One of my readers wanted a clarification of what I meant at the end of this post, The Wrong Side, where I comment on Serbia being sold out for drug money.
My point is about US foreign policy toward the Balkans going back to the Clinton Administration.
When the Balkans began to flare up again in the early 1990's, old ethnic scores were being settled, scores going back centuries. Atrocities were being committed by all sides.
Previous postings of mine point out the role played by imported Mujahideen with experience in Afghanistan in the 1980's, while Pela's translations of the experiences of Swedish peacekeepers there are reminders of the role played by Croats.
Information such as this had to be have been available to President Clinton, and now to President Bush.
How is it that, despite the evidence of atrocities having been committed by Muslim and Croat forces, the Serbs somehow wound up getting all the blame? So much so, that Serb forces got bombed by NATO? So much so, that now President Bush has talked about independence for Kosovo, despite international law and the will of the nation to which Kosovo belongs?
I am not saying that no atrocities were committed by Serb forces.
What I am saying is that the international community's blame-game has been very lop-sided, and heavy-handed on top of it all.
Blame for what has happened in the Balkans belongs in some portion to all parties concerned; that includes those foreign leaders who have imperiously and unfairly interfered in Balkan politics, and that includes two US Presidents as well as the governments of certain European powers.
More on this will follow.
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4 comments:
Yankee, this is a really interesting topic you're on here. It's something that I read a bit about recently; the odd favouritism of the west towards Kosovo rather than the Christian Serbs. As a matter of fact, there is just so much evidence of the west supporting Muslims with our tax dollars. I look forward to hearing more of your thoughts on it. Do you have any ideas as to the reasoning behind it?
The Serbs certainly got more than their fair share of the blame, but part of the problem is that they are perceived as a 'client state' of Russia because of their common Orthodoxy.
Thanks, Aurora -- just getting started examining the Balkans.
Anticant, nice to see you back!
The historic ties between Russia and Serbia are undoubtedly a factor. However, why the West would get freaked about Orthodoxy being a common factor between two secularized Slavic nations, while not considering A) the radical, militant Islamic ideology common to the 1) KLA and other factions in the Balkans and 2) their foreign patrons, or B) their organized crime ties -- well, that's just a function of poorly informed and poorly educated electorates allowing their corrupt politicians to literally get away with murder.
But, as you point out, it is a perception problem. It seems to me that Bush fans the flames of this rejuvenated Cold War perception, because it takes the heat off his buddies in Riyadh.
By his insistence on placing 'defensive' missiles in Central Europe, Bush has thrown away a genuine opportunity for detente with Russia, which Putin - unpleasant though he is - would have welcomed, and has initiated a new Cold War, which no-one in Europe wants.
This will prove disastrous for the USA, as if the neo-Cons are mad enough to attack Iran, Russia will join China and the Islamic world in causing America maximum economic embarrassment if nothing else. We have already seen the first tremors of a domestic US recession, and if the plug is pulled on the dollar as a desired international currency things could unravel very quickly.
Those whom the Gods wish to destroy......
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