Tolerance Means No Line In the Sand

What occurred in Srebrenica may well have occurred only because of tolerance. How could tolerance be so cruelly indifferent?

From George Handlery at the Brussels Journal:

On June 12 1995, Bosnian Serbs acting for Belgrade captured the Muslim town Srebrenica and massacred seven thousand male captives. “Blue Helmets” protected the town and a safe-zone close to it sheltering the claimants

Now Numira Subasic having lost 22 family members wants justice for herself and other abused women. That government has already been investigated the case and the conclusions cost a Minister his job.

How could a town, directly under the protection of UN troops be slaughtered?

The Dutch UN soldiers were disinterested and incompetent, intimidated as well as mainly concerned with their own survival. Indeed, the Unprofor’s Dutch were unprepared or, put facetiously; they did not anticipate encountering brutality while they also believed virtue could be served risk-free.

These attitudes taken from a PC-inspired book of myths inspired the inappropriate decisions made under the pressure of 15 hostages held by the Serbs. One mistake was that to avoid “provoking” the easily aggravated by appearing to be too martial. In addition, to signal good will, presumably in the interest of keeping “channels open” for a “dialogue”, the positions before Srebrenica were surrendered. Once the Serbs reached the camp on July 12 and asked to inspect it, the Dutch, presumably to “create confidence”, piled up their arms and admitted the Serbs. Thereafter, lacking the means to resist, they ignored the ensuing marauding. Survivors claim that some Dutch did not even surrender under duress but that they accompanied the Serbs voluntarily. (A famous photo shows the Dutch and the Serbs toasting each other.)

According to survivors, the tolerant Dutch entrusted to protect the refugees feared the Serbs and so became accessories to their crime. Therefore, they did nothing when soldiers led women out of their compound to rape them. A survivor claims that a “Dutch Bat” trooper listened to his walkman while, close to him, a woman was raped. One witness alleges that a ten-year-old was placed in his mother’s lap and then decapitated. In another case, a protector was present when the mother of a crying child was ordered to make it stop. The woman failed. Therefore, the trooper cut the throat of the infant. This writer knows a Moslem rape victim whose child cried when it happened. Thereupon the Serbs urinated on the small girl.

Tolerance, which used to mean not beating the stuffing out of someone for who they were or what they believed, has slowly devolved into a clawless animal that not only will not beat up adversaries, but will neither protect the weak, fight evil, nor make judgments of any kind. Tolerance will not allow the drawing of lines in the sand. While a lineless playground may mean a black eye or swollen lip, on the stage of geopolitics no line can mean 7,000 quickly dead.

An unwelcome conclusion for America and Europe emerges. Giving in to aggression might evade a fight initially. However, it will not avoid the risk of ultimate slaughter. Europe’s vulnerability derives from its state of mind, which imperils it and its US ally. The preferred approach of the “progressive humanitarians” of both continents will not even restrain a pre-teen gang. The case presented – the danger, the response and the outcome – suggests that a revision of the approach to global politics is called for. It should conform to the rules the bad guys set and abandon the illusions of an ideal world. Iran, Iraq, Korea, but also Russia and China have a message. It counsels that, a reality-corrected change in the assumptions that determine the assessment of antagonists and the means used to respond to them is imperative.

Did "never again"--when it was uttered in response to WW2 atrocities--mean we would never allow something like this to ever occur again, or did it mean that "never again" would we allow something like this to occur without good documentation?

A vast majority of the world stood firm at one time and adopted the former meaning. The tolerant crowd of today has a pen and paper handy.