NEWS: Obscure Balkan Country Does Something Kind of Cool

POLITICS: Obscure Balkan Country Does Something Kind of Cool

The Croatian parliament has elected an ethnic Serb as prime minister.

It's a small story, I suppose, but one that I must confess I find affecting in the aftermath of the genocidal wars that began wracking the country of my forefathers some fifteen years ago.

Ivo Sanader, the ethnically-Serbian leader of the self-proclaimed "Thatcherite" Croatian Democratic Union, has been elected Prime Minister of Croatia's new right-leaning coalition government.

Mr. Sanader's assumption of power in Zagreb is particularly interesting in light of the fact that his predecessor as leader of the HDZ, the Holocaust-denying, fascist-leaning Franjo Tudjman, was the very man who led Croatia in the bitter, four-year war of independence against Serb-dominated Yugoslavia.

Mr. Sanader intends to integrate Croatia more closely with Western international organizations such as Nato and the EU.

I found this very interesting. It's nice to know countries are trying to be more friendly with the global community. Thank you Z.

I really feel good about this. Thank you Zarth.

Well, the big shift is within Croatia. Even ten years ago, an ethnic Serb as head of government would have been unthinkable - that was the war which gave us the phrase "ethnic cleansing," after all. That's what makes this story kind of redemptive.

But both Croatia and Slovenia have always been Western-oriented. That cultural faultline was one of the factors that gave Yugoslavia its centrifugal instability - Slovenia and Croatia (and Bosnia, though in a different, rather more cosmopolitan fashion) looked to Austria and Germany as their cultural and political models, while Serbia looked to Russia.

Sounds like a positive move in the right direction.

Awesome, I remember writing a paper about the conflict in college about 10 years ago, good to see thing change.

Of course one of the most intriguing aspect is that they'd be willing to elect someone from a group who not to long ago was viciously persecuted. That's kinda obvious, but they didn't seem to care enough to align themselves with the West regardless of the emulated them in politics and culture. The shifts really are directly linked. But you obviously know much more about it than me, so I'll just shuttup now. I just think it's cool that they're "officially" making an attempt to be more cooperative.

It's amazing how far that region has come, considering how bad things were a decade ago. It's amazing what people can do when they're the ones working toward it themselves and not being forced to at gunpoint.

This is amazingly good to hear, thank you for writing about it.

I like to hear that this happened. Thanks Zarth.

No, no problems may be realized without US! We´re the leaders of the free world! Stop resolving your own problems! Stop it! Don´t make us go all coup d'etat on your asses!

Wait? We have no involvement with Croatia? We didn't help mediate the cease-fire in 92? We haven't been giving Croatia money, intelligence, and gaurd-augmenting security forces? We didn't give them key intelligence that helped them take out strategic points in Serbian when they were in conflict? We didn't alegedly bomb Serbia to help Croatia out with one of our B-52's?

This is not to say that I am drawing a parrell to other countries we may or may not be helping. I'm merely saying that we DID help Croatia out. Big time. Like 13.4 million in demining big...

Definitely valid points as far as the specific is concerned, but I believe there was a bit of "suspension of disbelieve" for the purposes of characterizing American foreign policy of the past 200 years.

I would hope that not a single person, on either side of the fence, would ever dare to say that our foreign policy is infalable. You gotta atleast admit that, in the long run, the elder Bush/Clinton/younger Bush policies when dealing with this particular nation worked out. Now if only we could somehow do this across the board....

But wait, what's this I hear? You people still don't believe we found WMD's in Iraq? Ha...

Are you talking about Yugoslavia or Croatia? 'Cause I'll be totally honest, I know fuck all about Croatia's modern politics, and only a little bit about Yugo (only the relevance of Kosovo and the NATO bombings). My point being, I don't know much about US foreign policy as regards Croatia, and perhaps because I'm slightly younger than other. Perhaps, it's cause I'm a fucking un-educated asshole. I don't know.

BUT, to be quite honest, something that has sort of bothered me with this thread as far as non-interventionism is concerned, is that I'm all for interventionism where genocide is concerned. So yeah, maybe US policy benefited from non-interventionism in certain situations, but in cases of genocide we never benefit--we loose at being human beings.

But there wan't mass genocide going on in Iraq?

There is actually quite a bit, just not enough to matter to Bush et al. Besides China is a major player in Sudan and Bush isn't willing to go up against them unfortunately. But yeah, Darfur, Croatia, Rowanda, Uganda, anywhere....

You're correct, but there's a difference between protection and regime change, no? I wasn't suggesting ousting Bashir, but just protecting the "Darfurians". After all that's all that was necessary for achieving the Sudan Peace Agreement with the rebel factions in the south**.

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**where very similar if not more extensive atrocities occurred, but for whatever reason nobody knows anything about.

Check out the Halabja Gas attacks. That was the begining of a "security measure" that Saddam took, that by some estimates cost the lives of 100,000 men between the ages of 18-35.

We're going to have to agree to disagree on Iraq, especially since this is not what Zarth was talking about. But I will say this. I was there. Twice. In the thick of it. I thank God every day that I am still alive, and that the extent of my injuries only limits me somewhat. I also thank God everyday that I went.... Think about it.

I'd like to learn more about this if you have links, but keep in mind the distinction I drew between protection and regime change because I think it's an important one.

Most of the stuff I learned about the attacks against the Kurds, I read in books before I went over seas, however I've included a couple of links that may further explain what I am talking about:

Halabja Poision Gas Attacks

Kurdish Bombings

Albeit the second link is old, but if you are really trying to find more info on the web, those attacks are what I'm referung to.

But know I will commit a literary no-no and answer your question with another question. If you would prefer security over regime replacement, how would we accomplish that in Iraq? Economic and political sanctions didn't work. That's why they ran over the border and mushroom-stamped Kuwait the first time. I like the idea of using diplomacy over brute force, but give me a plan that would have worked in the case of Iraq. And by worked I also mean something that would have taken equally if not less time than the current war we are in. I honestly am all ears, because I feel that if I ever were to get an intellegent answer to this question, it would be from these fellow board posters.

(Zarth, I appologize for turning your post on it's ear. Yay, Croatia)

Those were incidents from 1988 and 1991. While the Ba'thist regime was guilty of genocide in the past, our involved did not seem to halt any ongoing genocide. Bald eagle's post suggested that he thought we should be involved in stopping genocide currently.

Note: I am not trying to belittle Saddam Hussein's atrocities against the Kurds. I am simply pointing out that your reply seemed to miss what he was getting at.

Not by the time the United States invaded. For all the flaws in Clinton-era policy towards Iraq, they are an example of containment working to reduce the destructive reach of Saddam's government.

Given the option and considering how thinly stretched our military is, I'd sooner see us to try and stop active and ongoing genocides, not avenge previous atrocities or use possible future genocides to justify regime change.

That was the UN.

To my knowledge, nobody was touching that war in its first years. The "international community" was too focused on Iraq and too frightened of intervening in a real genocide (see also: Rwanda).

Not that I've ever heard of. Sounds like Serbian propaganda to me.

That's not that much, and, more to the point, it's purely humanitarian assistance. Other countries donate that kind of stuff, too. It's not like "regime change," it's not even like we helped them out to the extent that we helped the Afghans drive out the Soviets, or the Contras drive out the Sandinistas.

We didn't invade Yugoslavia until very late in the wars, after hundreds of thousands of people had already died. There's no way you can make the case for the Balkans being a good example of international interventionism, at least not before Kosovo, or (at the earliest) at the very tag end of the Bosnian War.

Neither UN nor American weapons inspectors found WMDs. The best they could do was find "WMD-related activities," meaning that Saddam Hussein wanted such weapons. There was no evidence that he was anything like on the road to actually obtaining them.

No convincing evidence has ever been found that presented post-Desert Storm Iraq as an imminent or effective threat even against its neighbors, however, let alone the United States or the West.

Yes. After Desert Storm the Baathists annihilated the Marsh Arabs and cracked down on the Shiites. Dubya's Daddy did nothing then - when it would have actually mattered.

What? Economic and political sanctions of Iraq didn't begin until after they invaded Kuwait and were defeated.

Well, you're being polite, so I should probably return the favor a little better than perhaps I have been.

Your question is largely impossible to answer because "success" is not defined. Iraq was not a credible threat, so in that sense, our pre-Bush policy of containment already was working.

Now, don't misunderstand me. I supported a policy of intervention in both Yugoslavia and Rwanda (and Somalia, which didn't work out so well). I just don't see it as being justified in Iraq.

It's nice to see Croats and Serbs burying their hatchets - and not in each other's skulls. Thanks for finding this, Zarth.
You're right about Croatia and Slovenia being Western oriented - so is Montenegro, which caused some stress when that small nation remained in federation with Serbia.