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| Natalija on Serbia and its defenders |
| 2002-03-03 |
"As we noted a couple months ago, Croatia got help laying the groundwork for this rampage from a DC PR and lobbying shop called Jefferson Waterman International. JWI agreed to help the Croatians deal with whatever bad press might ensue from reasserting their ethnic rights in the region."He lays out a scenario in which the perfidious Croats chucked the helpful UN out and then proceeded to gobble up Krajina with what he calls "some quite ugly consequences," one of which, it turns out, is that Natalija and her family were allowed to go home. Read her response. The dissolution of Yugoslavia should be an object lesson to the "issue indictments and try them before the International Criminal Court" crowd. Somehow all the ethnic groups making up Yugoslavia except for Macedonia and Montenegro, one after the other, picked fights with the Serbs. The Serb response was to beat the hell out of everyone in sight, with attendant raping, looting, and mass homicide. The Euros and the Americans dithered and "saw both sides," thereby managing to do nothing. Enormous amounts of vapor were emitted at talks, while the one-sided fighting went on. This was a conflict, we were warned by both the europress and the American media, that was unresolvable, with passions stretching back to the 14th century, or maybe even into prehistoric times. And arms were embargoed on the Slovenians, Croats and Bosnians in turn. This was "even-handed," even though the Serbs had the resources of the Yugoslav Army at their disposal. The Serbs, somehow, seemed unbeatable - a modern European army with state of the art weapons. We certainly didn't want to mess with them! I'm not too sure how Slovenia managed to establish its independence. The war only lasted ten days, but since the Slovenes had stockpiled weapons ahead of time the Yugoslav government agreed to a truce brokered by the European Community. In Croatia, in contrast, they bombarded the hell out of Vukovar. In Ravno they made a desolation and called it peace. 12,000 were killed and 35,000 were wounded. It wasn't until the Croats had managed to arm themselves - mostly through back channels - that the Serbs ceased being "invincible" and were sent packing, to turn their attention on Bosnia. The war on Bosnia actually made the vicious handling of Croatia look tame, with ten times the casualties in a smaller country. And then there was Kosovo. Eventually the stench was so overwhelming that even the Clinton administration had to "Do Something." Throughout all this, the Serbs had the government-funded and staffed Yugoslav propaganda machine to tell its side of the story. It simply showed common sense on the part of the Croats to try and counter it with a "PR firm." What's the beef? Oh, and my original point? All the talk-talk, hand-wringing, Dayton conferences and UN resolutions were useless until the Croats started shooting back and, in Kosovo, until the Merkin bombs actually started falling on the Serbs. (And we won't even mention how military operations work under a Eurocommand. Pfui.) From what I read the Slovenes merely stopped answering the telephone from Belgrade. There wasn't much of a war as the Yugoslav army didn't have much of a presence up there. When the Serb dominated Yugo Army mobilized to get Slovenia into line, they had to transit Croatia, which the Croats took as a causus belli, and the Croat insurrection started as you indicated. The ten day period was roughly correct, as that was the time that it took the Slovenes to eject the rump end of the Yugoslav administration and seize the local reserve arms depots. One more item to consider concerning US inaction: it took years for the US to recognize Slovenia as independent. This can be considered as another victory of wishes and fantasy over the reality that Yugoslavia was a shattered de jure shell. Natalija is correct in addressing Marshall's snivelling here. Serbians may have been the victims of some portions of this Last Balkan War [the 4th, I believe], but its not like they sought to prevent this conflict from occurring. Quite the opposite, and to blame the Croats, Bosnians, and Slovenes for "ugly consequences" ignores the fact that the antagonist in each case was the Serbian dominated Yugoslav confederation. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |