Department, which for the past six months has promoted a faltering diplomatic initiative.
The biggest worry in Sarajevo, the historic melting-pot capital in a country renowned for being a powderkeg its tolerance of minorities, is that ethnic Serbs, who control the autonomous part of the country known as Republika Srpska, will hold a referendum that leads to secession. That could spell the end of Bosnia. Srpska Prime Minister Milorad Dodik, who came to power with U.S. backing, has spoken of the "peaceful dissolution" of the Bosnian state and has openly disparaged the international community's top representative in Sarajevo.
Bosnian political leaders warn of bloodshed if Dodik carries out his threat. "It is not possible to divide this country in a peaceful way," Tihic said. "Any real attempt like that will definitely lead us towards a new conflict." He also said that the Muslim-Croat entity that Dayton created is "much stronger" than Dodik's forces in the Republika Srpska are. Stipe Mesic, a former president of Croatia, warned recently that Croatia would intervene if Dodik carries out his threats.
A top State Department official on a recent visit here described the situation as "deteriorating but not a crisis." He offered no plan to prevent the breakup of the Bosnian state, but said that if Srpska seceded, it would be "an independent statelet without a friend," similar to Abkhazia, a state that broke away from the former Soviet republic of Georgia after Russia's 2008 military intervention. The official spoke only on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. Russia is the principal supporter of Abkhaz independence, and the Kremlin also backs Dodik, who's visited Moscow several times.
Last October, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and European Union envoy Carl Bildt attempted to launch a diplomatic initiative at Sarajevo's Butmir airport. Its contents were tailored to Dodik's demands, but he rejected them outright and scurried off to Belgrade, the Serbian capital, for talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
In fact, Dodik later derided the U.S.-European plan as a "total failure, unnecessary adventure," and even many of his critics have dismissed the Butmir talks as an ill-prepared fiasco. Steinberg has visited Sarajevo four times but come up empty-handed, and with presidential and parliamentary elections looming here in October, no one expects progress anytime soon.
As a result of the rejection by Dodik, Silajdzic and other Bosnian politicians, the U.S. and Europe withdrew a series of inducements. Tihic said the two parties had promised an invitation to join NATO, a lifting of visa restrictions for travel to EU countries and candidate status for membership in the EU if all parties agreed to the U.S.-European plan. Meanwhile, Serbia was moving faster, gaining a lifting of visa restrictions and an invitation to take the first steps to join the EU -- a boon to Bosnian Serbs, many of whom have Serbian passports, and a punishment to Bosnian Muslims, who have no country other than Bosnia.
There was a respite in the gloom Thursday, when NATO foreign ministers who were meeting in Tallinn, Estonia, agreed, with conditions, to invite Bosnia to prepare for membership. The invitation, however, didn't address how a frail state whose constitution promotes ethnic rights over citizens' rights can gain the full sovereignty and stability needed to join the European Union, especially when Srpska can veto actions that would be necessary to fulfill NATO's conditions.
#8
why should we interfere when 99% they hate us and say we are meddling, I agree with GAZ let the EU take care of it
Posted by: chris ||
04/24/2010 11:40 Comments ||
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#9
It might be "Europe's problem", but as I recall from last time, Europe didn't handle it too well. If we leave it to Europe we can expect a lot more massacres, just like in the Congo with the Lords Resistance Army.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/24/2010 12:08 Comments ||
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#10
Europe didn't handle it too well.
About as well as they handled the denuclearization of Iran before President Obama took over. That is to say, they declaimed about their diplomatic expertise and accomplished nothing except raising false hopes and eating marvelous dinners.
#11
Steve, true. An outcome we may have to recognize, and soberly let events take their course anyway. From first hand experience, we've already have enough on our plate.
#12
I've spent a decent amount of time in Bosnia. Sarajevo is a world-class city, and it has several other places, like Mostar, that I would recommend to anyone.
But it's not much of a country. The first 100 kilometers into it, you see more Croatian flags than Bosnia. The Republika Srpska area, up to the north, might as well be part of Serbia already. The Islamic extremists are funding radicalism in Sarajevo (I even saw my first Iranian embassy there).
The solution is to get all these Balkan countries into the EU as soon as possible. Then, borders won't matter so much, and the ethnic and political tensions will die down.
Unfortunately, I'm not in charge over here.
#13
A top State Department official on a recent visit here ... said that if Srpska seceded, it would be "an independent statelet without a friend," similar to Abkhazia, a state that broke away from the former Soviet republic of Georgia
What an ignorant thing to say. Abkhazia has the best possible friend in their situation, Russia.
Dissidents in the world's most oppressive countries aren't feeling the love from President Obama.
No one seems to know precisely who is behind the "Miss Me Yet?" billboardthe cheeky one featuring a grinning George W. Bush that looks out over I-35 near Wyoming, Minn. But Syrian dissident Ahed Al-Hendi sympathizes with the thought.
In 2006, Mr. Hendi was browsing pro-democracy Web sites in a Damascus Internet café when plainclothes cops carrying automatic guns swooped in, cuffed him, and threw him into the trunk of a car. He spent over a month in prison, some of it alone in a 5-by-3 windowless basement cell where he listened to his friend being tortured in the one next door. Those screams, he says, were cold comfortat least he knew his friend hadn't been killed.
Mr. Hendi was one of the lucky ones: He's now living in Maryland as a political refugee where he works for an organization called Cyberdissidents.org. And this past Monday, he joined other international dissidents at a conference sponsored by the Bush Institute at Southern Methodist University to discuss the way digital tools can be used to resist repressive regimes.
He also got to meet the 43rd president. In a private breakfast hosted by Mr. and Mrs. Bush, Mr. Hendi's message to the former president was simple: "We miss you." There have been "a lot of changes" under the current administration, he added, and not for the better.
Adrian Hong, who was imprisoned in China in 2006 for his work helping North Koreans escape the country (a modern underground railroad), echoed that idea. "When I was released [after 10 days] I was told it was because of very strong messaging from the White House and the culture you set," he told Mr. Bush.
The former president, now sporting a deep tan, didn't mention President Obama once on or off the record. The most he would say was, "I'm really concerned about an isolationist mentality . . . I don't think it lives up to the values of our country." The dissidents weren't so diplomatic.
Mr. Hendi elaborated on the policy changes he thinks Mr. Obama has made toward his home country. "In Syria, when a single dissident was arrested during the administration of George W. Bush, at the very least the White House spokesman would condemn it. Under the Obama administration: nothing."
Nor is Mr. Hendi a fan of this administration's efforts to engage the regime, most recently by deciding to send an ambassador to Damascus for the first time since 2005. "This gives confidence to the regime," he says. "They are not capable of a dialogue; they don't believe in it. They believe in force."
Mr. Hong put things this way: "When you look at the championing of dissidents . . . and even the rhetoric, it's dropped off sharply." Under Mr. Bush, he says, there were many high-profile meetings with North Korean dissidents. "They went out of their way to show this was a priority."
Then there is Marcel Granier, the president of RCTV, Venezuela's oldest and most popular television station. He employs several thousand peopleor at least he did until Hugo Chávez cancelled the network's license in 2007. Now, he's struggling to maintain an independent channel on cable: Mr. Chávez ordered the cable networks not to carry his station in January. Government supporters have attacked his home with tear gas twice, yet he remains in the country, tirelessly advocating for media freedom.
Like many of the democrats at the conference, Mr. Granier was excited by Mr. Obama's historic election, and inspired by the way he energized American voters. But a year and a half later, he's disturbed by the administration's silence as his country slips rapidly towards dictatorship. "In Afghanistan," he quips, "at least they know that America will be involved for the next 18 months."
This sense of abandonment has been fueled by real policy shifts. Just this week word came that the administration cut funds to promote democracy in Egypt by half. Programs in countries like Jordan and Iran have also faced cuts. Then there are the symbolic gestures: letting the Dalai Lama out the back door, paltry statements of support for Iranian demonstrators, smiling and shaking hands with Mr. Chávez, and so on.
Daniel Baer, a representative from the State Department who participated in the conference, dismissed the notion that the White House has distanced itself from human-rights promotion as a baseless "meme" when I raised the issue. But in fact all of this is of a piece of Mr. Obama's overarching strategy to make it abundantly clear that he is not his predecessor.
Mr. Bush is almost certainly aware that the freedom agenda, the centerpiece of his presidency, has become indelibly linked to the war in Iraq and to regime change by force. Too bad. The peaceful promotion of human rights and democracyin part by supporting the individuals risking their lives for libertyare consonant with America's most basic values. Standing up for them should not be a partisan issue.
Yet for now Mr. Bush is simply not the right poster boy: He can't successfully rebrand and depoliticize the freedom agenda. So perhaps he hopes that by sitting back he can let Americans who remain wary of publicly embracing this cause become comfortable with it again. For the sake of the courageous democrats in countries like Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, Colombia, China and Russia, let's hope so.
Interesting take from the USNI over Michael Yon's recent remarks about Afghan operations:
The conclusion:
Every man has to find his own way in life but sometimes it is helpful to check around and grab hold of an external reference point. Anyone who has gone through the helo-dunker emergency egress training knows what I am talking about.
When everything and everyone around you all of a sudden seems out of kilter and swirling in chaos it might be helpful to ponder if the problem isn't what is around you but just you.
The war will go on the story will continue to be told but everyone needs some time away. 6-months, 12-months some time to clear the mind and reset perspective. Just a thought.
#3
I would guess that the worst part of being an embed if one has served previously is that you get all the anxiety/adrenaline without being able to act.
Yon's spec ops background has served him well but it does also mean he never had higher level command experience, which gives rather a different perspective on wider war issues. I've always read his reporting with that in mind.
#5
It used to be said that the real difference between a Colonel and a General is that Colonel is the highest "fighting" rank.
Those on the promotable list must be able to "put away childish things", and take on a whole new perspective.
Many of the fighting Colonels are damn good at what they do, but they just cannot let go of tactics, and move on to strategy, politics and diplomacy.
During a war, the top fighting Colonels will sometimes get promoted to Brigadier, but there they stay, because it soon becomes clear that their heart is with the troops.
My point is that Yon didn't lead at the battalion, brigade or higher level. And operations in SOCOMM are a lot different than regular army operations in their scope. He just doesn't have any experience at that level, which means he's never made anywhere near the kind of leadership decisions required of the officers he's trashed publicly lately.
#11
You could see it in his posts. He was frustrated, angry, and tired. His lashing out a the Canadian General was childish and made it clear to me he needed a break, and I reflected it to him on many posts, he needed to take some time to reflect his position in this war.
Yon is not a demon, he is tired and frustrated, we have all been there. What he has missed is having a close friend or "Ranger Buddy" that needs to put him in a headlock, slap him in the back of the head, and tell him to shake it off and take a lap. Then once perspective is back, help him get back in the fight.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
04/24/2010 18:58 Comments ||
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#12
After a time, the beast that helps you survive finds it doesn't like being put back in the box.
#4
I was supporting USAF space programs in the latter 80s when Skylab was flying. To say that USAF found NASA hard to work with - apart from the nature of the shuttle itself - is an understatement.
#6
We could have been this far along 20 years ago. The X-20 and X-33 languished and then were killed. We went with the Shuttle which was (at best) a second-class solution.
John Kennedy had enough vision to point us at the moon. No one, no one at all, had enough vision after that about what the space program should be. Imagine what the nuclear Navy would have been like without Rickover. We needed a Rickover-like person at NASA who would have cracked heads and promoted his boys, all the while making sure we had the best space program in the world, and all the while keeping us focused on the real mission: cheap, routine access to space.
No Kennedy, no Rickover, no vision, no space program.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/24/2010 17:52 Comments ||
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#7
I'd hesitate to posit that Obambi has no vision. I just don't think it aligns with ours...
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/24/2010 22:21 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Nearly a year after Vice President Joe Biden flew here to reassure Bosnians that the U.S. was back and would try to help overhaul their dysfunctional made-in-U.S.A. political system, ethnic tensions are rising again, morale has fallen and people are wondering: Whatever happened to Biden? For Bosnians, whose country was largely destroyed by the ethnic warfare in the 1990s that marked the breakup of Yugoslavia, with Christian Orthodox Serbs killing as many as 100,000 Muslim and Croat civilians, it's been a year of disappointment as the U.S. has become more disengaged and distant.
