The Balkans war seemed to be coming to an end in mid-December as we went to press. Trying to sort through the lies, misinformation, and distortions for the fragments of truth in the international press requires the patience of an archeologist and the imagination of a poet, but some things seem fairly certain. For several months the United States had been stepping up its assistance to the Bosnian Muslims. According to reports in the European press, American military and CIA advisors were coordinating liaison between Muslims and Croats and training the Muslims in tactics and weaponry; they had already been giving intelligence and assistance with artillery spotting. More damning evidence surfaced recently of the United States supplying Chinese-made arms, including rocket-launchers. The headline in The European was blunt: “America has ‘Joined War’ in Bosnia.” The State Department denies nearly all the charges, but in the 1960’s the United States also denied its role in Vietnam.

Things were looking bright for the Muslims, brighter than they had looked since the 1940’s, when they helped to break up Yugoslavia and worked for the Nazis. Yugoslavia had been enforcing the blockade against their Serbian cousins with some effectiveness, although rumor has it that the Muslims were receiving weapons from NATO. They are certainly getting help from their Muslim friends throughout the world.

Emboldened by their NATO, particularly American allies, the Muslims decided it was time to end an apparent stalemate and to launch an invasion from their safe haven in Bihac. This was a risky move, since success could not only attract a Serb counterattack, but it also put Slobodan Milosevitch—the only man who can force the Bosnian Serbs to negotiate—in a difficult position. The Serbian president is, in fact, a moderate and under constant pressure from the nationalists in and out of government. The same pressures are being put on Boris Yeltsin by Russian nationalists, the Russian military, and the Russian Orthodox Church, to support their Slavic Orthodox brothers and assert traditional Russian hegemony in a strategic region.

Heedless of the consequences, the Muslims made their attack, and night after night the network anchormen gloated over their success. The story was always the same. On the screen comes the picture of a rocket and artillery barrage. “A familiar sight in Bosnia, but this time it is the Serbs who are on the receiving end.” When some bright reporter thought to ask the Bosnian Serb commander. General Mladic, what his response would be to the Muslim advance, his laconic answer went: “If they want war, we’ll give them war.” A chilling statement from such a source.

It was easy to predict the international response. The Muslims reopen the war, and the Serbs are blamed for fighting back. NATO is given its first battle test in its almost 50-year history when the U.N. authorizes air strikes. The raids do little to slow the Serb advance, and then, mysteriously, on Friday, a strike is called off on account of weather. But the weather is consistently bad at this time of year in the Balkans, and the planes have electronic guidance systems. Stranger still, after the raid is called off, U.N. and NATO officials give interviews declaring the war over. The Serbs have won.

What gives? Until that point, the forces of the New World Order had been threatening fire and sword against any Serb who stood up against them. Either NATO is a tiger without teeth, or else something happened we are not hearing about. If it is a question of U.N. hostages, then giving in is absolutely the worst thing to do. Even they can’t be that stupid. Unconfirmed sources have told us that NATO did not call off Friday’s raid, that six planes were shot down, and that one of the pilots is in Bosnian Serb hands. Who knows?

Whatever forced NATO and the United States to back down, the result is the same. In this strategic crossroads of the world, for which Greeks and Gauls, Romans and Turks, Russians and Germans have spent their lives and treasures, the United States for almost nothing had won the hearts and minds of the dominant ethnic group. Down to the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Serbs were passionately pro-American. Now, because of the stupidity, greed, and corruption of the American leadership, we have forfeited that friendship and brought the Serbs and Russians back together. I do not know what George Bush, who got us into the Balkans War, would have done, but no one could have done worse than Bill Clinton, alternately bullying and backing down. If the American people have longer memories than I think they have, this total fiasco should mean the end of NATO, the end of the United Nations as a political and military force, and the end of America’s post-Cold War policy of humanitarian violence.