The Current Discussion: Are the U.S. and Europe right to recognize Kosovo and continue to poke Russia with a stick?

ATHENS - The issue is not whether it is right or wrong to keep baiting Russia, but whether it is right or wrong for the United States to keep rushing headlong into decisions that create more problems than they solve - and whether it is right for the European Union to rubber-stamp those decisions. Russia is incidental to the real issue here, and in fact seems to be baiting the United States and its allies rather more than the United States and Europe are bothering Moscow. Remember the end of the U.S.-led war against Yugoslavia in 1999, when Russian troops entered Kosovo before any NATO allies did? The Russians made their point and left. Now, having taken a clear stand against the United States, the Russians can watch and comment sarcastically as Washington and its allies battle to make an independent Kosovo work.

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ATHENS - In the juggernaut that is a U.S. presidential election, it may be easy for the candidates to forget that the world is bigger than their constituency. Yet the winner will be called upon to take decisions that will determine the future not only of his or her country, but of the whole world. There is nothing new in this: for decades the United States has been the single country that makes the greatest difference in world affairs. What the new president will face, though, is the challenge of governing a country that stands on the brink of decline or revival – one that faces greater domestic and international challenges than ever before, at exactly the time that its powers are diminished and the confidence of its people shaken by economic crisis and military misadventure.

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Question: The producers of the movie "The Kite Runner" had to evacuate three boy actors from Afghanistan because they were involved in a scene portraying homosexual rape. Who's at fault here: the movie producers who exposed the boys to danger, or the Afghan culture that threatens them?

Athens, Greece - Both sides are to blame – but the responsibility of the film producers is greater. Because they believe that they represent a tradition of liberal democracy and tolerance, they should have taken care to protect the boy actors from the anger and bigotry that threatened them in Afghanistan. Those who threatened the boys were acting in character, while those who exposed them to danger were denying the values that they claim to represent through their careless folly.

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ATHENS - There is something surreal in the symmetry of the U.S. intelligence community’s pre-emptive strike against President George W. Bush. It’s as if the intelligence community is acknowledging the old truth that generals always fight a war on the basis of principles learned in the previous one. Burned by its creative ambiguity in the run-up to the Iraq war, the intelligence community now seems to be trying to prevent itself from being used to justify another unnecessary war.

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Athens - It should be the obligation of every individual, every country and every transnational organization to try to prevent - or, failing that, to condemn - a crime of such magnitude as the organized extermination of Turkey’s Armenian population. You are either on the side of right or you are not. So, on the face of it, this should be a simple issue for the United States and for every other country. Reflecting this, the House Committee on Foreign Affairs Resolution 106 claims, “Despite the international recognition and affirmation of the Armenian Genocide, the failure of the domestic and international authorities to punish those responsible for the Armenian Genocide is a reason why similar genocides have recurred and may recur in the future.” It concludes that, “a just resolution will help prevent future genocides.” (That remains to be seen: The Holocaust, though it was officially recognized and its perpetrators were punished, was followed by genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda and “ethnic cleansing,” genocide’s little brother, in several other instances.)

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Observing Turkey, it is worth remembering that the battle between reformers and the state has been taking place -- along shifting frontlines and with different protagonists -- for over a century. Religion is at the center but it is not the only factor. The Young Turks' rebellion against a moribund regime, which lead to the triumph of modernizer Kemal Ataturk and the establishment of a secular republic, began in 1908. Before that, the Sultan's court was often the setting of great struggles between outward-looking modernizers and what we would today describe as hard-line nationalists.

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I agree with everything Tony Blair says about the news media. But I disagree very strongly with the British prime minister on his omission of issues that are far more important than the ones he raises.

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Anti-Americanism in Greece cannot rise much higher than it has been in the past few years, where polls have consistently shown Greeks as the most wary of Europeans regarding Washington’s policies. The reasons are many and have as much to do with domestic politics as with U.S. policy toward Greece, the region and the world.

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Greece, a small country on the tip of the Balkan Peninsula in southeastern Europe, became the 10th member of what is now the European Union in 1981. Since then, both the EU and Greece have changed to a very great extent. Greece’s experience – as the poorest member by far when it joined – may not be indicative of what others will encounter now that the EU comprises 27 members and is undergoing a period of deep introspection. But Greece does show how participation in the union can benefit both sides.

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One can hardly exaggerate the importance of immigrants to Greece. They play a major role in almost all spheres of life, and this has quickly become a net benefit to the immigrants and to Greece as a whole.

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