Who's this "we" you speak of? The media didn't write about this because it doesn't fit into their "let's let the wonderful UN/NATO/not-US run everything" storyline, NOT because it makes the US look bad. The total suppression of the murder of multiple Americans by a fellow UN policeman is among the most disgraceful examples of the phenomenon.

We the People

If We the People knew about these things, We would be ticked. We're not, but not because We refuse to admit mistakes, but because We don't know these facts.

Brian is correct about the importance of the "murder" by Muslims in Kosovo. One would have thought that would have been a big story under any circumstances. Were not the Muslims Jordanians (honestly, I could be wrong about that, so correct me if I am)? Yet mere weeks later Bush involves himself in a giant suckup to the King of Jordan.

OJ if you are trying change the behavior of a people, you use whatever weapons are available, sometimes guns, sometimes PR. Bush can make it a story or not bother. The UN needs to be on the defensive, not just on your blog, but around the world. Muslims need to be held to a standard of behavior in front of all of the world. Continually to shrug this off, while bloviating about fraternity pranks, will not move Muslims to any fundamental change.

h:

Yes, the point being that we, the UN, NATO, etc. endorsed the wrong side in the Balkans. But having done se we won't ever acknowledge it. Democracies don't make mistakes.

It is difficult to sympathize with the moral equivalent of the SS (and, for the Serbs, that was their choice in 1940-41 as well).

But OJ, isn't Islam the hope against secularized Europeans?

Chris:

Yes. No one will long mourn the passing of the Christian Serbs.

Jim:

If you think the Serbs were bad, check out the Croats. There are no good guys or bad guys in the Balkans. It's like Hatfields and McCoys.

Peter:

It is probably worse, but when the Serbs tried to expand against the Croats in 91-92, they were rebuffed. So they went south. Probably the best answer would be to import about 50 million Chinese and give them manifest destiny in the old Yugoslavia.

There was no right side, we sided with the group that was getting slaughtered. We stopped the wholesale violence, but no doubt the 'retail' violence will continue on for some time.

The slaughterers can be the right side, as when we're the ones slaughtering

This is all too horibly complicated to explain.

Everbody is wrong. The worst book is the most highly praised -- Rebecca West "Black Falcon Grey Lamb,"

For more than a century Serb nationalists have claimed the right to occupy and rule Kosovo on the grounds that they lost a battle there 600 years ago. (try repeating that out loud without laughing). Had they claimed the right of a minority to live in peace and practice their religion they might have garnered sympathy.

The Albanians are behaving like members of their religion, no not muslim, pagans avenging a blood feud. All they had to do was wait until the multi national peace keeping effort was drawn down. Gives you a lot of confidence in Kerry's ideas doesn't it?

The Croats who are not part of this play are nto nice.

Bloody mess.

Kagan wrote about this in Balkan Journey. Everybody is an irredentist in the Balkans, dreaming of some long ago age when they were on top and controlled the region. They all have horrific slaughter tales and they all feel it just happened yesterday and their ancestors are crying out for vengeance. You can admire them culturally, but as nations they are all hopeless.

Any foreign policy activity in that region should be based upon drawing firm lines in the sand and threatening those who cross them. Anyone who tries to goes in from a right and wrong or human rights perspective will end up with a migraine and a lot of dead people.

They'r all animals. Let them kill each other off, I don't care.

It wasn't Kagan it was Robert Kaplan who swallowed Rebeca West hook line and stinker. Balkan Ghosts : A Journey Through History by Robert D. Kaplan. A far better book is: Kosovo : A Short History by Noel Malcolm.

It should be noted that Serb nationalism, like all balkan nationalisms was a creation of 19th century Europeans. In the Serbian case, Russians seeking a wedge between the the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman-Turkish Empires manufactured Serb nationalism out of Pan-slavism, Orthodox Brotherhood, and a couple of old folk songs.

It is this poisonous brew that is the basis of the legend of age old hatreds.