European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - April 27, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse A a wednesday april 27, 1994 commentary 1 the stars and stripes Page 13clinton s bombing masks Lack of peace plan . A Rosenthal after More than a year of cogitation president Clinton has revealed his strategy for peace in Bosnia bomb bomb. I can to get it through my head that he really wants to go Down in history As bomber Bill. Will that be what it All amounted to All the idealistic Clintonia ism just bombs away without Ever putting a peace plan on the table that a it the desktop commandos scream Joy a go Bill go bomb Man bomb bomb. Surely the Man is smart enough though to know that bombs will not panic the winning bosnian serbs. Bombing serbs will not make the losing bosnian muslims any readier to make a Deal. But he must have enough sense to look for an escape from the War trap into which he has led America if so he can phone the president of Russia and accept his idea of an emergency Summit meeting. If they have the wit and guts the United states and its allies can with russian help at last come up with a plan to end the War they did so much to help Start. The West and the bosnian sides ruined any Chance of restoring a single Bosnia so the questions Are two. Who gets How much what happens to the muslims driven from their towns by ruthless serbian policy i wonder How Many americans realize that in the years of staggering and mumbling Ever deeper into the Balkan mess their government never came up with a plan to end the War not a one. All it did was rain on everybody else a plan until Clinton presented the dazzling concept of peace arriving by bomb will get the bosnian serbs to the negotiating table he says. Whoever said that was the problem bosnian serbs croats and muslims have been there so often they have engraved nameplates on the chairs. The problem is getting them to agree to a peace plan which will never happen As Long As nato and Russia do not give them a plan to agree to. The plan must embody american nato pressure on the muslims to grasp that they have lost a War sparked by their own declaration of Independence Over the objections of a 30 percent serbian minority. Then came the lit match a the Swift Western and . Recognition of Bosnia a nation headed straight for civil War and a bosnian government that did not have a prayer of defending itself against a big slice of Bosnia a own people. Bosnian muslims and the West knew the Christian bosnian serbs Well armed and backed by Serbia would fight to prevent their ancestral villages from becoming part of a new state controlled by serbs and croats Long converted to islam. A this is a civil War a vicious and with foreign intervention. Is there any other kind the West intervened by speeding the breakup of Yugoslavia and rapid Recagni Many Tion of Croatia and Bosnia. Serbia intervened with supplies and some troops to help bosnian serbs a who promptly lost International sympathy or a hearing for their political Case by driving muslims from their villages shelling civilian targets and breaking so Many truces that they even infuriated Russia. Losers lose. The muslims will have to accept a decrease in the territory they want to control. But winners can no longer take All. The europeans particularly Russia must pressure serbs to allow the return of some muslims a a cleansed out of their villages. Muslims who will not again Gamble their lives on serbian Muslim brotherhood should get compensation a and open doors in the West. In the end the United states Russia and Western Europe will have to push through a peace plan no matter How nato bombs drop on Bosnia. If not the War will last years possibly decades. We know that happens a dozen right now As we breathe. Meantime Clinton is doing what he said he would never do a Send americans into action without telling them when and How they would get out. If he meant Only the army that will be a mean Surprise to members of the Navy marines coast guard and air Force. But i done to hear anybody in government saying that the presidential pledge against open ended commitment has been broken. Maybe the lives of air Force Crews arc not Worth mentioning. That must be it because in Congress and the press All you hear is go bin go a bomb Man bomb. Is that really Bill Clinton the whole thing a c now York Olmos. Shameful betrayals make . Friends victims sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan d-n.y., could have been talking about Indochina when he reputedly said that to be an enemy of the United states can be uncomfortable but to be a Friend of the United states can be fatal. Only once in my almost four decades of Active Mili. Tary service was i ashamed of my country. It was during the evacuation of the . Embassy in Saigon on april 30, 1975, when i had to desert a group of vietnamese refugees to whom i had Given the solemn word of the United states that they would not be abandoned. But Washington decided otherwise and the evacuation was cancelled just As it was about to be completed. All americans were ordered out and the refugees left to their Fate. Even More contemptible were our actions in Cambodia. In one of the most poignant episodes of the War cambodian Leader Sirak Matak refused evacuation by the United states from phenom penh As the capital fell to the Khmer Rouge. As the Baltimore suns Arnold Isaacs reported in his appropriately titled Book without Honor in a note to .>ambassador John Gunther Dean Sirak Mitak said a a never believed for a moment that you would have Thi sentiment of abandoning a people which has chosen Liberty. A but Mark it Well that if i shall die Here on the spot and in my country that i love i have Only committed this mistake of believing in you the it was a fatal mistake. Eight Days later Matak was dead executed by the Khmer Rouge at the Start of a bloody holocaust that would murder millions of his fellow citizens. Even More pernicious than the abandonment of our erstwhile allies Isaacs noted was that after the Khmer Rouge blood Bath was ended by the vietnamese invasion in 1979, a in a last gruesome distortion of Macri can values for geopolitical reasons the United states gave diplomatic support to the ousted now shamefully again for a geopolitical reasons Quot the United states is completing the trilogy of its Indochina infamy by betraying to their deaths the most faithful of our indochinese allies the hmong Mountain tribesmen of Laos. As Jane Hamilton Merritt has detailed in her compelling new Book tragic mountains the hmong the americans and the secret War in Laos during the Vietnam War a at the direct Behest of the United Harry g. Summers states a the hmong at great Cost to themselves kept the North vietnamese army and communist Patchet lao from overrunning Northern Laos thereby protecting . Secret bases there used As staging areas to Rescue downed airmen and As radar Sites for the precision bombing of North Vietnam. Not surprisingly when the communists won in 1975, one of their first acts was to launch genocidal attacks on the hmong tribesmen who had Given them so much grief. These attacks included the use of chemical and biological weapons known As a yellow in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary a a scientific . Apologists for the Patchet lao attempted to explain these chemical attacks away As a Bee dung a a charge foolishly repeated by some in the Media. To escape this genocide Many of the hmong sought Refuge in neighbouring Thailand and later in the United states where some 135,000 have now settled. Despite this initial attempt to selectively ease its conscience the United states soon became an Active partner in this a ethnic gathering evidence from the scene Hamilton Merritt describes the . Role in the forced repatriation of the 35,000 hmong who still remain in Thailand into the hands of those would destroy Thoni. A recent pcs documentary blasted the United states for turning away jewish refugees in the 1930s. As terrible As that was at least the United states was not then using taxpayer Money to Send those refugees to their deaths. But As Hamilton Merritt has pointed out since 1991 the . State departments Bureau of refugee affairs has done just that. Insisting against All evidence that it is Safe for the hmong to return to Laos the . Government provides funds for their forced repatriation. Most recently some 1,200 hmong refugees at the a Pho Camp in Northern Thailand Are scheduled with . Help to be betrayed into the hands of their enemies. It is noteworthy that this action was scheduled to take place before hearings by the House asian and Pacific affairs subcommittee on the whole question of forced hmong repatriation. T Given the almost frenzied Media attention focused on the a ethnic cleansing and repression of our former communist enemies in Yugoslavia one cannot help but wonder if the Lack of attention to the similar plight of our former allies in Laos is the latest chapter in the shameful legacy of the Vietnam War where to be a Friend of the United states indeed proved fatal. C los fi.rvjij>c3 Timos
