If she thinks her landing into Bosnia was corkscrew, wait until she sees her landing between now and November.

I can understand where she is coming from though. I mean, all of us old battle axes tell war stories - commonly known as fairy tales.

Since Hillary has not only not served in the Military, but holds it in deep disdain, she does not realize that war stories - commonly known as fairy tales - are stories you tell over a couple of beers. They are not stories you use to hold an auditorium full of gullible voters spell-bound to your awesomeness, as she did last December. You also do not relate your vast international crisis management experience at 3 AM on the afore-mentioned war story - also known as a fairy tale.

She said she saved Kosovar refugees by persuading Macedonia to reopen its border. And in a direct jab back at Obama, she recalled visiting Bosnia on a plane that made a tight corkscrew landing to avoid potential attacks. “Somebody said there might be sniper fire,” she said, adding tartly, “I don’t remember anyone offering me tea on the tarmac.”

What is most laughable about Hillary’s entire claim of the danger she was exposed to - repeatedly, according to her - is it probably all evolved out of a practical joke by an enterprising military person.

“Welcome Mrs. Clinton, I am Chief Master Sergeant Thompson. We’re on approach now. Please fasten your seatbelt tightly because we are going to have to maneuver evasively as we land to reduce our risk of being shot down. Also, Mrs. Clinton, there is a possibility we could come under sniper fire, so if you hear anyone yell ‘Bravo! Bravo!’ immediately take cover. Do you have any questions for me?”

Sinbad remembers the trip being a lot different.

Now, Senator Clinton says she “misspoke” and it was a “minor blip” - hog wash. She has been telling this story to voters for months. And last week she said,

During a speech last Monday on Iraq, she said of the Bosnia trip: “I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

But her book tells a different story.

“Due to reports of snipers in the hills around the airstrip, we were forced to cut short an event on the tarmac with local children, though we did have time to meet them and their teachers and to learn how hard they had worked during the war to continue classes in any safe spot they could find,” Clinton wrote.

Her campaign has reduced this to a single event - something that happened last week, but let me remind you of that December Iowa talk to her voters. I guess it depends on what your definition of “one time” is.

A recent email thread prompted me to write again about Kosovo. It’s important for people to get an understanding of why there is so much support for Kosovar independence and why Serbia - which would welcome entirely different relations with the US or the West in general – garners no support at all.

I have mostly focused on US efforts to gain the love of Muslims and our projection of power in Russia’s backyard as the main reasons for the US position on Kosovo. However, there are other issues.

The destruction of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and the relegation of Serbia to the West’s whipping boy came about because of the nationalist ambitions of every ethnic group making up the soviet-era Yugoslavia. The Serbian military support for Bosnian and Croatian Serbian nationalists was probably the geopolitical catalyst for NATO action against them. Milosevic bit off way more than he could chew with Bosnia and Croatia. He drew a line in the sand with regards to those two countries and was thrown under the bus by those he supported. I don’t know specifically if Milosevic was guilty of any war crimes because of the orders he issued. I know he was castigated because of his support for the Serbian uprising across the Balkans - but when it came time to talk in Dayton, as far as diplomacy was concerned, Milosevic was offered all stick and no carrot.

It may be an over-simplification of the issue, but the NATO/US actions against Serbia to stop genocide was a fallacy. A year before Srebrenica the world watched and did nothing as 800,000 Hutus and Tutsis were killed. Yet, Milosevic was seen – as much as Mladic – as the reason 8,300 men and boys were killed and 40,000 residents displaced in Srebrenica.

I have no love for Milosevic. I see him as an oppressive communist with nationalist ambitions of returning Serbians to glory throughout the Balkans. Yet, despite a lack of war crimes evidence against him, Milosevic seems to have been as much a victim of Srebrenica as those who were murdered there. The atrocities at Srebrenica killed him too. Those who were more directly involved in the atrocities are still at large, and the Serbian government is being held responsible for that – fair treatment or excuse to break up a nation? You decide.

Just as anyone else who had an interest in the region, NATO was filling a strategic vacuum and the straw man was genocide. These days, if you look at the news reports, you don’t see a lot of reference to NATO. The terms used now are “international community”, UN, US, and EU as the diplomacy becomes more “civil” in nature - which brings us to Kosovo being carved out of Serbia. Call it whatever you want, but that is exactly what is happening – no different from the parceling that occurred at the end of the Great War. And the reasons are no different, either.

Since 2000, Serbia has had diplomatic relations restored with many countries, including the US, and has rejoined the OSCE and the United Nations. Underscore: Serbia is a member of the United Nations. In 2003, the United States confirmed that Serbia was operating under its commitments of Dayton-Paris. Underscore: Serbia is not in violation of any treaties or “international law”. There is still a carrot and stick scenario for Serbia - again mostly stick. Serbia can ostensibly get back into western favor and join the EU; the stick seems to be lose Kosovo.

The question of Kosovo independence is about what - ethnic demography? Muslims have displaced and oppressed Serbians from this region since the reign of the Ottoman Empire. Kosovo is recognized as a part of a sovereign Serbia in UN resolution 1244. That resolution also requires the KLA to demilitarize – has it done so? That resolution also allows the UN to facilitate a political process to determine the future status of Kosovo. Facilitate a process – the last time I checked - did not mean impose. It means to be the non-interested party in a discussion between the principles in such a way as to keep the discussion alive. The UN is not facilitating the discussion; it is declaring “independence for Kosovo as the only viable option”.

To me, western nations are making the same grunting noises now that were being made during the aftermath of the Great War. Britain, France, and Italy were still steeped in the imperial traditions during the parceling of the Ottoman Empire. I don’t see a great deal of difference between the European Union today and the European parties of the Entente 100 years ago. Back then America was an undecided observer/participant with no real aims for the region – especially since Russia was out of the picture when the Bolshevik kicked off. Today, Kosovo seems to have a two-fold appeal to our government. The first is to show Muslims across the world that the US is not anti-Muslim. The second is to have a strategic bridgehead in or near Russia’s sphere of influence. Kosovo suffices are part of both missions.

My opposition to an independent Kosovo is - ironically – in agreement with what appears to be Russia’s position. Yet, Russia is in a push-pull situation because the Kremlin position on Kosovo is in direct contravention with its position on South Ossetia. However, think of all of the separatist movements existing in just about every nation on the globe. Kosovo can easily become the catalyst for each of those movements to have some measure of international credibility as independent nation-state candidates. Is the UN going to “facilitate” the destruction of those nations too - France, Britain, China, Russia, Georgia, etc? How can you be so sure?

I cannot conceive, nor has it been posed, what we intend to gain by supporting Kosovar independence from Serbia. I have said several times in these pages there is only the obvious desire to show our “even-handedness” to Muslims. We really have no dog in this race. We may get a military base out of this, but with a few thousand troops in the area, we have that already.

We have used the United Nations to conspire the break-up of a member nation for no clear reason other than to gain favor with terrorists. Kosovo is the United States’ Balkan Tragedy.

UPDATE: