One of the advantages of a free commercial society is that it tends to habituate people to monetary transactions independent of other concerns like religion and ethnicity. Of what concern is it to me how another prays or where he came from so long as that person is willing to buy from or sell to me. After a time, this attitude is internalized and tolerance grows. In societies where governments dole out many benefits and determine the winners and losers, people tend to aggregate in groups to garner power and protection. This latter condition afflicts the Balkans.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the Balkans were a cauldron of competing ethnic and religious groups. The resulting instability was one of the causes of World War I. After World War II, Marshal Tito took brutal control of Yugoslavia and through repression managed to suppress ethnic and religious violence. However, Tito never created conditions that nurtured tolerance. After Tito died, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the end of the Cold War, all the old animosities in the Balkans could no longer be suppressed.
Srebrenica is a Muslim enclave in Bosnia that was threatened by the Serbians. In 1993, the United Nations declared Srebrenica a “safe area” where the Muslim religious minority could seek refuge. One condition of residence in the safe area was the Muslims had to relinquish their weapons. The commander of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) Philippe Morillon assured the Muslim population that “I will never abandon you.” It is not clear how assured the Muslims were by this pledge, but in retrospect they should not have been.
At the beginning of July 1995, Serbian troops began shelling Srebrenica. When Muslims in Srebrenica asked for their weapons back from UNPROFOR to defend themselves. The request was denied.
Soon after, the Bosnian Serbs increased their shelling causing even more Muslim refugees to flee into Srebrenica. As they approached Srebrenica, the Serbians captured about 30 Dutch troops that were part of UNPROFOR. Wim Dijkema, a member of the Dutch force later reported, “We were shield, a living shield between the Serbs and the refugees. I heard there were two orders: one was to `defend them,’ and the second was `we won’t allow you to bring any Dutch in body bags back home.”’
In response to Serbian assaults, the local Dutch commander requested air support. According to the BBC, the request was first denied ostensibly because it was “submitted on the wrong form.” After a resubmitted request, Dutch fighter aircraft dropped bombs on Serbian positions. The Serbians forced the Dutch to stop bombing by threatening to kill captured Dutch troops.
The Serbian commander Ratko Mladic entered Srebrenica and seized Muslim men from ages 12 to 77 for “interrogation.” After Dutch troops were released, the Dutch contingent left Srebrenica leaving their weapons behind. Shortly thereafter, 7,000 Muslim men were massacred in the largest mass murder in Europe since World War II. Systematic Serbian attacks against Muslims did not end until the United States forces under the auspices of NATO used massive airpower and the threat of ground troops to force Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic to stop ethnic cleansing of Muslim in Serbian controlled areas and end its occupation of Kosovo.
The lesson to be learned from the sad story of Srebrenica is not that the United Nations is indifferent to genocide. It is not that Dutch troops are cowardly or incompetent. It is that the United Nations is superior at process and bureaucracy, useful in dealings between nations with a respect for law. But as a consequence, the UN can be faltering and ineffective in the face of determined, unscrupulous, and immoral adversaries. It is that the good intentions of Dutch troops, any troops, without resolute and strong leadership, are a weak shield against the truly evil and vicious. This history should be remembered as the United Nations attempts to disarm Saddam Hussein, a universally acknowledge tyrant responsible for the death of thousands, seeking weapons of mass destruction, and adept at exploiting the bureaucratic machinations of international organizations and the natural and admirable reluctance of democracies to engage in war.
The Challenge Ahead
Sunday, February 2nd, 2003Not many people appreciate how close the Apollo 11 landing on the moon came to a national catastrophe in 1969. As Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were nearing the lunar surface, they were having difficulty finding an appropriate landing spot. The astronauts were running low on fuel. If they could not find a suitable place to land, they would have to eject the lower half of the lunar landing module and ignite the engines of the upper portion. This upper portion would return them to lunar orbit. There they could rendezvous with the lunar command module and return to the Earth without ever landing on the moon. Intent on landing on the surface, Armstrong and Aldrin continue to search for a place, pushing the envelope of safety. When they finally landed on the surface, they only had seconds of fuel remaining.
If the lunar module had run out a fuel causing the it to crash on the surface, it is hard to imagine the enormous sense of tragedy the nation would have suffered, the bitter recriminations that would have followed, and the deadly sense of inadequacy that would have suffocated future exploration. In the contentious 1960s, the man’s attempt to reach the moon was one of the few national endeavors that united rather than divided. All this might have been lost, if the lunar module had a few seconds less fuel.
The odds finally caught up with the space program in 1986, when an O-ring in a solid rocket booster was a little too brittle on a cold morning. If full view of television cameras, the shuttle Challenger exploded killing all on board. The event was a particular shock because it shattered the illusion of invincibility that the American manned space program had acquired.
As this is written, the space shuttle Columbia has just disintegrated over the middle of Texas, fifteen minutes from landing in Florida. No one can know with certainty what went wrong. There will not be the same recriminations that would have occurred if Apollo 11 had failed. Chastened by the Challenger accident, the public will be very saddened, but not disillusioned. NASA is no longer considered invincible.
There have been over 100 shuttle launches. The broad public no longer shares the joy of discovery and accomplishment, but does feel the burdens of sadness when things go very wrong. One real danger is that the public will no longer want to finance manned spaceflight, perhaps fearful of the inevitable future tragedy. Indeed, interest has already withered. Over the last decade, NASA’s budget has declined and its programs starved. At present, it represents, only 0.7% of the entire federal budget. The public pointedly did not respond to the Challenger accident with an invigorated manned space program. The Challenger and Columbia astronauts certainly have given their “last full measure devotion” to meet the challenges of space exploration. The public certainly has not matched the effort of these explorers with sufficient support.
The shuttle Columbia was built in the late 1970s and first flew in April 1981. By his time, a second-generation shuttle, a shuttle design that could incorporate the experience of the first shuttle system, should be coming online. There is no such system for want of funding. This lack of financial support is the inevitable consequence of a public that is no longer intrigued in spaceflight and there is precious little political leadership to nurture such interest. There is no shortage of brave and energetic explorers willing to take the risks. NASA regularly turns away many highly qualified astronaut candidates. The only real way to do honor to the fallen astronauts is to support an invigorated NASA. We did not meet this challenge with the loss of Challenger. It remains to be seen what our collective response to the loss of Columbia will be.
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