Serbia: Time to Just Say No
By Russell Gordon
March 4, 2006 -- The former Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz once said "Always tell the Americans yes -- but never say when." If indeed this delaying tactic is the current policy of the Serbian Government in dealing with American demands for the handover of Gen. Ratko Mladic, it is an admirable attempt at reclaiming some vestige of sovereignty. Even the casual observer notes the political nature of the trials at the ICTY in The Hague. However, a few minor policy vacillations hardly recompense for the absence of strategic vision among the Serbian nation for the last 15 years.
Some of Serbia's current acquiescent policies are understandable, taking advantage of opportunities that arise to shift "moral responsibility" for past losses to past leaders and political systems (i.e.-Milosevic and communism). However, many in Serbia have gone to extremes, accepting blame for all alleged crimes in the Balkan wars of succession, and remaining silent about the real crimes committed by the Serbs' adversaries. One journalist who described his Soros-funded media outlet as "independent" demonized those who cast doubt on the exaggerated claims of the Srebrenica issue in an attempt to silence debate. Similarly, Serb writers at Western wire services and "think tanks" have joined in the fray of self-vilification. They have heard the piper, and know the tune. But like the Apaches who turned in Geronimo in return for privilege, yet died with him in the same squalid concentration camp, empire's gauleiters are soon dispensed with when their convenience has outlived utility.
Western "NGO's" such as the American Enterprise Institute, Open Society, European Policy Center, and the International Crisis Group (among others) have continued to rally for the amputation of Serbian territory (in reality, these institutes are often directly linked to the State Department and CIA, making them hardly "non-governmental."). Each step Serbia takes to show flexibility through dialogue is seen as complacency. The result is the expectation among Serbia's regional and trans-Atlantic adversaries that rhetoric aside, Serbia will capitulate to any demand made of her for territorial (or other) concessions.
Much of American policy in Southeast Europe over the last 15 years was motivated by military base relocations, force projection to secure oil supply routes from the Caspian region, and subversion and subjugation of a potentially united rising Europe via NATO. The Serbs exacerbated their losses through an inability to rally their Diaspora as their opponents did, and their bitter historical divisions, since the time of the Ottoman Empire, when Serb jannisaries led Turkish forces against Serbs on the Field of Blackbirds. Indeed, Albanian crime and radical Islamism in Europe may be more than blowback, but rather intended policy. But such forces respect no frontier, and America has already paid for supporting Balkan terrorists. If indicators are born out, 9/11 may be only a prelude.
Serbian mystic Deda Milje is said to have predicted that in coming days "all
Serbs will fit under one plum tree." Metaphors aside, unless a unified stance is
taken towards national preservation, Belgrade south to Nis may be all that
remains of Serbdom. The grand strategist Gregory R. Copley said "No one is
[handed] Victory." The question remains of what is to be gained from potentially
joining "civil" Europe, a Europe that starved, bombed, and lied - at enormous
cost and little promise to the Serbian nation and its future.

