Other Stuff

Kosovo

I'm like most other people - completely ignorant of most political doings - but when I saw the pictures in the paper earlier this week, I felt I just had to get to the keyboard and spout the following (forgive me if it turns out to be garbage - I have no idea what I'm about to write!!).

Who would've believed it? The Russians, ever looking for a way to reassert their status as the people everyone loves to hate, have done it again. Not content to stick their oar in during the armed conflict as supposed mediators, now they have stormed into Serbia in an apparent attempt to embarrass NATO and get their foot in the door of world events.

I for one will be fascinated to keep an eye on the news for this latest development in what I can only describe as a pointless war. There is much I don't know about the whole affair, but I am totally flummoxed by their intended purpose. Was it to ensure that they have control of the region thereby throwing down the gauntlet to the West? Or was it so that they could claim to be the bravest of the NATO countries and at the same time prove that NATO got it wrong from the start?

By "pointless war" I refer to the ludicrous waste of life and property since despite everybody looking to Milosovic (pardon the spelling) to sort everything out and help rebuild, nothing - to my knowledge - that Milosovic himself would care about was actually destroyed. True there was significant collateral damage to many strategic targets, but most of the damage involved civilians and government property, so although it will cost the country, it won't mean that much to him.

So the Russians go in, and ever so slowly the Serb soldiers get out, gesturing and looking defiant.

I consider myself a pacifist. I hate mans desire to kill and maim his own kind. Were there ever to be another war that required conscription, I would be one of that wars' Conscientious Objectors. However, there is something emotive and galling about a bunch of crazed lunatics who have been involved in what I believe to be the third worst period of ethnic cleansing since Hitler's reign of terror (after Bosnia and Botswana??). There they are being chased out of Kosovo and all the while continuing the defiance that helped prolong the conflict. It's almost enough to make me want to go in Rambo-style and kill every last one of the bastards.

However, it's a slightly different situation with the ordinary Serbian people now fleeing the region in huge numbers. They are for the most part fairly innocent bystanders and do not necessarily deserve the retribution that will surely come from their Kosovan neighbours. Still, there is a part of me that feels that just like the Germans in Hitler's day, the Serbs had a duty to oppose the brutality, destruction and murders that their leader was orchestrating. I don't feel that these fleeing people should themselves be harmed, but if they lose their homes it's probably only fair!

There is a long way to go in this. The "united" NATO KFOR forces together with a ragtag of Russians that the West cannot afford to upset, Serbian murderers slowly leaving the area in which they have caused so much suffering, a people reunited with their homeland laid waste by both Serb and NATO war efforts and a new stream of refugees. It's been going for several months already and it's not likely to end tomorrow.

When will we bloody grow up??