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The Least of Many Evils: Tragedy In Kosovo
Before America escalates its involvement in the Balkans
crisis, we should look closely at Osama bin Laden and the
lessons of Afghanistan...
If you want to see the possible future to more U.S. and NATO
escalation in the Balkans, look to what has happened in Afghanistan
and the Middle East. Nowhere has the lesson of political “blowback”
been more poignant and urgent; western policy there has had the
unanticipated effect of fueling Islamic fundamentalism, propping up
shaky regimes and destabilizing the entire region. Case in point is
Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi-expatriate who is believed to be the
mad genius behind two U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, and head of
an international terrorist network.
Bin Laden is perhaps the best example of how adventurous foreign
policies can have unanticipated, even disastrous consequences. He
was born in 1957, the 17th of 52 children of Muhammad Bin Laden,
Saudi Arabia’s wealthiest construction magnate. His life seemed to be
on track as heir to his father’s financial empire, especially after he
graduated from King Abdul Aziz University with a civil engineering
degree.
Then came the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. The younger
bin Laden answered the call to Muslims throughout the world to
embark on “jihad” and drive the Russians out of the country. Western
powers, including the United States were all too willing to help out, and
ended up arming a coalition of Islamic groups known as the
Mujahedeen. For the next decade, until the Soviet withdrawal in 1989,
a steady flow of military equipment, including ground-to-air stinger
missiles kept the Mujahedeen “freedom fighters” in the game;
Afghanistan had become the latest flash point in what many Islamists
saw as a worldwide confrontation between their religion and the
corruptive influences of the West.
Bin Laden had other plans for the Mujahedeen, though, besides
sniping at the fleeing Soviet units. In 1988 he had established “Al
Qaeda” as his personal guerrilla movement; he soon returned home
to Saudi Arabia, and became immersed in opposition movements
against the monarchy. When Iraqi military units crossed the border
into Kuwait, it’s “Nineteenth Province,” two years later, and Saudi
Arabia led a Gulf State alliance with the United States, bin Laden
quickly denounced the move and headed back to Afghanistan. From
there, he made his way to the Sudan, a country which had declared its
intention to create a “pure” Islamic state.
At the end of the Gulf War, U.S. forces remained on Saudi soil, thus
providing bin Laden and his Al Qaeda comrades a new focus for their
jihad against the west. For Osama bin Laden and many Muslims
throughout the world, the presence of American military troops in
Saudi Arabia -- the center of two of the most holy sites of the Muslim
religion -- became a blasphemous affront and outrage. As a result, bin
Laden is today perhaps the most blunt expression of deep anti-western
sentiments which exist throughout the Islamic part of the world, from
the Gulf to East Africa, and even within emigre communities in Britain,
Europe and the United States.
Bin Laden is unreserved in his call for a jihad or “holy war.”
“We -- with God’s help -- call on every Muslim who believes in
God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to
kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and
whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema (clergy),
leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan’s U.S.
troops and the devil’s supporters allying with them, and to
displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a
lesson...”
-- From a bin Laden edict announcing the creation of the
International Front for Jihad Against the Jews and Crusaders,
February 22, 2020
Obviously, not every Muslim is willing to answer bin Laden’s tocsin to
a holy war; that’s not the point. What matters is that in many parts of
the world, Osama bin Laden is not perceived as the simple “terrorist”
or thug which the U.S. State Department or Central Intelligence
Agency make him out to be. While he does not “speak for all
Muslims,” bin Laden articulates a position which many Islamists agree
with. That point was underscored in a recent PBS “Frontline” program
examining bin Laden and his movement. The post-documentary
segment featured a roundtable discussion with a number of American
Muslims (many of them articulate professionals). Despite the business
suites and a lack of veils on the women, nearly all disagreed with U.S.
foreign policy in the Gulf, and expressed agreement with the idea that
the west was “insulting” or “mocking” Islam.
Bin Laden is also a hero to many in the Islamic world who see
themselves being victimized not just by outsiders, but a number of
corrupt or autocratic Arab regimes. There is also the ambivalence and
resentment of western influence -- note bin Laden’s reference to
“Jews” and “Crusaders.” It is little wonder that so much of the focus of
fundamentalist Islamic wrath is on the trapping of modernity, such as
changing roles for women, the content of television programs (even
the Saudis ban satellite dishes, and censor “provocative” western
magazines), and the whole issue of building secular institutions.
Caught between a discordant tribal past and an uncertain future, many
Muslims see themselves victimized by, and in conflict with a Western
agenda which threatens both religion and culture.

“We -- with God’s help -- call on every Muslim who believes in
God and wishes to be rewarded to comply with God’s order to
kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and
whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema (clergy),
leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan’s U.S.
troops and the devil’s supporters allying with them, and to
displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a
lesson...” -- Bin Laden |
So what has all of this to do with Kosovo?
Like the face-off in Afghanistan going back two decades or more, the
United States once again finds itself engaged at the cultural fault lines
which divide the world’s major civilizations. Afghanistan’s location
rendered it a stage for the “Great Game” of nineteenth and
early-twentieth century powers, including Britain, Germany and
Russia. Toward the end of the cold war, Afghanistan was the prize in a
struggle not just between east and west -- one involving Soviet and
American interests -- but between “outsiders” in the form of Soviet
imperialism or Orthodox hegemony (take your pick) and Islam. No
wonder that today, Afghanistan under the Taliban regime is the site of
the latest social experiment to create a “pure” Islamist state, a project
already undertaken in Iran, the Sudan and elsewhere.
Kosovo is remarkably like Afghanistan in that it is a both a literal and
metaphorical war zone. Here, at Kosovo Polje, the “Field of the Black
Birds,” Slobodan Milosevic recast himself from Communist Party hack
to nationalist hero and defender of the Serbs, on the very battlefield
where centuries ago the Serbs fell to the Ottomans. The Serbs are the
ethnic/religious minority in Kosovo province, which under the late Josip
Broz Tito (who ruled a relatively united Yugoslavia in the post-World
War II era) enjoyed significant autonomy. Slobodan Milosevic ended
that autonomous status, though, and began driving ethnic Albanian
who are mostly Muslim out of Kosovo and elsewhere. The goal was
chillingly reminiscent and familiar ... the creation of an ethnically pure
Serbian state.
Kosovo is not only the locus of the “Field of the Black Birds,” but home
to a network of Orthodox monasteries and other religious centers as
well. This fact cannot be ignored in evaluating the elements which
comprise the Serbian nationalist consciousness. For Milosevic and
many Serbs, giving away Kosovo is not only a loss of national prestige
and identity, but something akin to asking Americans to give up, say,
the American West. The analogy may not be that inaccurate; after all,
Europeans colonized the “new world,” appropriating huge chunks of
the landscape and driving out the original inhabitants. Along the way
to “winning the west,” we managed to exterminate whole populations,
and confine the remainder to a series of, yes, “Balkanized”
reservations.
There are differences, though, in Kosovo. Ethnic Albanians and
Muslims there had lived for decades under the arrangement
established by Tito; and whole generations of Serbs, Albanians and
other ethnic groups managed to co-exist, for the most part peacefully.
When the “ethnic cleansing” began in Bosnia-Herzegovina, what struck
us the most was not just the brutality of it all, but the fact that
suddenly families, neighborhood and whole communities were
fractured, divided and set into conflict, all in the matter of a few
months, over issues such as religion and ethnicity. One recalls
Sarajevo, an Olympic center of cosmopolitanism, dotted with check
points, ruled by neighborhood militas, and under seige by Serb
artillery.
Ethnic, religious and national differences may seem superficial, but
their roots run deep. We pave them over with an asphalt-like layer of
modernity, education and paeans for “unity,” but they are forces that,
increasingly, seem to be reasserting themselves in the world today.
Serb nationalism and Orthodox fervor are not going to readily permit
the secession of Kosovo, the cultural cradle of Serbia. But what about
the Kosovars? Could an autonomous Kosovo be a future powder keg
in the confrontation of civilizations, this point of collision between
western Christianity, Orthodoxy and Islam?
Little is being reported in the western media about how the “ethnic
cleansing” in Kosovo may be fueling Islamic militancy. It is known that
Iran, especially in recent years, has targeted the Balkans for its
proselytizing efforts. Albanian and much of the Kosovo province, is
predominantly Islamic; the Serb campaign of “ethnic cleansing” can
only exacerbate fundamentalist rhetoric, and drive moderate -- and
possibly even secular Kosovars -- into the camp of Islamic militancy.
How do we know that amidst the tens of thousands of refugees fleeing
Kosovo for the problematic safety of neighboring Albania or Macedonia,
that there is not already a future Osama bin Laden? And surely,
Milosevic’s campaign of purging Kosovo of ethnic Albanians and other
Muslims can only confirm the worst fears of the Islamic world; that
they are targeted by foreign persecutors intend on destroying their
civilization and religion.
All of this may well occur regardless of how the U.S. and NATO react.
Ironically, those waves of NATO aircraft in the skies over Yugoslavia
are mostly American, and the U.S. finds itself in the position of
defending the integrity of an autonomous Kosovo. But we were in a
similar situation in Afghanistan, allying ourselves with Islamists against
a very similar foe. The former Soviet Union, in invading Afghanistan,
was merely acting as the Russian Imperial state of old would have --
defending a soft, southern border and expanding its territory. Today,
the new Russian state is the born-again cradle of Orthodoxy, so it is no
wonder that Orthodox priests are blessing the calls of rabid nationalists
who are urging Boris Yeltsin to take military action in defending their
Slavic brethren. NATO is attacking an Orthodox state, and the Russians
realize that fact. They too can identify with Milosevic and the Serbs;
after all, demographic pressures exist through the former Soviet
Union, where Muslims are the fastest growing group.
More problematic remain the claims of State Department and NATO
strategists who discuss the stabilization of Kosovo as if they were
engaged in a weekend shop project. Certainly we can level the
Yugoslav military infrastructure, disrupt the lines of supply and
communication, and possibly even kill Slobodan Milosevic in the
process. Will that solve the root cause of the fighting in Kosovo, or
Bosnia, or anywhere else in the Balkans? Probably not. Milosevic
appears to enjoy the support of many if not most Serbs, and the only
real challenge to his autocratic rule in Belgrade was a student free
speech protest several years ago that was promptly dispatched by the
Yugoslav military. Inside Yugoslavia, popular rallies in support of the
Kosovo invasion appear to be well attended; young people eagerly
wave the Serb banner, while listening to rock music, ethnic tunes, and
cameo appearances by the likes of “Arkan,” the Serb paramilitary
commander suspected of crimes against humanity in Bosnia. Even in
the United States, Serbs have spoken out against the U.S. bombing
campaign, and while cautiously still voicing opposition to Milosevic,
many American Serbs become vehement in reference to the Kosovars.
Kosovo, with its monasteries, religious schools and the battlefield of
Kosovo Polje, remains very much the center of their civilization and
ethnic allegiances.
We may well be up against the inertial of history here. There may
be confrontations where the belligerents are so divided, so hostile, so
convinced of their own righteousness, that when the killing takes a
brief interregnum -- whether due to sheer exhaustion on the part of
the combatants, or an imposed truce -- the various sides think not so
much of peace, but the next offensive. There are also the plentiful
victims on both, or all sides, especially the young who know nothing of
“ethnic cleansing,” or ancient battlefields, or religious orthodoxies and
creeds. All they know is that they once called some land “home,” and
now face an uncertain future in a refugee camp inside the borders of a
foreign country. Some will probably grow up to hate, probably as the
generations before them did.
Even on the threshold of a new millennium, the ancestral cries of
religious belief, nationality and ethnicity echo as loud as they did
centuries ago. It is doubtful that all of the bombs and cruise missiles
can silence those voices.
Copyright
© 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 by American Atheists.
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