When people talk about the war in Bosnia they tend to use the word “civil” war. This word is not only misleading, its implications are far more dangerous than meets the eye. The word “civil” in this context implicitly implies collective guilt, meaning that all warring sides in the war were equally guilty. Needless to say, the war in Bosnia was well planned in advance by Serbia as well as Croatia. We need only recall the covert meeting between Milosevic and Tudjman in Karadjordjevo in which the two leaders had decided to divide Bosnia between themselves. I wonder why Western journalists so often ignore and downplay the importance of this event. The two leaders agreed that Herzegovina would be annexed to Croatia and the main part of Bosnia would be annexed to Serbia. However, in order to realize this plan, Serbs had to either annihilate or expel the entire Muslim population of Bosnia. Even though the Serbs were militarily superior, this was easier said than done. Sadly, Bosnian Serbs managed to carry out their genocidal plan before the eyes of the entire international community, killing approximately 250,000 people. The international community refused to rescind the arms embargo arguing that it would create even more havoc. This is the same as refusing to help a defenseless victim during a vicious attack by an armed assailant. You simply turn your head the other way and say that they were both equally guilty. Blaming each party creates a psychological resistance to the suffering of the victim. This is how the U.N. justified its failure to prevent and stop the unfathomable genocide in Rwanda. In the case of Rwanda not once was the word genocide used to describe the abhorrent atrocities that were taking place there. Once again, genocide warrants immediate action from the international community and this is the reason the U.N. officials avoid using this word. Had they acknowledged that genocide was taking place in Rwanda then they would have been compelled to put an end to it. The same conclusion can be drawn about the war in Bosnia. By calling it a “civil” war, the international community argued that it was the responsibility of the warring parties to stop the conflict. This subsequently meant that all parties in the war were equally guilty. It is as if putting equal blame to a rapist and his defenseless victim. Was the international community unaware of what was happening in Bosnia?
I am convinced that the whole world knew at the time that genocide was taking place in Bosnia. The evidence in support of this claim was abundant and incontrovertible. Cherif Bassiouni’s meticulously researched document on the atrocities perpetrated in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was later submitted to the U.N. Security Council, proved that Serbs had committed the overwhelming majority of war crimes in Bosnia, as part of the policy of ethnic cleansing. While the report also acknowledged that Bosnian army forces committed grave breaches of the Geneva Convention, it was not part of the policy of ethnic cleansing. All respectable fact-finding organizations (the Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Red Cross) unanimously recognized Serbs as the aggressors. More important, they all documented the complicity of Serbia in the Bosnian war. It seems futile to present this evidence since many people in the West believe that the war in Bosnia was a civil war. Left revisionists knowingly misrepresent the war in Bosnia so that it be in accordance with their anti-American/Imperialism agendas. These demagogues do not care about the truth; in their systematic efforts to depict the U.S. as the greatest threat to international peace they are ready to downplay atrocities or even worse, to deny them. This is unacceptable. Even if one disagrees with something, one must always tell the truth even if it does not support one's stance. Yes, the U.S. foreign policy is primarily driven by imperialistic motives but this does not mean that Serbs did not commit genocide in Bosnia. The left revisionists are trying to convince us that the Serbian people were framed and deliberately dehumanized by the Americans and their allies so that the U.S. and its allies could send their troops to Bosnia and Kosovo in order to control the entire region. Even if it all was true, they still do not have the right to downplay Serbian atrocities or deny their war crimes. It would be one thing if they said that the NATO intervention in Kosovo was undertaken to increase NATO’s influence in the region while acknowledging that the Serbs were guilty of genocide. I would accept that, but many of these left revisionists claim that the Serbs were innocent.
Are they blind? No, but they loathe the truth and refuse to modify their views even if proved wrong. To these people, evidence makes no difference, what they believe is always true no matter if the entire world disagrees with them. To them, there is always a conspiracy and there is always something more than meets the eye. The entire world is blind, only they know the real truth, it is as if only they were entitled to truth. To them, the U.S. is always evil. They never try to see things from other people's perspectives, but why should they, they have monopoly on truth. For instance, some left revisionists have asserted that the massacre in Srebrenica does not constitute a genocidal act because, after all, the Serbs had been kind enough to allow women and children a safe passage to Tuzla. It does not seem to bother them that they killed approximately 8,000 unarmed and defenseless men. How can a person be so cold and not care about the relatives of these men? Do these left revisionists even take into consideration the feelings of these people before making such preposterous and ridiculous statements? No, all they care about are their own perverted agendas.