BOSTON HERALD, Tuesday, February 26, 2002<\/b><\/p>\n
Is two million expelled Serbs enough for “ethnic cleansing”? <\/b><\/p>\n
by Don Feder, Boston Herald, 26 February, 2002<\/p>\n
2 million Serbs were expelled from Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, and 240 of
\ntheir churches were destroyed. When this happens to anyone else,it’s called
\nethnic cleansing and cultural genocide.<\/p>\n
As the war in Afghanistan goes on, the ghost of interventions past sits in a
\ncourtroom in The Hague.<\/p>\n
America can drop tons of explosives and send in the Marines to fight Taliban
\nterrorism. But when the Serbs confronted a similar menace, they were
\ndemonized and bombed for 78 days, and had a province wrested from them and\u00a0presented to Osama bin Laden’s Balkan brigade.<\/p>\n
Slobodan Milosevic has been charged with complicity to commit genocide and
\ncrimes against humanity. Before the travesty is over, he will doubtless be
\nconvicted of running the rail line to Auschwitz.<\/p>\n
The former Yugoslav president is a thug whose brutality played into the
\nterrorists’ hands. Even so, the trial of Milosevic before a U.N. tribunal is
\nintended to justify our Balkans blunder and discourage serious consideration
\nof its consequences.<\/p>\n
If what happened to Kosovo Albanians and Bosnian Moslems was genocide, what\u00a0of the treatment of Orthodox Serbs? After NATO’s air war, 200,000 were
\ndriven from Kosovo. Most who remain cower behind barbed-wire barricades in
\nMitrovica.<\/p>\n
Altogether, two million Serbs were expelled from Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo,
\nand 240 of their churches were destroyed. When this happens to anyone else,
\nit’s called ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide.<\/p>\n
The tragedy has its roots in the early 1990s, when the West decided Bosnians
\nand Croatians were entitled to their own states. Fine, said Belgrade, but
\nwhy should 2 million Serbs living there be forcibly expatriated? Who would
\nprotect their rights – the Bosnian Muslims who committed genocide against
\nSerbs in World War II?<\/p>\n
When local Serbs tried to secede from the secessionist states, they were
\nreviled as racists who hated all non-Serbs and lived to rape and plunder.<\/p>\n
After Bosnia and Croatia came Kosovo. Albanian Muslims became a majority in
\nSerbia’s ancient heartland through illegal immigration. They started when
\nthe Kosovo Liberation Army (on the State Department’s terrorist list as late
\nas 1998) began murdering Serb policemen.<\/p>\n
Milosevic overreacted. At Rambouillet, then-President Clinton and Secretary
\nof State Madeleine Albright gave him an ultimatum (surrender of sovereignty
\nover all of Yugoslavia) no self-respecting nation could accept. After the
\nGulf War, Washington was determined to prove its human-rights commitment by\u00a0coming to the aid of persecuted Muslims. The result was the creation of a
\nsecond de facto Islamic republic in Europe.<\/p>\n
In October, NATO’s secretary general, Lord Robertson, warned that the
\nBalkans must not become another “black hole” of terrorism, like Afghanistan.
\nHe was referring to the operations of our erstwhile allies.<\/p>\n
On Oct. 3, the Los Angeles Times reported, “Hundreds of foreign Islamic
\nextremists who became Bosnian citizens after battling Serbian and Croatian
\nforces present a potential security threat to Europe and the United States.”<\/p>\n
Bin Laden, who’s been heavily involved in the region since 1992, was
\nreportedly presented with a Bosnian passport for services rendered. The same international legion that’s fighting with the Taliban earlier served the
\nIslamic cause in Bosnia and Kosovo.<\/p>\n
In his Islamic Declaration, former Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic
\n(celebrated in the West as a multiculturalist) proclaimed, “There can be no
\npeace or coexistence between the Islamic faith and non-Islamic societies and
\npolitical institutions.”<\/p>\n
The Kosovo “freedom fighters” (as Sen. Joe Lieberman once called them) are
\nequally grateful for Western support. In one of the al-Qaida camps overrun
\nin Afghanistan, Americans found an entry application from a Kosovo Albanian
\nthat read, “I have Kosovo Liberation Army combat experience against Serb
\nforces. … I recommend suicide operations against parks like Disney.”<\/p>\n
After the subjugation of Kosovo, Muslims moved on Macedonia. Despite a
\nNATO-brokered cease-fire, on Nov. 11 terrorists killed three Macedonian
\npolicemen who were trying to guard a mass grave said to hold the remains of
\ncivilians killed by the guerrillas.<\/p>\n
Is the Albanian area of Macedonia destined to become Europe’s third Islamic
\nrepublic?<\/p>\n
The circus surrounding Milosevic’s trial is meant to distract us from the
\nreality of our Balkans misadventure – when we went to war not against
\nterrorism, but in its behalf.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BOSTON HERALD, Tuesday, February 26, 2002 Is two million expelled Serbs enough for “ethnic cleansing”? by Don Feder, Boston Herald, 26 February, 2002 2 million Serbs were expelled from Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo, and 240 of their churches were destroyed. When this happens to anyone else,it’s called ethnic cleansing and cultural genocide. As the war … <\/p>\n