The news from Kosovo, the mini-republic located northeast of Albania, is consistent with the atmosphere in the Western Balkans these days. Kosovo, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, all part of former Yugoslavia, have spent years waiting to become members of the European Union, but it seems in the early summer of 2017 as though they have almost been forgotten. And people there are beginning to lose their patience. The result: increasing numbers of people leaving the region, accelerated Islamization and rising nationalism. Violent protests recently in the Macedonian capital of Skopje along with ranting about a Greater Albania in both Tirana and Pristina, the capitals of Albania and Kosovo respectively, have served to demonstrate just how tense the situation has become.Forgotten in the EU's fixation with whatever-the-hell-it's-been-doing is the rationale behind having a European community in the first place: Intertwining the nations of Europe with one another so closely that another European war becomes almost unthinkable.
This should not be a problem for the United States to have to work, other than possibly providing support of some kind or another. But you know that if the Europeans can't get their act together and people begin going for their guns, it will become America's problem to fix.
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Meanwhile, on this side of the pond, the Mexican government is spying on political opponents and reporters. They are using software sold to them by the Israelis, who, when it comes to spy tools, are pretty much the primo Merchants of Death in the world today.
Except maybe the NSA, but their shit was stolen from them.
" But you know that if the Europeans can't get their act together and people begin going for their guns, it will become America's problem to fix."
ReplyDeleteWhy should it be America's problem to fix?
In one word: Geopolitics.
ReplyDeleteLonger: It's long served American interests to have the Euros as allies who are strong enough to help out in a war but not strong enough to start one for themselves. Even when the Euros began bombing and shit in Libya, they needed American support to do it.
(What came after that intervention arguably has been much worse than the previous conditions, but that's neither here nor there.)
The other reason that America might intervene is to keep the Russians or the Turks from intervening. Russia is not a friend of America (except in Trump's mind) and neither is Turkey.