‘IN THE NAME OF GOD, GO‘: NO FURTHER EXCUSES SHOULD DELAY END OF THE WEST’S IGNOMINY IN BOSNIA, PUNISHMENT OF SERBS

(Washington, D.C.): The Bosnian Serbs’ contemptuous
liquidation of the so-called U.N. “safe haven” in
Srebrenica — following months of indiscriminate shelling of that
and other “protected” sites like Sarajevo, deliberate
attacks on a U.S. fighter aircraft and international peacekeeping
forces and the chronic interruption of humanitarian aid convoys
— can mean only one thing: The utter bankruptcy of all of the
old pretexts for continuing the United Nations mission in Bosnia
is now indisputable.

Consider the following lessons of Srebrenica:

• The moral equivalence of the past has been shown for what
  it is — ludicrous and indefensible.
• The Serbs are not equally aggrieved parties to a civil
  war; they are the aggressors, engaged in purposeful acts
  of genocide against innocent civilian populations.
• The terrible things that were asserted would happen if
  the U.N. withdrew are now happening in the
  presence of hapless United Nations personnel. And
• Far from playing a constructive role in ending the
  conflict in Bosnia, and therefore deserving relief from
  international sanctions, the ruthless Butcher of
  Belgrade, Slobodan Milosevic, is — as ever — actively
  supporting Serb aggression.

As William Safire noted in the href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=95-D_46at”>attached, brilliant column in
today’s New York Times, it is now clear that the costs to
the United States of fecklessness in Bosnia extend well beyond
the Balkans:

“Bosnia has given the world’s bullies good reason to
believe that the U.S. under this President can be had.
Clinton piously preaches ‘engagement’ but wimpishly practices
detachment; he denounces isolationism but joins perfidious
Albion in isolating a victim of aggression. Clinton has
turned a superpower into a subpower, stumbling down the UN’s
road to defeat.”

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy has long believed that the
scandalous appeasement that goes by the name of United Nations
peacekeeping in Bosnia must be brought to an immediate end. It
notes that Secretary of Defense William Perry has admitted that
there is an alternative to a lengthy withdrawal involving the
absurd insertion of well over 25,000 U.S. ground forces:
presumably, the rapid extraction of the peacekeepers without
their equipment. No other option should be contemplated. The
Center also strongly seconds Mr. Safire’s endorsement of the new
push being made by Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole to end the
immoral arms embargo and begin to punish the Serbs for their
abhorrent behavior.