I have to say, as an American, born in the Balkans, who spent time living there, researching contemporary history and inter-relations (my interest has been in Balkan languages and certain syntactic commonalities that exist there), I do take a jaundiced view of the EU on these issues. To this day, a man like Peter Handke is anathema in Europe precisely because his "Justice for Serbia" quest rings so hollowly against the media coverage of the time. When European interests are at stake in a war such as Kosovo, I do believe the European media can be as misleading as the American one in Iraq. The truth comes, eventually, so the saying goes, but my view of the wars (I spent a year in Padova, Italy, watching much of the Italian and European media) was definitely colored by my access to alternative sources other than European media.

A real good study of the decade would have to begin with questions about the IMF and World Bank in 1980s Yugoslavia. Here we are talking about a proud Communist country whose economy became a basket case overnight.

Then we have to ask what interest Germany really took in recognizing the former Yugo's so quickly? There are a lot of important highways running from Central Europe into Turkey. From the viewpoint of Greece, I see a lot of European self-interestedness when it comes to Turkey. And the EU, concertedly, can push an agenda as well as anyone.