antirelic's Journal: Pillar of Shame

Yesterday was the 15th Anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, and was reading about the mountain of shoes at the Brandenburg gate in Germany. Its a fitting memorial though it would have been if it were placed in New York City, UN Headquarters. The irony, of course, is that few of the voices that decry the massacre are the same voices that decry foreign intervention which could have kept the Srebrenice massacre from happening.

The massacre at Srebrenica was a built to order massacre, courtesy of the moral relativists at the United Nations. Taking no sides, other than providing "safe zones" to non-combatants, the United Nations mandate came with some rather restrictive rules of engagement. The soldiers stationed in the town of Srebrenica, although well trained (Dutch Special Forces, known as the Dutch Bat) were lightly armed and prohibited from operating in a provocative manner. With such vague guidance, the rule of least force continued to spiral out of control. From light weapons to bright blue helmets, the Dutch Bat were prohibited from placing obstacles and barriers which could appear to be construed as fortifications. The only thing keeping the Serbs out was a threat of UN actions if they crossed an invisible line.

Worse, the lack of perimeter defense not only provided no protection from the Serbs, but it also provided no means to control the local refuge population, which had become infiltrated by non-uniformed combatants. In a tit-for-tat game of village burning, the Bosniak guerrilla's would target Serb villages at night, killing civilians and destroying property, and then slipping back into the UN safe zone. The Serbs, were provoked for several days by these attacks which the UN forces were unable to stop, thus leading to the eventual slaughter at Srebrenica.

The UN has much culpability in the massacre. Sure, the Serbs did all the dirty work and deserve the infamy they earned. First, if the UN had not gotten involved in the conflict (setting up safe zones, etc), refuges would have never gathered in Srebrenica for safety. Without a safe zone, no Bosniak's would have gone to Srebrenica. Naser Oric wouldn't have had a safe haven to operate out of. Even if the argument is made that the safe haven was "good", then appropriate steps should have been taken to secure the safe haven. Leading up to the massacre, the Bratunac and Srebrenica area had been a war zone conducted by local militia's and paramilitary organizations. The attacks had been directed DIRECTLY against civilian targets and property (in all fairness, the bastards destroyed EVERYTHING they possibly could). There should have been no illusion that either Serb or Bosniak were willing to inflict hard directly against civilians.

Why this post after 15 years... Well. The main reason is something I read today that I had never seen before. "Then-U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a 1999 report that the United Nations failed at Srebrenica because of errors, misjudgment and "an inability to recognize the scope of the evil confronting us." He said the U.N. treated Serbs and Muslims equally when they should have made a "moral judgment" that ethnic cleansing â" practiced mostly by the Serbs â" was evil."

This is a reaffirmation of my belief that the United Nations is deeply under the control of the Neo Marxists/Statists, who believe in moral relativism. It was moral relativism, and a belief that there "are no bad guys" just people who "disagree", that caused this disaster.

The Pillar of Shame has already been created... its the UN.