CLINTON'S DOUBLE CROSS
Troops ordered to stay in Bosnia
Occupation part of Pentagon plan to extend NATO
By Gary Wilson
President Bill Clinton slipped in and out of
Bosnia Dec. 22. He spent 11 hours there, trying to pump up
morale among the almost 10,000 GIs he had just consigned to
staying there, camped in the frozen mud, to secure the area in
the interests of U.S. big business.
On Dec. 18 Clinton had announced that U.S. troops will
occupy Bosnia indefinitely. This confirmed what anti-war
organizations in the United States have charged all along.
Two years ago Washington imposed the Dayton Accords on the
people of Bosnia, and announced that a U.S.-led NATO army would
occupy the region. At that time, Clinton baldly lied. He said
all U.S. troops would be out by December 1996.
Anti-war organizations in the United States like the
International Action Center said then that Clinton's claim
sounded just like Washington's lies about U.S. military
operations in Vietnam. A broader military operation was
secretly being built.
The Bosnia operation is so difficult to justify that Clinton
had to make his quick little trip as a public-relations effort.
The U.S. news media dutifully reported on his stopover in pat,
feel-good pieces that had the tone of the Pentagon-approved
newsreels of the World War II era.
The Dec. 23 New York Times, for example, reported that
Clinton "was greeted affectionately and even tearfully today by
Bosnians grateful to him for committing American troops." Under
a photograph of Clinton tightly circled by U.S. officers and
Secret Service agents, the Times carried the caption, "The
president and his family met a warm welcome in Sarajevo, from
American troops and Bosnian civilians."
That is the official line. Yet even big-business mouthpieces
like the Times have to acknowledge that occupying Bosnia is not
exactly a popular assignment for U.S. troops. Lt. Robert
Jenkins said, "It is like being in a minimum-security prison."
(New York Times, Dec. 21)
The following graffiti on the camp latrine express the
troops' feelings: "BOSNIA-Bullshit Operation that Should Not
Include Americans."
Conditions are harsh. They sleep in unheated tents on muddy
fields. Central Europe is cold in winter.
One soldier selected to greet Clinton in Tuzla called the
operation's headquarters "Disneyland" compared to where he's
stationed in the field.
Yet Clinton told the troops, "When you go to bed tonight,
thank god that you were given the chance to do something like
this."
The NATO occupation force is part of a broader Pentagon
strategy to expand NATO into Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union. Pentagon generals have said it more frankly than
Clinton does.
From the horse's mouth
Retired U.S. Army Gen. William E. Odom-an architect of the
Cold War-era Star Wars program-revealed the thinking of some in
the highest ranks of the Pentagon shortly after Dayton. In a
Dec. 5, 1995, opinion piece in the New York Times, Odom
indicated that the occupation of Bosnia is part of a plan for
U.S. military and political domination of Europe and the former
Soviet Union through NATO.
Part of that would involve a long-term military occupation
of the Balkans. "Having 40,000 [NATO] troops stationed in
Bosnia for a generation is a good thing, even if it requires
20,000 American troops to keep them there," Odom wrote. It
would send a message to all who would resist NATO's expansion
eastward.
Clinton isn't talking about it, but United Press
International reported Dec. 17 that Washington has established
in Bosnia a "secret police force" of 100 that can engage in
extra-legal, neo-Nazi-like repression. UPI reported that the
"armed, plain-clothes" force will soon be expanded to a
thousand.
Of course, Congress has the power to stop Clinton's decision
to indefinitely occupy Bosnia. Congress controls all funds and
spending. It could vote to cut off the Bosnia operation and
bring the U.S. troops home now.
But that is unlikely as long as big business and the
Pentagon go unchallenged by the movement here. In the two years
since Dayton the Pentagon's operations have cost about $6.5
billion-a boon to the military-industrial complex.
In addition, the Associated Press reported Dec. 21: "Since
U.S. troops began arriving in Bosnia two years ago as part of a
NATO-led force, the American presence has grown to a roughly
$300 million investment. Some Bosnians joke that their land has
become the 51st state." U.S. corporations are paying cut-rate
prices to grab control of recently privatized industries in
Bosnia.
What they leave out
None of the reports on the NATO occupation talk about the
origin of the civil war that broke up Yugoslavia. This war was
funded and fueled by the big capitalist powers, primarily the
United States and Germany. It was part of the Cold War drive to
destroy socialism in Europe.
Socialist Yugoslavia was an exceptional multinational state.
For more than 40 years the peoples of the Balkans lived
together without bloodshed.
But it was only possible because capitalism had been
overthrown in a popular, working-class-led revolution. Society
could then be reorganized on a socialist basis.
The Yugoslav communist party, which led the revolution, put
great emphasis on building unity among the different
nationalities. A collective presidency was established to give
each republic a term in running the federation. A kind of
affirmative action program was started that began the process
of building equality.
This has now been destroyed. And with it, living conditions
for the working class in all the Balkan republics have
plummeted. A labor union federation in Croatia-the most
industrialized and prosperous republic when it was part of
socialist Yugoslavia-reported Dec. 16 that while capitalist
Croatia boasts of its new millionaires, 1.6 million of
Croatia's 4.7 million people live in dire poverty with incomes
of less than $140 a month.
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page