A Moslem country that likes us!
An article by Michael Totten on Kosovo. This is a country filled with Moslems of the kind we want to dominate the future of Islam.
Sample quotes:
I’ve been in Prishtina, the capital, for four days, and I can count the number of women I’ve seen wearing a hijab on one hand.
The largest street downtown was renamed Bill Clinton Boulevard. Many businesses are likewise named after Clinton. One cafe owner called his establishment “Hillary” and placed two gigantic pictures of Bill and Hillary on the walls. Don’t assume, though, that this makes Kosovars Muslim versions of Euro-lefties. Clinton is rightly hailed as a liberator, but one resident told me “We are Republicans here in Kosovo.” They want a strong American President who won’t back down from commitments.
Accomplished businessman and practicing Muslim Luan Berisha told me that 90 percent of Kosovars support Israel in the Arab-Israeli conflict. I don’t know if that’s really true. But if so it means Kosovo is more pro-Israel than even the United States. And even if he was exaggerating, it was an intriguing– and telling–exaggeration. No one in any Arabic country would say such a thing. Whatever sneaking sympathy for Israel might exist here and there in the Arab world is vehemently denied by just about everyone else. Kosovo sharply contrasts also with nearby Serbia on this question, where General Wesley Clark is seen as a sinister Jewish figure who plotted Belgrade’s destruction, and where Saddam Hussein was considered an ally
Tags: Balkans, international politics, Islam, Kosovo, politics
May 19, 2008 at 1:33 pm
While you are correct that ethnic nationalism trumps religion, it is that ethnic nationalism, common in the Balkans, which is in many ways as much a danger to stability than religious extremism.