This weekend the world commemorates the twentieth anniversary of the massacre at Srebrenica, in eastern Bosnia, an event that provoked serious Western intervention in that country’s 1992-95 civil war and determined its fate. The two decades since that ugly war was stopped by American-led military and diplomatic involvement have not been happy ones for Bosnia-Hercegovina, as that country remains mired in seemingly intractable political and economic stalemate and stagnation. As someone who knows and loves Bosnia, I see very little to feel optimistic about.
This weekend’s commemorations at Srebrenica became the wrong sort of spectacle when Serbian Prime Minister Aleksandar Vučić was attacked by an angry Muslim mob and was struck by rocks. Belgrade promptly termed the attack an “assassination attempt,” thus continuing the customary Balkan cycle of avoiding reconciliation and any moving forward at all costs.
As usual, Balkan politicians of all stripes and tribes are perfectly happy to see citizens whipped up in nationalist fervor and revenge fantasies, since that distracts them from the region’s real problems of intermixed crime and corruption. As someone who for years has pleaded for reconciliation after the region’s terrible wars of the 1990s, to any audience that would listen, including the United Nations General Assembly, the ruckus at Srebrenica yesterday was sad news but no surprise.
Pervasive dishonesty about what actually happened during the Bosnian War has shaped Western debates about many things in the twenty years since Srebrenica. Media adherence to The Narrative about Bosnia, a simplistic, moralistic one-sided account of events, has been used by American foreign policy mavens to justify many misguided interventions since the 1990s.
I won myself no friends in Washington, DC, when I told the truth about what actually happened in Bosnia in the 1990s in my 2007 book Unholy Terror. Inconvenient facts are habitually ignored by our elites and mainstream media, who simply don’t want to know the truth about what happened in Bosnia, including Srebrenica. But I have explained it all in detail for anybody who wants to know. It has earned me the wrath of jihad apologists and Social Justice Warriors (Balkan variant), but the truth will out.
This weekend the Mothers of Srebrenica, a sort of victims’ advocacy group, wrote to Bill Clinton, asking him to reveal what U.S. intelligence knew about the fall of Srebrenica, particularly electronic intercepts. Since I used to handle NSA’s Balkan account, I, unlike reporters and SJWs, know what’s in there and I’m certain the Mothers won’t like it. Top Secret reports reveal a messy tale of lies, death, and deceit that does not comport with The Narrative. I’m also certain that the U.S. Government won’t allow such classified truths to see the light of day anytime soon.
In addition to my book, I recommend this Norwegian documentary about the fall of Srebrenica, a rare effort to cut through pleasant media myths to get to the sordid truth of what actually happened at Srebrenica, and why. It’s worth your time. My testimony is an important component of what they reveal.
Be sure to keep the dead of Srebrenica and all the dead of Bosnia’s catastrophe — some 8,000 died around Srebrenica in mid-July 1995, while 101,000 Bosnians of all backgrounds perished in that needless war — in your thoughts and prayers this weekend.
The XX Committee 