From the pages of the ByzCath Forum, Father Serge Keleher, Ukrainian Greek Catholic Priest offers: 
Why should Kosovo remain part of Serbia? Well, perhaps to demonstrate the much-proclaimed alleged policy of the self-styled World Leaders that territorial change cannot be accomplished by terrorism? To demonstrate that “ethnic cleansing” is unacceptable even when Mohammedans do it? Or perhaps to take historical realities into account?
It is true that Serbia was responsible for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which was the spark that set off the terrible First World War and led to the horrors of the twentieth century. But there is plenty of blame to go around both for the outcome of WWI and for what followed.
It is also true that the relatively recent bombings of Serbia were by any definition a war crime. I remember when we were being assured that the “smart bombs” had absolute pin-point accuracy, which they proceded to demonstrate by bombing the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, of all things.
Does anyone seriously believe that the “independence” of Kosovo is going to have long-term peaceful results? Hitler famously asked “who remembers the Armenians?”. To this one might add “who realizes that the almost exclusively Mohammedan population of present-day Turkey is the direct result of ethno-religious cleansing? Has everyone forgotten Smyrna?”.
A strongly worded opinion to be sure! It is also one worth considering.
David Bennett
Jennifer
asimplesinner
Fr. J.
Chad Toney
Jorge Flores
Jonathan B
carmelbennett
nicenehobbit
Jason S
jaybird68
papaz
February 19, 2008 at 5:44 pm
The Kosovo intervention was completely ridiculous.
Why should Kosovo break away? Just because it’s population changed to predominately Albanian? Maybe sections of Southwest USA should secede, since so many of us are Latino now. Or maybe parts of Baja California should secede from Mexico, since so many gringos live down there.
Oh, right, ethnic cleansing. Except many of those stories were not true (but the corrections are on page 27 the next day in the papers, “sorry folks, that mass grave was just a rock quarry, OOps, guess the Serbs were innocent.”) And the Albanians did their own number on Serbs, and the Croats on Serbs, and the Serbs on Croats, and the Bosnians…
I am not excusing any injustice the Serbs may have committed. But for the world to intervene, judge them, and remove part of their country (a part of their country many of their ancestors died defending a thousand years ago) is outrageous.
Okay, well, there’s my mildly stated opinion. :-)
February 19, 2008 at 6:29 pm
I am a radical moderate on this one. There are a few neighborhoods in my city that are so well occupied by a certain recent immigrant group that I think it is fair to say, how this is handled today will set some major precedents for tomorrow.
February 19, 2008 at 9:00 pm
Why should Kosovo break away? Well, let’s see…they are predominantly secular Muslims with a Catholic minority and do not wish to remain in an Orthodox country. That’s their reasons. Good enough for me.
February 19, 2008 at 10:54 pm
I agree with NiceneHobbit…. but then again those bloody Yoopers have been rattling their war beavers and threatening to succeed from the great State of Michigan for years…. something we in Lower Peninsula are not too fond of. After all we fairly (and flawlessly) kicked Ohio’s butt in the Great Ohio-Michigan War and got the U.P. as a war prize.
So I guess I really can’t blame Serbia for wanting to keep Kosovo.
By the way - enjoying Toledo Ohioans? Yeah that’s what I thought! Where is your copper now?!? Oh that’s right, you don’t have any copper in Toledo! AHAHAHAHA suckers!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toledo_War
February 20, 2008 at 12:48 am
-they are predominantly secular Muslims with a Catholic minority and do not wish to remain in an Orthodox country. That’s their reasons. Good enough for me.-
One word:
precedent
February 20, 2008 at 1:18 am
In getting Toledo, Ohio got me.
HUGE loss for Michigan in my estimation.
February 20, 2008 at 1:52 am
From my POV, this was inevitable once Germany reunified; at that time, guest workers were displaced and returned to their countries of origin , which were, in large part, Turkey and Yugoslavia.
Within Yugoslavia, by virtue of geographic features and having gone through the Industrial Revolution as part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Slovenia and Croatia produced 80% of the GNP. They had natural resources, factories, education and that good old reportedly Protestant work ethic.
Many of the Southerners (Serbs, Macedonians, Montenegrins, B & H-ins) came North to work, which created problems when workers returned from Germany.
Additionally, people were tired tired of money being sent South to build practical things like monuments instead of schools in which to educate the populace.
Even Montenegro has dumped Serbia, why would Kosovo want to stay? They’ve been agitating for an Albanian homeland at least since I went to school in Slovenia in 1987 and likely before that.
Okay, and I’m kidding, this has been on its way since Tito died…but actually I mean it was inevitable from the moment the ill-conceived Kingdom of Yugoslavia was created in the wake of WWI. I have to find my picture of that bridge.
As I step away from the soapbox and pretend I don’t have an opinion.
February 20, 2008 at 2:20 am
Nan,
I see your point, but hasn’t Kosovo always been a part of Serbia, the Serbia that existed for a millenium previous to Yugoslavia? Montenegro was a part of that strange comglomeration you rightly spurn: Yugoslavia. But Serbia was a whole prior to the creation of Yugoslavia, and Kosovo was a part of that whole.
Places like Croatia and Montenegro did not secede from Serbia, they secede from a confederation to which Serbia belonged. But splitting off Kosovo is like taking some random chunk of any country just because the demographics differ.
Maybe I am not explaining myself well. Also, I am not an ‘expert’ on the Balkans, so if I have the facts wrong I would welcome correction.
February 20, 2008 at 2:38 am
Rob,
I said “soapbox” not “area of expertise,” but in that area of the world, it’s never as simple as that; historically, in the 15th century, Christian Albanians became Muslim, which I assume had something to do with the Ottoman Empire taking control of the area. At the same time, Serbs moved northward, around Belgrade and didn’t have control of the Kosovo area for a couple hundred years, then wanted it back. Even during the Yugoslavia years, Kosovo was an autonomous region within Serbia, which shows that they recognized it wasn’t really theirs.
Slovenia was variously part of the Roman Empire, Austria and France’s Illyrian Province. It hasn’t had self-rule since 9th Century but nobody argued too much; one tank in the square isn’t going to scare anyone, notwithstanding the US government thinking it was dangerously unstable by 1987.
February 20, 2008 at 2:44 am
Rob,
I think I mentioned soapbox, so please keep in mind that while you’re free to disagree with me in any way, shape or form, trying to change my opinion would be a waste of time and pixels.
Soapbox may be a synonym for Slavic.
Nan
February 20, 2008 at 2:46 am
Nan,
Correction taken. Thank you.
:-)
February 20, 2008 at 6:32 pm
I guess I find it hard to take much delight in watching my nation split up other sovereign nations or to watch the destruction of a repository of a venerable Christian culture.
February 21, 2008 at 12:32 am
“I guess I find it hard to take much delight in watching my nation split up other sovereign nations or to watch the destruction of a repository of a venerable Christian culture.”
Dose not bother me at all. My political loyalties are to the United States (assuming the Vatican isn’t involved), and if protecting a minority from ethnic cleansing and then recognizing their independence from their oppressors several years later are in the best interest of the United States then great. Just because 70% of that minority are Muslim dose not take away their humanity, at least not in my belief system.
Besides Serbs make up like 4% of Kosovo, and half of them are probably athiests anyway.
There is an Albanian Orthodox Church, or do they not count as a venerable Christian culture?