The Forgotten Balkans Flashpoint When French voters rejected the EU Constitution this past weekend, among the loudest defenders of the EU were leaders of the Balkan countries that aspire to eventual annexation by the bloc, assuring their subjects that the road to...
Bush to Finish Clinton Intervention During last year's electoral campaign, John Kerry's camp turned to Bill Clinton's policymakers to offer a "new" strategy of aggression in the Balkans as a way of discounting the botched Babylon operation. Kerry lost, and...
World War Two, Still Fought in the Balkans On May 8, 1945 Nazi Germany surrendered, ending what would later be called the Second World War in Europe. For the next 45 years, the victorious Soviets and their erstwhile Atlantic allies faced off across the line dividing...
Kosovo's Continuing Tragedy An old saying in Washington urges one to "believe nothing until it has been officially denied." Washington, Brussels, and the UN have been denying for years that their policies in the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo have in...
Jasenovac and the Politics of Genocide On April 22, 1945, a group of surviving inmates broke out of Jasenovac, Nazi-allied Croatia's main death camp. Sixty years later, their memories – and the grisly history of Jasenovac – have become prey to politics,...
Empire Stirs to Action in Kosovo Violence pays. How else should one interpret that the ultimate result of the horrific pogrom in Kosovo last March would be an aggressive campaign by power-mongers in the Empire to reward Albanian separatism and finish the job begun six...
Serbia and the EU Proponents of joining the EU in Serbia rejoiced this week as Brussels announced the opening of talks on the Stabilization and Association Agreement with Belgrade – the first step on a long road to the EUSSR. Speculation has been rife that the...
Bizarre Balkans Bulletin There is a good reason most contemporary Balkans literature tends to be surreal. It is hard to write realistic fiction when reality is far more bizarre than anything literary wizards are capable of conjuring. In a place that logic and reason...
The Ongoing Balkans Hell Compared to, say, Kyrgyzstan these days, news coming from the Balkans makes the region appear downright calm. As usual, appearances are misleading. Taken separately, reports from the region don't mean much – but taken together, they paint...
Six Years Later, Kosovo Still Wrong In the early hours of March 24, 1999, NATO began the bombing of what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. For some reason, many in the targeted nation thought the name of the operation was "Merciful Angel." In...
