Being a busy motherfucker, I havent had time to wade into this, yet, but I've been following the thread off and on, and have a few comments and questions:

pdq: ""Russia was an Orthodox Christian country at one time. So were Serbia and Albania...The last thing Russia wants is for Kosovo to fall to the relentless march of Islam. Bosnia, Albania, now Kosovo."

Setting aside your whole asinine "march of Islam" thing, here's where you got it wrong, there: Russia and Serbia both remain majority Orthodox. Massively so. Bosniaks are a plurality (48%) in Bosnia and Herzegovina, not a majority. Albania was never majority Orthodox: It's always had an Orthodox minority, but it was majority Catholic for centuries, and later, under Ottoman influence/pressure, majority Muslim.

pdq: "On another front, Thailand fell recently."

Seriously? To "the Muslims"? You sure about that shit?

pdq: ""Neither Russia nor China is happy about losing their buffer zones between themselves and Islam. Each step brings the other two superpowers (there are three of us) closer to a full scale war with Islam. When it happen, and it will, it will be ugly."

Neither Russia nor China has had a "buffer zone" beween themselves and Islam for, well, as long as there's been a "Russia," and as long as there's been Muslims in China. Which, if you bothered to check, has been quite some time. Both Russia and China colonised "Islamic" lands. And so both have sizable indiginous Muslim ethnic minorities, as wells as, in the case of China, millions of descendants of Han converts and sinicised foreign Muslims. Where was this "buffer zone" you imagine existed, exactly?

Riginslinger: "Does Noel Malcolm explain why, when the announcement was made that Kosovo was delcaring its independence from Serbia, the local population in Kosovo was running about waving the Albanian flag?"

And why wouldn't they? Yes, it's the flag of Albania, but, as it's also the flag of Gjergj Kastrioti (Skanderbeg), it's a symbol of Albanians as a people. Much like red/blue/white flags for Slavs, or genital herpes for Canadians. Kosovar Albanians, for the most part, have abosultely no interest in merging with Albania. Seriously, look it up. Yourself. I don't like you enough to bother with a link.

artbrooks: "Kosovo has no flag."

Uh, yeah, it does, actually. Ugly as fuck, but it's a flag, alright.

I'm not even going to go into the rest of Riginslinger's copious stream of bullshit, as Shimrod and others have already pretty much destroyed him/her. But here's a hint, Riginslinger: Next time you show up for an argument, actually do some fucking research on the subject beforehand. If you're lucky, you won't come off as such a clueless, racist knob that way.

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Anyways, enough of that. I, for one, am fucking thrilled that Kosova has declared its independence. As Kent Davis wrote earlier, "self determination is a beautiful thing." All peoples deserve to live in the country of their choosing, whether they're Kurds, Basques, Chechens, Acehnese, Karen, or yes, even the Serb majority in the northern border regions of Kosova. Or, at the very least, have guaranteed regional autonomy in the regions where they constitute a majority. Whether this is convenient for the ruling ethnic group or not is irrelevant. These are basic human rights, here. In the case of the Albanians of Kosova, staying part of a nation that only a few years before attempted to "ethnically cleanse" them, even with their autonomy restored, simply wasn't an option. What would have stopped another Miloševiæ, backed by Russia, from taking it away again?

And I don't really care why America/NATO, intervened in Kosova when Miloševiæ whipped up his racist hordes against the Kosovar Albanians. I certainly don't agree with the ham-handed way the intervention was carried out, but an intervention was necessary nonetheless. Without it, ethnic cleansing would have become genocide. And all you "I'd burn the embassy, too" types would be blaming the carnage on "Clinton," or "the Democrats," or maybe "Bush" or the "Republicans." As if your personal political grudges have anything to do with human fucking rights.

So, yeah, like, yay an' shit, Kosova! :)

---Will