The American Spectator

David W| 11.3.11 @ 9:22AM

The law of unintended consequences. Trying to enforce "rule of law" on people who apparently don't really have a concept of that (kind of like what is beginning to happen in the US) will always lead to trouble and further misery.

erp| 11.3.11 @ 9:25AM

Your article is more correct than most stuff written about the Balkans, however, I am very sorry that you parrot the media's ridiculous semantism of referring to the Moslems in the area as 'ethnic Albanian' -- if anything, they are in fact ethnic Turks, who not only sided with Hitler, but Stalin and Tito as well, instead of what they are, Moslem occupiers and you forgot about Clinton's turning a blind eye to Iran's arming their co-religionists which led to the wholesale massacre of non-Moslems.

Moe Blotz| 11.3.11 @ 9:31AM

Just like cops and hookers, there is never a Tito around when you need one.

Bob K.| 11.3.11 @ 9:36AM

"The whole of the Balkans is not worth the life of one pomeranian grenadier!" Otto von Bismarck.

Nor, I might add, one Pennsylvania, Texas (fill in any state here) National Guardsman or United States soldier.

Mac Jehoff| 11.3.11 @ 10:37AM

Fortunately we did not send any of our fighting forces to that meat grinder, we just dumped excess ordinance on some old bridges and buildings.

Doorgunner| 11.3.11 @ 1:34PM

Not true.

Patrick| 11.3.11 @ 3:08PM

Nice rose tinted glasses that you have there.

Drunken Sailor| 11.3.11 @ 4:00PM

My assistant (Former National Guard) would disagree with you. And considering he was there I'll take his word over yours.

Mac Jehoff| 11.3.11 @ 8:52PM

What company, division, where did our troops fight? Please give dates, times, places and casualties. The boy president wanted none of ours killed or injured in police action, it was supposed to be war from 15,000 feet.

Serbian| 11.8.11 @ 5:25PM

He was there... was he...
What the !@#$%^ does that matter. The US and its grand army needs to stay in their own yard, and get the !@#% out of mine.

KiwiBro| 11.8.11 @ 4:42AM

Such were cluster bombs that were packed in cans of american world brand soda (do not wish to name the companies,you can guess rather easy) , that were dropped in to the cities,among civilian population. And guess who will pick up cans of soda on the street?!?!?! Children thats who.

Milos| 11.8.11 @ 5:23AM

To Mac Jehoff

Is that what your medias said yo you?
We just bombarded some old bridges and buildings?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.....in_bombing

check this out!

They hit train with passangers, KIDS!!! And after few minutes they hit it again!!!

Your medias don't tell you nothing !!!
Not just for Serbia..

Ekolog| 11.8.11 @ 5:53PM

Milose ne sery, prije nego spomenes taj dogadjaj nebroj sve zlocine i nedjela koja su srbi ucinili drugima. Previse ih je da bi se neko zanimao za koleteral prilikom kaznjavanja srbije, mada jos srbija nije adekvatno kaznjena samo oduzimanjem Kosova i ponizavajucom KAPITULACIJOM tzv, 'kumanovskim sporazumom'....srpska posla...?

Mr LeMans| 11.3.11 @ 5:24PM

Amen. The Serbs deserve everything they get, and then some. Their atrocities in the waning days of WWII would make Himmler cringe......

Nukster| 11.4.11 @ 5:20PM

@Mr LeMans
Yes, they killed all nazi ustashi scam that they
could catch.

KiwiBro| 11.8.11 @ 4:38AM

You are surely thinking about Croats,who ren Jasenovac Death Camp in which Serbs,Jews and Roma people were tortured and murdered. Please lear history before you make an ill wish upon someone,or an entire nation.

dan| 11.8.11 @ 5:55AM

That is the infamous American ignorance right there. He clearly has no clue about what he's commenting about, but he still decides to click the submit button.

The article is one the best ever written on the subject. It's brief but it captures the essence of the problem. That's quality journalism.

davelnaf| 11.3.11 @ 9:37AM

I spent some time in Bagram, Afghanistan working for a company that brought in many thousands of Balkans and some third country nationals as a cost saving measure (although it is very unlikely that any of the money saved was returned to the US government). For contractors working for this company there were two wage scales: one for ex-Pats and one for Balkans and third country nationals. This company was also deep into skimming money off ex-Pats, so it is to be assumed that it was second nature for them to do it to non-Americans. But the point of my comment on the author’s article is to back up his assertion that we have no business being in the Balkans and here is my list of reasons why we shouldn’t be there.

Not only did my fellow ex-Pats and I have a lot of problems with our Balkan co-workers at Bagram but so did the US government. Their thefts of government property was a chronic problem and even after incredibly blatant instances were uncovered and the miscreants sent home it would start up again after only a brief lull. More mundanely, the Balkans were prone to gaming the system at Bagram to their advantage, and the company we worked for often colluded with their aspirations for better paying jobs. In many instances it would promote one of them over an ex-Pat, although it was common knowledge that Balkans were into resume enhancement to a degree that very often made their resumes resemble exercises in fiction writing. For instance, despite the fact that their resumes were in English this is not the language that many of them spoke with any fluency at all. Yet another sore point was that whenever the company saw fit to put a critical mass of Balkans—of a certain ethic group—into a department a process of winnowing out ex-Pats would begin that would soon leave it ex-Pat free (I was personally witness to this practice, although never a victim of it). I should also mention that when I was performing building inspections at Bagram I came across instances where the Balkan personnel of one of these now ex-Pat free departments all had new computers and furniture of a quality that I never saw gracing the offices of US military personnel, officers included; and sometimes new SUVs were thrown into the employment package.

All of this is not meant as a blanket condemnation of all Balkans that worked in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the fact remains that we did not have similar problems with other third country nationals.

nathan| 11.3.11 @ 10:32AM

I'll pose a simple question for all of you. Name me one, just one foreign policy success for the neocons. Tell me one time where they have been right. Just one. When they talked Eisenhower into overthrowing Mossadegh, the legal ruler of Iran, and installing the Shah, a human rights violating kleptomaniac dictator, which by the way was an unprovoked act of war on our part, they were wrong. When JFK and Edward Landsdale rigged elections in southern Viet Nam to keep Ho from winning, they were wrong. They were wrong in the Balkans. They were wrong in Iraq. They were wrong on Libya. They were wrong about extending NATO membership to eastern Europe. They are wrong about this ghastly empire they're trying to build now which we can't afford. (Why pray tell are we in 100 countries, many of which have leaders that are worse than Saddam?) They were basically wrong on Kuwait. They were wrong on backing Saddam against Iran, they were wrong on the axis of evil speech, one of the worst speeches ever given by an American president.

With all these failures can we once and for all remove these guys from positions of influence? Please? They really don't know what they're doing. The Balkans is just one of many failures. What does it take for "conservatives" to understand that no, empires don't work, no we don't have to be everywhere, no we don't have a white man's burden, yes Japan, Korea, Europe and others can pledge lives fortunes sacred honor to defend themselves thank you, and no, it's not our job to police the world.

Ian Strachan| 11.3.11 @ 10:44AM

Thousands of State Department employees have to have something to do. The more places we stick our noses, the more gummint workers have to be hired.

Lawrence D.| 11.4.11 @ 1:29PM

I fully agree with yor comments. A lot of mistakes have been by US made after WW2. However, let's not forget that Europe, and the world, were saved twice by US, in WW1 and WW2. God bless America! So, yes, it's not USA's job to police the world, but there are moments when it is better to do that, for the world in general, and for US in particular. Who else could keep Russia or China from bullying other countries? Who else could kill any terrorist, anywhere in the world? Yes, it might take months, or years, but it's a matter of when, not if. If ever US decides to abandon the role of world's cop (and yes cops make mistakes), chaos will follow.

JmsA| 11.4.11 @ 10:10PM

Good post, Lawrence D.

shishmish| 11.8.11 @ 7:57PM

The only failure we did in the Balkans is to let the Serbs walk away from the mess they've created and they keep creating. We took the blame for what Serbs did and continue to do.

Sheila| 11.3.11 @ 11:12AM

I'm extremely surprised and quite pleased to see such a solid, genuinely conservative column and comments here at TAS, instead of the standard right-liberal drivel. Excellent job, and a particularly excellent comment by nathan.

BosnianGenocide | 11.3.11 @ 12:50PM

The author of this article has some extremely daft ideas. First he completely ignores the horrendous crimes committed by Serb forces in Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Kosovo. I didn't see him mention the word genocide - as in the genocide that Serb forces committed against Bosnians in Srebrenica and elsewhere in Bosnia. He doesn't mention the concentration and rape camps set up by the Serbs. Doesn't mention the thousand mosques that were intentionally destroyed and burned by Serb forces. No mention of Vukovar and Dubrovnik. The zenith of his daftness comes when he states that "if Serbs committed more crimes it's because they were in a position to do so" I guess he would apply the same logic to the NAZIs and the Hutus. By his logic the Jews would have killed the Germans just as viciously if only they could set up gas chambers in time. Over 90% of war crimes committed in Bosnia were committed by Serbs. Over 90% of civilians that died in the Bosnian Genocide and conflict were ethnic Bosnians. This doesn't seem to register with the author. He also repeatedly claims that Bosnia-Herzegovina is an artificial state. It takes a lot of ignorance to claim that a state which has existed since the 10th century (check the history books and historical atlases dear author) is artificial. Calling the national homeland of the Bosnian people artificial is both ignorant and insulting. Bosnia-Herzegovina is the sovereign and independent homeland of the Bosnian people and it will remain as such. I would advise the author to read more, learn more, and to make fewer insulting statements.

jack| 11.4.11 @ 2:01AM

yes, correct & according to my archieval documentation, it was gypsy roma behind the flashpoint of the kidnapped goat incident, it really is the principal of the matter that causes the re-occurring viotility to fester unresolved

Drazha| 11.4.11 @ 10:30AM

Seriously?
* Lets start with concentration camps, got one word for you: Jasenovac.
* Srebrenica? What were the "Bosnian" (read Muslim) army doing in an unmilitarised zone?
* Vukovar? Why was the city full of illegal arms imported through Hungaria, riddled with underground canals, bunkers and ditches, all meticulously made in concrete? Better word would have been: Fortress Vukovar... Dubrovnik? What about it? The pile of tires put to one place left to burn and make a cloud of black smoke? Ever been there? Seen all the "damage" done by the shelling? I was, you?
* The zenith of daftness I agree with... The debate that Serbs committed more crimes is... manure. But that is another story.
* What is an ethnic Bosnian? Do you know your history at all? Ever read even a bit of the great Slav migration? Even have a clue on how Bosnia came to be, and what it is a product of? Who was the ruler of what was then call Bosnia? What nationality they were? Why would they participate in the Kosovo battle? Obviously not. And i wont waste my time on educating you.

BosnianGenocide| 11.4.11 @ 7:19PM

Draza,

The Bosnian people are a mixed Slavic and Illyrian people who have called Bosnia their homeland for over a millennium. They were Orthodox and Christian (including having an autonomous Bosnian Church) before the arrival of the Ottomans and many of them converted to Islam during the Ottoman occupation while others remained Orthodox and Catholic Bosnians. The Bosnian people have always been a unique and distinct people just as Bosnia has always been a unique and distinct state. They are separate from the Serbians and the Croats. Most of the Bosnians who trace their lineage back to the founding of the Bosnian state in the 10th century are today called Bosnians/Bosniaks while those who chose to align themselves with Croatia and Serbia (mostly or religious reasons) usually refer to themselves as Bosnian Croat/Croat and Bosnian Serb/Serb. The Bosnian people have existed for over a millennium as has their language, culture, and national homeland. Both Serbs and Croats have tried very hard to deny the Bosnian people their nationhood, language, history, and national homeland. They have failed in those attempts and a national revival of the Bosnian people is currently underway in which the Bosnian people are once again able to reaffirm their nationhood. So I would ask you to please learn more about Balkan history (not from so called Serbian "historians" but from respectable historical sources) in order to avoid making inaccurate statements and making yourself seem uneducated and ill-informed.

KiwiBro| 11.8.11 @ 4:50AM

You are so out of it. It is well known that Bosnians bombed and killed their own people in Merkale market,just so they can blame Serbs. Also Bosnian forces attcked city of Tuzla,with majority of Serbs living in it,tortured and killed 'em,and im talking about 1000's of people. Then Serbs retalieted for it,in Srebrenica. Be objective and truthfull!!!!

shishmish| 11.8.11 @ 8:05PM

Draza,
1. Jasenovac, Gradiska Stara etc..-all concentration camps during World War II
2. Srebrenica - a small town in northeastern Bosnia run over by Serbs and a site of the worst a atrocity since WWII. As for your question - Bosnian Muslims lived there.
3. Vukovar - brutally run over by Serbs, Croat population expelled and/or murdered
4. Dubrovnik - shelled relentlessly by Serbs, Croat and Muslim population in villages around Dubrovnik expelled and/or murdered by Serbs
Now points 2 through 4 all happened within 1991-1995 by Serbs...I can go on, and on, but clearly if Serbs were taking a revenge for WWII, they made their point and then some.
As for ethnic Bosnians - perhaps you should do some reading on your own.

dan| 11.8.11 @ 10:04AM

Everybody did a war crime down there. Did you watch" Forbiden truth about Srebrenica" when Muslim president ask for killing 5000 muslims so they can drag US into air striks. One of the politician in Srebrenica wrote a book about that. After that they try to kill him at least five or six times and he is not Serbian he is Muslim. Do not try to say that Muslims did not do war crimes around Srebrenica before Srebrenica happend. Even Naser Oric said we were just players in that game. Looks like that was just a game for him.

Serbian| 11.8.11 @ 5:39PM

Same old story...Serbs are bad, we were robbed, genocide, Answer this question, if it was genocide, why are ther so many witnesses to this genocide, do you know what genocide is? I think the only qualified people to answer this are the Hebrews. They are the only race that saw that sick light of extinction. So keep your crocidile tears and shove them.

shishmish| 11.8.11 @ 8:08PM

It is not an old story, it is just a story that won't end. The biggest mistake US has made is to allow Serbs to walk away from the mess they've created and sadly still keep generating. I suppose we did not bomb them long enough.

Serbian| 11.9.11 @ 6:40PM

What goes around, usually comes around.

Drin| 11.3.11 @ 1:21PM

Mr. Bandow,

Just go ahead and read more about what Serbia has done in the last two decades, and then try to write an article.

Otherwise, you sound like you have been paid by the Serbian lobby to write false statements on this article.

Lawrence D.| 11.4.11 @ 2:15PM

This is an excellent article, written by somebody who had the guts to tell the truth, in spite of what the powerful American and European lobbies want us to believe it's the truth. How come until 1987-88, the Serbs were the good guys and the Albanians were the bad guys and now it's the other way around? The answer is simple. The same powerful lobbies that had Saddam Hussein as their friend for many years, and then killed him, just changed their minds, and they usually don't have to explain why.

Stuart Koehl| 11.3.11 @ 1:22PM

There are no good guys in the Balkans, just varying shades of bad. Kosovo has been majority Albanian (not Turk--everybody in the Balkans is about equally Turkish, including the Greeks) for centuries, as any reputable ethnographer will affirm. The Serbs sowed the wind in their attempt to forge a greater Serbia through force and ethnic cleansing. And they reaped the whirlwind. It's time for the Serbs to accept that 1389 was a long time ago, that you can't build a peaceful and prosperous country on the myth of Holy Serbia and the Sacred Field of Kosovo, or by wallowing in self-pity and pretensions of martyrdom. They need to learn how to play well with others and not to run with scissors. Until they do so, they will find themselves under the thumb of civilized countries that don't believe genocide is a legitimate tool of politics.

The same thing goes for all ethnic groups in the Balkans. Tito kept the peace by oppressing all. NATO will keep the peace by whacking whatever mole decides to pop out of its respective hole, regardless of nationality, ethnicity or religion.

Mike| 11.3.11 @ 1:39PM

I agree with what you've stated. The Serbs never made an honest attempt to integrate the Albanians living in Kosovo into Serbian society. The Albanian language was suppressed, their culture derided, and their political influence minimized so that in effect the Serbs would have complete control over the Albanian population without giving them equal rights and protections. This harsh discrimination culminated in Milosevic revoking Kosovo autonomy in the late 1980s and imposing even harsher restrictions on the Albanian population eventually resulting in ethnic cleansing. If the Serbian authorities had acted differently and had thought of ways to include the Albanians into Serbian society and give them a representative voice in politics this whole situation could have been avoided and Kosovo would still be part of Serbia but because of the irreversible mistakes that were made by Milsovic and his predecessors and the Serb politicians desire to rule over Kosovo using harsh repression and ethnic cleansing Kosovo had not alternative but to seek independence. The author should also bear in mind that the Presevo valley in Serbia has an Albanian majority population that would like to be separated from Serbia and join Kosovo. There are also sizable Hungarian and Bosnian populations that are dissatisfied with Belgrade's policies and are seeking greater amounts of autonomy and self-control potentially even independence from Belgrade.

Mike| 11.3.11 @ 4:44PM

I do not agree with this comment though "there are no good guys in the Balkans, just varying shades of bad". It simply lumps every group into the same pot. There were and continue to be groups that are genuinely striving to bring peace and progress to a multi-ethnic balkan landscape and those group have been around from the 90s till today. The Bosnian government always envisaged and strived for a multi-ethnic and multi-religious Bosnian state that would treat all citizens equally. It's unfortunate that the war and genocide in Bosnia has made that job much harder but that's the vision that the Bosnian people still have and cherish since Bosnia has always been an open multi-ethnic and multi-religious state and society.

Lawrence D.| 11.4.11 @ 2:00PM

Albanians and Serbs in Kosovo: An Abbreviated History
An Opening for the The Islamic Jihad in Europe

G. Richard Jansen
Colorado State University
Fort Collins CO 80523
April 25, 1999, Updated July 22, 2008
.........................................
In this movement the League increasingly became anti-Christian as well, causing considerable anxiety among Christian Albanians and especially among the Serbs. At this time the Muslim leadership encouraged what today would be termed "ethnic cleansing" and as a result more and more Serbs left Kosovo and moved north in Serbia. The Treaty of San Stefano in 1898 granted independence to Serbia.Also in 1898 Western powers, reacting to what they perceived as undue Russian interests in the Balkans, compelled Russia to submit to a new peace settlement, this time at the Congress of Berlin presided over by the "Iron Chancellor" Bismarck. This settlement greatly reduced the size of Bulgaria and returned all Albanian inhabited land to the Ottomans. Many Serbs were expelled from Kosovo at this time and Serbian troops also were forced to withdraw.
...............................................................
http://lamar.colostate.edu/~gr.....story.html

kiwiBro| 11.8.11 @ 4:54AM

What about Your country and the way it was founded. Do not dissmiss other countries,and forget the injustice that has happend and still happening in the States. Be humble.

Dimitri Aleksandrovich| 11.3.11 @ 3:31PM

I agree with you 100% Mr. Bandow and that's probably the first time I've commented that at the Spectator. Washington needs to stay out of Balkan affairs. Of course I am also one of those non-interventionists of the Buchanan/Ron Paul school that thinks that we should stay out of foreign affairs period.

If I was Belgrade at this time I would certainly scrap the plans for European Union membership and instead seek closer partnership with fellow Orthodox Christian Russia maybe even seeking membership in Putin's suggested Eurasian Union.
I would also propose to let the Russians build military bases in Serbia to discourage any wayward Western powers from trying for a repeat of the NATO bombing campaign of the late 90's.

As for Kosovo it's just a matter of time. With the global economic system teetering the way it is and US debt soaring to new heights its only a matter of time before the Pax-Americana is no more and the chickens come home to roost for the gangster KLA regime in Pristina. KFOR is the only thing protecting the Pristina government right now. Once the Americans are gone the Western Europeans will quickly follow and the business of Kosovo (which is Serbia and always will be) will be settled in the way land disputes always have been settled. If the West refuses to leave Kosovo then a good solution would be Russian peacekeepers to protect the Serbian population and Orthodox Christian Churches and Monasteries.

Kosovo Je Srbija

Mike| 11.3.11 @ 4:39PM

This type of argument is precisely what lead to the genocide in Bosnia and the wars in Croatia and Kosovo. The Serbs want to settle their land disputes with violence. It's precisely of people who have the same ideology that you do (and unfortunately there are many such people in Serbia) that us Americans and others had to get involved to stop genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina and ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. As long as these ideologies are popular among the Serbian people and it's leaders will will continue to see tensions and potential future conflicts in the Balkans. It's also worth to keep in mind that in every conflict Serbia ended up losing the war. A future Balkan conflict might be more disastrous for the Serbs then the ones in the 90s were. Serbia's economy is on the verge of collapse and having a long protracted war with tens of thousands of Albanian insurgents who would be well armed by Albania (a NATO country) would not be sustainable for long. Serbia's economy would collapse and other minority groups would rise up against the government leading a a civil war that would be disastrous for Serbia. Serbia needs to reform itself and move away from the hateful fascist ideologies of the past towards peaceful and enlightened ideologies and the process needs to integrate itself with Euro-Atlantic institutions that its neighbors are joining.

Drazha| 11.4.11 @ 10:34AM

Oh gee, I don't know... Someone goes through your front door, spreads his stuff in your living room while you are asleep, you find them in the morning, tell them to get out, they refuse, you call the cops, the cops pretend nothing is happening, you pull a gun, and now you are the bad guy?

Get real.

shishmish| 11.8.11 @ 8:13PM

Give me a break Draza. That front door you are referring to has been lost in reality in 19th century and you know that. The sooner Serbs accept this the better. Also, it is your main guy who sealed the deal for Kosovo's independence - Milosevic! Don't blame others for you have chosen a genocidal maniac and a really crappy warrior for your leader. He's lost just about every war he ever started and has caused Serbia's disintegration.

Lawrence D.| 11.4.11 @ 1:50PM

"In Yugoslavia, Rising Ethnic Strife
Brings Fears of Worse Civil Conflict"
By David Binder (Special to the N.Y.Times)
The New York Times, November 1, 1987
.................................
Slavic Orthodox churches have been attacked, and flags have been torn down. Wells have been poisoned and crops burned. Slavic boys have been knifed, and some young ethnic Albanians have been told by their elders to rape Serbian girls.
.................
As Slavs flee the protracted violence, Kosovo is becoming what ethnic Albanian nationalists have been demanding for years, and especially strongly since the bloody rioting by ethnic Albanians in Pristina in 1981 - an "ethnically pure" Albanian region, a "Republic of Kosovo" in all but name.
...................................
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e4f_1203725619

Dimitri Aleksandrovich| 11.5.11 @ 3:55AM

You must forget that it was the KLA's terrorist operations that provoked the Yugoslav government crackdown in Kosovo. You must also forget the ethnic cleansing that the KLA carried out as Serb forces withdrew and atrocities including organ harvesting. You must not remember the burning of Orthodox Churches and Monasteries and the anti-Serb pogroms that have taken place while Kosovo was under this NATO occupation. I am an American, but eclipsing that fact is that I am an Orthodox Christian who stands with my Orthodox Christian brothers and sisters in Serbia even if that means taking a stand opposite to that of the country of my birth (the U.S.A.). The Albanians who live in Kosovo need to accept that they live on Serbian soil just as Protestants in Ulster need to accept that they live on Irish soil.

Le Cracquere| 11.3.11 @ 6:11PM

Jeez, while you're at it, why not appoint thousands of Iranian "peacekeepers" to "protect" Palestinian persons and buildings? Or Red Chinese peacekeepers to protect the Burmese junta?

Kosovo WAS Srbija ... until the Serbs' own viciousness and ignorant folly erased their moral claim to it utterly and finally.

Lawrence D.| 11.4.11 @ 2:07PM

What were the rights that ethnic Albanians living in Kosovo requested from the new democratic Serbian government, and were denied (except separation)? If none, then why separate? Why punish a democratic Serbian government for the mistakes made by Milosevics?

jack| 11.4.11 @ 4:43AM

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roadmaster| 11.3.11 @ 8:03PM

I work with a Serb a few years ago and he HATED Albanians. He said they were nothing but a bunch of gangsters and thugs. Here is the example he gave me on how they operate: Say you left for a two week vacation and when you came home you found a bunch of smelly Albanians living in your house who refused to leave. They would claim since you "abandoned" your domicile they were taking possession of it. If you protested, they would pull out guns and force you out of your own home, and if you put up a fight they'd kill you and bury you in the back yard.
So now the USA is buddy-buddy with these goons. Good job, Clintons!

roadmaster| 11.3.11 @ 8:18PM

After the "war" it was learned that instead of destroying 1000 tanks, we had been bombing the same inflatable decoys, moved around to different spots. We actually only blew up 50-60 tanks. Kind of hard to fight a war with blinders or from 15,000 feet. Hillary Clinton is the force which drove this stupid adventure when she bought into the phony genocide stories. Those people hate each other with such venom, no one could keep a lid on them. I suspect Tito gets credit because his goons killed all the witnesses to his depredations. We have no more business in the Balkans than we do in Libya - absolutely no strategic value and we don't even get any good PR for "saving" the "poor" Moozlims. Screw 'em.

Mike| 11.4.11 @ 1:12AM

It's spelled "Muslims". Your last sentence is not correct, Bosnians and Albanians do give a great amount of credit to us Americans for ending genocide and saving lives. They also consider America to be their closest ally and the American people to be caring and generous. The US did get a log of good PR in the region and around the world for intervening to stop genocide and save innocent civilians regardless of their religion.

John| 11.4.11 @ 1:43AM

Let’s get real. Genocide is something you see in demographic numbers. Like the Jewish population of pre-war Poland which simply disappears after WWII. Or the Armenian population in parts of Turkey.

If you look at the statistics in Bosnia, the relative share of different ethnic groups (Bosniacs, Serbs, and Croats) is pretty stable pre-war and post-war, with Croats probably decreasing their share more than anyone else. The point: lots of war crimes and ethnic cleansing, in fact homogenizing, ON ALL SIDES for sure, but genocide, especially by the “super-specially evil Serbs", that’s a propaganda tool. And you seem to scream genocide, genocide, in every post.

What resembles the most to a genocide in the Balkans was the thorough ethnic cleansing of the Serbs from Croatia. From 12% in the population to less than 4%. Over 300,000 people which were never allowed to return, yet Croatia is being welcomed into EU. A little uncomfortable to talk about since that big action, the largest single act of ethnic cleansing, was done with the help of US air force. Courtesy of Bill Clinton and the worst secretary of state in recent memory.

BosnianGenocide| 11.4.11 @ 9:40AM

John, the Serb forces committed genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina. All of Eastern Bosnia which used to be a ethnic Bosnian majority region is now Bosnian Serb majority after the genocide. Cities and towns which had tens of thousands of ethnic Bosnians in them before the genocide had no ethnic Bosnians living in them after the genocide. The "safe zone" of Zepa fell after Srebrenica and ethnic Bosnian population was killed and forcefully removed in its entirety. After the fall of the city not a single ethnic Bosnian remained in it. The same happened in the city of Foca, Zvornik, Gacko, Trebinje, Visegrad, etc. Huge swaths of Bosnian territory on which ethnic Bosnians were the majority or which used to be thoroughly ethnically mixed ended up being entirely Bosnian Serb after the genocide. Over a 100,000 people were killed in the genocide, 30,000-50,000 women and girls were systematically raped, thousands were killed in concentration camps, and 2 million were forcefully displaced from their homes. Sarajevo was under Serb siege for four years and ten thousand civilians were killed including over a thousand children in the longest siege of a capital city in modern history. The atrocities committed by Serb forces against Bosnian civilians in the 1992-1995 Bosnian Genocide constitute the worst instances of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity seen in Europe since the Holocaust. These are well known and researched facts backed up by forensic evidence, eyewitness accounts, and international court rulings. So the question is why is the author completely avoiding those facts and making daft statements that the Serbs only commuted genocide because they were in a position to do so. The author needs to do much more research into the events that took place in the 1990s before he makes such statements, otherwise he comes off as being uninformed or worse yet willfully negligent of presenting accurate facts and making factual statements.

dan| 11.8.11 @ 10:17AM

What about west side of Bosnia and Hercegovina you have Muslims who are against war and they do not wanna fight with Serbs. So Goverment from Sarajevo ordered attacks and killing their OWN people do you know about that or you do not want to know.

Drazha| 11.4.11 @ 10:38AM

Where was America when those same "Bosnians" and Albanians ethnically cleansed Serbs for 500 odd years?

Oh! Yeah... :)

shishmish| 11.8.11 @ 8:15PM

Well, as far as I know America did not exist 500 years ago.

BosnianGenocide| 11.4.11 @ 1:21AM

Even the title of the article is confusing. When did the US engage in social engineering in the Balkans? The US simply came to the rescue of Bosnian, Croatian, and Albanian civilians under attack by well-armed Serb forces intent on exterminating them. It is the Serbs who through genocide and ethnic cleansing tried to implement social engineering by creating "ethnically pure" territories on which Serbs would live in a "Greater Serbia". They attempted to eradicate non-Serb populations from areas that were to be incorporated into Greater Serbia. Their attempts were partially successful in Bosnia precisely because the West refused to intervene to stop the genocide and proved the well-armed Serb forces with three years of cover for them to murder, rape, and pillage unarmed Bosnian civilians. Once the US decided to intervene to stop the ongoing genocide they simply applied pressure on the Serbs to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the internationally recognized state of Bosnia-Herzegovina which was based on the millennium-old Bosnian kingdom/state/autonomous province/republic. The US did not in any way attempt to socially engineer the region it simply intervened to stop the Serbs from socially engineering the region to form a greater Serbian state through genocide and ethnic cleansing.

Drazha| 11.4.11 @ 10:43AM

So... what Serbian force attacked Slovenians? As far as I remember, Slovenians attacked the Yugoslav National Army...

So... what Serbs attacked Croats? As far as I remember, Croatian Democratic Party won, instigated Pavelic's Nazi ideology, threatened to finish the business with the Serbs, and the Serbs armed up and did not wait helplessly in their own homes to be slaughtered...
So... who started the war in Bosnia? Who started shooting whom at the wedding in Sarajevo?

Millennium old Bosnian kingdom? You know you are talking about 1000 years, right? You do know that it was split up even in the times of the Roman Empire? Before it ever became anything resembling someone's dukedom? A safehaven for those fleeing Christianization from both the Rome and Constantinople's christian churches? Ever heard of Bogumils? Of a defeated army, whose survivors came back with their eyes burned out, with only one man left with one to lead them all back home?

KiwiBro| 11.8.11 @ 5:04AM

Do not be so fast to dissmiss the Serbs. American Goverment has "laid" to bed before with Shah of Iran,Afghanistan Freeedom Fighters and Sadam Hussein,and look how that turned out. Now they are getting in to bed with Kosovo Albanians,and that won't end well. Serbs could be and are valuble allies to the States especialy with all the information Serbian intelligence and police are providing to CIA and FBI regarding extremist terrorist cells that exist on soil of Bosnia,Kosovo,Croatia,Serbia and Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

neko| 11.8.11 @ 5:10AM

Dear,

I was born in Serbia. I just want to thank you since this is the first time somebody from USA is talking about this issue. So I do not want to say "oh yes you are right" but just want to thank you for this objective text.

Thanks.

Dejan| 11.8.11 @ 7:01AM

Thank you Doug Bandow for being brave and say some words which represents actual situation in this part of Europe.Greetings from one Serbo-Macedonian

John Gj| 11.8.11 @ 4:00PM

This is article presents distorted truths on the Balkans and includes outright lies. It is a continuation of the Serbian Governments propaganda machine. Mr. Bandow didn’t even bother to disclose that he is a member of the Advisory Board of American Council for Kosovo (a Serbian lobby group in U.S.)(link: http://www.savekosovo.org/?p=1&au=advisory).

He is a paid lobbyist for the Serbian Government. He is well known for accepting money to write articles such as these for anyone who pays him well. Himself he admitted that he accepted payments over the past decades from lobbyist such as Jack Abramoff in return for publishing articles favorable to Abramoff’s clients. We all know who Jack Abramoff is ;). This raises questions about Bandow’s record as a “neutral” observer of the Balkan conflict.

Serbian and Yugoslav military, police, and paramilitaries expelled more than 850,000 ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, internally displacing several hundred thousand more. Many were robbed and beaten as they were forced from their homes, which were frequently looted and burned. Thousands of women were raped. Thousands of adult males were detained, and many of them were executed, together with women, children, and the elderly (more than 15 thousand killed). In more than a dozen mass killing sites, government forces tried to hide the evidence by destroying or removing bodies. One of the mass graves was just few kilometers away from Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. The brutal campaign against ethnic Albanian civilians came to a halt only after the withdrawal of Yugoslav soldiers and Serbian police and paramilitaries and the entry of NATO forces on June 12, 1999. NATO and U.S. saved lives Mr. Bandow.

If you want to find out what happened in Kosovo or the Balkans, please refer to the unbiased sources such as reports of Human Rights Watch (link: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/kosovo/) . Don’t fall prey to paid lobbyists.

David K| 11.8.11 @ 11:19PM

Thanks for the information John. Your comment is what I call investigative journalism, something that is lacking in today’s media. What I found upsetting was that Mr. Bandow didn’t even bother to let the reader know he is a paid lobbyist for the Serbian Government. His very act of hiding that information from the reader reveals his intentions.

I checked the HRW reports that you posted and they were very informative. Anyone who is interested in knowing what happened in the Balkans should read those reports, from unbiased sources, instead of distorted articles from paid lobbyists. It is very shameful the types of ‘lies’ that lobbyists like Mr. Doug Bandow try to sell to the general public. As you said, these people write articles such as these for anyone who pays them well. Some day people like Mr. Bandow might even write articles praising Al Qaeda, saying that killing Osama was a mistake for the U.S. This is what you can expect from the friends of Jack Abramoff.

Dario| 11.8.11 @ 5:28PM

Finally somebody had a balls to write what is true.....Thanks

Dario| 11.8.11 @ 5:35PM

The Independent State of Croatia (Croatian: Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH) was a World War II puppet state of Nazi Germany,[4] established on a part of Axis-occupied Yugoslavia. The NDH was founded on 10 April 1941, after the invasion of Yugoslavia by the Axis powers. All of Bosnia and Herzegovina was annexed to NDH, together with some parts of Serbia. The state was technically a monarchy and Italian protectorate from the signing of the Rome agreements on May 19, 1941 until the Italian capitulation on September 8, 1943, but the king-designate, the Prince Aimone of Savoy-Aosta, refused to assume the crown in opposition to the Italian annexation of the Croat-populated Yugoslav region of Dalmatia.[1][2][3] The state was actually controlled by the governing fascist Ustaše movement and its Poglavnik,[note 1] Ante Pavelić, which in turn were primarily under German influence. For its first two years up to 1943, the state was also a territorial condominium of Germany and Italy.[5] Additionally, central Dalmatia was annexed directly into Italian territory as part of the irredentist agenda of an Italian Mare Nostrum (Our Sea). Italian influence collapsed in 1943, with the ousting of Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini. Racial targets of the NDH were Jews, Serbs and Roma people, against whom large-scale genocide campaigns were conducted in places such as the Jasenovac concentration camp.[6][7][8]

Mil| 11.9.11 @ 7:19AM

Great piece.
I can see why some educated Americans would think leave the Europeans to it.
It was false data coming from Germany that encouraged bombing Serbs to prevent genocide in Kosovo.
http://www.iraqwar.org/germanreport.htm
Again it was the Germans who's pre-recognition of Croatia and Slovenia gave dialogue no chance. It was Croatia who sent the likes of Glavas, Seks, Mercep into places like Vukovar to kill innocent kids and civilians before any and during the war was started. This blow was of a psychological nature reminisant of WW2 atrocities for Serbs, they offcourse reacted, perhaps overly and with vengance.
http://iwpr.net/report-news/re.....vestigated
In Bosnia the same the Sijekovac killings set the tone for the bloodiest conflict in Europe since WW2, all the Serbs wanted was to live together in safety outside the scope of redrawn communist borders, they knew what was waiting for them otherwise. The Serbs and the land they toiled for centuries was taken from them, only in Bosnia is were they could preserve themselves and their identity. Croatia & Kosovo ethnic cleansing is doing and did what the West claimed they were preventing. Maybee it's not to late to sit the Balkanoids down and get them to thrash out new borders amongst themselves based on voluntary land swaps and land ownership. Once done, no one will have the right to claim something that is not their's, thus seperated they might just get along co-operate on alot more levels.

Jesenko Tesan| 11.9.11 @ 2:52PM

Sir, I think that the question underlying your argument, Mr Bandow, is actually not about Bosnia and/or states in transition, it is more about Iraq.
What happened in Bosnia in 1992-1995 was not military intervention but rather how-to-stop-the-conflict. Iraq is military intervention and/or liberation (pick one) which is different from Bosnian case in its core. So, the author is possibly trying to do both. 1. Discredit interventionism as an instrument to stop brute dictators such as Karadzich and/or Mladich. This is very interesting why would one want to do that. Second, author is possibly trying to find an exit strategy for and from Iraq while at the same time trying to argue that Bosnia is a failed case of intervention therefore if Bosnia has failed (which is so ignorant, for unlike Northern Ireland Bosnia does not have “Peaceful Walls”) why should the US policy makers worry?l So, the mother of all questions is: Was/is Bosnian case a case of military intervention or stooping the conflict on the part of the whole world?