"Balkanization"

For us baby-boomers, the word "balkanization" was meaningful only metaphorically, and harkened back to WWI, when the nationalistic sentiment unleashed during the 19th century plunged the Western world into the "Great War".

In the post-Tito era, the literal meaning of the word has reasserted itself, with the Balkan peninsula once again descending into nationalistic chaos.

Still, the media's metaphorical resort to the word is disconcerting. While speaking of the perhaps imminent disintegration of Iraq, and the U.S.'s current dependence on Sunni "Awakening Councils" or groups of "Concerned Local Citizens" (CLCs), dday at Hullabaloo ably criticizes our current "strategy":

The Shiites in power are afraid of incorporating the CLCs into the Iraqi security forces. It has been alleged that the CLCs include former insurgents and rogues, and they are primarily interested in 1) receiving money, and 2) defending their corner of Iraq from all invaders, foreign and domestic. This is not a path to national reconciliation but balkanization.

Let's not go there!

This is the fear I entertain whenever the media dwell on "identity politics": that We the people will forget that we are first and foremost Americans, and that we are hyphenated-Americans only secondarily.

We do not need to become a Balkanized nation.