Tuesday, January 26, 2016

What best explains why the United States intervened militarily in former Yugoslavia and not in Rwanda in the 1990s?

Cold war strategies, of course. Yugoslavia was an independent state, with no strong Soviet Union ties, nor connections with the West.

As long as the Soviet Union was in place, the war in Yugoslavia would not have occured as the Soviets would have backed the Serbs - their ally up until the rise of Tito's Yugoslavia  - and the situation would've gotten far too risky.

But the Soviet Union DID collapse in the early 90's and NATO knew that the newly formed Russia didn't have the power to react.

Thus, NATO countries (most prominently Germany, of which Croatia was an ally in WW II and beloved country for vacations) began to support and fuel Croatia's and Slovenia's rise to independence, so that they could become under NATO's sphere of influence.

Serbians in Croatia opposed the idea of an independent Croatia, since they didn't want to lose their nationality. They, instead, wanted the areas in which they lived to become Serbian. As for Slovenia, not many Serbs lived here so there was no war, although the Yugoslavian army did try to invade Slovenia, but was stopped in its tracks.

Now, the NATO planned on "seizing" Croatia and Slovenia, since Croatia has a widely stretching coastline, both interesting strategically and for tourists, and Slovenia was the most developed state of Yugoslavia, plus an easy target (because of its homogenity).

HOWEVER, Bosnia, of which the majority of citizens are muslim Bosniaks, but a population of 30% are Bosnian Serbs, and a remainder of 15% Bosnian Croats, was still left. The Bosniaks either didn't want to live in the remains of a Yugoslavia dominated by Serbs, or were attracted to the promises that NATO made to Croatia and Slovenia (maybe a combination of both). The problem is that NATO either completely forgot about Bosnia, or simply let the Bosniaks drive into war with Serbia, knowing that it would get crushed by the latter. This would of course cause for bad publicity for the Serbs, and a stronger case for Croatia who at this time lost several areas of its territory to Croat Serbs.

The rest is history. Bosnia called for independence, which the Bosnian Serbs AND Bosnian Croats neglected, after which both parties started attacking the Bosniaks - it's just that you'll never hear about the Bosnian Croats in Western media. Moreover, Bosniaks under the knowledge of NATO and the US allowed thousands of Mujahideen from the Middle East(the same rebels that fight for Al-Qaeda now) to come to Bosnia and fight against the Serbs.

All parties committed atrocities, of which Serbs the most. However, in the media only Serbs were accused, a similar thing of what happened in Syria with Assad. The difference is that now we know the rebels real face, through the internet. If it were not for those ISIS videos, I believe that we would still be believing that the latter is "a friendly rebellion fighting for a good cause".

ANYWAY, the horrible massacre of Srebrenica happened, which Serbs claim to be a killing of terrorist Mujahideen (since only men were killed) that operated in Serbian villages around Srebrenica for several years, killing and decapitating victims.

The Srebrenica massacre and other atrocities committed by the Serbs in term "justified" NATO intervention in Croatia, which caused an estimated 200.000 Croatian Serbs to flee. Most of their houses were burnt down and to this day they have still not returned.

After this, peace talks ended the war, and Yugoslavia was no more, all its former states except for Serbia now under NATO sphere of influence. To this day all of the former states, except for Slovenia, are poorer than they were before the war.

All sides committed horrible atrocities, of which Serbs the most, but only the Serbs got convicted.Tens of Serbian officers have been charged to a life in prison, while Bosnian rebel leader Naser Oric and Croatian general Ante Gotovina, who was sentenced to 30 years, but was released due to lack of evidence, still walk around freely.

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