Whenever you hear the New World Order crowd whining ahout the obligation
of the "international community" to come to the rescue of a
"multiethnic democracy" threatened by "nationalism,"
get ready for Uncle Sam to be dragged off on a fool's errand. This term,
"multiethnic democracy," the prime exemplar of which is supposedly
the United States, is state-of-the-art New World Order lingo for the new
type of state designed to supplant the old nation-state, which is based
on retrograde "nationalism." "Nationalism" is pejorative,
referring to the aspiration, heretofore considered natural and honorable,
of any people to live in its own homeland, contingent upon that people's
ability and willingness to fight for it and sustain it. In their untiring
vigilance against any holdouts, current or potential, aginst the homogenized,
deracinated world government in the making, all lovers of progress oppose
ethnically-based nationalism at home and abroad. Exibit A of this phenomenon
is the hatred of the Bad Old South Africa, particularly Afrikaner nationalism,
and the wild enthusiasm for the Good New South Africa, an aspiring
"multiethnic democracy" labeled a "rainbow nation" by French President
Francois Mitterrand. The new African National Congress-dominated regime,
with the rest of the world's approval, is determined to stamp out any remnant
of autonomy for the Afrikaners and Zulus, the genuine nations in South
Africa with the strongest sense of identity and cohesion. Incidentally,
that stamping out may yet involve slapping blue halmets on the United States
Army's 82nd Airborne.
The endangered "multiethnic democracy" of the moment is, of course,
Bosnia-Hercegovina. According to proponents of intervention in
the Balkans, Bosnia was once a dreamland where Catholic Croat, Orthodox
Serb, Muslim, and Jew lived in peace and harmony, frequently intermarried
(a big selling point), and respected and tolerated each other until,
inexplicably, the Serbs, incited by the Hitler-of-the-Month, Serbian
President Slobodan Milosevic, suffered an atavistic fit of nationalism. The
only decent response, in the New World Order, is to stage a Studs
Turkelesque "Good War" to restore Bosnia to its pristine state.
In pursuit of this goal, the entire apparat of the West has cranked
into action. Atrocity stories, war crimes, even genocide. Grim footage
of -- yes! -- DEATH CAMPS, in the heart of Europe, back after 50 years!
Mortar bombs raining down upon civilians in bread lines and marketplaces
(never mind who the real perpetrators were, or how Muslims cameras just
happened to be ready at the scene). The shelling of hospitals (omitting
little details like guns mounted on hospital roofs). Evil Serb snipers
shooting Muslim children in a bus (the fact that the murdered children
were actually Orthodox Christians -- i.e. Serbs -- somehow getting lost
in the shuffle). Elie Wiesel wailing on opening day at the United States
Holocoust Memorial Museum. Zubin Metha leading the Sarajevo Symhony Orchestra
in a performance of Mozart's REQUIEM in the shelled-out ruins of the National
Library, broadcast to 26 countries worldwide. Peter Jennings in an hour-long
nationally televised pout. Patricia Ireland and the National Organization
for Women demonstrating against the elusive "rape hotels."
Somehow, though, America "just didn't get it." Despite a sustained,
three-year propaganda symphony not equiled since the Spanish Civil War
in its comprehensiveness, striking imagery, and nearly undetectable smothering
of dissent -- plus assurances of no American ground troops, just surgical
air strikes, which do not count as real war -- Americans, in a shocking
manifestation of niggardliness and blighted global consciousness, remain
unwilling to send their sons (and daughters) into this particular abattoir.
Maybe they felt gypped by the outcome of the crusade against the previous
Hitler-of-the-month, Saadam Hussein. Or maybe, in his own spasm of tribalism
A LA SERBE, Joe Sixpack done figured out that the United States military,
if it survives feminization and sodomization by our Philanderer-in-Chief,
would have its hands full taking care of our borders (assuming they are
ever set to that task) without trotting them off as janissaries to save
every "multiethnic democracy" that hoists a flag at the United Nations. Or
maybe, despite a Made in America historical memory normally good for about
two weeks of the Latest O.J. Simpson developments, our typical fellow
citizen has evolved an inarticulate but usually accurate political sense
that tells him when he is being force-fed an uncommonly ripe batch of swill
by the reigning pseudoaristrocracy, representing both entrenched parties
(from Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich to Joe Liberman and Joe Biden), the news
media (the networks CNN, National Socialist Public Radio, the New York
Times, the Washington Post, and the Washington Times), the opinion magazines
(from the New Republic to National Review, from the American Spectator to
the Nation), organized religion (Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish, and
Muslim), the off-the-shelf scribblers and blabbermouths (from William
Safire to Anthony Lewis and Susan Sontag), and a bevy of neoconservative
pinups (Jeane Kirkpatrik, Zbigniew Brzezinski, Natan Scharansky, George
Soros, Norman Podhoretz, Teddy Kollek, Albert Shanker, Richard Perle, Albert
Wohlsetter, Joseph Brodsky, and Czeslaw Milosz, plus numerous others,
demanding in the Wall Street Journal that the United States bomb not only
the Bosnian Serbs but Serbia proper).
And on this one, our typical fellow citizen has got it right. Bosnia -- in
fact, the entire Balkans -- is not "the heart a Europe": it is the charred,
bone-paved gateway to the Middle East. It was never a tolerance, but an
arena of fierce and bloody struggle for supremacy and survival between
Christians (in two mutually antagonistic varieties, Roman Catholic and
Orthodox, not counting the now-extinct Bogomils) and Muslims; among
communist, royalist, republicans, and irationalists of various hues; and
among Serbs, Croats, Greeks, Bulgarians, Albanians, Germans, Italians,
Magyars, Romanians, and Turks. If at any time a semblence of order existed
in a given locale, it was only because one group or another was on top, and
depending on the specifies, the oth- er just had to live, or die, with the
consequences. Rule Number One is this: you want your enemies to live as a
minority in YOUR state; you do not want to be a minority in their state. In
the Balkans, the hazards of minority status can range from the fairly
comfortable buy-out of their ill-gotten gains "suffered" by the Muslims
under what amounted to Serb rule in pre-World War II Yugoslavia, to the
horrendous oppression of Christians under five centuries of rule by these
same Muslims, featuring such niceties as the Blood Tax (a periodic levy on
the infidel's children), not to mention occasional bouts of pillage, and
massacre to remind them who rules in Dar-ul-Islam.
As has been widely observed, the collapse of communism has led not to
the end of history but to its reappearance. Perhaps the problem in the
Balkans is that the place just has a lot more undigested history than most
other regions. Seemingly one cue, starting in 1991, the natives took
up their long knives and went after roughly the same throats as during
the First and Second Balkan Wars (which occurred just before World War
I), with encore performances during The War to End All Wars and its Sequel.
Particularly striking is the degree to which the nearby regional powers
have gravitated to the support of their traditional clients, setting
up, in this Bosnia Round of the Third Balkan War, a semi-overt proxy war
among Germany, Russia, and Turkey. Of course, there are always new -- meaning,
in the Balkans, reemerging -- wrinkles. Last year, so-called neofascists,
included for the first time in a post-war Itailan government, raised the
issue of whether certain parts of the Dalmatian coast should go to -- they
would say, be returned to Italy. These areas encompass the major towns
of Dubrovnik, Zadar, and Split, a.k.a., Rausa, Zara, and Spo- leto. The
Serbs, who have their own republic in a nearby part of Dalmatia, think
this is a dandy idea and have conferred honorary citizenship on a right-wing
Italian senator. Meanwhile, NATO air strikes against the Serbs are launched
from Italian bases. Croatia is a German satellite. Russia is as pro-Serb
as it can afford to be, with Yeltsin government tacking between appeasement
of its Western benefactors and the outrage of domestic critics across the
political spectrum: support for the Serbs is one of the few areas of policy
where "democrats" pretty much agree with what they otherwise
refer to as the "red-brown conspiracy." Britain and France, officially
com- mitted via NATO and the European Union to "the Western policy,"
i.e., a generaly pro-Croat/German and pro-Muslim/Turkish orientation,
favor a solution that leaves the Serbs with most of their current holdings,
a manifestation of their traditional Germanophobia. The only really
unprecedented element is the emergence of the United States as a zealous
partisan of Muslim regional interests, along with Turkey, Iran, and pretty
much the same lineup as in the anti-Iraq coalition in the Persian Gulf War.
The United States, by virtue not only of its tripwire in FYRM but its
overall regional network of political and military assets, would be deeply
committed to the Albanian/Turkish side in the Third Balkan War. Besides
the local consequences, we would then have the makings of a sharp
American/Russian confrontation.
More about America's metarphosis into Uncle Salaam in a moment, but
first back to the Balkan War. As noted above, the Bosnia Round, despite
a lot of effort by the usual suspects, has not done the trick: the United
States has not taken the bait. But, luckily for the progressives everywhere,
there happens to be another "multiethnic democracy" in the neighborhood
that seems to be just what the spin doctor ordered, lurking under the
improbable moniker of "The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia" (FYROM).
Modern Macedonia is much like Kashmir or Israel/Palestine or the
Falklands/Malvinas Islands, in the sense that hardly anyone really
understands it, and most of those who do generally lie, or at least adhere
to such astoundingly discordant versions of what passes for the truth that
they might as well be lying. Formerly the southern-most federal republic of
Titoist Yugoslavia, FYROM is the home of over two million people, most of
whom speak a Slavic language with features similar to Bulgarian and Serbian.
These Slavic-speakers are, by tradition, Orthodox Christians. In addition,
there is a Muslim minority, mostly Albanian, plus some Turks and Gypsies,
located mostly in FYROM's northwest, bordering Albania and Kosovo. FYROM is
landlocked (surrounded by Greece, Albania, Serbia, and Bulgaria), poor, and
mountainous. Its capital city is Skopje.
Apart from the meager data in the foregoing paragraph, there is next
to nothing to he said about FYROM and its inhabitants that would not
be subject to dispute. As an alternative to a blow-by-blow account of
Macedonian events since Alexander rode Boukephalos off toward the sunrise,
suffice it to say that topical questions include, but are certainly not
lim- ited to, the following: Are FYROM's Slavs really Serbs? (Even before
annexing the region in 1912, Belgrade said yes, but during World War II,
Tito, who was half-Slovene and half-Croat and all communist, decreed
otherwise.) Are they Bulgarians? (Sofia, in two Balkan wars and as many
world wars, has staked everything on the proposition that they are.) Or are
they a distinct Macedonian nationality? (The relation of ethnonyms to
toponyms can he very troublesome. By way of comparison, Engishmen, Welshmen,
and Scots live in Britain, and are therefore called "Britons," but the
previous Celtic inhabitants of the same land, also known as "Britons,"
were displaced or exterminated by the Germanic ancestors of today's
Englishmen, with contemporary Welshmen and Scots constituting, in part
anyway, survivors.) Are the Muslims a minor minority (under 20 percent, as
FYROM Slavs say they are) or a major minority (over 40 percent, as FYROM
Muslims themselves claim)? If the Slavs do constitute a nation, do the people
of Bulgaria's Pirin region, who speak an identical form of Bulgarian or M
acedonian or whatever it is, count as "Macedonians," with the obvious
irredentist implications? (This is not an idle question. Relations between
Sofia and Skopje almost broke down last year over the statement, in reference
to a trade pact, that it was executed in "the Bulgarian and Macedonian
languages," the latter of which Sofia rejects but Skopje insists upon.)
What about the undetermined number of speakers of the same language in
northern Greece, who, despite decades of relentless and sometimes brutal
Hellenizatin, only by quite a stretch of the imagination meet Athens' surreal
description of them as "Slavic-speaking Greeks"? Where does "Macedonia" end?
(FYROM constitutes only about one-third of the region traditionally
designated by the toponym "Macedonia," with most of the rest lying in Greece,
including a lot of waterfront property and Greece's seeond-largest city,
Thessaloniki.) An why do the answers to any of these questions matter,
anyway?
Because FYROM is likely to he the place where the regional Balkan
war, having misfired in Bosnia, finally goes off, pulling Serbia, Albania,
Greece, Turkey, and probably Bulgaria, maybe even Romania and Hungary,
into the melee, with each receiving the patronage of the United States,
Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Italy, and doubtless
many others. Moreover, in addition to its lack of internal ethnic
cohesion and identity, FYROM occupies, as Misha Glenny has pointed out,
a unique strategic position: "Control of Bosnia guarantees strategic
superiority in the northern Balkans. And Macedonia (the Vardar Plain) is the
only territory where the Balkan mountains can be traversed north to south
and east to west. Thus, those who control Macedonia (i.e. FYROM) control the
economy of the southern Balkans. The question is which traffic route will
prevail." Actually, Glenny understates the issue: this is not a question of
which way trucks will carry fish or rutabagas. It is one of regional
dominance, which will run either along an axis from Constantinopole west via
Adrianopole, Sofia, and Skopje, terminating at the Adriatic port of Dures,
or along an exis from Thessaloniki through Skopje to Belgrade and points
north. Or to put it another way, if, on the one hand, the North/South
orientation prevails, the Balkan Peninsula and all Central Europe, right
down to the traditional entranceway into Hades (sp?) where Cape Tainaron
sinks into the sea, is firmly glued politically, economically, and
culturally to the rest of the continent, with any serious Muslim influence
continued to Turkey's vestigal hold on East Thrace (and even that, some still
hope, might slip too). In such a case the main political task in the region
is a rational apportionment of German and Russian spheres of influence (a
decidedly Old World Order term that ought to be revived), a formidable but
by no means impossible task.
On the other hand, if the East/West orientation prevails, the Turks
are back at the gates of Vienna. (Figuratively speaking, since we are talking
about the forceful reentry into European affairs of not just Turkey but
the Islamic world in a broader sense. Of course, the Bihac "pocket" is still
some 200 miles from Vienna, or 40 miles from Zagreb, but it amounts to the
same thing). FYROM is the keystone that joins, on the east, the heavily
Muslim Greek-majority border region extending to European Turkey, and, on
the west, Albania, Kosovo (a province in Serbia with a 90 percent Albanian
Muslim population), and Bosnia-Hercegovina. The Bosnian Muslim settlement
from the Turkish border to north of Sarajevo. Cutting that "road" has been
one of the Bosnian Serbs' principal, and thus far successful, war aim.
During the April 1994 Gorazde crisis, which saw the first application of
American military force in the war, few observers took note of the real
Muslim objective to break out of Gorazde accross the nearby
Bosnian/Yugoslav border to Sandzak. If they had been successful, the Muslims
would not only have restored an important lifeline to the east, but the
Yugoslav army would have been forced to react, perhaps triggering the
long-sought-after American intervention, the Muslims' only hope of
victory.
As it turned out, despite massive preparations, the Muslims suffered
another humiliating defeat. The American intervention, consisting of
a couple of air strikes, was politically significant but far short of what
many observes hoped for. Still, for reasons that are not entirely clear,
the United States is unambiguously and consistently aiding the Muslim effort
all along "Allah's Road." The Istanbul publication Avdinlik reported on May
21, 1994, that hundreds of Muslim youths from Sandzak are being secretly
brought into Turkey via FYROM, for commando training. "The project of
training the Sandzak Muslims," it states, "is part of a plan to create a
Muslim state in parts of Serbia nd Montenegro." This also complies with the
views of (Bosnia's Muslim President Alija) Izetbegovic's party, which is
active in Sandzak. It was the United States that put forward the plan to
establish a Muslim state in Europe. Saudi Arabia is openly supporting it.
Besides, Turkey's secret diplomacy in the Balkans is being financed by Saudi
Arabia."
On February 14, 1994, the Sofia publication Duma reported on a visit
by two American diplomats to the Bulgarian border region with Greece.
According to Duma, their purpose was to help "draw together" Muslim
communities and political movements on both sides of the border between the
two predominantly Christian states, as part of the formation of a "Turkish
axis between Bulgaria and Greece," connecting Turkey to FYROM. On May 31,
the Sofia publication Kontinent discussed "the strong U.S. military
presence in the Balkans during the last two years and the unconcealed and
increasing appetites of the United States in the peninsula." Among the
specifics are a buildup of American military assets in Albania; additions
to "the U.S. `blue helmet' contingent" in FYROM and their "gradual
replacement of Scandinavian troops" (this is a reference to the 300
Americans sent there, ostensibly as U.N. peacekeepers, actually as a
tripwire, by our Razorbaek Rommel in 1993; their number has quietly doubled):
suspicious violations of Bulgaria's airspace; and political manipulations
within Bulgaria. "If those of our statesmen who still nurture pro-American
feeling hase not yet realized our geostrategic situation," warns the
Kontinet observer, "I advise them to spend an hour or two perusing the map.
The Balkans are not yet the (Persian) Gulf, although some people are very
keen on their becoming so. One thing, we have no oil, and another, not all
of us are yet inclined to become Muslims."
The respected and well-informed London publication Defense and Foreign
Affairs Strategic Policy points in its October/November 1993 issue to many
of the same developments:
Despite the lack of any clear agreement on Balkan policy between the
competing U.S. foreign policy power centers ... the United States appears
to be establishing economic, political and military advisers and bases
throughout the Southern Balkans. The U.S. clearly sees this region as within
its sphere of influence. In Albania, U.S. economic advisers are positioned
in most, if not all, government departments, and there is a large number
of military training officers. U.S. warships enforcing U.N. sanctions
(against Serbia) are based at Viore. Following an extensive visit to Albania
last month, a British journalist commented that "Albania has come to
resemble an American training academy. The poorest country in Europe
is fast becoming an American colony." The same picture holds true
for Bulgaria and, under the pretext iii peacekeepers, hun- dreds of U.S.
troops have moved into (FYROM). They are equipped with sophisticated weapons
systems which exceed those necessary for a normal peacekeeping role.
The massive pressure of American policy on the states of the south Balkans
is unmistakable; the only thing ruining is a coherent explanation for
it. Bulgaria and FYROM, two states with every reason to oppose increased
Muslins influence, have seen little choice but to cooperate. Bulgaria,
burned badly by past attempts to annex FYROM, has today sought refuge in
its image as a Good International Citizen, which in practice means doing
everything the "international community" demands of it. The Greeks entirely
missing the point (as usual), have chosen to represent their legitimate
concerns about FYROM's eventual revanchist designs on Greek territory as an
ethnic copyright dispute concerning the name "Macedonia" and FYROM a
Hellenistic flag. Consequently, Greece has been almost entirely unable to
contain the growing Muslim power that seeks to cut it off from Serbia,
Bulgaria, and the rest of Europe, and has alienated potential allies among
FYROM's Slavs. This confused orientation reflects modern Greece's perennial
perplexity about its identity: whether it is, at its core, Byzantine,
Orthodox Christian, and Romaikos or European, neopagan, and Ellinikos;
the Greece of Constantine Porphyrogenitos or of Pericles, of icons or of
statuary. At the same time, Athens' stock in Washington steadily slides,
as ominious warnings are increasingly heard about the undue influence on
America's foreign policy exerted by the "Greek Lobby" -- from
quarters with a selective sense of outrage on behalf of the United State's
wounded sovereignty. Finally, the health of the aging socialist Prime Minister
Andreas Papandreou, Greece's answer to Ted Kennedy, is not expected to
hold out much longer, with governmental collapse and a possible "Evita
Peron" problem involving his trophy wife, former Olympic Airways hostess
"Mimi," certain to follow his departure.
For its part, the only line Bulgaria absolutely will not cross would
be a demand to let Turkish troops enter its territory or airspace. FYROM
is in an even weaker position, sailing between the Seylla of "multiethnic
democracy" and Charybdis of Macedonian nationalism. The government
of Kiro Gligorov, past communist apparatchik and current FYROM president,
has chosen Seylla, which has meant not only utter subservience to the
American/Turkish, East/West axis but constant and unsuccessful attempts to
appease the
Muslim minority domestically. This appeasement has reached the point
that he Gligorov government all but ignored a plot uncovered last year
by Muslim organizations to import arms from Alba- nia in preparation for
a secessionist revolt. "If a binational Macedonia isn't created, we
Albanians have two choises: Either we can accept assimilation or go to
war," says the leader of the group. Islamic community leaders long
demanded a census in FYROM, but most Muslims boycotted the one conducted
in mid-1994, possibly not trusting the Slavs to count them fairly, or perhaps
out of a desire not to tip their demographic hand too soon. Outbreaks of
violence between Slav and Muslim youths have become increasingly common,
and there are fears that in the event of large-scale disturbances Skopje
could not cope.
Here, in an ethnic implosion that ends FYROM's efforts to manage a model
state in the New World Order, is how the United States could get into Balkans
for real. Mob violence between the FYROM communities would trigger an
Albanian insurgency, and Albania and Turkey would support it. FYROM's Slav
would have no choice but to ask for Serbian backing, leading to an
Albanian-Serbian war that would center on Kosovo. From there, Greece's
participation would
be all but ineviatble, in support of longtime ally Serbia and predictable
ethnic Greek revolt in sothern Albania/northern Epirus. Turkey would take
action against Greece, possibly including direct moves in the Aegean
and Cyprus. Bulgaria would try, but probably fail, to stay out of it,
ultimately deciding to help FYROM's Slav and maybe chase out some of its
own Turks. Russia would provide political and military support to Athens
and Belgrade. The United States, by virtue not only of its tripwire in
FYROM but its overall regional network of political and military assets,
would be deeply committed to the Albanian/Turkish side in the Third Balkan
War. Besides the local consequences, we would then have the makings of
a sharp American/Russian confrontation. It is no accident that the groups
in the United States most keen on American military involvement in the
Balkans are, if possible. even more Russophobic than Serbophobic.