"Bosnia Is About More Than Bosnia"

By Richard H. Curtiss

In his posthumously released book this spring, former U.S. President Richard Nixon says flatly that if the people of Bosnia were predominantly Christian or Jewish instead of Muslim, the "international community" would not have waited 22 months to force the Serbs to lift the siege of the Bosnian capital at Sarajevo. It's exactly what Muslims from Morocco to Indonesia have been saying since the siege began, and they're not going to forget it.

Americans had best not forget it either. How we act in the coming months in Bosnia will determine for a very long time U.S. relations with about one-fifth of the human race. It's the more than a billion of the world's people who look much like a cross section of the American public, but who face Mecca when they say their prayers. Not only do they look like us, in all of our varied hues, they pray for about the same things as do members of America's conservative "silent majority." Nor is that all we have in common.

Piety and Idealism

"The real Americans," whatever our roots, reflect a lot of the simple piety and idealism of the Islamic world. We mind our own business, sometimes beyond good sense. We become indignant easily, but strongly resist the urge to strike out blindly. When turning the other cheek doesn't work, we cast our disputes as morality plays. The good guys and bad guys must be identified and labeled. If any of the characters don't fit the roles assigned them, we send the show back to the writers instead of out on the road. But, when everything is in place, the show goes on.

Things have gone wrong mostly when we've tried to fight by "modern rules" like those laid down in George Orwell's 1984. In that futuristic nightmare every few months the world's three warring superpowers would realign. Good guys became bad guys, nobody ever won or lost, and no war ever ended.

Vietnam seemed like that. We went in before we'd straightened out the casting. Sometimes bad guys looked better than good guys. Instead of launching that drama at all, we should have sent it back to the writers. Especially when we couldn't decide whether we should or shouldn't win. When we couldn't even get that straight, we lost.

Twenty-two months into the Bosnian war we finally had everything in order. With U.N. blessing, U.S.-led NATO aircraft were to bomb any heavy weapon or tank within a 12.5 mile radius of Sarajevo that wasn't moved or turned over to the blue-helmeted U.N. peacekeepers. The shelling stopped and the siege of Sarajevo was lifted. But the roads weren't really opened to the supplies the city needed to resume life after 22 months of starving or freezing in cellars.

The Muslim-led multicultural Bosnian government is the only party denied arms.

Instead, the Serbs just moved the guns and started a new siege in the nearest "U.N. -protected" enclave, which happened to be Gorazde. This time we said we're really, really going to blast you if you don't stop. But the Serbs only took back some of their guns, held some of the peacekeepers hostage, finished off as many Muslim refugees in Gorazde as they chose to, and left at their own convenience, destroying the water purification plant on their way out. U.S. aircraft dropped six bombs, four of them duds.

Then a network videotape caught Lt. Gen. Michael Rose complaining to fellow U.N. peacekeeping troops, who entered Gorazde after the departing Serbs allowed them to, that "the Muslims want us to fight their battles for them. "

Apparently the British general, who commands all U.N. peacekeeping troops in Bosnia, doesn't read newspapers. It isn't the Muslims who want the U.N. troops to fight their battles. The Muslims want the U.N. arms embargo lifted so that they can fight their own battles, even if that means U.N. peacekeepers who've allowed themselves to become hostages to the Serbs pull out.

It's the leaders of the "international community" who seem to have decreed that only soldiers of Christian nations can be trusted to be peacekeepers. As a result, the Serbs manufacture all the ammunition they need in Serbia and get all the heavy artillery they need from neighboring fellow Slavic and Christian Orthodox nations. The Croats get all the arms they need from their European Catholic neighbors.

The Muslim-led multicultural Bosnian government, which happens to be the only legitimate government there and a U.N. member whose borders are recognized by the United States, is the only party to the war denied arms to defend its legitimate borders.

It's ridiculous and it's an outrage. The loss of credibility has made the United Nations, and the United States, not just a laughing stock, but a potential target and punching bag for every ideologue and dictator whose country covets something possessed by a weaker neighbor.

Yashushi Akashi, the Japanese diplomat and international civil servant who heads the U.N Protection Forces in Bosnia, is preening himself for denying the NATO commander permission to launch additional air strikes, thus perhaps saving the lives of some Serbian thugs manning the roadblocks blocking help and the artillery pieces and tanks raining death on Gorazde. Someday he will realize he is responsible not just for more civilian deaths every day in Bosnia, but eventually for the deaths of U.N. peacekeepers as well.

Said a chagrined and unnamed UNPROFOR colleague of Akashi's to Los Angeles Times correspondent Carol Williams in Belgrade, "We didn't do everything that we could have in Gorazde. That's the bottom line. [Akashi] looks too much at the letter of the resolution and forgets about the spirit."

Williams herself reported on April 28, "the worst consequence of Akashi's refusal to stand up to the Bosnian Serbs when they became defiant may be the blow it has dealt NATO's reputation as a determined force for peace. "

On the same day, in a lengthy editorial, 7he Wall Street Journal wrote: "Bosnia is about more than Bosnia. Slobodan Milosevic is merely the irridentist of the moment. All over the world are pirates masquerading as national leaders, eager to invade and kill the people next to them under the guise of historic grievances ... A Milosevic victory is putting the rule of piracy in play .... History suggests that when this virus is loosed on the world scene it's likely to be contagious ... We worry that Bill Clinton is not up to sustaining a large military operation or a coherent foreign policy. Yes, Mr. Clinton will at a given hour on a given day speak what will sound like an articulate, sensible rationale for using military force against the Serbs. But if the Clinton character has a defining quality it is equivocal compromise ... Any current position may be discarded in the face of criticism or resistance. Such suppleness may work for Whitewater, but it won't work in war."

Nor will it keep United States forces out of wars, more and more of them. It was Neville Chamberlain's decision to surrender Czechoslovakia to Hitler's Germany to preserve "peace in our time" that made World War II inevitable. Only after Europe was aflame was Winston Churchill called in by the British people to help them put out the fire with their "blood, sweat and tears."

There are many reasons why the Europeans have been unwilling or unable to put out the fire in the Balkans. The British and French establishments are unabashed partisans of the Serbs, even though informed public opinion in both countries is calling upon their governments to come to the support of the Muslim victims of Serb aggression. Germany and Austria are unabashed partisans of the Croats.

Turkey and the entire Muslim world would be partisans for the Bosnian government ' but their offers of aircraft and peacekeepers have, by and large, been rejected by the U.N. "for historic reasons." Stop and think about that. The aggressors are the Serbs, but their "historic allies" from France and Britain, and their "Slavic brothers" from Russia and Ukraine make up, along with Canada, the bulk of the peacekeepers.

"Historic Reasons"

What historic reason is there for Turks, Egyptians, Moroccans, Pakistanis or even Indians who wish to reinforce the hardpressed peacekeepers not to be accepted to do so? The real reason is that the Serbs would routinely kill the peacekeepers from Muslim countries.

That's not an "historic reason" for not using blue-helmets from Muslim countries, it's a fact. And ignoring this fact, along with the Europeans, is appeasement. Neville Chamberlain's contribution to "peace in our time" got 55 million people killed all over the world between 1939 and 1945. It can get people killed faster now, as the result of technological improvements, if we go along with it any longer. If we don't, we might stop the killing overnight, as we saved the 600,000 people of Sarajevo without firing a shot, just by convincing the Serbs we were prepared to.

A tired joke describes the Serb who mistakenly takes the wrong ramp onto a freeway and finds himself driving south on a busy north-bound freeway. Grabbing his car phone, he calls the police and screams, "Bring all the reinforcements you can. There are a thousand maniacs out on the highway, and they're all driving in the wrong direction. "

In joke two, the police finally arrive, but when the Serb points out that everyone is going the wrong way but him, they pull him off the highway. "Ali, well," he shrugs. "Nobody likes the Serbs."

That wasn't strictly true at the time we first heard the joke two years ago. It certainly is by now. The black hats fit these guys perfectly.

Despite all its "historic reasons," Iraq's sudden invasion of Kuwait was a classic case of "over-the-border aggression. " The international coalition organized by President George Bush under United Nations auspices was a classic case of collective defense. It was a case where the characters fit their roles in a modern morality play, and the result was a spectacular success for the "new world order." The U.S. suffered 149 battle deaths, and about the same number of accidental fatalities. Had the whole half-million-person U.S. force stayed home, a greater number would have been killed in traffic over the same period.

The U.S. had a role to play, played it, and the world was a safer place. Shrinking from the role this time, when the roles are at least as clear, is making the world a much more dangerous place. There are major moral issues involved, and for those who insist on making artificial distinctions between U.S. national interests and "moral imperatives," there is a clear U.S. national interest either in stopping the aggression in the Balkans, or in giving the victims and potential victims the means to stop it themselves, or both, before it spreads unchecked.

The Serb invasion of Bosnia is a case of over-the-border aggression. If the Serbs of Bosnia want to secede, let them negotiate peacefully with their fellow Bosnians, not kill them and seize their homes and lands. Now, with the help of the former Yugoslav army, self-styled leaders of the 34 percent of the Bosnians who were Serbs have seized 72 percent of the land. Instead of giving any of it back, they are moving all of the guns and tanks withdrawn first from Sarajevo and then from Gorazde to Brcko to begin widening a corridor they have cut across northern Bosnia that links Serbia and the Serb-held portions of Bosnia with Serb-held portions of Croatia.

This is aggression we should stop by telling the Serbs we will take out every heavy weapon they use, the roads and bridges over which they move, and the fuel they stockpile, until they stop.

Most members of Congress already agree. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a former U.S. ambassador to the U.N., has drawn up a case for unilateral U.S. action to enable the Bosnian government to exercise its right to self-defense under the U.N. Charter. The Muslim countries would buy and pay the cost of shipping the weapons the Bosnians need. They just want to be assured that their fellow U.N. members won't shoot down the aircraft or sink the ships bringing the weapons to the legitimate government.

Both houses of Congress already have voted to urge President Clinton to lift the arms embargo, unilaterally if necessary. A tougher Senate measure introduced by Republican leader Bob Dole, with strong Democratic support, would force the president either to lift the embargo or veto the Senate bill. In choosing to ignore the embargo it would not be the United States against the world, but the United States and the world against France, Britain and a handful of other countries.

The characters in the play fit, and all of the instruments to get the show on the road are in place. What's lacking is the leadership to overcome the naysayers. Chief naysayer has been France. It dropped its opposition to airstrikes as part of a devil's bargain whereby the U.S. would stop encouraging the Bosnian government to get its land back. In fact, the airstrikes didn't take place, and neither should the U.S. have any part in forcing the Bosnian government to surrender.

When the Serbs withdraw back to less than 50 percent of Bosnia, then is the time to ask the Bosnians to think about peace. In the meantime, they should be given the arms to force the Serbs to hand back the stolen land. Keeping the Bosnians disarmed will not get an inch of Bosnian land back, or force the Serbs to negotiate. Instead it will turn the Muslims of Bosnia, and later the Kosovars and the Albanians and others, into the homeless and restive Palestinians of the 2 1 st century, supported and encouraged by the entire Islamic world.

The U.S. media has its own share of naysayers. Most Americans feel helpless when confronted with the "Powell doctrine" that says the only way the ponderous U.S. armed forces can save a country is by obliterating it.

Normal Americans who, if they see a rape or robbery in progress, "get involved" by calling 911 and then making a ruckus until the police arrive are rightly uncomfortable when television network "military consultants" inform them that the U.S. should never intervene on the side of the weaker party because aggressors are more dangerous than their victims.

If such ponderous platitudes, developed with all the intellectual acumen and moral sensitivity of a doorknob, leave you feeling out of step, it's probably because you're old-fashioned. You may even say a prayer for your children, and for world peace, at least once a day, just like those Muslims who are being slaughtered and like their co-religionists who aren't allowed to protect them for "historic reasons."

Despite the op-ed writers, people who pray for peace and deplore aggression are the majority in the "Western world" as well as the Islamic world. The problem is the lack of good leaders to see that we work together, not at cross-purposes. What good are men (and women) to match our mountains, without leaders to match our men?