The Two Sides of the Coin About Hillary Clinton's False Remarks on her Trip to Bosnia

About three weeks ago, Senator Hillary Clinton made clearly false statements about her adventures in Tuzla, Bosnia. She went there twelve years ago to meet with the American troops who were on a mission regarding the Serbian-Bosnian conflict. Her false story can be listened to on Youtube and can be read on different websites as well. The media showed the video which revealed the truth about the then First Lady's visit to Tuzla.

Even the most fanatical supporters would see that there was no "landing under sniper fire", that there was a greeting ceremony, that she and the people accompanying her never "ran with our heads down" and that they were never told "to basically run to our cars" as she stated on March 17, 2008. Bottom line is, should we criticize her the way the media did or should we acquit her because she did not recall well what was happening in Tuzla the moment when she said those misstatements in front of the whole nation on C-SPAN.

I am going to present you the possibility of acquitting her first: Hillary Clinton undoubtedly made a mistake - something that she confessed later in her defense speech. Neither she, nor Former President Bill Clinton ever tried to deny the clear incoherence between her statement on March 17, 2008 and the facts.

However, we all happen to have false memories and we all make mistakes because we are human beings. In fact, it could be not Mrs. Clinton the one who has to be blamed for being exposed telling us false accounts, but the media. Senator Obama is ahead in the Democratic race in so many aspects: he is having a slight lead in the popular vote but it is a lead after all; he is now receiving more money for his campaign which are in some aspects twice or more than twice as much as what Hillary Clinton is currently receiving as contributions; and last but not least, now the media is so infatuated with Mr. Obama that it does not appear to be paying as much attention to his slips as it is with Mrs. Clinton's. Barack Obama did not receive the same amount of criticism about his past connection with Rev. Wright as Hillary Clinton is receiving criticism about her giving false information about herself right now. No wonder if there are people who have already forgotten about his past connections with Rev. Wright and, even more, with those of Antoin "Tony" Resko which connection Senator Obama himself called "a bone-headed mistake". If we do not need a president whose memory does not serve him or her right, then we do not need a president who might make bone-headed mistakes.

Now let's look at the other side of the coin: It is a general truth that the purpose of every statement a candidate for a political post makes in their campaign is to ensure them votes. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John McCain and whoever you might think of, do not tell us, the people, stories about their lives or promises about bright future so that we could relax and know that things will get better. They tell us that stuff because they want us to vote for them, this is out of question. Let's compare the two presidential hopefuls' stands on the issue whether or not the troops in Iraq should be withdrawn. More specifically, let's compare which one of them is talking more about it.

Doubtlessly, it is Barack Obama the one who is more willing to talk about the war. The freshman senator, unlike Senator Clinton, never voted for it so he can afford it. As a result of this advantage, he is in a better position to attack her on this issue because of her vote of approval of the war in 2003. As to Senator Clinton, she can do nothing but talk significantly less about it than her opponent and more about health care and her experience as a former First Lady which give her a trustworthy appearance before the American voter. Notably, it is her bigger experience what she wanted to further expose before the voters by talking about her visit to Tuzla, Bosnia.

Barack Obama can't talk about such experience because he doesn't have it. Spending part of your life in Indonesia is not what this experience is all about. Having met with leaders of other nations gives a candidate a significantly bigger boost than this and Hillary Clinton knows it. Part of her electorate might have chosen to vote for her eventually because it is sometimes speculated that Barack Obama is too young and too inexperienced to be president of the United States of America. Unfortunately for her, her advantage in terms of more international experience might gradually thaw away after those false statements.

Having given false statements about her stay in Bosnia, Mrs. Clinton is facing the challenge of returning the confidence that people have in her. Doing it alone, however, could lead to failure.

Not surprisingly, her husband Bill Clinton came in help. He said of her defense: "A lot of the way this whole campaign has been covered has amused me. But there was a lot of fulminating because Hillary, one time late at night when she was exhausted, misstated and immediately apologized for it, what happened to her in Bosnia in 1995." First of all, Mr. Clinton, I am not sure whether she immediately apologized for it. If anybody thinks that my remark lacks evidence, go to Youtube and watch what political analyst Keith Olbermann's reaction was to her misstatements and, more specifically, observe the part where she clarified what she was saying on Saint Patrick's Day for Philadelphia Daily News. Look at the date: March 24, 2008! I doubt that a week later is an immediate apology.

Besides, she mentioned her experience in Bosnia more than once. Apart from Saint Patrick's Day, she also misremembered this part of her life on February 29, 2007 in Dubuque, Iowa and on February 29, 2008 in Waco, Texas. So it is not like she made a mistake once - she made the same mistake three times. Besides the fact that this is a sign of bad memory, this goes to show how weak of a team she is having. Couldn't they realize that she was not telling the truth right from the beginning? God knows what they have been doing all those three and a half months.

Her misstatements are also not exactly in accordance with what was written in her book "Living History" according to which the ceremony was cut short because of reports of snipers in the hills. And while her book's records seem a little bit more trustworthy, judging by what CBS showed of her trip to Bosnia, it makes me rather reluctant to buy her book - who knows what else there would turn out to be wrong or partially wrong.

Let's return to her reaction for Philadelphia Daily News! She said "I was told we had to land a certain way, we had to have our bulletproof stuff on because of the threat of sniper fire. I was also told that the greeting ceremony had been moved away from the tarmac but that there was this eight year-old girl and also I have I can't, I can't rush by her, I have got to at least greet her so I greeted her, I took her stuff and I left. Now that's my memory of it." People would assume that with what Mrs. Clinton said for Philadephia Daily News, she further worsened her image because it was still not the truth and would therefore ask themselves "Why couldn't she and her team look at the video provided by CBS News and try to formulate a more trustworthy story and therefore wash away the shame?" Well, I personally believe that they actually did it. In fact, I believe that they did it several times and her reaction was one of the best of the possible reactions.

Take into account her last sentence: "Now that's my memory of it." By her false statements about her trip to Bosnia, people's ordinary reaction might most likely be to start to doubt of her candor. This sentence is there so that Senator Clinton could restore their belief of her candor. Isn't a person candid when they justify their misremembering a story of their life with a similar story but still a false one? Think about it. Thereby, I find Keith Olbermann's statement in regards to her reaction for the Philadelphia Daily News that "Senator Clinton appears to be a little fussy on the facts" a little bit irrelevant of a person of his caliber. I think that in his attempt to show firmness in his comments, he went too far - he was too hard on her, harder than he could possibly be.

And last but not least, returning to the former President Bill Clinton's defense of his wife, I do not completely agree with the Jed Report's reaction on its website on his statement that "I think she was the first First Lady since Eleanor Roosevelt to go into a combat zone". It mentions former First Lady Pat Nixon's visit to a war zone of Vietnam in 1969 as an evidence that Mr. Clinton is also not as trustworthy as he appears to be in his statements. Well the people from Jed Report seem to have disregarded the "I think" part in their report which I find as a weakness.

Despite this, I agree with their reaction to his statement justifying his wife's age. Bill Clinton said "And some of them when they're 60 they'll forget something when they're tired at 11:00 at night, too." First of all, they point out that none of her misstatements about her trip to Bosnia was at 11 at night. Honestly, I did not see a concrete evidence such as a clock on the TV screen, for example. However, I do not beg to differ because judging by the atmosphere around Hillary Clinton in those three speeches, I doubt whether the speeches were said at 11:00 at night.

Nevertheless, I completely agree with what they said in their P.S.: "It's even worse that you're blaming her age for her Bosnia lies. If you think she can't tell a straight story at 11 P.M. at night, what's she gonna' do at 3 A.M.?" If you, Mr. Clinton, are blaming her age, what can we say about John McCain? If elected, he is going to be the oldest president in the American history. The U.S. presidency is a very responsible position and if he or she happens to forget something because of exhaustion at 11 P.M., what if he or she gets a phone call at 3 A.M.

Don't get me wrong - the U.S. president is a human being, not a machine and could forget something, but misremembering a whole story is more than that to me. Besides, Senator Clinton might have made a lot of trips and the huge number of trips could therefore be the result of her forgetting some of them. However, trips like going to a warzone to meet with your troops are trips that should have remained in a former first lady's mind.

What if she deliberately made up this story so that people would vote for her? Some people might find this preposterous because, after all, the media in the United States is rather strong and they make a lot of research. In fact, they even find misstatements made by Senator Obama. However, as you can see in my analysis, even the media in the United States does not make thorough researches.

So what if she secretly hoped that nobody would ever notice that she was not telling the truth about her trip to Tuzla, Bosnia, assuming that she knew the exact story? If it is true that she had those secret hopes, then I must point out that she and her campaign team have significantly underestimated the attacks from the media since its existence.

Overall, I reckon that with her false story, Senator Clinton's campaign might go down thus narrowing her lead to Senator Obama in the key state of Pennsylvania a week and a half before the state's primary which will be held on Aprill 22. However, I do not think that Mr. Obama should feel good about it because it might hurt the whole Democratic Party. In fact, in my opinion, the only winner of this situation is Senator McCain because, while the two Democratic hopefuls spend much of their energy arguing with each other other, he will most likely save enough energy for the general elections and be more convincing to the voters as a whole. And this is the last thing the Democratic Party would want.

Democratic Race or Should I Say Democratic Mess

The Pennsylvania Democratic primaries are approaching with three and a half weeks remaining to make any difference in Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's campaigns. This northeast state is considered a Clinton's territory when it comes to the question who is going to win it. What is important, however, is what percentage of the 158 delegates at stake goes to the two presidential hopefuls. Right now Clinton is trailing Obama with more than 100 delegates and it undoubtedly matters how many more delegates than Obama she will get from this state.

Of course, in order for a candidate to win a state in the primaries, endorsements are extremely important if not the most important. Hillary Clinton already has the endorsement of Governor Edward Rendell, while Barack Obama has recently received a key endorsement - that of senator Robert Casey Junior. Contrary to his intentions not to endorse any of the two Democratic hopefuls until right before the primaries, Senator Casey decided to do that. In a news conference after his public announcement, he explained why he had decided to endorse Obama saying the following: "For a long, long time I was not only neutral but an undecided voter. That changed recently. I believe in this guy like I have never believed in a candidate in my life except my father." Those are strong words. Not only are they strong, but one should be rather naive in order to fully believe the Pennsylvania senator. How come somebody, let alone a U.S. senator, be an undecided voter and then all of a sudden starts to believe the person they are going to vote for so immensely that they compare the latter to their father? Actually, it is possible for an undecided voter to make their decision as a final one but I do not believe that the person they are going to vote for turns out to be so trustworthy to them that the only person they believe is more trustworthy is their father. What I mean is, you cannot be undecided yesterday and today be more decided than most of the decided voters. At least that is how I feel about it.

Some say that the reason why senator Casey decided to endorse Mr. Obama instead of Mrs. Clinton is that in the 1992 Democratic National Convention, when Bill Clinton won the Democratic nomination, his father Robert Casey Sr., who was then governor of Pennsylvania, was denied a prime-time speaking position which outraged many of the state's conservative Democrats (governor Casey was a pro-life Democrat and supportive of gun rights).

It makes sense but I doubt that it was decisive. In politics people do not always make decisions because of past facts. Sometimes there are more significant reasons such as better relations and more benefit. Who knows what Barack Obama promised to give Senator Casey in return - endorsements are not always issued because of what the endorsers say in front of the people! Senator Casey is popular among Catholic voters, people who usually vote for Hillary Clinton. This is not the first time that Barack Obama has tried to steal part of her electorate. Days before Super Tuesday, February 5, he received the endorsement of a white woman such as Kansas governor Kathleen Sebelius. White women are another group that prefers Senator Clinton to Senator Obama. With her endorsement, he most likely sought more women to become part of his electorate.

In my opinion, the Democratic race resembles a mess. None of the two candidates has locked up his or her nomination and, except for the Black voters who mostly vote for Barack Obama and the Latino voters who mostly back Hillary Clinton, in every other group of voters it is not very clear which of the two is more popular.

Meanwhile, Senator Clinton recently said that even pledged delegates can switch votes at the National Convention. That is true but she should not rely on it. Honestly, I doubt that she really relies on it. Instead, she is trying to convince people that the race is not over yet and her chances to win the nomination are as good as those of Senator Obama. Some might say that if some of the delegates switch votes at the National Convention and thus elect the candidate with fewer delegates won, then this is not democratic. I rather disagree with such claim. First of all, it is the American people that founded this system of delegates. Second of all, primaries are between members of a party, that is, primaries do not elect an official but a party's candidate. And finally, if not only superdelegates but also delegates having switched their vote are decisive in electing the less popular candidate, if in such a close race we assume that there is a less popular candidate, it will be very likely that this candidate will later lose the general elections because of the party's loyal electorate being in disgust as a result of the events at the National Convention. I strongly doubt that the Democrats will risk losing the presidential race for a third consecutive time. That is why I believe that Hillary Clinton's words must not be taken seriously. Instead, they are just one of her attempts to narrow Obama's lead in delegates by making people believe that voting for her will not be a pointless vote.

However interesting the Democratic race is, Republicans find more benefits in it. Senator John McCain has already started his campaign for the general elections with an ad that can be seen on his website. Some people may argue whether ads are really important in this presidential race. I must say that they are very important because if you go to the CNN website and look more thoroughly at the primaries and caucuses results, you will see that senator Obama's voters see importance of campaign ads to be very big. Perhaps that made them vote for him and if this hypothesis turns out to be correct, then in the general elections ads may turn out to be decisive as well and senator McCain is already ahead in this aspect. Could this mean that the next president will again be a Republican? We are about to see this in November.

My Impression on the Current Events in Tibet

Tibet is located in southwest China. The people who live there are of different ethnic groups but as many might infer, the Tibetan culture is predominant in that region. There are Tibetans outside the territory of Tibet as well. As journalist Adrienne Mong has pointed out in her blog on the MSNBC website, in Aba Prefecture, neighboring Sichuan province, half of the people there are Tibetans. This makes, according to her data about the net population in Aba Prefecture, about 420 000 people.

The unrest that is happening in Tibet is already known worldwide. Leaders such as U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Republican presidential hopeful senator John McCain have urged the Chinese government to stop the unrest. They have also claimed that there are human rights abuses committed to Tibetans. Not only are they firm in their conclusions on the events in Tibet but some of them, like the European Union leaders, have also threatened the Chinese government to boycott this year's inauguration of summer Olympic games in Beijing if it does not eventually get along with the local population. From this aspect, the unrest in Tibet turns out to happen at probably the wrongest time possible. This year's Olympic Games may give bad image to the host country. As a result of this, there could be less income from foreign attendance despite the fact that unrest is far away.

Judging by the current events in Tibet, I get the impression that the Chinese government has not been adequate in its actions toward that region for a long time. On a slideshow in MSNBC about part of the Chinese history, what I read on the last slide immediately grabbed my attention. On this last slide, the reader realizes that there was unrest in Tibet in 1989 and Communist leader of China Hu Jintao ordered martial law in order to deal with it. When there is martial law ordered in a territory, that means that the military has more control and more rights on it and can prescribe more severe punishments than laws do there. No people likes to be under martial law and this may urge bigotry or, if there already is bigotry, it may further develop it. Martial law allows the military to abuse their powers and abusing your powers on somebody will very likely cause this person to hate you more than ever and try to get rid of you ruling him or her.

Apart from the martial law ordered in 1989, if we look at what BBC wrote as information about the conflict, we see that the Chinese central government wanted to centralize the power so much so that it could elect more heads of institutions by itself only. The election of the Dalai Lama does not make an exception. As far as I judge by their reaction, the Tibetans worship the Dalai Lama more or less the same way the American people worship democracy and depriving them of choosing his reincarnation is like depriving U.S. citizens of electing their president. I am absolutely sure that there would be unrest if the U.S. president happened to be elected by anybody but the people of the United States.

In my opinion, the strange thing is that the Chinese government, after imposing itself so much on its people's life, assumed that there would be no limits on their influence on anything there. That is why they were willing to determine the Tibetans' cultural leader.

It looks like even in a communist country there can be harsh protests and unrest regardless of the cost. What unpleasantly surprised me was Beijing's efforts to give false information by anouncing a surprisingly low number of people who have died so far. According to the Asociated Press, the Tibetan government in exile has said that 99 Tibetans have been killed - 80 in Lhasa and 19 in Gansu, while the Chinese government has claimed that there have been 22 people dead.

This is interesting - two sides saying different things about such a conflict. Which source is more trustworthy: the Chinese central government, or the Tibetan government in exile? Here, I think that many people will believe the Tibetan government in exile rather than a communist government as the Chinese government is. However, I do not claim anything before I make sure it is true. On MSNBC's website I opened Adrienne Mong's blog where she described her recent trip in Tibet. In her article, she mentions that on Sunday local residents, from Aba town, informed her of eight bodies having been left outside a major monastery with this number having risen up to 16 by the end of the day.

If the local residents and the Chinese government were correct at the same time, then outside Aba County there would be no more than 6 deaths. This is quite irrelevant, isn't it? Adrienne Mong said that it was hard to verify the information without traveling there so there is still a possibility that what she was told was false. On the other hand, how could everybody say that the Chinese government is correct in this situation?! The fact that there are people in hotels in Tibet who, after having given information about what the Chinese army do there, are afraid to say their names for fear of being harassed by authorities is enough to make us suspicious of Beijing's claims. It looks like what to Adrienne Mong was reported is way more likely to be true.

That's how I see what is currently going on in Tibet. After all, the Tibetan government is in exile right now. No government is in exile for no reasons.

As a whole, in my opinion, if the Chinese government wants to solve this issue as soon as possible, it should give Tibet autonomy. To me, giving autonomy to a subordinate region is a threat to having this region seeking independence in the future. However, this time I doubt that the Dalai Lama's demands of "genuine autonomy", as cited by MSNBC, could one day turn into independence from Beijing. Besides, autonomy has to be given for the sake of the country's stability and also for the sake of the Olympic Games this year. After the Olympic Games, they may establish a strategy on what to do with this region in order not to lose it one day.

Primaries and Caucuses So Far

Roughly two and a half months passed since the beginning of the presidential race in the United States. Most of the two major parties' candidates quitted it before the Iowa caucuses, right after them, or after two or more states having cast their ballots, whether primaries or caucuses. It has been a rather interesting contest so far both in the Republican Party and in the Democratic Party.

Although Republicans already have one of their candidates locked up his nomination, Senator John McCain (R - Arizona), this race did not lack passionate polemics between the candidates such as the one between Mr McCain and former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney. The two accused each other of being liberal. This is the first time I have ever seen this word being used as an insult but it did not amaze me because I know that Republicans are conservative and being liberal is not typical of their party's platform.

Super Tuesday contributed to a new scandal among the Republican presidential hopefuls right in the beginning when it appeared that former Governor of Arkansas Mike Huckabee had won West Virginia, a winner-take-all state, with about 99% of the McCain voters having voted for him thus contributing to his win with 52% versus 47% for Mitt Romney and only 1% for John McCain. After his failure on Super Tuesday, Mitt Romney felt obliged to quit the race and later endorse John McCain for the sake of the party's unity. Mike Huckabee remained in the race until its informal end after the results of the elections in Texas, Ohio, Vermont and Rhode Island which were sufficient for the Vietnam War veteran to eventually lock up his nomination. There is still another rival in the race, Ron Paul. Nevertheless, John McCain is technically the Republican presidential candidate in the general elections having won more than the required 1191 delegates for the Republican National Convention. What remains unclear is who is going to be his running mate.

While Senator McCain can afford to take a rest after having locked up his nomination, on the Democratic side tension is still high. In fact, it has constantly been high especially between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Most of the democratic voters do not even know that there is a third candidate, former senator Mike Gravel from Alaska, but this is not important at all. On March 11 Obama won the Mississippi primaries and now his lead in delegates has increased. Now the difference between the two in terms of delegates is more than 100 to Mr Obama before the pivotal Pennsylvania primary on April 22 where 154 delegates are at stake. Besides, Florida and Michigan may have primaries, this time at stake, through e-mails and hypothetically if Clinton wins both of those states, Obama's lead may shrink which will give Hillary Clinton bigger chances to eventually get the nomination.

What impacted Mrs. Clinton's trailing in the race in my opinion? I believe that she did not manage to play her cards well. First of all, in her attempt to attract the voters, she tried so hard to satisfy them by saying exactly what they want to hear that she frequently changed her stands on the issues. For example, when already resigned governor Spitzer wanted to allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses, she was with him. Then she changed her position on this issue right after Mr. Spitzer changed it. It can be inferred that she wants the presidential post so badly that she is ready to do anything for that.

Second of all, she acted as if she was already president of the United States. This may be a good tactic in order to impress the voters but it may turn out to be a bad one because of some people's getting the impression that the particular candidate is too arrogant and hypocritical.

What made an even greater impact on Senator Clinton's trailing was her husband's playing the racial card in South Carolina where Hillary suffered a great loss mainly because of the black vote there which was 50% of the registered Democrats. About 83% of the African Americans in South Carolina voted for Barack Obama and after the state's primaries the black vote for him increased to around 90%. In my opinion it is Bill Clinton's relating Barack Obama to Jesse Jackson that further separated African Americans from his wife.

A fourth factor was money and endorsements. Senator Obama got a pivotal endorsement from Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius in order to attract female voters. Meanwhile Senator Clinton's having been endorsed by Mr. Spitzer might turn out to be negative for her after his love affairs with a "petite brunette".

As to money, according to opensecrets.org, Barack Obama got almost twice as much as Hillary Clinton on January 2008, $36 060 927 and $18 884 127 respectively.

Overall, it looks like things go well for the Obama campaign and very bad for the Clinton campaign. It is still a close race between the two not only in state delegates but also in the popular vote where Clinton leads by a very small margin.

What if the two eventually run under the same ticket? It would be extremely interesting and at the same time difficult to figure out whether it will be good or bad for the Democratic Party. According to results posted by MSNBC, about 6 out of 10 Obama supporters approve of the two under the same ticket whereas about 4 out of 10 Clinton supporters approve of such option. However, if you have watched CNN in the evening of March 11, the results in the Mississippi primaries show that Mrs. Clinton got more support in mainly Republican areas. So, in November, with Hillary Clinton on the ticket either as a presidential candidate or as a vice-presidential candidate, the Democratic Party my benefit by stealing the Republican electorate from the Republicans which will most likely lead to a broader electoral college and eventually being victorious for the first time since 8 years.

Russia and the Presidential Elections - Past, Present, Future

Russia, the biggest country in the world geographically, may have lost a lot of its power for the past several years but it is still a world power and everybody who thinks that Russia has lost its influence in the world either hasn't read news for the last several years or has never been interested in business or politics.

In my opinion, what happened in the recent presidential elections must not be perceived as a surprise to anybody. President Vladimir Putin's influence in Russia since his tenure started has significantly increased. This goes to show how impressive a politician he is. In most countries, politicians, who win a high office in the executive branch, usually stay there for one or two terms and after that they get replaced by another politician, without them being remembered by the constituency as much as Vladimir Putin will probably be remembered by the Russian people. Moreover, people all over the world usually do not pay as much attention to a politician's endorsement of a candidate as Russians apparently did in the recent elections with Putin's endorsement to Medvedev being critical for the his victory.

People who have followed what was going on in Russia for the last several months were convinced that First Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was going to be the next president. His substantial win of 70.2% brought doubts about whether those elections were fair enough. Election watchdogs reported that the other candidates were denied equal access to the media.

Three or four days ago I watched a report on television featuring Garry Kasparov and the difficulties he faced during his presidential campaign. In this report there was a meeting in a hall where some Russians were discussing the presidential elections. In a dialogue between two women, it became clear that they were unaware of who the other presidential candidates were and what they standed for. Besides, I got the impression that those candidates' organized meetings on the streets were not as aspiring to the people as Mr Medvedev's ones. The only things I heard [from their meetings] in this film were violations of the Constitution and development of organized crime. In order to win elections a candidate should also propose positive changes, not just say what some people want to hear from him or her. For example, they probably mentioned the murders of reporter Anna Politkovskaya and former KGB security officer Alexander Litvinenko. Both of the murders are things Russia should be ashamed of. However, I suppose that they never proposed how to solve such problems – how to prevent future murderers like those ones.

As to Medvedev's campaign, some people from the opposition said that some of the young supporters were paid in order to be present there and scream slogans such as "we need Putin's Russia". I also remember a youths' camp where people were talking about Medvedev as a person who represents Russia's bright future and their being given the best conditions to bear as many kids as possible with his possible ascendance of the presidential post. The latter belief by those youths may be perceived as a sign of Russia's return to its communist period in terms of fanatical belief of something that is not as easy to achieve as it initially looks, bearing a lot of kids, but it is not. History has already shown Russians that communism does not work. If it worked there would still be the Soviet Union and perhaps there would still be the Cold War. Bill Clinton said in his biography written by Allan Metz and Arthur Schlesinger Jr.: "History is constantly being rewritten." However, I sort of doubt that Russia will rewrite its Soviet Union history with its Cold War attitude with the election of Dmitry Medvedev.

In my opinion, instead of turning to the past, with the election of Dmitry Medvedev Russia is looking to the future. At a closer look not only in state but also in international perspective, Mr Medvedev might be the only viable presidential candidate. Let us not forget that he is also Gazprom's chairman. Gazprom, once one of the ministries in Russia, is the most influential provider of gas for Europe. Although it is officially a private company, over 50% of its shares are owned by the Russian government. In this case it may turn out to be that Dmitry Medvedev will even be better a president than Vladimir Putin because now every country talking to Mr Medvedev may directly talk about striking a gas deal instead of talking to Mr. Putin who was something like a mediator between Gazprom and the countries interested in Russian gas. Some may say that it is not good when such an influential figure, as Mr. Medvedev is, is both chairman of a huge corporation and president of the biggest country in the world. Whoever else is Russian president, Gazprom would still be influential so even if it is not Dmitry Medvedev on Russia’s presidential post, I cannot see any big difference in terms of the world market’s status quo. Besides, when Mr. Medvedev talks publicly as Russian president, it will be more or less as if the company talks so it will be easier to figure out what course Gazprom is about to take.

Also, what I recently read in BBC is controversial to the common beliefs that Gazprom is evil in the world market and it makes sense. In an article written by Duncan Bartlett, "Russia's energy giant flexes its muscles", Alexei Pushkov, a professor of International Relations, author and TV presenter said that Russia's being perceived as a gas dictator was wrong by comparing Russia's Gazprom with American oil companies' influence. According to him, those are Russia's and USA's instruments of foreign policy. What he means is that if Russia is to be accused of increasing its influence globally with gas, then so is the U.S. with its oil.

Moreover, Gazprom denies its critics by having foreign investors like American-born James Fenkner, who also has his place in Batlett's article. Mr. Fenkner says that Gazprom listens not only to the Russian government but to its investors as well. It looks like the people in Gazprom know how important foreign investors are in today's business and therefore are now conducting a capitalist policy rather than a communist one.

So my opinion is that in the current Russian political situation, lacking alternatives, Dmitry Medvedev might be the only viable option for the presidential post.

Analysis of the Different Reactions to Kosovo's Declaration of Independence

Today is 21 February 2008: four days after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia without waiting to be recognized first. The whole world, and especially the Balkans, is watching things in Kosovo very carefully and now we see reactions that were initially expected - even before 17 February 2008. Spain, Romania, Slovakia, Cyprus and Greece oppose Kosovo's declaration of independence; Serbia, Russia and China firmly oppose it; USA, UK, France, Germany, Slovenia, Afghanistan and Turkey recognize it; Bulgaria, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina have not decided what their positions are yet. The question is whether those reactions are justified or not.

If we try to see every single country's concerns within its territory and globally, we will see that each of them is right in its current decision.

First of all, Kosovo has been part of Serbia up to now despite U.N. and NATO forces' presence since the end of the war in Kosovo in 1999. In politics no government is going to give up part of its territory for no reasons. Moreover, Kosovo is considered by the Serbians the cradle of the Serbian civilization, so apart from territorial rights, the Serbians claim to have historic rights on this province as well no matter how inconsistent such an argument is. Furthermore, according to the U.N. Charter every U.N. member's territory is intact unless there is unanimity, so this is another thing the Serbians are using right now for the sake of Kosovo's remaining part of Serbia.

Russia and China, two of the five permanent members in the U.N. Security Council firmly oppose Kosovo's declaration of independence because of expected separatist sentiments in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia, Abkhazia (Russia) and Taiwan (China). Recognizing Kosovo from their part would mean that they will have to recognize those provinces as well unless, they show evident hypocrisy. If it was not for [those provinces' negative sentiments toward them], nobody can predict what their reaction would have been. Russia and Serbia have been allies for a long time but Serbians' electing west-oriented president [Boris Tadic] is never considered a good move from Moscow.

There is a group of other European countries that oppose Kosovo's declaration of independence as well. Like Russia and China, they have fears of separatism within their territories as well. Romania and Slovakia are concerned about such possibility among their Hungarian minorities whereas Spain already knows about its Basque region's wish to govern itself regardless of Madrid.

European countries, whose state of the economy is in a good state compared to that of the Balkans as a whole, almost immediately recognized Kosovo. Those countries are UK, France, Germany, Denmark and Italy. And, while in the latter there is a political crisis which is followed by the dissolution of Prime Minister Romano Prodi's government, there are no fears of separatism within the country which gives the Italian government the convenience to recognize Kosovo as an independent country. Furthermore, those countries are far away from the Balkans so the worst thing that they can expect is tension in front of their embassies in Serbia which unfortunately already happened to the Slovenian (because of Slovenia's current leadership of the European Union), to the Albanian and to the U.S. embassies.

Let us look at the way things are going on in the Balkans these days. What is each country's decision on the Kosovo issue and is there anything acceptable in it?! This is a rather interesting question and first of all we have to find out how the Balkan peoples feel about an independent Kosovo. After reading a lot of opinions in the newspapers' forums and also on Youtube, I found out that the Balkan peoples are divided on this issue on two groups and those two groups are religious - on the one side we have Orthodox Christians, and on the other side we have Muslims. Basically, each of those two groups is defending the people with which they have common religion. The Balkans have historically been a hotbed of nationalism, as well as ethnic and religious conflicts and it seems that these sentiments are still brewing.

However, on governmental level such passionate issues are, fortunately, not determining. Good examples are Bulgaria, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Those three countries have not come to a decision yet whether to recognize Kosovo or not. I believe that they have a reasonable explanation to take their time. First of all, Bosnia-Herzegovina is an unstable federation - unstable because of the region of Serbian Republic where the Bosnian Serbs are. The latter are rather agitated because of Kosovo's declaration of independence and threatened to do the same thing as Kosovo had done on 17 February 2008. As to the Bulgarian and Macedonian governments, I believe that they have made the best decision - wait in order to see whether the plan "Ahtisaari" works and then take a decision. It looks like that they use their minds and not what their people say because not always the people are correct. What would have happened if Bulgaria and Macedonia had been among the first states to have made a decision? Their names would have constantly been mentioned in the media since Kosovo's initial intentions last week. However, instead of searching for popularity, Sofia and Skopje are waiting for their turn - not to be the first and not to be the last countries to recognize or not to recognize Kosovo's declaration of independence. I believe that it makes sense because they would not want their decisions to be one of the most remembered.

Bulgaria and Macedonia are presented with yet another delicate situation in their decision whether or not to recognize Kosovo, as the countries have their own minority population - Turkish and Albanian respectively. Bulgarian Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev recently said that Bulgaria was economically vulnerable, most probably referring to the commonly accepted fact that wherever there is a vulnerable economy, there is a higher possibility of separatist sentiment. However, in terms of separatism, Bulgaria is in times better situation than is Macedonia. While, in 2001 there was unrest in Macedonia's western territory where there is an Albanian population, Bulgaria has never had any problems with its Turkish minority in Rhodope Mointain.

Greece's and Cyprus' decisions not to recognize Kosovo is relevent because recognizing Kosovo would most likely mean that they would also have to recognize the Turkish Cypriot Republic. Albania's and Turkey's recognition of Kosovo was a move that was expected by the Balkan peoples. However, I believe that Ankara's decision was not well reconsidered because its eastern territory's population is Kurdish-dominated and the Turks recently had clashes with them.

The Future of Kosovo to be Decided Soon

The Serbian province of Kosovo, with capital Pristina, is expected to declare independence on 17 February 2008. Kosovo's Albanian majority wants to separate the province from its belonging to the territory of Serbia and continue its existence as an independent country. However bright Pristina's ambitions look at first sight, the entire procedure is rather long and delicate. Even if Kosovo declares independence on 17 February 2008 and thus become an independent country, gloomy days await its people. Internationally, most EU countries and the U.S. support an independent Kosovo, but Serbia and Russia firmly oppose it. After it lost Montenegro in 2006, Serbia will not easily let another part of its territory separate from it. Belgrade already came out with a warning - if Kosovo becomes independent, there will be high taxes imposed by the Serbian government to Kosovans who would like to enter Serbia for whatever reasons. I assume that other inconveniences to Pristina will be imposed. Kosovo may be denied good relations with Serbia in terms of business and any other kind of support that is common between countries such as humanitarian aid, for example. The latter is needed in Kosovo since there is high unemployment rate, about 40% of the population, and common needs such as water and electricity are not being delivered on a permanent basis. What people who are not involved in the conflict would ask themselves in this case is why the Albanian majority in Kosovo would want independence since the living conditions are harsh. The answer lies in the 1999 war there when Serbian troops entered the province and tried to banish the Albanian population. I believe that their not wishing to be subordinate to a government whose troops tried to expatriate them is what caused their decisiveness in creating a new state.

However, not everyone in Kosovo supports a possible independence. Let us not forget the province's northern part where the majority is Serbian. Serbians are a minority in Kosovo, only 5% of the entire population, and, although they are a majority in the province's northern part, they are concerned about a possible independence which would separate them from Serbia. Moreover, although they are a majority in the province's northern part, they are concerned about possible hostilities toward them from the Albanian majority in Kosovo as a whole and that is why they see the Serbian government as their last hope.

The plan drawn by former UN envoy at the Kosovo status process negotiations Martti Ahtisaari that might be applied if Kosovo becomes independent is the least bad. If his plan is followed in an independent Kosovo, the latter will have limited arm forces, strong provisions for the Serbian minority, commitment to multicentric democracy, and any part of Kosovo's territory being denied joining another country.
At first sight this plan is terrific: Serbian minority will be satisfied and there will be multicentric democracy. Overall the entire population will be satisfied in such case. Furthermore, limited arm forces will not allow Kosovo to even try to harm any country in the region if Pristina decides to do so, not to mention the prohibition of joining any country. The latter follows an initial prediction that since Albanians are a majority in Kosovo, they would like not only to separate themselves from Serbia but also to join the country where their origins are from. Think of a bigger Albania - countries in the region would fear it and, what would be even more disturbing would be the growing Albanian population in the western part of Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia who would probably like to do the same - join Albania. Imagine the today's Albania adding Kosovo and western Macedonia - it will double in size.

However, the plan drawn by Martti Ahtisaari looks too naive to me. All those conditions that it would impose will be temporary - sooner or later Kosovo will most likely have their own army; sooner or later strong provisions for the Serbian minority will be cut; sooner or later this multicentric democracy might turn into unicentric. I base my latter interpretation on the fact that Kosovo lacks any data about its current population, not to mention the data about its proportion and about the two ethnic groups' fertility rates.

Nevertheless, no matter how many people currently live in Kosovo and what percentage of them are Albanians or Serbians, those two ethnic groups are extremely different - they speak different languages and have different religions and custom so in this regard even if Kosovo becomes independent it will be separated and there will be bigotry within its territory until there are those two ethnic groups.

That is why I strongly believe that not the entire province of Kosovo should declare independence if independence is inevitable. In order for a more stable environment in the Balkans I believe that at least northern Kosovo, where Serbians are a majority should belong to Serbia.