Article

2007-06-11 Europe

Bush pushes independence for Kosovo on Albania visit

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Posted by Fred 2007-06-11 00:00|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 Dork.

Posted by gromgoru 2007-06-11 00:41|| 2007-06-11 00:41|| Front Page Top

#2 Same dude promoting the annexation of the United States by Mexico, right?

Posted by Procopius2k 2007-06-11 08:54|| 2007-06-11 08:54|| Front Page Top

#3 This guy is selling us out to China. He's selling us out to Mexico. Now he's trying to sell Serbia to the Muslims. Does he have any scruples or any values at all? How can we trust him with anything? Why doesn't he stay the hell out of Kosovo? We have no interests there. WTF is he doing in Albania? Is he just trying to get a boost after the failure of his immigration bill?

Posted by Ebbang Uluque6305 2007-06-11 12:05|| 2007-06-11 12:05|| Front Page Top

#4 It's part of the push to encourage democracy in the smaller countries in eastern Europe, I think. (Or maybe not, but here's one scenario that might explain it.)

Serbia continues to have close ties to Putin. The nastier parts of Serbian leadership have KGB sponsorship. Plus, to the south you have a Turkey that may go overtly Islamacist soon, but where there's still hope of a secular, moderate future. So what do you do to counter Mr. KBG and encourage neutral/allied governments in the area?

First, you counter the power play from Putin's ally Iran and then you build up allies of your own. For the first part, Bush is moving to put ballistic missile defense in Poland and the Czech republic. Bulgaria wants in as well. Bush was pretty popular in Bulgaria as well as in Albania on this trip.

Bulgaria sits just north of Turkey and has a Black Sea coast, but the country doesn't extend all the way west to the Adriatic. Albania does sit on the Adriatic, across from Italy and to the west of Bulgaria, with Kosovo and a small part of the rest of Serbia between them.

So if you can set up a moderate allied democracy in Albania (as happened in Slovenia, farther north in the Adriatic) and if Bulgaria continues to seek our protection against Putin, it's one more chess move in the region.

Our taxi driver in Florence last month had lots to say about Albanian boat people landing in the south of Italy and working in fields, restaurants etc. for cheap wages. The EU has started talks with Albania, but the chances of that country getting into the EU are remote right now. For small investments on our part we can probably have a fair influence on the country.

I'm guessing that's the theory, anyway. Not necessarily defending it, just trying to see what the administration is up to.

Posted by occasional observer 2007-06-11 15:21|| 2007-06-11 15:21|| Front Page Top

#5 from today's Christian Science Monitor:

[Albanian has] sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, frozen the assets of suspected terrorist-financiers, and taken in eight former Guantánamo Bay detainees whom no other country would take in....

The roots of Albanian pro-American sentiment, people here say, date to Woodrow Wilson's support of the country's independence after World War I and were cemented during the 1999 NATO intervention in Kosovo, a majority ethnic Albanian province of Serbia. Albanians also see the US as the strongest advocate for the independence of Kosovo, whose status is due to be reviewed by the UN Security Council this month.

Although Albania's contribution to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are numerically small 120 troops in Mosul, and 30 in Afghanistan with an additional 110 to come soon they have a symbolic importance for the US. The US sees Albania as a model of moderate Islam and religious tolerance. Officially 70 percent Muslim, the country has a strong secular ethos after nearly a quarter of a century of state-enforced atheism under communism.

Hence the value of Kosovo to us.

Posted by occasional observer 2007-06-11 18:56|| 2007-06-11 18:56|| Front Page Top

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