So tell me: when has making an utter ass out of yourself on the international stage served to do anything other than...making an ass out of yourself?

Now secession is a tricky thing. We have experience with that here in the U.S., and our experiment with secession resulted in the decimation of our population and years of violence and misery. I have often wondered what the population and dynamic of the U.S. would be today if we hadn't had lost 618,000 men in the Civil War? I find nothing immediately that gives a solid count of civilians killed (although a good deal on reprisal killings), but I've read numbers that said a third of the South's population died during the war.

Do a people have the right to secede? Where should other governments step in? In areas that have suffered genocide, I think it's a good idea for someone with no vested interest to step in and negotiate a settlement between the two and hammer out an agreement that is a compromise between everyone's wishes.

Torching an embassy makes Serbia look so.....Cold War Russia.

Dime store tutorial of Serbia. Founded in 1918. Changed it's name to Yugoslavia in 1929 (United Slavic States?). Have been fighting each other since WW2. Josip Tito steered the country from 1945 up until his death in 1980 (behind the scenes pushing his hand picked appointees). 1991 found Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia magically declaring independence. Kosovo was the home to Ethnic Albanians until, responding to the strengthening of Kosovo's paramilitary presence, Serbian forces responded and began their campaign of ethnic cleansing (also known as systematic slaughter). Fast forward through the U.N. intervention (and my BIG BEEF with Bill Clinton for failing to go in and provide U.S. Groundtroops to support the U.N.'s work), and Milosevic's arrest and trial for Crimes Against Humanity.

In fact: "The Indictment charges Slobodan Milosevic, Milan Milutinovic, Dragoljub Ojdanic, Nikola Sainovic and Vlajko Stojiljkovic on the basis of individual criminal responsibility....and superior criminal responsibility with: one count of violations of the laws or customs or war and four counts of crimes against humanity (deportation, murder, persecutions for political, racial or religious grounds; other inhumane acts)." http://www.un.org/icty/glance/milosevic.htm

Other inhumane acts?

Rape camps. Taking Albanian women prisoners and "giving" them to a unit to use as they saw fit. The slaughter of Albanian children. Burning orphanages. Continuing a campaign of terror.

I'm not very fond of Serbia, am I?

Kosovo should be allowed to secede. You guys STILL hate each other - why on earth would you want to be one country?

I didn't see the Serbs setting fire to the embassies of anyone else who recognized Kosovo's declaration of indepence. Why?