Posted on 07/11/2005 9:44:02 AM PDT by Jane_N
Monday was the 10th anniversary of the fall of Srebrenica to Bosnian Serb military and paramilitary units and the beginning of the largest massacre in Europe since the end of World War II. I hope that international commemoration of this event marks the beginning of the rapprochement between Serbs and Bosniaks that is necessary for regional stability. That, however, will require political maturity as well as a willingness to go beyond the grievances and losses acutely remembered on both sides.
In no way does it diminish the guilt or responsibility of those who methodically organized and ruthlessly carried out the massacre to say that there are powerful lessons for the international community in how the Bosnia crisis in general and Srebrenica in particular was handled. For it was decisions and actions taken (or not taken) by the United Nations, by the major countries of the Contact Group and by the governments in place in Bosnia and Serbia that made all of what happened not only possible, but predictable.
Was there ever a more inept, less effective and positively counterproductive organization than Unprofor, the UN protection force in Bosnia during the war? It is hard to know exactly where to begin in outlining its failings. Fundamentally, if an organization like the United Nations is going to intervene in a situation like Bosnia, it should do so only if it has the ability and the will to use all necessary force to enforce its directives. From Unprofor's inception, it lacked both and consistently came across as weak.
The fault for this lies equally with the United Nations and the powerful countries like the United States and others in the Contact Group that provided much of its policy direction.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
"But Unprofor's lack of authority had another effect. As the indictment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia against the Bosniak commander, Naser Oric, points out, he and individuals under his command used the "safe area" of Srebrenica as a base from which to launch attacks against nearby Serb villages.
While there are differing numbers about how many Serbs died in these raids, what seems incontrovertible is that war crimes were committed, people were killed and badly mistreated, and ethnic cleansing of Serb villagers took place. The Unprofor battalion in Srebrenica was unwilling or unable to stop these attacks, which were the equivalent of waving a red flag at a bull."
It would seem incontrovertible. But give this thread a couple of hours, and you'll see that even the incontrovertible will be controverted.
"I didn't kick that dog."
"And nobody saw me do it"
"Besides, it bit me first."
NO ONE should attend the bogus NWO "Srebrenica anniversary", least of all that EU-slave and dhimmi Tadic!! And the phony "monument" should be dismantled--not by planted explosives, but the same way that the Berlin Wall was dismantled, by a free people. Free Srpska!!!!
Careful! You know how anger the apologists for the islamofacists get when you present them with inconvenient facts!
It is very unlikely the Serb paramilitaries would have risked a direct confrontation with the UN forces without the provocation of the terrorists. Sorry that doesn't fit your agenda.
And we'll all be so much more convinced if you take a more condescending attitude.
Careful there, Honorary Serb. I think your voice is rising above the pitch ordinary human ears can hear!
A weak UNPROFOR combined with dithering at the U.N. Security Council and in the U.S. State Department made it clear to the Serb forces that they had nothing to fear. As the author says, the failings of the international community "...in no way diminish the guilt or responsibility of the executioners," but a strong force and tough response could have deterred both sides early on and prevented the eventual massacre of the Bosnians by Mladic's men in Srebrenica.
The fantasy continues unabated...and, wait a second, what's that in that last post? Something about a need to control "both sides" in the conflict?
Could it be, Lord? Are you forcing his eyes open after so long?
Yeah, it's probably just backpedaling rhetoric.
No one is more shrill than a "human rightser" in full propagandistic "outrage"--I can't begin to compete. For example, there is Swanee Hunt, who has been pontificating and lying about Srebrenica all month. Like most "human rightsers", her qualifications are very thin indeed, dispite her faculty position at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and her former position as the U.S. ambassador to Austria (under clinton, of course). She is basically a rich-girl dilletante, a feminazi, and a Serbophobic racist.
Unlike you, mark, I post on FR on subjects other than the Balkans, especially lately on the fight for orthodoxy in the Lutheran and Anglican churches, which are also being attacked and undermined by "human rightsers". So I'm the real McCoy, not a professional propagandist. Are you one?
Matthew 7:3-5.
You let us know if you ever manage to remove that beam of anti-Serb bigotry from your eye!
But I'd recommend that the rest of us hold onto our spec of not trusting the islamofascists just yet.
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