Consider Chomsky's claim that: "In the early 1990s, primarily for cynical great power reasons, the U.S. selected Bosnian Muslims as their Balkan clients..." On its face this is ludicrous. When the United States selects clients for cynical great power reasons, it selects strong clients--not ones whose unarmed men are rounded up and shot by the thousands. And Bosnian Muslims as a key to U.S. politico-military strategy in Europe? As Bismarck said more than a century ago, "There is nothing in the Balkans that is worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier." It holds true today as well: the U.S. has no strategic or security interest in the Balkans that is worth the death of a single Carolinian fire-control technician. U.S. intervention in the Balkans in the 1990s was "humanitarian" in origin and intention (even if we can argue about its effect). Only a nut-boy loon would argue otherwise.
But whenever I ask the Chomskyites why he would claim that, "In the early 1990s, primarily for cynical great power reasons, the US selected Bosnian Muslims as their Balkan clients..." I get one or more of three responses:
a.. It was said in haste in an interview--it's not representative of his thought.
b.. Of course the U.S. selected Bosnian Muslims as their Balkan clients for great power reasons! Mineral wealth! Oil pipelines!
c.. Yes, he's made some mistakes. And he refuses to back down or make concessions when he is wrong. But it's more than counterbalanced by the stunning quality of his insights! ---
Only a nut-boy would say there were power-political motives behind US policy in Bosnia? Then the Bush and Clinton admionistration were full of nutboys:
New York Times May 27, 1992
Why the U.S. Now Leans on Belgrade
The immediate motive for sharper United States words and actions against the authorities in Belgrade in the Yugoslav conflict is revulsion at the killing of civilians and other violence by Serbian forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Beyond this, Administration officials said today, is the growing perception that the war in the Balkans has become a test for the United States and its principal allies on how to deal with security threats in post-Communist Europe. "The biggest factor is the events on the ground, the atrocities against civilians, the ethnic purification drive by the Serbs in Bosnia," said a senior Administration official long involved in Balkan affairs. "But it has also become a defining moment on what kind of European security system we are going to have. There is an absence of U.S. power, an absence of power generally. People are worried that the whole area is going to pot."
[...]
"We're looking at the first time since the 1930's that the United States deliberately stayed out of a European conflict," the official added. "It is a shift in U.S. policy. Earlier when confronting a security crisis, we would have become involved quite deeply.
"Our vital interests are not what they used to be. The third Balkan war in this century introduces the security problem of the future and there is no institution for defense or security to deal with it."
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Paul R. S. Gebhard, The United States and European Security, Adelphi Paper 286 (International Institute for Strategic Studies, London, February, 1994), cited by Peter Gowan:
Paul Gebhard, Director for Policy Planning in the Pentagon, explains the position at this time. The West Europeans were trying to develop 'a European Security and Defence Identity in the WEU outside NATO. US criticism of European institutions, however, can only be credible if European policies are unsuccessful.'(24) And he goes on to point out that the key European policy was the UN/EC Vance-Owen plan for Bosnia. He goes on: "The EC claimed the lead in setting Western policy at the start of the Yugoslav crisis...The Europeans may have thought that Vance's participation as the US representative was sufficient to commit the US to whatever policy developed. By having a former Secretary of State on the team, they may have expected to bring the US into the negotiations without having to work with officials in Washington. This approach reflects a desire in European capitals for 'Europe' to set the political agenda without official US participation on issues of European security." Gebhard goes on to describe the trip of Vance and Owen to Washington in February 1993 to try to persuade the US of their plan. "Vance and Owen argued that the deal.....was the best that could be crafted (implying that US participation would not have produced a better deal for the Muslims)...Without its participation, the Clinton administration was not committed politically to the plan....." This is an understatement on Gebhard's part: the Clinton administration was committed politically against the plan because it was an independent EU plan. And by quietly undermining the plan it successfully undermined West European attempts at independent European leadership. As Gebhard explains: "Because of the situation in Bosnia, the EC was unable to set the agenda for European security without the full participation of the United States....The political influence and military power of the US remain essential to security arrangements in Europe."
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