AWC: Please Mr. President, Don't Make Promises to Fools - by John Taylor

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Please Mr. President, Don't Make Promises to Fools -"When goods don't cross borders, soldiers will."

In the Balkans, the U.S. readily accepted the results of a plebiscite in the Serbian province of Kosovo in which the population voted nine to one for independence. With American support, Kosovo became a sovereign state in February 2008. At the same time, the U.S. seemed to say that some separatist movements are more equal than others. American support for the will of the people as registered on ballots did not extend to the breakaway South Ossetia and Abkhazia regions, which had largely been beyond the control of the Georgian government since the fall of the Soviet Union. Both regions had voted overwhelmingly for separation from Georgia and had welcomed Russia troops as protectors from the Georgian military. The U.S. embassy in Tbilisi felt compelled to issue a press release to mollify its Georgian friends: "The United States has long held that each separatist conflict anywhere in the world is unique. Indeed, the situation in Kosovo is a special case and does not serve as a precedent for other regions, including the Abkhazia and South Ossetia regions of Georgia."