Wednesday, March 05, 2008

The Little Things

Kosovo has declared independence from Serbia, pissing off the Serbs. Greece and Turkey are scowling at each other over Cyprus. Greece and Macedonia are grousing at each other over Macedonia's name. Georgia and Russia are perpetually at each others' throats over assorted breakaway regions in Georgia. And now Azerbaijan and Armenia are actually killing troops over a little pocket of ethnic Armenians. This is to say nothing of the ongoing conflicts in parts of the world other than southeast Europe, the fight that never stops in Sri Lanka, the turmoil in Thailand and the Philipines, etc.

You'd probably like a point about now. My point is that with all the attention given to one ethnic conflict between Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews, all these other little countries most Americans never think about, may never have even heard of, tend to sneak up on us. Remember World War One, when a bunch of parochial little mishaps led everyone into a pointless conflagration of death and mustard gas? If we don't start paying attention to all the tiny little countries, it'll happen again in no time. Hell, it may well be too late even now.

Watch out for the ethnic Catalan in France next.

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