Can’t Buy Me Love

Eulex confounded: Kosovars still love the US more than them.

A Kosovo-Albanian and a Spaniard run into each other in New York City. Spain is the biggest among the EU countries that have yet to recognise Kosovo's independence. Upon finding out that the other is from Spain the Kosovan gives him a close hug. The Spaniard is astonished. "Hey, you guys discovered America. That's enough for us," says the Kosovan.

The joke was told in a restaurant in Pristina by a top official from Kosovo's home affairs ministry. It was meant to illustrate that the more than 2 million Albanians in Kosovo agree on one thing: it was the Americans - not the Europeans - who 'liberated' them from Serbian rule after a Nato bombing campaign forced Serbia to relinquish control over its Kosovo province in 1999. Then US president Bill Clinton was given a statue in Pristina this week; he already had a street named after him.

What with all of that “spreading freedom” twaddle, those silly Yanks. I mean WHO would want THAT, when the Europeans were perfectly prepared to let the schnooks keep burning villages, if it required any use of force on their part?