Organization: University of Illinois at Chicago
Date: Sat, 9 Jan 1993 14:26:36 CST
From: <U15231@uicvm.uic.edu>
Newsgroups: soc.culture.bosna-herzgvna
Subject: Chicago Tribune

Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: An article on Bosnia from the Chicago Tribune (from Haluk)

 This article is written by Leslie H. Gelb.

 The day will soon come when two groups of leaders
 are charged with crimes against humanity in Bosnia:
 the Serbs who are killing Muslims and driving them
 from their homes, and the Western leaders who are do-
 ing little to stop this unspeakable brutality.
   The Serbian policy of "ethnic cleansing" is worse
 than a crime; it is evil.
   The West's failure to confront this evil is worse than
 a blunder; it is an abdication of our humanity.
   We are speaking here not just of quagmires, but of
 our souls. For if we allow evil to triumph in ex-Yugosla-
 via, we will breed a cynicism so pervasive and profound
 as to corrode the very basis of Western liberty and
 smash every hope of fashioning a better world.
   The West's faint efforts in Bosnia - refusing to arm
 Muslims for self-defense, but not defending them our-
 selves; banning Serbian flights over Bosnia, but not en-
 forcing the ban; denying asylum to refugees, but failing
 to establish safe havens for them within Bosnia -
 amount to unconscionable cynicism.
   It is as if we were given the chance to replay history
 and confront Hitler as his troops marched into the
 Rhineland in 1936 - knowing all we now know - and
 once again simply scolded him and shrugged.
   To countenance genocide, and that is what the Serbs
 are doing, is to say that evil does not matter, that noth-
 ing matters, and that therefore almost anything is ac-
 ceptable.
   Some of our ex-leaders see this with dagger-like clar-
 ity. Rallying to Margaret Thatcher's trumpet, Ronald
 Reagan recently told students at Oxford University
 that "Evil still stalks the planet." Of Bosnia, he said:
 "Our multilateral organizations must declare ethnic-
 cleansing and the slaughter of civilians by military
 forces unacceptable. And we must be prepared to put
 weapons behind our words."
   George Shultz, his secretary of state, reinforced this
 point last week with barely controlled rage: "When we
 say, 'never forget, never again,' what are we talking
 about? What is it that we shouldn't forget? Of course
 the Jews in Germany, and, of course, what can happen
 ff anti-Semitism gets out of hand. But more broadly,
 we're saying, when forces of intolerance go wild, you
 get a result that is basically intolerable. So if we say
 'never again,' it means we say we shouldn't stand for
 that."
   But our present leaders do not agree. Listen to those
 who oppose stronger action in Bosnia. They say we
 cannot commit greater force there for "merely hu-
 manitarian" reasons. Listen again, "merely humanitar-
 ian" reasons.
   When we come to think of humanitarian concerns as
 "mere." we are arrivin at the end of civilization.

   Bush administration officials and Western European
 leaders also tell us that sending 30,000 U.S. forces to
 Somalia is acceptable, though "merely humanitarian,"
 because the task there is "easy."
   On the other hand, they say that applying more force
 to stop genocide in Bosnia is "too hard" and will draw
 us into a quagmire.

   This argument is both grotesque and absurdly mis-
 leading. Grotesque because combatting evil cannot
 simply be dismissed as "too hard." The degree of diffi-
 culty limits what it is possible to do and affects the
 choice of means. But it does not alter the moral imper-
 ative for meaninglul, non-cynical action. Misleading be-
 cause the real alternatives in Bosnia are not the pre-
 sent half-hearted relief effort and a quagmire.

   As Shultz argues and he's no bleeding-heart liber-
 al - Bosnia presents "a definable, doable mission, and
 it doesn't involve getting into a swamp." We can arm
 the Muslims, enforce the trade embargo and the flight
 ban over Bosnia, bomb Serbian forces in Bosnia and
 military targets in Serbia, threaten to arm Serbia's op-
 ponents elsewhere in ex-Yugoslavia and provide safe
 havens in Bosnia.

   Most of these steps are beyond the vision and will of
 the departing Bush team. Bill Clinton leans toward
 more decisive measures, but his administration will
 not take hold for more than a month. That places the
 burden for immediate and strong action in Bosnia
 squarely on Europe.

   If Europeans once again ignore genocide and evil
 and decline to be their brothers' keepers, Americans
 may not want to be Europe's keepers for much longer
 either. Cynicism is indeed contagious. Americans may
 come to believe that helping Europe through its latest
 continent wide trials is "too hard" for "merely humani-
 tarian" reasons.


 The Chicago Tribune, 435 N. Michigan Ave.,
 Chicago, Ill. 60611.
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