Well, you know the feeling is that those nations that gave "recognition" to the "republic of kosovo" should be the ones to shoulder the costs. This is not just about costs. It's also about what Europe claims as "its values." Did you read the EUobserver article? The status quo with Kosovo whould have been much cheaper if you are concerned about euros and eurocents.

I can't speak for the other Balkans' governments, but Serbia has done all it reasonably can to cooperate on this issue. The whole region cannot be punished after progress for want of a couple of criminals. I believe that Serbia once asked for outside help in catching the war criminals, including the German services.

The nationalism in Serbia waxes and wane according to the progress being demonstrated toward European integration. The demands for inductees just empowers the Milosevic throwbacks - and they are still a factor is Serbian politics, as we see in the current crisis...

Also, the European project should not be ground to a halt but needs to make compromises, some rather painful.

i.e. Don't arrest some of the war criminals, arrest all of them. All the Serbs who committed war crimes in Bosnia and Kosovo, all the Croats too. In fact, Agim Ceku committed a massive war crime at Operation Storm. As well as some others.

Carla del Ponte's hands have been tied at the court. If you look up the name Ramush Haradinaj, you'll find that people inside the uN went out of their way to sabotage del Ponte's investigation. In other words, the ICTY plays favorites which isn't a good thing for putting war criminals in the dock or for international justice.

NO!

The Nazis behind the Holocaust were hunted down as they  scattered to the four corners of the Earth. There was no talk about keeping (West) Germany from Euro-Atlantic integration because notorious Nazis criminals were not located.

See:
In South America, a 'Last Chance' to Hunt Down Nazi War Criminals
Hunt for Nazi war criminal focuses on Spain

Granted, it is fair to point out that one of the purposes of integrating West Germany into NATO had to do with addressing the Soviet threat. However, the European project and stability of the region is vastly more important that a few wanted bad guys.

Now I never wrote that the charges should be dropped and the search for any of the indictees stopped. A nation may also prosecute its own for war crimes. What should be the standard for all the nations with indictees on the run are good faith efforts to search and find indictees, and cooperate with the ICTY. Good faith efforts does not imply that the charges against the wanted criminals be dropped and horrible crime excused.

See:
Del Ponte Praises Serbia's Cooperation With Tribunal

Those that want to bring Serbia into the European Union have worked hard and even risk their lives to build  "European Serbia." The nationalism waxes and wains according to events, but most people in Serbia want to join the EU. The EU also funded the democratic opposition while Milosevic was still in power. Serbia is not an enemy of the EU and integration into Europe, especially the SAA would help curb the nationalists. nationalis can be drummed out of Serbia, but it will require outside help from especially the European Union.

"Milosevic" is not Serbia - and Serbia is not "milosevic!"

God save us from children with kalashnikovs. Find a grown-up and then we'll talk.

Opinions from the Guardian are fine, but reseacrh papers are even better. Research project from summer 2006 class on Serbia's intergration efforts into the EU. I had to keep this under 20 pages as required for the course rules: The building of European Serbia: How the European Union is winning in the Balkans - July 2006

Now - go get your daddy and we'll talk!

...recently, she has been political adviser to the prime minister of Kosovo.

She currently teaches at the Kosovo Institute of Journalism and Communication and the New School University in New York.

I'm becoming ever more the hardened cynic on the type of moral outrage that overlooks the fact that Kosovo is now almost perfectly cleansed of any minorities. The more charitable commentary about her points that I can think of here was provided by Rebecca West in the 1930s:

"English persons... of humanitarian and reformist disposition constantly went out to the Balkan Peninsula to see who was in fact ill-treating whom, and, being by the very nature of their perfectionist faith unable to accept the horrid hypothesis that everybody was ill-treating everybody else, all came back with a pet Balkan people established in their hearts as suffering and innocent, eternally the massacree and never the massacrer.
Rebecca West,  Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

Nikolic, current stand-in leader of the radical party, was Milosevic's deputy
Well, yes but a. he lost b. he lost despite nearly a decade of the EU and the US doing almost everything in their power to bring the Radicals to power c. he wasn't Milosevic's deputy but the vice president in a coalition government between Milosevic and the Radicals, a government of "National Unity" as the Kosovo crisis began the course that would lead in a year's time to NATO's aggression. But that was not the average state of relationships between the Radicals and Slobo's Socialists, indeed most of the 1990s the Radicals were sworn enemies of Milosevic (and nearly everybody else) to the point that Seselj and Nikolic served a couple of months prison time in 1995 (for a demonstration in Kosovo actually). To claim that the Radicals were some sort of "natural" allies of the Socialists is insincere. The Socialists (who weren't socialist of course) needed them to show the world that there are plenty of lunatics ready to take their place should they be ousted. The Socialists were basically driven by their desire to remain in power. It seemed to me (at quite a distance and through the distorted views of the coverage of events in Yugoslavia in both the Greek and the English speaking press) at the time that Milosevic would declare himself a new Ghandi had he believed that it would keep him in power. The Radicals, in contrast, were driven especially under Seselj, by pure and unadulterated nationalist/neofascist wingnuttery and dementia.

The acting orthodox Patriarch replacing Patriarch Pavle who is ill, is not a permanent position and anyway Amfilohije is a very versatile type of guy that backed Djuganovic, IIRC in Montenegro.

As for the rest:

Kosovo was part of Serbia in the simple legal sense that it was part of its territory. Nationalist historical claims are diverse and always dubious, but one fact seems incontestable: that for over a century there was a murderous tug of war between the competing nationalisms.

There were a number of options available as to the final status of Kosovo. Realistically in none of them Serbia would get to keep but a small part of Kosovo in the long term, but the negotiations were a farce, since the Albanian side had the international "referee" on its side: it didn't need to budge or engage in anything. It didn't. Serbia was presented with a fait accompli and was told that regardless of whether it signed or not, it would lose national territory by Western fiat, something that in much bloodier seccesionist struggles the world over was never an option for the minority - as it certainly wasn't for the Kraijna Serbs who weren't even offered reasonably limited autonomy (and Babic IMMHO was generally a result of not the reason for Croat intransigence).

The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom - William Blake

What is needed are for the forces of good and Europeanism to be supported in Serbia, so that Serbia can get back on the path to Europe. Again, the EU gave support to democratic opposition when Milosevic was still in power - and the Union has too much invested and too much at stake in Serbia.

The why now is good, as the timing of this "independence declaration" is bad, given that nationalism is still a factor in Serbian politics. The pro-Europe Boris Tadic just squeaked out a victory over the nationalist candidate. If Kosovo was to ever get independence, this was never the right time.

There is something else to this, and perhaps the US is vastly more powerful and intimidating for the rest of the international community. I'd like to see the UN address this more, as well as the EU provide more support for pro-EU Serbian leaders.