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Filed under: Russia
The first serious battle of the new Cold War has been fought, and Russia has lost it badly. The Kosovo region of the former Yugoslavia has boldly declared its independence from Serbian enslavement, thumbing its nose at Russian power in the region, and the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Turkey have recognized the new country immediately. More than half of the European Union member states support independence, and concerted Russian efforts to block the move proved futile. The EU "is sending a justice and law mission of 2,000 police, judges and administrators to Pristina." The U.S. announced that it "had given $77 million in assistance to Kosovo in 2007 and would raise that amount to roughly $335 million in 2008."
Europe got a valuable insight as to the loyalties of its member states as the new Cold War takes shape, with Spain, Greece, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania and Cyprus openly refusing immediate recognition. It's clear that Europe needs to shore up its flanks for the inevitable Russian counterattack, likely in the form of energy warfare.
But Europe also saw that, even in some disarray, it can face down Russian aggression and win notwithstanding Russian bluster and macabre threats, an equally valuable lesson to take into future conflicts.
Russian hypocrisy was on full and nauseating display. While Russians bristle at American influence in the former USSR, arguing that America should remain within its own orbit, Russia has no problem welcoming the support of China into the rogue's gallery of nations that want Serbia to be able to continue to oppress the people of Kosovo, whom it once tried to wipe off the face of the earth. It was most remarkable to hear Boris Tadic, President of Serbia, screeching about "illegal acts" so soon after Serbia visited a horrific litany of outrageous crimes upon Europe, resulting in a forceful military response by NATO.
If Russia is unable to turn back the clock on Kosovo's independence, which seems certain, it's foreseeable that its next move will be to try to use the event as a precedent to try to wedge Abkhazia and South Ossetia, separatist regions in Georgia, into the Russian fold. But Russia will have great difficulty justifying such a move, not only because of the nearly pathological vehemence of the rhetoric Putin has used opposing the Kosovo separation, but also because Russia itself is vulnerable to a massive separatist movement in Chechnya. It will have even more difficulty if NATO, as it must, immediately reaches out to bring Georgia within the welcoming arms of its protection.
What we see in Kosovo is the utter failure of Vladimir Putin's foreign policy. Fueled by a latent frenzy of KGB-indoctrinated hatred of the West and its values, Putin has indulged in an orgy of attacks on the Western powers, alienating and provoking them to an extent that would have been difficult to imagine just a few years ago. Seemingly oblivious of Russia's relative impotence both militarily and economically, seemingly consumed with shame and rage over Russia's defeat in the first Cold War, Putin has lost not a second in rabidly charging towards a second. Had he been more restrained, he might have had a much stronger bargaining position regarding the Kosovo issue.
Now, the neo-Soviet chickens have come home to roost.
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Comments
Misha says:
Serbian troops were not "driven out" of Kosovo during the 1999 NATO war against Serbia, as I keep hearing in the Western news sources. Rather Serbian troops left Kosovo voluntarily. Let's recall that the NATO countries were unwilling to lose even one NATO life for that war, so they bombed Serbia only from 10,000 feet and higher, to avoid getting one of their planes shot down by Serb air defenses. This high-altitude bombing caused many targeting inaccuracies which cost many Kosovar civilians on the roads their lives.
NATO was terrified that a costly ground war would be required to dislodge the defiant Serb troops from their entrenched positions in Kosovo. Everyone knew that Serbian forces in Kosovo were more than able to put up a fight and still had a lot of kick left in them. The prospect of a protracted ground war with the Serbian army was something of a nightmare for NATO planners.
The purpose of the 79-day bombing campaign was not to destroy Serbian forces in Kosovo, which would have been an impossible task, as Serb forces were extremely well disbursed and hidden. According to post-war assessments, the NATO bombing killed less than 1 percent of Serbian forces in Kosovo and destroyed or damaged not more than 5% of Serbian heavy equipment in the province.
The purpose of the massive NATO bombing was not military but rather political. It was to force a political capitulation by Serbia’s government, leading to the withdrawal of Serbian forces from their Kosovo province, and the creation of a “permissive environment” for NATO troops to enter the province.
To this end, the NATO bombing rampage against northern Serbia must go down in the annals of “war crimes of the 20th century.” The combined NATO air forces of 19 countries pummeled a small and relatively defenseless European country for 79 days and nights without ceasing. This was the first time NATO forces had ever been used aggressively, and it was done in direct violation of NATO’s own charter, which recognizes only the United Nations as the principle organization responsible for peace and security in the world.
The bombing campaign itself was utterly savage and disgraceful display of the use of wildly disproportionate force by an arrogant and ruthless superior power against a much smaller and weaker country. As the Russian president Boris Yeltsin said at the time, the world has not seen such terrible things since the days of Adolph Hitler.
The NATO bombing damaged or destroyed 144 major industrial plants including all Yugoslavia’s oil refineries, fuel storage facilities, car and motorcycle factories, pharmaceutical and fertilizer factories, rubber factories. The bombing of some of these released large quantities of dangerous chemicals into the environment, created an oil slick on the Danube 20 kilometers long, and put 600, 000 people out of work.
Damaged or destroyed were several thousand homes (mainly in Belgrade, Nis, Cuprija, Aleksinac and Pristina), 33 clinics and hospitals, 340 schools, 55 road and rail bridges. The River Danube was blocked; some of the bridges were hundreds of miles from the scenes of the racial expulsions and were vital trade links to the rest of Europe. Also attacked were 12 railway lines, 5 civilian airports, 6 trunk roads, 10 TV and radio stations and 24 transmitters; power stations were put out of action; sewage treatment plants were damaged; water supplies were cut off. Five thousand civilians were injured; 1400 adult civilians were killed, 600 children were killed, 600 military and police personnel were killed. As a result of the murder, harassment, violence, and destruction of homes carried out by the returning Kosovo Albanians there are now about 150,000 further refugees (mainly Serbs and Roma) in Serbia who have fled from Kosovo. "Ethnic cleansing" has not been halted. There are now 10,000 unexploded bombs scattered throughout the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Serbia is now the most polluted, damaged, distressed, politically unsettled, and poverty-stricken country in Europe. It is a humanitarian disaster area and has the highest UNHCR budget of any country in the world.
NATO’s targeting was not focused on the military enemy. In fact it became ever more widespread and desperate. No reasonable person could accept that the targeting of civilian infrastructure was anything other than a war against the innocent Serbian civilian population. It brought not peace to Serbia, but death, destruction and misery. The war which NATO leaders claimed was humanitarian used the most advanced military technology to achieve a result that was simply barbaric.
Again, the purpose of the savage NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 was not to achieve direct military results against Serb forces in Kosovo, something that it lacked the power to do in any case. Rather the bombing had a political objective, which was to convince the Serbian government to withdraw its army from its Kosovo province, so that NATO forces could enter a “permissive environment” in Kosovo, without having to fight.
NATO was not willing at any time to continence a ground war with the entrenched Serbian army in Kosovo. NATO bombers flew only at 10,000 feet and higher, to avoid intense Serb anti-aircraft fire, but this made them essentially useless for close-air support missions. Instead this lead to inaccurate bombing that killed more civilians in Kosovo than Serb troops (including many ethnic Albanian civilians, men women and children who were unlucky enough to get caught in the NATO crosshairs).
But even after 11 weeks of this relentless bombing, the defiant Serbs still refused to capitulate. Serbia would never sacrifice any part of it national sovereignty at any price; if NATO wanted to take away a piece of Serbia, then NATO would have to invade Serbia on the ground and fight a real war with real men defending their homeland from foreign aggression.
The situation was looking increasingly hopeless on the NATO side, because none of the countries were willing to authorize the release of ground forces for such a war. (It was doubtful if even the American president, Bill Clinton, could have persuaded the US Congress and the American people that such a move would have been wise.) According to NATO’s war plan, the Serbian government was supposed to have capitulated quickly, almost as soon as NATO began bombing. But that was not happening.
As the days and weeks passed, NATO’s relentless bombing of Serbia was increasingly beginning to look like exactly what it was, namely a barbaric act of aggression and a crime against humanity. It became more and more difficult to justify such barbarism on “humanitarian grounds,” when the NATO campaign was obviously killing such large numbers of innocent civilians.
It was at this point that the US Administration began actively seeking Russia’s assistance to help broker a negotiated ceasefire with Serbia. Russia had always been allies of Serbs, who are also their Slavic and Orthodox cousins. Russia agreed to act as broker between the two sides, and Russia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs shuttled between the US and Serbian sides. After some time a ceasefire agreement was reached, which would allow NATO forces to enter Serbia’s Kosovo province in a “permissive” environment (meaning that Serb forces would not oppose their entry). One key provision of this agreement was the explicit NATO and US agreement that Kosovo would remain a part of Serbia, and it would not be broken off from Serbia. This language was explicitly contained in the ceasefire agreement and it was signed by all the sides.
So the recent Western recognition of Kosovo’s illegal declaration of “independence” needs to be understood in that light. This action violates the UN charter and international law, which holds that no nation can be created on the territory of another nation without that nation’s consent. This is not merely some minor or obscure “technical legal matter.” Rather this cuts to the very essence of International Law, Nationhood, and the basic rights of nations.
In addition this act constitutes a betrayal of the trust that Russia placed with its Western partners when Russia agreed to act as a broker of the ceasefire agreement, at the request of the Americans. Under these circumstances how can Russia again accept Western commitments and assurances in any context?
It was Russia who brokered the ceasefire agreement, at American urging, and it was Russia which provided their Serbian allies with guarantees that their rights would be protected under the agreement and Russia urged the Serbs to sign the agreement. The Serbs trusted the assurances given to them by their Russian allies, and the Russians in turn trusted the assurances given to them by the West (basically that the West would keep their word and honor their commitments). Now Serbia’s trust in Russia has been undermined and the West has actually made Russia complicit in this illegal act (basically the strong-armed theft of one of the province of a sovereign UN member state).
What we are seeing today, in this Western recognition of the illegal Kosovo state is nothing less than an absolutely cynical Western contempt for the basic core values which not long ago were central to the Western understanding of how the world should be ordered. This incident, and countless other incidents like it, really marks the major decline of the moral, ethical and spiritual values of the West, and especially in the West’s belief in the basic value that the rule of law should replace the law of the jungle, and “might makes right.”
None of us who have drawn such inspiration from the West and from Western values can witness such disastrous developments taking place in the West and remain neutral and indifferent about them.
Today “the West” is lead (if not ruled) by only one nation, the United States, which has grown increasingly violent and desperate in its efforts to retain its international position.
In a short span of time, the United States has gone from being a “city on a hill,” and an inspiring example for other nations, to what it has become today: a nation that tortures people: runs a network of secret CIA prisons all over the world; believes it can ride roughshod over the basic rights of other nations and do whatever it pleases, without paying the slightest attention to international law or longstanding concepts of the basic rights of peoples and nations.
As far as the “other” western countries (the ones who seem all too willing to follow the leadership of an increasingly sociopathic United States), it is debatable to what extent they really subscribe to the new American “might makes right” bully doctrine, which the Americans are now proposing as a replacement for the long-standing rules of international law. Perhaps these American allies really do agree with the Americans on these things. Or, perhaps they are simply too timid and effeminate to confront their American masters. But in truth it doesn’t matter, because by willingly accepting the leadership of one nation, they’ve made themselves fully complicit in the crimes that are now being perpetrated in the world.
There’s an old expression, “what goes around comes around,” and in international affairs this statement seems to hold. Various brutal empires have always appeared on the world stage from time to time, but we should all take some comfort from the knowledge that they all eventually wind up in the same ashbin of history.
Note: The above is an excerpt from an article that I posted yesterday in the RussiaToday.com website, in a thread on the same subject.
Artfldgr says:
Fatmir Sejdiu democracy functions on a principle of the respect and recognition of the minority
Makes sense if you don’t know what democracy is. what I find interesting is that people whose source is a totalitarian state tell the only successful democracy in all history, what a democracy is.
First of all, democracy is mob rule. The majority OVER the minority. Taken far enough it can be the majority against reality too.
The united states is a republic, a representative democracy, which is a totally different beast. And putins soverieng democracy is a farce since its just a name with democracy in it used to describe a feudal state in which the lords make the choices for the mob and in ignorance or caring to the mob (since the mob is only means of producting the way horses and cattle are).
A representative democracy pits leaders selected by mobs against each other, and in this way smaller groups get represented, but not overwhelmingly as the mess in socialism. their voices are not proportional to their size, but the system isn’t inverted either (with a leadership claiming to be everything to everyone being nothing to anyone except to the leaders)
Putin cant do what millions want, so he ignores them.
The presidency of the US cant do what millions want either, but if he ignores them, they will remove him and get someone else who tries.
Its s fundamental difference, on some level in the west the leaders HAVE to answer to the people one way or another.
the U.N. must make this decision – not a selection of countries from Western Europe and the United States.
Why? the U.N. is a compromised entity that has been gutted and redirected towards world communist government. it’s a ship with 50 captains and can only go in circles when all of them don’t pull in the same direction. This is why you want them to decide, because they wont.
The only reason you put this forth is that “two of the five” have ratings disproportional to them. there are other countries that are even larger and more meaningful that don’t have that right. So all your saying is that in the world, everyone is against russia, lets move this to someplace where we have unfair advantage (in this case) to get what we want.
Sorry. No change of venue to play arbitrary favorites to the side that is losing for no better reason than they don’t want to lose and are not willing to give up their current plans by going in and taking it and letting us know how they are early.
international law is to be properly followed and enforced, abdication of this scale cannot be allowed
May I ask what international law you are making up now? what international law says borders are fixed? When did this law get written and when did all the countries ratify the law stating that all borders will now remain forever fixed regardless of war?
Perhaps you should tell the Palestinians and hammas? Oh, I get it, they work for russia and serve russias destabilization and weapons selling needs, so you are not intending that that implies that.
And how about cuba? Do these border locking apply before or after the state is stolen in revolution? Be careful. To deny revolution today applies to Kosovo is to invalidate the October revolution!!! And all the other revolutions that also changes borders, even if the change was just the political color.
One only needs to read William shakespears Richard the III and understand the arguments over Salic lands to get the mess that this behavior made of the ancient world.
When in time do you select the borders being locked? Today? then Kosovo got in under the wire. Yesterday? Then russia will have to be willng to give back a whole lot of land, and china too.
Note that the imperialists already gave back the land that under your plan would give it back to them. lets see, England gets hong kong and India back. russia loses every state including the Japanese islands it grabs at the end of wwii to steal the oil.
Your game is infinitely dangerous and ignores Marxist Hegelian dialecticals in history.
You like to sound erudite, and smart, but its Potemkin in its nature and cargo cult in its form.
Although people in Quebec are another nation, they are part of the same country. In order to avoid international bedlam, this must be maintained.
You mean if Canada took Quebec, the world would fall into international bedlam? Putin has 700 torture camps and the world doesn’t even burp. Unless Quebec is populated by a protected class, they would cheer the removal of all those white men.
Sorry your assertion hold no water at all. it’s a blind assertion and has nothing to prop it up. in fact, historically speaking the opposite is true.
Hey! What happened to Ireland? Let me know about the land the US made for black slaves to return to (like isreal. Sierra leone)?
Right now puerto rico has in between status. They have a choice of becoming part of America, or not. its up to them.
So the only way someone would think like you is if they were hatched and never got to know the world due to someone restricting their view of it.
Whether or not Serbian dictators have mistreated Albanians is a past reality – at the moment, Serbia is not violating international law; therefore there is no cause for violating it in return.
WHAT INTERNATIONAL LAW?
They have never actually codified it… like pornography, codifying it makes something that is not what they want.
Care to actually read about it? (doubtful, it would make your argument fall apart, then leave you in what position with what up in the air?)
First of all. the UN is not a world governing body other than voluntary. That means that those who don’t want to follow it, don’t have to. They don’t get the perks either though (whatever they are).
Your assertions show that you haven’t read ANY texts on succession, other than parrot arguments that mean nothing. first you have to start with the Vienna Convention on Succession of States in respect of Treaties…
Right there it’s a TREATY and only binding among those who volunteer to have it binding. In this case 15 countries. Bosnia, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Dominica, Ecuador, Egypt, Estonia, Ethiopia, Iraq, Liberia, Morocco, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Serbia, Seychelles, Slovakia, Slovenia, Macedonia, Tunisia, and Ukraine.
Notice that it’s the countries that have done really badly in taking care of their own people and have a vested interest in getting the rest of the world to bully their own people into staying with them and being stuck with them as their rulers.
Did you notice that the countries that recognized Kosovo are NOT SIGNATORIES of that TREATY? So for them, its not law at all, its actually not binding or even exists to them. (just as the treaties that russia doesn’t enter into are not binding either)
This treaty was entered in to allow the Russian federation to take over the USSR state. Otherwise USSR would have to be broken up into all its constituent countries and not be a federation!!!! Of course its convenient that the people agreeing to this are the ones who would have to be broken up, and that there was no way to oppose this arbitrary rule.
So this treaty is what allowed Russian federation to take the seat as a permanent member of the security council even though Russian federation had no right to that seat!
One of this federation's constituent republics, the Russian Federation was declared the USSR's successor state on the grounds that it contained just under 60 % of the population of the USSR and a larger majority of its territory. In consequence, it acquired the USSR's seat as a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.
This resolution was in sharp contrast to the manner in which the United Nations dealt with the claim of the federation of Serbia and Montenegro to be recognised as the continuation of the state of Yugoslavia (albeit as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as opposed to the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). These two republics shared in common less than half of the population and territory of the former federation and the UN refused to allow the new federation to sit in the General Assembly of the United Nations under the name of 'Yugoslavia'. Thus followed over a decade where the state was referred to uneasily as the Former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
So the treaty stacked the cards in favor of the huge neo soviet state rather than breaking it up and giving the people a chance in different areas to see what works. Which is why Russia is moribund and states like Estonia are rocketing. Either the Russian state is hobbling the people or the people of the baltics are much smarter than Russians.
I am Baltic, but I never noticed that much difference in smarts, but then again, maybe I am just being generous.
So which is it? Ruskies dumber, or Ruskies under state control? Both?
I might say the latter… both… cause only someone arguing succession as international law who was stupid would drum up the law that established Serbia itself as a succession from Russia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Successor_state
Examples of succession:
• Kingdom of Serbia by the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, by the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. (Though see above for the unsuccessful claim of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to succede the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
• The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro and then by the Republic of Serbia (in this instance, Serbia contained the vast majority of the population and territory of its predecessor).
So Serbia who succeeded and became the republic of Serbia, now wants to call the laws that enabled it to succeed, to prevent the further succession of Kosovo from serbia who succeeded from yugoslavia who succeeded from russian federation who succeeded ussr (who technically succeeded the csars, who succeeded who? )
The modern state of Serbia emerged in 1817 following the Second Serbian Uprising. Later, it expanded its territory further south to include Kosovo and Metohija and the regions of Raška and Vardar Macedonia (in 1912).
So serbia invaded and imperialistically took Kosovo. No?
How can russia rail against western imperialism, which hasn’t existed for a long time (who has hong kong and when did they work that out? who has India? Etc).
Just as England took hong kong, and India… Serbia took Kosovo… and then russia took Serbia. Serbia cant get itself free, so Kosovo shouldn’t?
Finally, Vojvodina (formerly an autonomous Habsburg crownland named Voivodship of Serbia and Tamiš Banat) proclaimed its secession from Austria-Hungary, and united with Serbia in November 25, 1918,
Under your reasoning not only would serbia lose kosovo, but it would lose voivodship too. and that these states would have to return to the hapsburgs, no?
Or maybe lets go back to the first uprising in 1804, and later losses to the ottoman empire.
Now that’s a fun one… give serbia back to the turks… since serbia was originally part of the ottoman empire and succeeded from them. so technically the hapsburgs don’t deserve serbia, the turks do. read about the masssacre of serbian knights (Seča knezova). Fascinating stuff.
It wasn’t till the second uprising that they were successful. that was in 1815. by the way, care to see how serbia existed for a decade before turks annexed them like russia annexed the baltics, and the japanes islands, and lots of places?
Oh… and care to check out who recognized them and let them exist preventing the turks from taking them back?
The same countries you’re complaining about now to some degree… Great Britain and France recognized them in 1867.
Oh… and your beloved Russia wouldn’t exist either if it wasn’t for similar recognition!!!
The first state to recognize Russia as a state, was Ireland… the REPUBLIC…
The second state to recognize Russia, was the British empire.
So now these same states are upset that the force that birthed them and kept them alive long enough to grow, is still working and allowing others freedom to self determination?
I have absolutely no word to describe such a situation. hubris, chutzpah, whatever, but its typical of sociopahts who play a system to advantage, then try to change the system to remvoe the steps on the ladder that they used
Artfldgr says:
asdadaasda
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someone who can't get a simple point across without writing less than 1,500 words and citing wikipedia less than 10 times (artfldgr)
Well I could but you and others would then say that its just opinion, or I don’t have my facts straight, or will shift the burden again.
I just wrote a long piece, but didn’t go to wiki 10 times, wiki is only good for basic facts, not details.
To sum it up.
There is no international law preventing succession. Serbia succeeded from the turks, and was recognized by the british empire, and france. Russia was recognized by England as well to seal its existence and legitimacy too. pretty much most of the points here are non points that don’t lead to the establishment of the positions that the people stateing them are trying to reach with them.
But you and others wouldn’t accept that. you would argue.
I usually find that people who say what you say, don’t like it because I don’t give them any room to play games with me. they either know their facts and such, or they come out looking like idiots.
Very few people tussle with me, and it’s not because of long posts, but because the posts back up every point with facts and links. they either make their valid case, or they lose.
Shaming me that I write long and such, is only trying to make me feel bad for being smart, and have me give you quarter you don’t deserve for being dumb and ingenuous.
By the way, this was 266 words.
The post above is 299 words.
Having to answer someones inanity referencing treaties and international law took 2000 words.
Meanwhile misha takes the same tack, and mentions the UN charter, mentions Helsinki accords, then leaves out the Vienna Convention on Succession of States
Note that we have two presumed Russians that don’t know the succession treaty that allows the Russian federation to take over the positions and points of the old USSR.
Basically this is called being hoisted by your own petard.
hoist by or with one's own petard: hurt, ruined, or destroyed by the very device or plot one had intended for another.
If Russian communists didn’t try to keep Russia together and succeed USSR, they wouldn’t have set the laws that opened the doors to all the other succession from THEM on the same grounds!
And his second assertion as to the UN stuff on Kosovo. Did he actually read it? not to mention that the UN is an treaty organization and that member states can choose not to listen to it as only other member states can FORCE states to comply by threat of war of agreement. If one reads these treaties referred to, one can see where the actions taken were legal, and made more so by the exhaustion of all other venues. There is nothing prohibiting secession in resolution 1160, or 1199.
So the concepts of international law that they keep bringing up are puerile at best, and at worst have no understanding of the rule of law (which makes sense since they come from a state that does not have rule of law, but rule BY law).
Technically they would be correct, except that the states involved are members of the Vienna Convention on Succession of States in respect of Treaties, in which they define succession among their states.
The key lines being.
Affirming that the rules of customary international law will continue to govern questions not
regulated by the provisions of the present Convention, Have agreed as follows: The present Convention applies to the effects of a succession of States in respect of treaties
between States.
If kosovo’s succession is illegal, then the Russian federation taking over the USSR is illegal.
Hoisted by their own petards manipulations and special rules.
Total word count aprox 655
Misha says:
“If Kosovo’s succession is illegal, then the Russian federation taking over the USSR is illegal.”
In the case of the USSR there were 15 separate republics united as one country. The Republics all had the suffix “Soviet Socialist Republic” or “SSR” appended to their names. So there was for example the Ukrainian SSR, the Georgian SSR, Belorussian SSR, etc. Only Russia did not have the “SSR” suffix, but rather SFSR, indicating that Russia was not only a “Soviet Socialist Republic,” but a “Soviet FEDERATED Socialist Republic.” The Russian SSR was the only SSR that was also itself already a federation, containing many nations, with varying degrees of autonomy, within it.
So the USSR was a federation of republics (SSRs), but the Russian republic was itself also a further federation (SFSR).
The points you raised are completely moot are largely designed to do nothing more than blow smoke and obfuscate the situation more.
The USSR was dissolved by the joint consent of its several member republics. This is an essential point, because this element of “consent” is precisely what is needed for the Helsinki provisions on the succession of states to apply. In the case of the dissolution of the USSR, The various republics who were previously united within one state had by mutual agreement decided to dissolve that union and go their separate ways.
Russia never said once that it was opposed to the independence for Kosovo and Russia is not opposed to it, in principle. What Russia said is that any permanent solution would require the mutual agreement of Serbia and Kosovo both. Not only is this simple good sense, but it is also the law! It is a violation of international law to establish a new country on the territory of another country without that country’s CONSENT.
So the West then cynically held “negotiations” between the Serbian government and the Kosovar Albanians. But all along the West was publicly saying they would recognize Kosovo’s independence anyway, even if no agreement could be reached. So what on earth gave the Albanians the slightest incentive to negotiate in good faith? Nothing, of course! And the negotiations failed. Surprise, surprise!
The case of Yugoslavia the situation was similar to the breakup of the USSR. Yugoslavia was also a federation of socialist republics. After Yugoslavia ceased to exist the newly born nations were established along the borders of the former Yugoslavian socialist republics. In this case the divorce was not quite as amiable as in the Russian case above, but the successor states that replaced Yugoslavia were constructed along the same borders they already had inside the Yugoslav Federation.
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia consisted of The Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Socialist Republic of Socialist Republic of Croatia, Socialist Republic of Macedonia, Socialist Republic of Montenegro, Socialist Republic of Serbia, Socialist Autonomous Province of Kosovo, Socialist Autonomous Province of Vojvodina and the Socialist Republic of Slovenia.
After the dissolution of Yugoslavia, each of the former republics became nations, with borders that were along the same lines as they always had in Yugoslavia.
Kosovo did not have the status of a “Socialist Republic,” but rather it was an “Autonomous Province” (an autonomous province of the SERBIAN Republic that is).
Kosovo’s “autonomy” granted it certain pejoratives in terms of its own self-administration; but it was still a part of the Socialist Republic of Serbia. Kosovo was always a province of Serbia, even long before socialism was established in Yugoslavia, and indeed Kosovo represents the very “cradle of Serbian civilization,” containing some of the oldest Orthodox monasteries, churches and religious shrines in Serbia, as well as a large Serb population (which has been mostly ethnically cleansed by now).
Therefore the principle of “succession” cannot be invoked in the case of Kosovo, as it could in the case of the dissolution of the USSR and the dissolution of Yugoslavia. In those two cases the situation was that several republics wanted to end their federal administrative structure by mutual consent. But in the case of Kosovo we have a province of one country wanting to break away from that country and establish itself as a fully independent nation in its own right. In other words Kosovo is just another case of run-of-the-mill separatism, which cannot be distinguished in any essential way from a hundred or more similar separatist movements all over the world.
That sometimes people want to break away from the political structures within which they find themselves is understood. We see this all the time and there is nothing uncommon about it. We see it with the Kurds in Turkey and Iraq; with the IRA in Northern Ireland; and we see this in the case of the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia. We can debate all day about the relative merits of each case, but in each case what we are talking about remains essentially the same: a group of people do not want to be members and citizens of the state they are presently in, but instead they want either (1) to break away and join with some neighboring state; or (2) to become fully independent in their own right.
Because of the large number of such claims, and because these claims enjoy conflicting backing and opposition by the various large powers, it is essential that the issue of separatism be addressed in international law in a way that subscribes to a set of fundamental principles, which are to be equally applied in all cases.
Or to put it another way, I could take all the nonsense you just said about Kosovo, about how this is a “case of succession not separatism” and I could apply the same principles in any other case of separatism I chose at will.
Why would all your rarified arguments about “succession” apply in the case Kosovo, but not for example in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia in Abkhazia in Georgia? These people too genuinely do not want to be a part of Georgia. They enjoyed autonomy under the USSR, but Georgia tried to strip them of that autonomy almost as soon as it gained its own independence. They would much prefer to be a part of Russian Federation, or failing that at least to be independent. (If anyone doubts this they will be happy to tell you all about it at length.) They are not Georgian and they certainly want nothing to do with Georgia nor to be ruled by Georgians. The same nonsense you spout about “succession” applies in their case as much as it applies in the case Kosovo. (But of course your concept of “succession” would then apply in all such cases, but that is something that the world does not accept, and something that half the countries in Europe, which have their own separatist problems, also do not accept.)
So all the rarified nonsense you spout about “succession” in your desperate attempt to try to justify the theft of the Kosovo province of Serbia from Serbia, is just that, nonsense! Your words are little more than a verbal fig leaf which can easily be pulled away to reveal the nakedness of your flawed logic.
Ultimately there is no legal justification for this action; because there is no precedent that comes out of this that the world community is also willing to accept in other similar cases. If there is such a precedent or a universally valid precept that we can draw from this case and apply in every similar case, then I challenge them to try to verbalize it. Define for us please, what legal principles are being applied here in the case of Kosovo, which principles you would also be willing to accept in every other similar case. (This is the very essence of law and legality.) But they can’t and they won’t, and this is precisely what lays bare the illegality and treachery of this act.
What we have in the place of legality is, as I said, the ultimate example of the law of the jungle, and a case of large arrogant nations ganging up and steamrolling over the legal rights of a smaller and weaker country, “just because we can,” more or less. Your efforts to defend this are intellectually dishonest at best and downright despicable at worse.
Misha says:
The UN has a basically fair structure. Every nation has a seat at the UN and a much smaller group have a seat on the Security Council, which basically corresponds to the main nuclear powers in the world, or the at least main powers in the world at the end of the Second World War.
It’s true that one could ask why new nuclear powers such as India and Pakistan are not included in this Security Council club. Probably the world powers do not want to reward nations who violate nuclear non-proliferation, by giving them a seat at the table with the big boys the moment they are successful in developing nuclear weapons.
But no one ever claimed that the UN was “perfect.” The question is not whether any institution is “perfect,” but rather is it useful for its intended purpose. Does the UN still have any relevance in helping the world to avert a global war? Is it a useful venue for the settlement of international disputes?
I would claim that the UN, while it could use some reform, remains a viable and highly relevant institution in the world. I believe that the West would do well to hesitate for a moment and to think twice before driving the final nails into the UN’s coffin (and we are not far from that point now, given the recent outrage in Kosovo).
UN Resolutions must pass through the General Assembly, where every nation has a seat, but then Resolutions must also pass through the Security Council too. Any member of the Security Council can veto a resolution and thus prevent its passage.
I think this cuts to the essential heart of US objection to the UN. The United States believes it has finally “arrived” as the only power that can do whatever it pleases in the world. It resents the idea that a Russia or a France can exercise a veto on the Security Council and thus stop the US from acting. The United States believes that the UN structure gives these nations a weight in world affairs that they shouldn’t be entitled to, based on American dominance of the world.
So why is the UN and its Security Council still a good idea then? Why is it a good idea to maintain the veto power of all members of the UN Security Council? I think it’s because whenever a veto is exercised, it demonstrates that there is a lack of consensus between the world’s major powers on the issue in question.
For example, the USA did not obtain a Security Council Resolution when it invaded Vietnam. There would have been no way they could have obtained such a Resolution, because Russia and/or China would have certainly vetoed it. There simply was no consensus between the world’s major powers that having the US invade Vietnam was a good idea. But the USA went into Vietnam anyway. It turns out that the other major powers, the Russians and Chinese then armed the North Vietnamese, and after ten years of brutal warfare the US was forced to withdraw in defeat.
The same situation could be said almost in reverse for the Soviet adventure in Afghanistan. Again the Soviets had no hope of obtaining a Security Council Resolution authorizing them to go into Afghanistan. Again they acted unilaterally, without a resolution. And once again the other major powers intervened in the situation by supplying the rebels with weapons, and eventually the USSR was forced to withdraw.
So, the question of whether the UN matters is really the question of whether it is safe for major powers to act unilaterally in ways that are perceived by other major powers to be contrary to their interests and a threat. My answer is that it is not safe for powers to act in ways that are perceived as a threat by other powers, and the UN Security Council is still the best mechanism that we have for insuring that this does not happen, and the world is not suddenly plunged into some major war.
The system of the UN was designed to achieve consensus between the major powers on the issues that jointly concern them. Looked at in the negative sense, it is seen in the form of the Security Council veto, as I described above. But looked at in the positive sense, a successful UN Resolution signals that there is a consensus between the world’s major powers on the issue at hand, and therefore the proposed action is safe. All sides have been heard and have had their major concerns addressed to their satisfaction.
For example, when Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, the US sought and obtained a Security Council Resolution authorizing the use of force to evict Iraqi forces. Russia voted for it. China abstained, but did not veto the Resolution. Therefore it was a safe bet that neither of these powers would take any action, directly or indirectly, to cause problems or to obstruct the operation. It would have been nonsensical for the Russians to take any action to obstruct an operation which they already approved on the Security Council.
We can contrast that with more recent operations which some countries have done (well one country) without bothering to go through the normal UN process. On this list would be of course the US invasion of Iraq, the barbaric 1999 bombing of Serbia, where the US seemed to be signaling its intention to use its NATO alliance as a substitute for the UN, and the outrage that we’ve just witnessed over Kosovo, where the EU now seems to want the EU to function as an alter-UN.
But when major powers, and blocks of powers, act unilaterally, in reckless disregard of the vital interests of one or more of the other major powers, this sets the stage for global destabilization and ultimately for armed conflict on a much wider scale. As such these sorts of actions are reckless. The failure to perceive this reality, on the part of western leaders, is inexcusable.
The UN structure, for all its faults, is still very valuable. It is a major component of the whole world system that was set up in the aftermath of the Second World War, not only with the cooperation of the USA, but with its leadership and active support. It was a largely successful effort to prevent the world from going down the same path of war again. But as is often said, those who forget the lessons of history are condemned to repeat the same mistakes. Is this not what we are witnessing now?
Now there is a current of opinion in the United States which basically says, “We won the Cold War, so we can do whatever we want.” These attitudes are expressed on extreme right wing media outlets, by such representatives and spokesmen of the American right-wing as Rush Limbaugh and others. Neoconservative American think tanks they’ve cooked up such ideas as “Project for a New American Century,” which essentially advocates the unbridles American rule over the entire globe, via the indiscriminate use of military power. Now we’ve reached the “end of history” they proudly declare, and “the old rules in the world no longer apply.” We have achieved a “New World Order,” where there are no longer multiple poles of power in the world, but where only one nation, the USA now rules the roost. “The USA has now arrived not only as the world’s only Superpower, but as the world’s only Hyperpower.” Everyone on the globe must assimilate to the new Empire, and “resistance is futile.”
If what I have described is not the policy of the United States, then anyone can feel free to correct me where I have made a mistake. I am not pulling those ideas out of hat, but those are the ideas and opinions that are widely discussed and approved in the ruling circles of United States.
Increasingly we see the Americans essentially ignoring the United Nations and other institutions which were constructed in the aftermath of the Second World War as a means to prevent the world plunging into war once again.
Certainly the (second) invasion of Iraq qualifies as one of these reckless actions, as does the barbaric 1999 bombing of Serbia as well as this latest outrage by the West in Serbia’s Kosovo province.
Many people have asked what could be motivating the Americans to do such things. Why would the Americans risk such damage to international institutions and the whole post-war order which was so painstakingly built up over decades, in order to obtain something like a lightly-populated Serbian province? On the surface it hardly seems to make sense. It’s almost inexplicable.
Certainly it makes no sense to replace a world system where every nation was recognized by every other nation, on the basis of universally accepted principles, rule of law, and UN membership, with a system where national recognition has now become something only “subjective,” with some nations or blocks of nations recognizing certain nations, and other nations and blocks not recognizing them.
Certainly Kosovo can never be fully legitimized as a nation, because Russia will veto any resolution to admit it to the UN, not out of vindictive spite, as some might suppose, but because vital Russian national security interests were simply ignored or trampled upon in the West’s implementation of this act.
Moreover, even though Russia might be relatively powerless to act in the zone of Kosovo, it must be remembered that there are similar zones in the post-Soviet space, where Russian has a similar freedom of action, and where NATO would be for all purposes powerless to stop a proposed Russian military action.
Despite all the half-hearted Western arguments, the situation in Kosovo is not unique. It most closely resembles the situation in the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. So why should Russia now be deterred in recognizing the independence of these two small republics?
http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2008/02/8584e778-66f8-4238-bf36-3ce4aa65c685.html
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2006/10/mil-061018-rianovosti02.htm
So the West may recognize Kosovo, but Russia (and many other nations) never will. Kosovo has no chance of becoming a member of the UN, or of becoming anything more than a protectorate of the EU and NATO. Likewise, Russia now has no reason not to recognize the Republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. But Europe and the USA probably never will recognize them. Likewise they would block any Russian-lead effort to obtain seats for the new republics at the UN.
At the end of the day, what will have been the benefit from this reckless Kosovo action by the USA and the West? What benefit will have come to the world, or to anyone really from doing this?
What was the big urgency and the reason why Kosovo’s final status could not wait until the tempers involved had more time to cool? What was wrong with the UN supervision that was in place in Kosovo? Why not simply encourage the two sides to keep negotiating (and giving them incentives to negotiate in good faith)? Why push the Kosovar Albanians to declare their independence, and then recognize that independence in the West in a chorus, which is an act that could only have been calculated as an intentional affront to Serbia and Russia?
The actions of the West in this matter are completely inexplicable, unless they’ve discovered some new mineral in Kosovo that holds the key to perpetual motion and limitless energy, which I doubt.
But there is another possible motive, and this motive is really the only plausible motive that makes sense. That is that the United States and its Western clients are now interested in the essential total destruction and dismantlement of the whole post-war world system, and the destruction of the UN along with it. Perhaps the US feels that in its current position of strength, that it can benefit more from sewing chaos and instability all over the world, as opposed to honestly looking for peaceful and amiable solutions to the world’s geo-political challenges.
Clearly the US seems to benefit from the wars that it sews all over the world, as these conflicts give the Americans a greater excuse for even more intervention in various places. For example, certainly no one would benefit from a Russian recognition of the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, even though Russia is now essentially compelled to move in this direction. How does Russia benefit from this, as opposed to keeping the old international law that would respect Georgia’s borders in place? How will Georgia benefit from this? But one can easily see how the Americans will benefit from increasing the level of strife between Russia and Georgia, over this issue or any other issue, as it will provide a further pretense for the Americans to send in their military to “protect” Georgia, and to being the process of bringing Georgia into NATO, so the US can make Georgia part of its endless plans to ring Russia with ever more hostile military bases and missiles, even over Russia’s strenuous protests.
I think there’s a point beyond which Russia can allow herself to be pushed in this seemingly never-ending process of one outrage followed by another. All the pushing is only in one direction, and Russia is the one that keeps being pushed. There comes a time when Russia must marshal all her forces and vital energies and take some dramatic action, lest she wake up one morning and find that her capacity for action no longer exists.
The current generation of Russian leaders are certainly better than the drunkard Boris Yeltsin, who sold everything in Russia but the kitchen sink to the oligarchs, but the new Russian elite, thesiloviki also have one fatal flaw: they have now become something of a “new oligarchy” in Russia themselves, and they are benefitting handsomely from the massive financial inflow that is taking place due to Russia’s economic resurgence, which they themselves help bring about. They have now grown wealthy. But they know that the punch bowl at this party will disappear the moment they stop turning the other cheek to the outrages of the West, and this has restricted their freedom of action to act as true Russian patriots must act.
But at some point Russia needs to stand up for herself and damn the West and their devil-mammon! Men must be men and stand up for themselves and their rights. Russia’s pride cannot suffer insult upon insult at the hands of the West forever, until Russia is destroyed completely, bit by bit. We call on our leaders to take calm and sober action to defend Russia and her vital interests from these continous outrages!
-Misha, 20.2.2008
Artfldgr says:
@misha
Most of what you said is irrelevant. They signed the treaty, they are bound by the treaty, and the treaty gives terms for ethic succession (which as a whole Yugoslavia failed to have, but in parts, each part may have).
The treaty is set in by the entities involved. SERBIA is a signatory. It was convenient to sign when they thought it might result in succession, but lack of ethic proportion killed it, but that didn’t take the agreement out of place.
Because of the large number of such claims, and because these claims enjoy conflicting backing and opposition by the various large powers, it is essential that the issue of separatism be addressed in international law in a way that subscribes to a set of fundamental principles, which are to be equally applied in all cases.
Misha, your not dumb, but you sure don’t understand “international law”. It is not like criminal or civil law within a country. Its basically sea law, with endless treaties and games to establish the rules and such. there is no overlord, so there cant be an action along the lines of a cop, judge, jury, etc. so while the world works on one set of laws, five others have another set among them, and ten others have another set. Its very confusing, and the outcomes of points and games is often unexpected as in the Serbia Kosovo thing.
The fundamental principals are that states agree to what they say, or else other states may force them to (if they can – leading to Clauswitz maxim).
The signatories, those many members, didn’t want Russia not to continue with a totally new state dissolving all the agreements and policies of the old state. Technically that’s what happens (which is why some states favored being taken over sometimes). So when the soviet union fell, technically all the leaders should have been out of work, and the contracts and agreements and treaties of the former soviet union goes into fluff.
So all these oh so clever guys got together and said. if international law is just a bunch of agreements, lets make a new agreement of succession in which certain conditions will allow for the “new” government to take the place of the old government rather than dissolve it. the rest of the world said, ok, and the treaty was ratified. In this case, Kosovo has enough ethnic things, and a history of having its own borders going back over 400 years. So its not new and made up.
Or to put it another way, I could take all the nonsense you just said about Kosovo, about how this is a “case of succession not separatism” and I could apply the same principles in any other case of separatism I chose at will.
Perhaps, if they fit the rules. If I didn’t affirm that, I would be lying as to the nature of law, agreements and contracts. So you could do that if it fit the rules, one of those rules being that it’s only binding to the signatories (which I listed). Sociopaths are not too good at contracts in which they cant get a special advantage, they don’t play fair, and so they don’t see the implications of fair play.
Why would all your rarified arguments about “succession” apply in the case Kosovo, but not for example in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia in Abkhazia in Georgia?
Maybe because they didn’t sign the treaty that binds Serbia?
If Georgia was part of the same treaty, then yeah, I would agree that there was some potential there if the details matched. I don’t know if they do, but bottom line is that the law don’t apply since they didn’t agree that was the law.
That’s rule OF law, not BY law. Rule of law is that we agree to be ruled by the rules we work out… rule BY law is like Russia where the people have no say, and the kind of force your calling into play, its compulsory backed by force of war and death. The other is voluntary, which is why you not getting that Georgia is not part of it because they didn’t volunteer. Contrary to propaganda, the US is not the police of the world and at state level the best you can get is rule OF law until war attempts to turn rule by law (through imposition).
So as you can see, my arguments are actually quite simple not rarified. Nothing esoteric here. They made up rules, now they have a problem by them. There were other rules, but that wouldn’t give them the outcome they wanted, so they agreed that for them, there would be different rules. Quite simple in theory, horrendous in practice.
By the way, the minute other states recognized Kosovo, like they did Lenins Russia, it was a state, and since it was part of a state subjected to the agreement, it makes claim.
At the end of the day though it will boil down to might and who will apply it and how much they are willing to lose to have their way.
Clauswitz makes war very understandable. one state tells another state to do something and the other state refuses. The first state refuses to back down, and that leads to war. End of story.. ALL wars are that way, even if you have to boil it down to. Give me your country, no, wham.
So all the rarified nonsense you spout about “succession” in your desperate attempt to try to justify the theft of the Kosovo province of Serbia from Serbia, is just that, nonsense! Your words are little more than a verbal fig leaf which can easily be pulled away to reveal the nakedness of your flawed logic.
Nice… I can even imagine the deep rolling Russian voice talking to a fixed banana court or presidium. But that again, only works in the controlled atmosphere of totalitarian la la land. Outside that, states have to play by the rules they make between each other.
On to your second post…
Yes, it says "The [Helsinki Convention] applies to succession OF states in respect of treaties BETWEEN states..."
Ah, the minute the countries recognized Kosovo as a state, it became a state, and since it’s a successor state or states, to a signatory of the treaty of successor states, guess what? Its between states.
This is why Serbia got so pissed. You see, if Kosovo stood up, and no other state recognized it under international law, then it’s not a state.
This is pretty old hat for international law. When the united states declared separation from England want to guess what country recognized it? Morocco was the first country to recognize the independence of the United States of America from the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1777
So from that moment onward the US was a state and had the right to enter treaties and enter war to hold its claim.
You need a lot more lessons in law.
All this means is that when one state disappears, due to revolution, dissolution or whatever cause, the successor state (new state) takes over the international treaty rights and obligations of the old state. The new state also takes over the debts and other obligations of the old state too, by the way.
The United States tried to weasel out of this when it created a new state in Iraq, and then demanded that the rest of the world "forgive" the debt that Iraq owed them.
Ah, the united states is not a signatory of that treaty in which those states agreed to carry things forward. Cute eh. International law dictates that when a state is take over, it ceases to exist, and all agreements and treaties are null and void. Or do you think Lennin kept the treaties the csars made before him?
This debt was incurred by the Hussein Administration, to be sure, but much of it was incurred for foodstuffs, industrial projects, public works, and so forth. Therefore in principle there is no reason why Iraq's debts should be forgiven, especially given that Iraq is one of the most oil rich countries in the world.
Ah, the Hussein administration is gone, send them your bill. The bills of the prior administration are not the bills of the new one. in fact, iraq is only going forward with the name iraq because that’s what they want, not because the iraq today is the same iraq as yesterday.
This is not weasling. Russia did not uphold the treaties, of Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, and so forth… in fact in no case did any country do this.
The weasel was the country trying to claim a new thing that never existed before when it was down and couldn’t invade. This is kind of like a gay man standing up for women’s rights against heterosexual families, what does he care?
this is just one more example of the duplicity of the United States, constantly changing the rules to suit whatever its geo-political interests dictate at the moment.
I just showed that that’s projection, you have it backwards. The traditional law of the land of the world is to the victor belongs the spoils. Or do you think Putin should pay reparations and returns and give Russia back to the relatives of the Csars? Technically the property and palaces and things belong to that family, not to Russia. But that’s what happens when Russia makes up new rules and tries to get them applied UNILATERALLY, as your about to do in your next paragraph.
In the case of the USSR, the issue of succession was complicated, because one new state did not replace one old state; rather 15 new states replaced the USSR.
Not really. No one wanted to lose all the property they had. Russia consolidated the wealth of these states in the main country, so under the spoils doctrine, Russia would have kept this wealth (gold reserves, etc), and these other countries would have no rights to it.
So they all agreed to suspend the doctrine that you have backwards, and divvy things up so that these states got their property back. The rest of the world was happy in that everyone had stakes to move into the future.
You have no understanding of the laws and principals you talk about, do you?
Russia gathered those nuclear weapons which were deployed in other Soviet Republics and moved them back to Russia, so that at the end of the day, Russia was the only one of the fifteen republics which remained a nuclear power.
And that was the trade off. Russia gets her bombs back, these states get their money and properties back. Otherwise, as your implying the law of the land comes into play and what they have is what they own. And everything that went before dissolves.
So now your arguing two directions at once. Recognizing the situation to paint Russia as a hero, when all it did was trade cash and property for weapons. But since the rulers knew they were going to rape the land of natural resources and such, it was a fair trade.
But your invocation of the Helsinki rules on succession is about as irrelevant to the case at hand as anything could possibly be. You do remember that we are talking about Kosovo here? Surely you do know that this is a different subject?
I didn’t bring up Helsinki… I brought up the agreement of succession that Serbia signed and still is subject to. Kosovo is a state inside of Serbia (or don’t you know your history going back to the ottoman empire, the Hapsburgs and so forth?)
Misha, I am not going to get into discussing the UN with you. I have a wife, a family and a life, and better things to do than to dig up the quotes from defectors and Russian leaders and people as to how they used the UN to move operatives before the borders were opened by the fall. Nor do you want me to get into the whole globalist thing, and then those histories.
I am not a tin hatter, so nothing I will bring up will veer into weird areas, and such, there is plenty to explain things without made up funny stuff.
You still didn’t show how Serbia is not subject to the treaties that it signs.
Russia often is not subject to the treaties it signs as most states aren’t willing to go to war over the issues. Russia signs treaties the way bullies do. I can show you quotes of statesmen lamenting that policy from around the world. Like everyone being forced to deal with a paranoid sociopath with a weapons collection next door, and delusions of grandeur.
There was no odd argument, just pointing out that by the rule of law, you agree to it, your stuck with it.
Or is there some other kind of law?
Artfldgr says:
But if Russia was playing the same game that the West has been playing, then Russia would be actively engaged is supporting seccionist movements in these Russian territories, to be quickly followed by Russian “recognition” of the seccionist elements as legitimate states, which would then instantly transform them into “legitimate states, having full rights” (at least according to the rules that our friend “Artfldgr” has set).
hey, i dont make the rules. nor do i actually want to if offered the job.
russia does give to such movements and supplies most revolutionary groups with weapons pretty indiscriminately.
Handbook of Leftist Guerrilla Groups in Latin America and the Caribbean by Liza Gross makes for a nice list to START with.
FARC? ELN? FAR? ORPA? EGP? PGT? URNG? Sendero Luminoso? MRTA?
we know they all favor humvees, and they are all carrying western weapons... no?
of course not
Russian mob trading arms for cocaine with Colombia rebels
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3340035/
Russian-built IL-76 cargo planes take off from various airstrips in Russia and Ukraine laden with anti-aircraft missiles, small arms and ammunition.
The planes, roughly the size of Boeing 707s and a mainstay of the modern cargo industry, stop in Amman, Jordan, to refuel. There, they bypass normal Jordanian customs with the help of corrupt foreign diplomats and bribed local officials.
After crossing the Atlantic, the cargo jets use remote landing strips or parachute air-drops to deliver their cargo to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC. The guerrilla group is challenging the authority of the U.S.-backed Colombian government, and its guerrillas provide security to Colombia’s cocaine cartels.
That single drop last October was said by U.S. intelligence officials to have delivered $50 million worth of AK-47s deep inside FARC-held territory.
thats just to make sure no one tries to deny russia state involvment.
In one hour, a trained ground crew can unload, refuel and reload a plane bearing 90,000 pounds of cargo
That’s equivalent to 5,400 rifles and 360,000 rounds of ammunition, along with shoulder-held missiles and RPGs.
“The source of the weapons [smuggled into Colombia] is both organized crime and military,” a U.S. intelligence official said. “There is a tremendous gray area between the two in Russia and the Ukraine.”
now if farc grabbed columbia you dont think russia would recognize it right off?
kosovo has the same problem every new state has when it declares its place and some states say ok.
now they have to hang on to it. just because america recognizes it as a state, doesnt mean that they have some treaty of protection, or ally, or anything like that. any of the states that did recognise dont have that.
all there is is lone kosovo, the un troops which are not a US armed force, and chutzhpah..
thats how it works currently. there is no overlord, and all actoins by states are voluntary, and so ultimately this stuff happens.
kosovo can fall back over the weekend, it can end up its own place and things get sorted out eventually.
such is the situation with succession.
when the US claimed independence from king george it didnt exactly go over well. you dont hear about the famous moroccan army that came to america to fight with the colonists, do you? but morroco was the first to recognize the US.
see... like i said.. declaration, and recognition, is just the start of the process.
in case you didnt notice, in all my conversations, i havent actually picked a side in this. i have only explained the situation.
now we will see if they can hold on to it
Misha says:
Serbia was ready and able to fight in 1999 to maintain its territorial integrity. It was NATO that was unwilling to commit to a ground war in Kosovo, because they were unwilling to lose even one life. This was why NATO barbarically bombed Serbia’s civilian infrastructure for 79 days, in an effort to force Serbia’s political leadership to capitulate. This was also the reason NATO bombed from 10,000 feet or higher, even though this caused targeting errors that killed many Albanian civilians. NATO was afraid one of its planes might be shot down if pilots went below 10,000 feet. NATO was unwilling to suffer the loss of even a single NATO life for this cause (as such a loss would have quickly turned public opinion in NATO countries hard against the war).
But even after 79 days and nights of massive NATO bombing, Serbia was still as defiant as ever and still unwilling to compromise its territorial integrity or sovereignty.
It was at this point that an increasingly desperate Clinton administration contacted the Russian government and requested Russia’s help in brokering a ceasefire that would be acceptable to all sides and end the conflict. Clinton thought that Russia might be able to exercise some influence over their Orthodox Serbian allies.
In the following days the Russian foreign minister shuttled back and forth between Washington and Belgrade in an effort to broker a ceasefire. After some days this effort paid off and a ceasefire agreement emerged. The essential provisions of this agreement were (1) The Serbian army would withdraw from Kosovo in an orderly way, thus creating a “permissive environment” for KFOR forces to enter; (2) Kosovo would come under UN jurisdiction (KFOR forces), not NATO jurisdiction, pending a final political settlement that would be acceptable to ALL the parties; (3) There would be a specific UN Resolution reaffirming Serbia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity (including Serbia’s sovereignty over Kosovo).
Therefore it is absurd to suggest that NATO somehow steamrolled its way into Kosovo and imposed its will on Serbia. To argue in such a way is to demonstrate willful ignorance of the actual historical events. Such a view ignores the fact that NATO lacked the political resolve to wage an offensive ground war against Serbia in the Kosovo province of Serbia. Such a view makes the claim that NATO essentially achieved a “military objective” in Kosovo which it in fact it never achieved. The end of the war in 1999 was based on a POLITICAL settlement, a Russian-brokered ceasefire, not a NATO military victory.
Therefore, the present theft of Kosovo from Serbia is not some deserved “military achievement” by the Western powers, but rather it is the result of Western duplicity and treachery in dealing with their partners and honoring the basic commitments that they have made.
Serbia was willing and able to fight to protect its Kosovo province from Western aggression, EVEN AFTER 79 days and nights of massive NATO bombing of its civilian neighborhoods. Serbia agreed to a Russian-brokered political settlement of the conflict, ONLY BECAUSE the protection and guaranty that Kosovo would remain within Serbia was an essential provision of that settlement. This provision was agreed to by all the parties including NATO. There is no one who can deny these facts. We are not speaking about arcane arguments pertaining to ancient history, but all the documents and resolutions are still in existence.
Russia was not involved in NATO’s attack on Serbia, but Russia helped broker the ceasefire agreement at American urging; it was Russia that urged the Serbia to sign the agreement, and Russia offered the Serbs strong assurances that the West could be trusted to honor its commitments. Russia trusted the assurances that were given to her by the West, and Serbia in turn trusted Russia, her long-time ally. But after such unmitigated treachery as that which we’ve just seen, what can possibly be the future basis for Russia trusting any Western commitments in any context whatsoever?
It is ridiculous to now say, “Well nine whole years have gone by, so now it’s time for NATO to violate its prior agreements as well as international law and get this done before George Bush leaves office.” How long has the Arab-Israeli conflict been going on without a decisive settlement?
Under the ceasefire terms and the resulting US resolution, the only basis for settlement of the final status of Kosovo was supposed to be an agreement that both sides agreed to (both the Serbian and the Albanian sides). The fact that the sides were not able to come to a mutual agreement after 9 years is NOT a legal basis for the West to suddenly declare that that the Albanian position (independence) will just be unilaterally enacted and recognized by the West, and the position of the other parties will just be ignored.
There simply was no “imperative” that the crisis needed to be suddenly settled right now, before George Bush leaves office. Many difficult international problems have taken decades to resolve. The US cynically offered to hold negotiations between the Serbs and the Kosovar Albanians, but at the same time the West made statements that it would recognize Kosovo independence in any case, regardless if a negotiated settlement was forthcoming or not. Under such circumstances OF COURSE the Kosovar Albanians had no basis for negotiating in good faith. OF COURSE such “negotiations” were bound to fail. It would be as if Russia supervised negotiations between South Ossetia and Georgia, but Russia first publicly declared that Russia would recognize S. Ossetian independence regardless of the outcome.
This action represents a dishonest, immoral and illegal move by the NATO powers, especially by the USA (which coincidentally has built a massive military base in Kosovo). The strong-armed theft of Kosovo was not inspired by Western morals, principles or any such "high ideals;" it was nothing more than an illegal, immoral and criminal act of thievery, treachery and thugary by a cynical and self-serving West.
Russia has behaved admirably and with great restraint throughout this Western-caused crisis. However there will be consequences to this action, and the ramifications of this action go far and deep. It will not be possible for the West to have its cake and eat it too, claiming to be the “guardians” of international law, while at the same time cynically ignoring and violating that law whenever it suits them, and ignoring the legitimate interests of other parties.
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