Bad News for Kosovo

and perhaps some prophecy for Iraq.

Serbian election unsettles Western hopes - International Herald Tribune

Serbia wants the land of Kosovo, not the people on it. Kosovo, the land, is where most of the Very Big Battles have been fought in Serbian history. They identify with the land. The people on the land -- the mostly ethnic Albanians -- they could do without, and they already tried genocide on them once in the last decade. The only thing stopping them from doing it now is KFOR and the chance they'll get bombed again.

With these elections, it shows that nationalism doesn't just go away. Bush thinks you can just "do democracy" and they'll suddenly be all set for fair and equitable government. I don't think it works that way. The people in Serbia want one step away from Communism. They want their dictator Milosevic back. (too bad he's not available). We might be better off spending sometime figuring out why that is... why that situation exists all around the world, and what we can do to effect change in that behavior.

Probably someone's already written about that. Might need to head to the library.