You suggestion (on compensation) kind of reminds me of debates here and elsewhere on (potential) Pareto efficiency. The (counter)argument goes like this: yes, it might be true the losers from a particular policy could be compensated and there would still be something left for the winners, but the compensation is never going to happen/never has happened. As I see it, a definite anti-free-trade slant of ET is directly linked to this argument.

Now, it is very funny to find someone seriously proposing a compensation scheme in a case where potential losses are much larger than even a long unemployment spell for a Barby maker whose job has moved to China. Do you really believe anyone would think about compensating the losers, especially the losers who fought under "Hitler of our times" and thus deserve everything they've got?

I don't really understand your argument in the first paragraph. Majority of ethnic cleansing has been accomplished already, and Mitrovica could be lazily dealt with once the international community declares victory and leaves. Of course serious politicians would not contemplate war-like events now - they are simply not needed.

BBC Radio 4's flagship current affairs programme, Today, had an interview with Gen Sir Mike Jackson (infamous for refusing Wesley Clark's order to use force on Russian troops at Pristina airport). He also seems to have heard that Kosovo's bordered were expanded at Serbia's expense in 1960's to include the Mitrovica and more importantly the Trepca mining complex.

Audio here: http://www.yugofile.co.uk/mp3s/20071211_today_kosmet_boundary.mp3
Transcript follows:
BBC (Sarah Montague): One of the things you have suggested is possibly changing the boundaries... General Sir Michael Jackson: Well, I put that forward for what it's worth. I'm sure Mr Ahtisaari will have looked at it, but it does seem to me that northern Kosovo, north of the river Ibar, Mitrovica, the town of Mitrovica, that area is almost entirely Serb. My understanding is that that area - which is relatively small - was, is not part of historic Kosovo. It was "moved" from Serbia to Kosovo by an administrative order of Tito sometime, I think, in the mid sixties.