Kosovo Conflict Essays - AlbaniaSerbia Relations, Kosovo War

Kosovo Conflict Essays - AlbaniaSerbia Relations, Kosovo War Kosovo Conflict Kosovo Background of Kosovo: -The Balkans have been a very unstable region for hundreds of years. The reason for contention is because of ethnic origin and disputes of which race owns which land.. That is the reason for the dispute over Kosovo is because of the same thing. This is a very complicated situation, that I don't really know everything about. I just kind of know the basics. Back in the 1500 hundreds, the Serbs conquered the Kosovo area, slowly and gradually over the years the Ethnic Albanians started occupying the territory, until before the bombing began, Kosovo consisted of 90% Ethnic Albanians. Well, the Serbs didn't like this, especially Milosevic who is the ruler over Serbia. Since Kosovo has many historical ties to the Serbs, and the Serbs conquered that territory back in the 1500 hundreds, Milosevic wanted to reclaim their rightful territory. And his method to do this was through ethnic cleansing Kosovo. Stats: -Milosevic has been doing this subtlety for years, and as of last fall has increased his killing of ethnic Albainians. To date, there are now 200,00 people dead as a result of Milosevic's ethnic cleansing. That is probably a very low figure. 100,000 Kosovar men are now missing, which might be the reason for the mass graves that have been pictured. Nearly one half a million people have been expelled from their homes, many forced out at gunpoint, while the Serbian troops destroyed their identity papers, making them unable to return to their homes. This flood of refugees have overwhelmed neighboring countries, who are economically weak, and are unable to take in all the refugees. 600,000 Kosovars are surviving off the land in mountains nearby. Controversy: -You might wonder what business the U.S. has in a country on the other side of the world, where it seems to be no political interest whatsoever. That is a big controversery of whether or not NATO should be involved. At first I was against NATO involvement for just those reasons, why should NATO get involved where there would be no benefit to us, because this was more of a humanitarian issue. But as I researched this and read more about it, I am in favor of NATO involvement. I believe that we should do everything possible to help stop Tyrants from killing innocent people. Which is what was and is occuring in Kosovo. -But I am against NATO in who, why and how NATO is handling this conflict. Who: -NATO is very hypocritical by saying they got involved in this situation purely because of humanitarian reasons. There have been many occasions where the U.S. looked the other way on bigger humanitarian disasters. In West Africa, there was a similar ethnic cleansing situation where the U.S. did not get involved. Why: -In the begging, where NATO was on the verge of bombing Kosovo, Clinton spoke in a public meeting about why we were getting involved. He said, trying to get public approval, that the reason the U.S. is getting involved is largely an economical reason. He said that this war would help the U.S. financially. By getting involved, we would become partners with Europe, thus increasing a trade relationship. That is what I am against. I am against the U.S./Clinton thinking more about how much money we can get, rather than saving innocent lives from being brutally murdered. -After the bombing had dragged on for longer than expected, which was only about a week in some people's opinion, the objectives were stated as follows: To stop ethnic cleansing, stop flood of refugees into nieghboring countries, stop NATO from splitting, prevent Milosevic from strengthening his grip on the Balkan region. And, after over 2 months of involvement, NATO has not been able to meet those objectives. -Bob Bennet said that the current bombing has been no help to the Albanians and Macedonians, who have seen hundreds of thousands of refugees flood across the borders into their ill-equipped countries. It has been of no help to NATO, an alliance that has seen its military stocks drawn down to dangerously low levels, with no effects on the atrocities going on in the killing fields. -One speculated reason to get involved was because of the military stategic point in the