Serb Outrages Provide a Shameful Hour for America

By Paul Findley

Within easy reach of the killing fields in Bosnia is one of the greatest assemblages of military firepower in history. It is more formidable than all the U.S. forces combined during the height of U.S. operations in Vietnam. Ten divisions of ground forces, if needed, could quickly be brought to the scene from nearby European bases.

These are assets of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an alliance created to protect human beings from the ravages of Soviet Stalinism—the same type of aggression, oppression and slaughter Muslim Bosnians now are suffering daily at Serb hands.

Standing Idly By

Although of different form and region, Serb-led ethnic cleansing is today as direct a military threat to the well-being of NATO as the Soviet danger of yesterday. But, except for a few minor, spasmodic air attacks, NATO's military might stands idly by while innocent blood flows in a torrent near the shores of the Adriatic.

No leaders seem to recognize the peril ahead. The Serbian conquest of Bosnia and the slaughter and expulsion of its Muslim population is nothing less than genocide.

If ethnic cleansing prevails in Bosnia, ruthless politicians of the ilk of Serb leaders Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic will be inspired to try the same elsewhere in the Balkans and beyond.

With few of the world's nations ethnically pure, genocide dangers are almost limitless.

CNN's famous war correspondent, Christiane Amanpour, whose fearless and candid coverage of wars and violent conflict have developed a vast audience, describes the non-response in Bosnia by the world's Western military powers as "the seminal issue of our time." Indeed, it bears the seeds of dreadful upheaval worldwide.

In crowning irony, the United Nations still maintains an embargo that handicaps the Bosnian Muslims in exercising their right of self-defense, and Russia supplies arms to Serb forces. (It was a Russian-made SAM missile that shot down U.S. Capt. Scott O'Grady's F-16 fighter plane June 2.)

Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, who is also a Republican presidential candidate, writes: "There are those who argue that lifting the embargo will mean taking sides. It does mean taking sides—with the victims of aggression, rather than the aggressors that the embargo protects...Let's listen to the Bosnians for a change. They are not asking for American soldiers. They have the soldiers—they are simply asking for the means to defend their land, their homes and their families."

The Serbs have humiliated U.N. peacekeepers, and scorned the failure of NATO and the United Nations to follow through on threats.

It is unlikely that a campaign of such vast, prolonged, human slaughter has ever been carried out virtually in the shadow of enormous but idle military forces of many nations that have been brought together in a longstanding unified command in the cause of human decency and liberty.

The failure of NATO to act is fundamentally the failure of leadership—U.S. leadership.

The heart of the NATO treaty is an all-for-one-and-one-for-all pledge, under which each nation must regard an attack on the territory of any member state as an attack on its own. It is silent on external policy. (While in Congress I tried unsuccessfully to interest the alliance in developing a common policy toward the Middle East, among other areas.)

But there is no prohibition that keeps NATO from undertaking military missions beyond the territory of member states. In each of the airstrikes already made into the former Yugoslavia, aircraft functioning under NATO command projected military power outside NATO borders.

Sadly, the failure of NATO to act is fundamentally the failure of leadership—U.S. leadership. The blame rests squarely on the White House, and the failure began during the administration of President George Bush.

In reality, the president of the United States is the ex-officio leader of NATO. He always supplies the flag-rank U.S. military officer who serves as supreme allied commander. No non-American has ever filled this top post. All other NATO members like this arrangement, because the United States is the world's only superpower and, equally important, the nuclear weapons the U.S. president alone controls are still viewed broadly as being essential to alliance purposes.

Under President Bill Clinton, NATO has found itself completely leaderless. The New Republic magazine editorializes that Clinton "has wielded less moral and political authority" in his reaction to Bosnia than any U.S. presidential response to a major moral crisis since the end of World War II.

In effect, Clinton has washed his hands of Bosnia policy on the false premise that the Bosnia crisis is primarily a European matter, and policy decisions should therefore be made and carried out by European members of the alliance.

This is an immature view of NATO. It should be obvious that an alliance headed by a U.S. president cannot undertake a major military operation if the occupant of the White House keeps his hands off. There is no substitute for U.S. leadership. For a variety of reasons, no other NATO leader can fill the gap.

This is one of America's most shameful hours.

Former Congressman Paul Findley (R-IL) is chairman of the Council for the National Interest.