On this Memorial Day weekend, we think back and remember the valiant courage and heroic sacrifices of those United States Military men and women who gave their all for us. War is almost always bloody. But the peace it can bring soothes some of the pain for those left behind.

This is all the more reason to regret a situation in which fecklessness squanders the gains paid for in blood. A prime example is found in Kosovo, where the United Nations has played a leading role.

The Deutsche Welle yesterday relayed a report from the Brussels—based International Crises Group (ICG) that says that the UN Administration (UNMIK) in Kosovo 'lacked credibility and was scrambling for an 'escape strategy'".  Six years after Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic cried 'uncle' after a NATO bombing campaign, the situation in Kosovo is deteriorating rapidly.  The ICG report said, 

"Recent weeks have seen an escalation in tension between (the two main ethnic Albanian political parties) so bitter that it risks spiraling into killings."

Readers of AT were warned last July, as US forces were withdrawing from Bosnia and downsizing its forces in Kosovo, that the EU and the UN were already in trouble trying to enforce the provisions outlined in numerous agreements and cease—fire accords. 

During the 90s, the Clinton administration looked the other way as weapons and aid from the Middle East flowed to Muslim fighters in the Balkans.  Thanks to his national security team's deliberate deception, the Balkans region is now a 'one—stop shop' for terrorists all the way from Chechnya to Afghanistan and Iraq.

It appears that UNMIK has been conducting its own cover—up regarding the situation in Kosovo.  The report said,

...the UN had been coddling ethnic Albanian politicians to the point of denying the existence of rival "party intelligence structures" which threatened to erupt into unrest as soon as the UN washed its hands of the province. "UNMIK is devoting most of its energy to producing a sufficiently convincing facade ... to allow Kosovo to pass the test that will open the final status process," it said.

This sad situation remains the quagmire the legacy media refuses to cover, and they were the ones who were instrumental in convincing a great many Americans and our politicians that US intervention was somehow in our national interest.  Meanwhile, we are still looking for the casus belli provided by the Serbs for our war in Southeastern Europe and searching for those hundreds of thousands of Balkan citizens in mass graves.  I'm sure Kofi Annan and the UN will render a full report on the results of their search any time now.

Douglas Hanson is our National Security correspondent.