-Caveat Lector-
from:
http://www.consortiumnews.com/050499d.html
<A HREF="http://www.consortiumnews.com/050499d.html">The Consortium</A>
-----
May 4, 1999
'Wag the Dog' in Reverse
By Mollie Dickenson
President Clinton staggered from his messy impeachment acquittal in
February only to find himself leading NATO into the middle of a gruesome
war in the Balkans in March.
It was a transition that neither he nor the American people fully
expected -- or fully understood.
Americans weren't prepared for the horrors of Slobodan Milosevic's
"ethnic cleansing" of Albanian Kosovars. Nor was the country ready for
NATO's "surgical strikes" that inflicted hundreds of civilian dead by
missing targets, by accidentally bombing the wrong targets - such as
columns of Kosovar refugees -- and by intentionally destroying Serbia's
official television studios in Belgrade.
Distracted by the 13-month Monica Lewinsky scandal and the impeachment
proceedings, the noted domestic-policy wonk may have skimped on the time
needed to study and address the worsening crisis in the former
Yugoslavia.
Instead, Clinton relied on hawkish foreign-policy advisers, such as
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and Vice President Gore. On Jan.
19, when Albright went to the White House to present her planned
ultimatum -- demanding that the Serbs accept NATO forces or be bombed --
Clinton wasn�t even present.
The president was preoccupied with the Senate impeachment trial and his
upcoming State of the Union address that many political pundits felt was
crucial to his political survival.
As The New York Times noted, �It is unclear whether the president�s
decisions on Kosovo would have been any different if he had not been
distracted by his own political and legal problems. But it is clear that
his troubles gave him less maneuvering room to make his decisions. D
iplomacy that came to rely heavily on military threats reduced the
wiggle room even further.� [NYT, April 18, 1999.]
Clinton was caught in a kind of reverse "Wag the Dog." Rather than a
fictional war in the Balkans diverting the nation's attention from a
presidential sex scandal, a presidential sex scandal diverted Clinton's
attention from a real war in the Balkans.
As the war clouds built and the thunderous bombing began, Clinton
disclosed that he'd been boning up on Balkan history. He then offered a
"Cliff notes" version that skimmed over the centuries-deep roots of the
ethnic hatreds and ignored this century�s atrocities visited on the
Serbs by Nazis, Croatians and Moslems.
On March 24, announcing the start of NATO air strikes in a nationally
televised address, the president presented the overly simplistic
conclusion that it was Milosevic's fault. Clinton explained:
"In 1989, Serbia's leader, Slobodan Milosevic, the same leader who
started the wars in Bosnia and Croatia and moved against Slovenia in the
last decade, stripped Kosovo of the constitutional autonomy its people
enjoyed, thus denying them their right to speak their language, run
their schools, shape their daily lives. For years, Kosovars struggled
peacefully to get their rights back. When President Milosevic sent his
troops and police to crush them, the struggle grew violent."
Along with a coherent history of the region, Clinton left out the
salient fact that a religious civil war was raging in Kosovo, with the
ethnic-Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army committing its own share of
atrocities.
While Clinton certainly was not the first leader to simplify the reasons
for war, the president's address suggested either that he held a
frighteningly shallow notion of what was behind the conflict or that he
was willfully misleading the American people.
His administration might have hoped that some tough talk and some
military muscle-flexing would compel Milosevic to back down in Kosovo. A
brief NATO bombing campaign in 1995 had pushed Milosevic into signing
the Dayton Accords and ending the three-year war in Bosnia.
But Serbs view Kosovo much differently than Bosnia. Kosovo is the cradle
of their ancient civilization, whereas Serb-inhabited areas of Bosnia
and Croatia, although important, were less significant both to Serbian
national identity and to Milosevic's political survival.
Indeed, the gap between international outrage over the brutal "ethnic
cleansing" of Kosovo and the Serb national ambivalence toward the
practice rests on the fact that the Balkan brutality has not been
one-sided, as Clinton's speech suggested.
Part of the Serb intransigence comes from the failure of the
international community to demonstrate sympathy for the suffering
inflicted on Serbs both historically and more recently.
Since the break-up of Yugoslavia, beginning in 1991, the Serbs
themselves have suffered widespread "ethnic cleansing" from their
historical homelands in Croatia, Bosnia and, to a lesser extent, Kosovo.
President Bush's national security adviser Brent Scowcroft gave a hint
of this missing context when he murmured during a recent MSNBC-TV
fadeout, "Milosevic is trying to protect his Serbian populations."
But why the ruthless Milosevic needs to protect his population is rarely
fleshed out -- and that may be the fundamental weakness of NATO's
strategy.
As writer Mark Ames noted, "trying to bring the Serbs to heel by making
them suffer won't work; these people have too much practice at
suffering." [See Ames's Moscow-based Internet magazine, The eXile,
www.exile.ru]
That Serb suffering traces back to Europe's Middle Ages when three major
religions -- Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Islam -- converged and
clashed in the Balkans. One pivotal moment in this Serb culture of
suffering traces back to 1389 when Serb King Lazar and his army battled
a superior force of Turk invaders in Kosovo. The Turks killed Lazar and
77,000 of his soldiers in the battle at Kosovo Polje.
The Serbs, however, were a difficult race for the Turks to subdue.
Periodic revolts flared for the next five centuries. In 1809, in
literally a monument to brutality, the Turks built a tower in the town
of Nis, using the skulls of their Serb victims.
The Turkish Ottoman Empire finally lost control of the Balkans in 1878
as a result of the Russo-Turkish War, with the Serbs fighting as allies
of the Russians, an historic alliance that is relevant again today.
In 1878, the Congress of Berlin recognized Serb independence, but left
the small country subservient to the dominant regional power,
Austria-Hungary.
The Serbs continued to chafe under foreign domination. As history books
note, Serb nationalists were furious when Austria annexed the
Serb-majority province of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908.
One Serb nationalist named Gavrilo Princip then touched off World War I
by assassinating Archduke Ferdinand, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian
throne, on June 28, 1914. Two months later, the Austro-Hungarian
government invaded Serbia. When Serb forces retreated through Kosovo,
many were killed at the hands of the ethnic Albanians.
As the competing European powers took sides in the conflict, the Balkans
split into warring factions, too. The Orthodox Serbs sided with the
Allies -- led by England, France and Russia. Roman Catholic Slovenia and
Croatia as well as Islamic Albania joined Germany and the Central
Powers. Serbia lost about one-fourth of its population during World War
I, including about two-thirds of its military-aged men.
After World War I, to avoid the harsh peace terms imposed on defeated
Germany, Slovenia and Croatia joined the Kingdom of Serbia. But ethnic
and political tensions continued during the 1930s under the rule of Serb
King Alexander.
When World War II broke out, Croatia and Slovenia again sided with
Germany. Collaborating with Adolf Hitler's Nazis and the Axis Powers,
Croatia's fascist Ustasha party murdered 700,000 Croatian Serbs as well
as 40,000 Jews and 20,000 gypsies in death camps.
Even the Nazi SS found the Ustasha's brutality unspeakable. While the
Nazis generally sought coldly efficient methods for exterminating their
victims, the Ustasha relished torturing, gutting and mutilating their
captives.
Jewish children sometimes were butchered in ritualistic "kosher"
fashion. Like its predecessor, World War II claimed about one-fourth of
the Serb population.
In the mountains of Yugoslavia, however, a Slovenian Croat communist
known as Josip Broz Tito led Serb-dominated Partisans who tied down
eight divisions of Hitler's army. Tito's Partisans also rescued more
than 1,000 downed Allied pilots including 500 Americans.
By the war's end, Tito and the Partisans had all of Yugoslavia under
their control. In the four decades that followed, Tito held the
fractious peoples together with a combination of guile and ruthlessness
-- under the slogan "Brotherhood and Unity."
But Tito also sowed the seeds for today's troubles. He redrew the border
of the Yugoslav provinces so two million Serbs ended up inside Bosnia
and Croatia. Serbs have long believed that Tito's goal was to dilute
Serb power as Yugoslavia's dominant population.
Although Kosovo was historically part of Serbia, the number of ethnic
Albanians living there surged with higher birth rates and immigration
from neighboring Albania. These ethnic Albanians resisted incorporation
into Yugoslavia, but Serb police enforced compliance with Belgrade's
orders.
By 1968, however, the Albanian influence had grown so strong that Tito
granted a broad autonomy under the control of ethnic Albanians.
After Tito's death in 1980, tensions in Kosovo grew worse with ethnic
Albanians killing Serb policemen and Serb citizens complaining about
persecution at the hands of the ethnic Albanian majority.
In 1987, a little-known Serbian communist apparatchik named Slobodan
Milosevic traveled to Kosovo and delivered a fiery speech. He vowed to
protect the rights of Serbs in Kosovo and elsewhere. Commemorating the
1389 battle, Milosevic spelled out his core principle as a Serb
nationalist: Serbs "will never be beaten again."
In 1989, Milosevic was Serbia's new president and viewed as the
protector of the Serb people. He began backing up his promises with
tough policies to rein in the increasingly rebellious non-Serb regions.
In a fateful move, he rescinded the political autonomy that Tito's
constitution had granted Yugoslav republics and provincial Kosovo. In
1991, Slovenia and Croatia reacted by announcing their secession from
Yugoslavia, a decision promptly recognized by their old ally, Germany.
The Bush administration and NATO nations drew criticism at the time for
acquiescing to the German-backed secession. Washington stayed on the
sidelines as the blood feuds resumed.
"We don't have a dog in that fight," declared Bush's Secretary of State
James Baker.
Milosevic gave up Slovenia after only 10 days of fighting, largely
because few Serbs lived there. In Croatia, however, the new president,
Franjo Tudjman, a former Nazi collaborator, set the stage for a more
violent conflict by rejecting demands of ethnic Serbs for their own
autonomous regions. With the Serbs receiving help from Yugoslavia, a
brutal civil war followed.
International negotiators brokered a temporary peace in 1994, maintained
by a UN peace-keeping force. But in May 1995, Croatian forces marched
through UN lines and overwhelmed a Serb enclave. Through the summer, the
Croat army swept across the Serb-populated areas burning homes and
forcing Serbs to evacuate Croatian territory.
The offensive raised fears about a response from Milosevic's Yugoslav
army. But Milosevic did not attack and an estimated 350,000 Serbs were
driven south to camps in Bosnia and Serbia, where many still live in
squalor. Many of the old and sick Serbs left behind were killed.
The loss of large chunks of traditional Serb territory was a bitter
pill, especially on top of the World War II legacy of Croatian/Nazi
genocide against Serb populations.
Meanwhile, in Bosnia-Herzogovina, the Serbs found themselves outflanked
by an ethnic combination of Croat and Muslim forces.
The three sides fought ferociously in that civil war from 1992-96, but
most of the international opprobrium fell on the Serbs for atrocities
such as the massacre of some 7,000 civilians at Srebenica. Nevertheless,
all sides committed atrocities and engaged in "ethnic cleansing" of
"their" territories.
That conflict finally ended after a round of NATO air strikes prodded
Milosevic to grudgingly sign the Dayton Peace Accords. The Serbs
complained, however, that the agreement was unfair to them, both in loss
of Serb territory and in denying them a corridor to connect the two
major areas of Serb populations.
While the Serbs were battling in the northern provinces of the old
Yugoslavia, trouble also was brewing in the south, in Kosovo.
Contrary to Clinton's public assertion that "the struggle grew violent"
only "when President Milosevic sent his troops and police to crush" the
ethnic Albanians, the struggle actually grew violent when the Kosovo
Liberation Army began assassinating Serb police and other Serb
representatives.
Western intelligence also had a dim view of the KLA. The KLA was
believed to draw financial support from the region's heroin traffickers
and had ties to Islamic extremists. Last year, U.S. Ambassador Robert
Gelbard labeled the KLA "without question a terrorist group."
But as the Serbs struck at the KLA guerrillas, Serb forces also shelled
ethnic Albanian villages and burned houses. Scores of civilians were
killed and tens of thousands escaped into the woods where they suffered
from hunger and exposure.
Despite a fragile cease-fire in the fall, a Kosovo turning point was
reached in January. The KLA resumed the guerrilla fighting and the Serbs
unleashed their military on the province.
On Jan. 15, the world was shocked by the massacre of some 40 ethnic
Albanians in Racak. Few believed the Serb government claims that the
atrocity had been staged as a KLA provocation. The Racak massacre came
to demonstrate Serb military resolve to suppress secessionist elements
in Kosovo with all brutalit necessary.
In private, Milosevic and his hard-line advisers apparently had decided
that they would cede no more territory to their rivals. But President
Clinton dropped any recognition of the moral ambivalence that preceded
Racak.
In trying to rally the American population to bombing a far-away land,
the president made the choices stark and simple. It was a case of "High
Noon" in the Balkans.
The Serbs, however, confronted a bitter irony as their ancient enemies
-- the Turks and the Germans -- again were attacking Serbia, though now
as part of the NATO coalition.
Perhaps the best chance for a peace accord in Kosovo will be a creative
proposal that recognizes the region's conflicting territorial claims as
well as the historical grievances.
Possibly, with Clinton more fully engaged on the Balkan crisis, he
finally might apply his legendary persuasive powers to find a route out
of the Balkan abyss. At press time in early May, Clinton seemed to be
more open to possible compromises that he had been earlier.
But that pathway out of the Balkans -- if it exists -- can only be found
by a president who recognizes that all the moral terrain in the historic
region is gray.
Mollie Dickenson, an iF Magazine and Consortiumnews contributing editor,
is a student of Balkan history.
Back To Front Page.
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
Omnia Bona Bonis,
All My Relations.
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End
Kris
DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER
==========
CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic
screeds are not allowed. Substance�not soapboxing! These are sordid matters
and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright
frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL
gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers;
be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and
nazi's need not apply.
Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
========================================================================
Archives Available at:
http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html
http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
========================================================================
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Om
