Jonny Dover

Serbia & Turkey, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love World Wars

By Jonny Dover ⋅ and published February 22, 2008 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

So some Serbs took it upon themselves to express displeasure with the US’s support of Kosovan independence.

I would go so far as to call that an unwise choice on the part of those Serbs. According to the AP, right now the folks in the White House are bristling and expressing no small amount of their own displeasure with Serbia for its inadequate security.

In addition to the “now it’s personal” attitude our current administration is bound to take against Serbia (and not wrongly, either–the one person who died wasn’t a U.S. citizen, but very well could have been), we’ve got to tangle with the fact that Russia and Spain directly oppose Kosovan independence, siding with Serbia on the issue, and keep in mind that while China is not taking a hard stance against us, they are rightly pointing out that “The unilateral move taken by Kosovo will lead to a series of consequences.”

Oh, and to strain our ties with the Russians yet further, their sometimes-pal Turkey is throwing down in Iraq with 10,000 soldiers. That’s a land operation, as opposed to what we’ve been allowing (pinpointed air attacks against the Kurdistan Worker’s Party), so that’s “not the greatest news,” but hey, whatever. At least Turkish citizens aren’t actually directly fire-bombing U.S. embassies.

C’est la vie. It’s true that our military is unbelievably vulnerable thanks to getting bogged down in Iraq, but it’s not like a World War has ever broken out over the events in some retarded Balkan country or anything.