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Kosovo's US-backed declaration of independence is deeply troubling. By setting a precedent of legitimizing the secession of disaffected minorities, it weakens the long-term viability of multi-ethnic states. In so doing, it destabilizes the already stressed state-based international system.States as diverse as Canada, Morocco, Spain, Georgia, Russia and China currently suffer problems with politicized minorities.They are deeply concerned by the Kosovo precedent.Even the US has latent sovereignty issues with its increasingly politicized Hispanic minority along its border with Mexico.It may one day experience a domestic backlash from its support for Kosovar independence from Serbia.Setting aside its global implications, it is hard to see how Kosovo constitutes a viable state. Its forty percent unemployment is a function of the absence of proper economic and governing infrastructures.In November 2007, a European Commission report detailed the Kosovo Liberation Army's failure to build functioning governing apparatuses.The report noted that "due to a lack of clear political will to fight corruption, and to insufficient legislative and implementing measures, corruption is still widespread… Civil servants are still vulnerable to political interference, corrupt practices and nepotism." Moreover, "Kosovo's public administration remains weak and inefficient."The report continued, "The composition of the government anti-corruption council does not sufficiently guarantee its impartiality," and "little progress can be reported in the area of organized crime and combating of trafficking in human beings."Additionally, the prosecution of Albanian war criminals is "hampered by the unwillingness of the local population to testify" against them.This is in part due to the fact that "there is still no specific legislation on witness protection in place."The fledgling failed-state of Kosovo is a great boon for the global jihad.It is true that Kosovar Muslims by and large do not subscribe to radical Islam. But it is also true that they have allowed their territory to be used as bases for Al Qaida operations; that members of the ruling KLA have direct links to al Qaida; and that the Islamic world as a whole perceived Kosovo's fight for independence from Serbia as a jihad for Islamic domination of the disputed province.According to a 2002 Wall Street Journal report, al Qaida began operating actively in Kosovo, and the rest of the Balkans in 1992. Osama bin Laden visited Albania in 1996 and 1997. He received a Bosnian passport from the Bosnian embassy in Austria in 1993. Acting on bin Laden's orders, in 1994 his deputy, Ayman Zawahiri set up training bases throughout the Balkans including a training center in Mitrovica, Kosovo. The Taliban and al Qaida set up drug trafficking operations in Kosovo to finance their operations in Afghanistan and beyond.In 2006, John Gizzi reported in Human Events that the German intelligence service, BND confirmed that the 2005 bombings in Britain and the 2004 bombings in Spain were organized in Kosovo. Furthermore, "the man at the center of the provision of the explosives in both instances was an Albanian, operating mostly out of Kosovo…who is second ranking leader of the Kosovo Liberation Army, Niam Behzloulzi."Then too, at its 1998 meeting in Pakistan, the Organization of the Islamic Conference declared that the Albanian separatists in Kosovo were fighting a jihad. The OIC called on the Muslim world to help "this fight for freedom on the occupied Muslim territories."Supporters of Kosovo claim that as victims of "genocide," Kosovar Muslims deserve independence. But if the Muslims in Kosovo have been targeted for annihilation by the Serbs, then how is it that they have increased from 48 percent of the population in 1948 to 92 percent today? Indeed, Muslims comprised only 78 percent of the population in 1991, the year before Yugoslavia broke apart.In recent years particularly, it is Kosovo's Serbian Christians, not its Albanian Muslims that are targeted for ethnic cleansing. Since 1999, two-thirds of Kosovo's Serbs — some 250,000 people — have fled the area...By Caroline B. Glick
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As in the days of Noah...
