The ugly face of US imperialism just got uglier

The ugly face of US imperialism just got a whole lot uglier.

Notes from a Common-place Book: Time to Move On, We're Told

Condeleeza Rice is losing patience with Serbia.

In Washington, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said it was time for Serbs to accept that Kosovo is no longer theirs. She also suggested it was time to drop centuries of grievance and sentimentality in the Balkans. 'We believe that the resolution of Kosovo's status will really, finally, let the Balkans begin to put its terrible history behind it,' Dr. Rice said Friday.

Oh, really. Her message to Serbia seems to be something like this: We are America and we know what is best for you. We have divvied-up your country in a manner we think best, and it is high time for you to stop your whining and learn to live with it.

But I have saved the best for last. Rice continues:

'I mean, after all, we're talking about something from 1389 – 1389! It's time to move forward.'

With the President out of the country--last seen getting-down, so to speak, with some Liberian tribal dancers--this statement is easily the most inane commentary coming from the Bush administration in recent memory.

Of course, unlike the mess in Iraq and Afghanistan, this one was not created by the Bush administration, but was one they inherited from the previous Clinton administration. But they seem to be handling it just as ineptly.

Any doubts that the USA saw its role as bully to the world have now been laid to rest -- we've just had it from the horse's mouth.

Kosovo UDI a headache for Canada

clipped from www.reuters.com Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia is a headache for Canada, which needs to find a way of recognizing the new state without boosting the fortunes of separatists in its French-speaking province of Quebec. Polls indicate that around half of Quebecers support the idea of independence for the province of 7.5 million. The Parti Quebecois, now in opposition in the provincial legislature, said that if Canada recognizes a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo it would have to treat a similar move by Quebec the same way.

And then, of course, there was the speedy recognition granted to Ian Smith's Rhodesia, and "homelands" like Transkei, Bophuthatswana, etc.