Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Kosovo in the news again: slowly I turn.

I called my mongrel Balkan know-it-all friend, Spiros Lapchick. His read came to this :

"Everyone knows this is just the latest Security Council push by the Eu-Yank crowd, in their installment plan to squeeze out every last drop of Russian influence west of the Ukraine border."

Needless to say, the Russians are prepared to lash back with a veto if necessary.

Here's the plan as described by the NYT:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/world/europe/20nations.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

...grants Kosovo de facto nationhood -- an army, a constitution and a flag -- to be overseen by a European Union-led mission to provide protection for the province's ethnic Serbs, who are the minority.

That is: Integrate -- independently -- the troubled former Serbian heartland into 'greater EU-ville' -- a "de facto" nation-state for the Albanian majority and a "de facto shaftski" for the Serbs.

"So what," you say. "Screw 'em, the genocidal brutes. And they're down to a slim 10% of the cleansed residential population anyway -- cleansed in a clean human-face way, of course."

Well, not so fast. "De facto" is a key pivot here. Why "de facto"? Odd, isn't it? Why not just hold a plebiscite, and then after the Albanians vote for it, "recognize" their "independence", like, say, Croatia or Slovenia?

Answer: this needs to be an imposed solution. If the Albanians can vote independence in Kosovo, where next? What's to prevent these very fertile folks from overrunning Macedonia, too, and maybe all voting to create a greater Albania? So it needs to be imposed, but it also needs to be prettied up, with a slather pharisaic hypocrisy.

This collective power play by the greater Euro community and its American big buddy has its nasty side effects. Besides Russia playing the great power at bay here, as it gets stomped trying to protect its runt of a buddy, of course we also have the action/reaction of the runt itself. Fudge or no fudge, this will prove quite the demagogic firecracker up in country that's still Serb -- meaning much stormy weather ahead.

So... calming influences are needed, right? And a go-slow, step-by-step approach?

Well, not apparently from the Yank empire's viewpoint. The NYT asks none other than our all-purpose donkular proconsul and perpetual SecState bridesmaid, Dick "The Dirk" Holbrooke. He gives 'em a nice taste of Foggy Bottom thinking:

This is not simply a game of maneuver at the United Nations.... delay, dilution, or a veto of the plan will have violent consequences for which the Russians will bear responsibility.

Yikes! Dick is obviously spoiling for a showdown with the Slavic pricks. And so, fans, to what new dust-and-blood swirl-up is this great-game scrum-bully about to take us?

As my pal Spiros says: "It's not called Balkan madness for nothing."