Unsubtle Wetwork

[Thoenen, Peter CIV Sprint]

Tim May wrote:

" U.S. occupation troops are spread so thin in Kosovo,.....Kosovo...not our problem"

Having spent the better part of last year working in Kosovo, I wouldn't exactly call the forces 
there thin.  NATO forces (non-US) are a majority of the peacekeeping occupiers and more and more of 
the mission is getting turned over to the EU (allowing for slow US withdrawal).  With Serbia, 
Croatia, and Bosnia eagerly sucking the EU and US cocks to get into the EU and NATO, the US in the 
Balkans is if anything over strength.  Of course hard line nationalists could take advantage of the 
overextended US forces, but honestly not likely to happen.  Recent history (after the Cold War) 
seems to suggest that whole "Enemy of my enemy is my friend" concept doesn't work when the US is 
that enemy.  Time and time again the enemies of the US (or folk who are not our enemies but also 
know the US would prevent them from doing sovereign things such as invading Taiwan) never seem to 
coordinate among themselves to take advantage of the situation.  World wide terrorist cells seem to 
be pretty good at it but they also direct their energies at multiple targets, not just the USA (e.g. 
the IRA/PLA/FARC all cross train with each other and use each others specialists from time to time 
but all have 3 concentrate on different local enemies).  Hostile foreign governments though just 
can't seem to band together.

What Bush didn't realize at the time (and now the US Media is whining about) is that countries that 
didn't support him during the war would also not support him after the war.  His hostile foreign 
diplomacy before the Iraq puppet state (pissing off two of the three largest Non-US peacekeeping 
forces (France / Germany)) is forcing the US to provide nearly all of the Iraq occupation force 
instead of handing it off to our *allies* as we have in the past.  The standard US occupation plan 
for the last 12 years has been Invade->Conquer->Hand off ~70% of peacekeeping to other countries. 
This just isn't going to work this time and Bush in his arrogance can't understand why.  Even Kosovo 
(NATO action, UN did NOT approve) got UN support immediately following the end of hostilities.  Bush 
doesn't even seem to be trying to garner support for a postfacto UN resolution on Iraq giving in the 
air of legitimacy.

-Peter

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solely the personal opinion of the sender **