Saturday, December 05, 2009

NATO Keeps Growing



Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, NATO, created to 'defend' against a Soviet attack into Western Europe, keeps growing.

On Friday, NATO defense chiefs issued what's called a Membership Action Plan to Montenegro. In other words, Montenegro will become NATO's 29 member.


Montenegro is a speck of a country in the Balkans. It was part of Yugoslavia, and was one of the last pieces to spin off from that country in 2006.

It's better known, however, as the center of Europe's cigarette smuggling trade as reported here.

Montenegro, Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, is quite a bit of work.

Another chunk of what was Yugoslavia, Bosnia Herzegovina, was turned down by NATO on Friday, for the time being. No Membership Action Plan here. Seems, the Serbs, Muslims, and Croats, can't get a long with the Serbs wanting to following the example of Kosovo and break away. However, the pompously named, Office of the High Representative, doesn't like this idea, nor does Brussels or Washington.

U.S. President Barack Obama considers the Balkans "unfinished business" and Congress wants to appoint a Balkan envoy to 'help' the natives, especially those pesky Serbs, to enact whatever 'reforms, Washington thinks up.

The 'international community' legislated its interference in 1995 with the Dayton Accords, that negotiated an end to the bloodshed in Bosnia.

However, fourteen years laters, Dayton is nearly in tatters and the international community has made a mess in Bosnia.

As Nebojsa Malic puts it:


In the years since the Dayton Agreement came into force, a series of international viceroys has amended it by decree, undermining both its form and its function. Under the excuse of helping Bosnia join the EU and NATO (both assumed to be desirable and not subject to any sort of debate), the self-proclaimed "international community" has expanded the authority of the central government and diminished that of the entities. They even created a third entity within the country, the Brcko District. In the name of creating a "Brussels Bosnia," they’ve undermined the Dayton one.


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2 comments:

Chris Anderson said...

Forgive a stupid question but why do we still have NATO? How can you have a European military alliance and not include the Russians? Please educate me.
Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Very good question, Mr. Anderson. To the head of the class. Bureaucracies die hard, what can I tell you. Seriously, there was no serious talk of everyone just picking up their soldiers, and tanks and going home. As history has shown, the 'winner' has stuck it good to the 'loser.'