Mephisto2

Speak for yourself. If you have a firm grasp on European history, then you should be familiar with the issues here.

Greece historically claims the cultural heritage associated with the name Macedonia. This goes back to the times of Philip of Macedonia and his conquest of the Greek city-states. This was further developed by his son Alexander the Great (of upcoming Hollywood fame) who went on to conquer almost the entire "known world"; his troops making it all the way India before revolting and forcing him to take them home.

Historical Macedonia is situated mostly in Greece. Both Philip and Alexander became "Hellenized" and Greece considers them in the same way as their predecessors, such as Pericles, Themistocles, Aristotle etc as progenitors of Greek culture.

For more information on this, albeit from the Greek perspective, please see the website http://www.macedonia.info/

It should also be noted that the NATO, the EU, the UN, most (all?) other international organizations recognize the ex-Yugoslavian republic as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia or FYROM.

This act by the US Administration is simply some political jiggery pokery, throwing a minor ally some sop as a reward for their support in Iraq. Its result will be to alienate a far more powerful and lenghty ally in Greece.

I think both sides have merits to the rather predantic argument on the name (Greece probably more so), but it's the actions of the US here that are really the topic at hand.


Mr Mephisto