Wars And Battles

"We as Jews cannot stand idly by when faced with images of Kosovo, with thousands of refugees expelled from their homes, with frightened faces looking out from railway trains, with children who have lost their parents. As Jews, these images touch us more than any other people, and we as Jews have a special responsibility to remember, understand and act."

"It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate; It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!"

"Through most of the heyday of chivalry the crusade had been regarded as the formal epitome of chivalrous activity."

"The current fascination among Muslims with the history of the Crusades, the vast literature on the subject, both academic and popular, and the repeated inferences drawn from the final extinction of the Crusading principalities throw some light on attitudes in this matter. Islam from its inception is a religion of power, and in the Muslim world view it is right and proper that power should be wielded by Muslims and Muslims alone. Others may receive the tolerance, even the benevolence, of the Muslim state, provided that they clearly recognize Muslim supremacy. That Muslims should rule over non-Muslims is right and normal. That non-Muslims should rule over Muslims is an offense against the laws of God and nature, and this is true whether in Kashmir, Palestine, Lebanon, or Cyprus. Here again, it must be recalled that Islam is not conceived as a religion in the limited Western sense but as a community, a loyalty, and a way of life—and that the Islamic community is still recovering from the traumatic era when Muslim governments and empires were overthrown and Muslim peoples forcibly subjected to alien, infidel rule."

"Religion, and it can merge into nationalism as orthodoxy does with the Serbs and the Russians, offers both a cause worth dying for and the promise of eternal life. The crusaders did not leave their homes all over Europe and make the long and dangerous journey to the Holy Land just to acquire loot and land. There was more and better to be had much closer to home. They were driven by what they thought was a divine mission, to retrieve the land where Christ had once lived for Christendom. Many crusaders – kings such as Richard I of England, the Lionheart, and Philip II of France and great landed magnates – left behind properties, position and families and many never returned. Egged on by religious leaders such as Pope Gregory VII, who reminded the faithful of the passage from the Book of Jeremiah ‘Cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood’, they killed indiscriminately those they thought of as infidels. In the massacres in Jerusalem in 1099 the streets were said to have run with blood, in some places up to the knees of the crusaders’ horses. ‘None of them were left alive; neither women nor children were spared,’ said a contemporary account."

"Finally deciding that he had to conquer the south himself, Aurangzeb rode out with an army reputed to number a half million. Not just an army, the traveling party included his entire court and a tent city of colorful pavilions, animal herds, wagons, corrals, and bazaars. For the remaining twenty-six years of his life, he would never again return to the north."

"By September 1785, with a determination to punish the Kodavas for what they had been doing, Tipu ordered the commander or sipahadar of one of his kushoons (infantry brigades of five thousand men), Zain-ul-abidin Shoostri to invade Coorg and terminate the insurgency. In his later dated 17 September 1785 to Shoostri, Tipu writes: It has lately been represented to us, that the Koorgs have committed some excesses at Zuferabad. We have, in consequence, written to the Buktshy [Bakshi] of the Jyshe [army], to dispatch you with two guns and your kushoon to that place. He is also ordered to advance you Two Thousand Behadury pagodas, on account of the pay of your kushoon, as well as a thousand rupees, to be applied in compensations to the wounded . . . you will proceed, as directed above, to Zuferabad; to the Foujdar of which place, Zynul Aabideen, we have addressed another letter, which is enclosed. You are, in conjunction with him, to make a general attack on the Koorgs; when having put to the sword, or made prisoners of the whole of them, both the slain and the prisoners are to be made Musulmans [emphasis mine]. In short, you must so manage matters, as to prevent them from exciting any further sedition or disturbance."

"Here’s Mir Hussein Kirmani again giving us a sample of Tipu’s savagery in Coorg. The conquering Sultan now…dispatched his Amirs and Khans with large bodies of troops to punish those idolaters and reduce the whole country (Coorg) to subjection. Troops under M. Lally…Abbedin [the same tyrannical Faujdaar] and Hussein Ali were sent to Thalakaveri and Kushalpura…attacked and destroyed many towns with 8000 men, women and children taken as prisoners…collected an immense crowd like a flock of sheep or herd of bullocks…while the Sultan pitched his tents to the South of the Thalakaveri hill…giving them orders to pursue the rebels and capture their chiefs."

"Tipu marched into Coorg with a large force and launched a savage attack on the pretext of suppressing a rebellion. Indeed, there’s some grain of truth about the rebellion, and it has everything to do with a despotic officer named Zein Ul Abiddin Khan. He was Tipu’s faithful Faujdaar(commander) in Coorg. Here’s how Tipu’s arch-sycophant cum historian Mir Hussein Kirmani, describes Zein Khan: The Faujdaar extended the hand of lust to the women of the peasantry, and compelled them to submit to his will and pleasure. In consequence of this tyrannical conduct, the whole of Kodagu advanced into a field of enmity and defiance. The people there rose up in rebellion when Tipu himself entered Kodagu through Periyapattana and Siddapur. He threw himself like a raging lion into the midst of that frightful forest…the Kodagu country…"

"In 1788, he actually implemented his threat. In a letter to the Nawab of Kurnool Runmust Khan, Tipu gloats about how gloriously he accomplished this vicious task: …the exciters of sedition in the Coorg country, not looking to the consequences [of such conduct]… raised their heads, one and all, in tumult. Immediately on our hearing of this circumstance, we proceeded with the utmost speed, and, at once, made prisoners of forty thousand…Coorgs, who, alarmed at the approach of our victorious army, had slunk into woods, and concealed themselves in lofty mountains, inaccessible even to birds. Then carrying them away from their native country we raised them to the honor of Islam, and incorporated them with our Ahmadi corps. As these happy tidings are calculated, at once, to convey a warning to hypocrites…"

"As the war dragged on, southern India was devastated. According to contemporary sources, 100,000 of Aurangzeb’s men and 300,000 beasts of burden (horses, camels, asses, oxen, and elephants) died every year during the quarter century of war in the Deccan. When drought, plague, and famine hit the war-torn lands in 1702 to 1704, two million civilians died within a few years."

"In 1686–87 he overran the independent Muslim kingdoms of Bijapur and Golconda, whom he considered decadent and hedonistic. Then he turned his full attention against the Marathas on the mountainous rim of the Deccan plateau in west-central India. When the Mughals finally captured the Maratha king Sambhaji in 1689, Aurangzeb had him gradually dismantled over the next three weeks—cutting out his tongue the first day, eyes the next, then his limbs one by one. Finally Sambhaji was reduced to an unrecognizable fraction of his former self and was beheaded."

"No sooner had Tipu headed back to his capital than troubles began to erupt once more in Coorg. Puffed by his closeness to the Sultan, Mehdvi, the new foujdar, had become a debauched autocrat in a short span of time. He had forcibly abducted the sister of one Momuti Nair, a minister of the local chief.8 These excesses had naturally inflamed passions among the Kodavas, particularly Momuti and his colleague Ranga Nair. Soon the discontent spread among all the peasantry who were bearing the brunt of Mysore’s exploitation and heavy taxation, and now the additional scourge of their women being brazenly molested by Mehdvi. Kirmani too corroborates these excesses committed by Mehdvi: When Zein ool Abidin Mehdivi, the Foujdar of Koorg, from his intimacy with the Sultan, and the confidence he reposed in him was placed in uncontrolled authority there, he filled all parts of the kingdom with rebellion, and regulated the affairs of the government according merely to his caprice and folly; in so much that from the inherent vices of his disposition, he extended the hand of lust to the women of the peasantry, and compelled the handsomest among them to submit to his will and pleasure. In consequence of this tyrannical conduct, the whole of the people of Koorg advanced into the field of enmity and defiance."

"Rev. Georg Richter, another German missionary of the Basel Mission who Moegling had brought in to Coorg around 1856, records how Tipu captured ‘85,000 souls, sent them to Seringapatam and, carrying out his former threat, had them forcibly circumcised.’29 Wilks pegs this number at 70,000. He writes: ‘ . . . [Tipu] closed in on the great mass of the population, male and female, amounting to about 70,000, and drove them off like a herd of cattle to Seringapatam, where the Sultaun’s threats were but too effectually executed.’"

"A large part of the population of Coorg was made prisoner. The number of prisoners and converts varies from Tipu’s own letters to those of the several chroniclers. In the letter above to Meer Muinudeen, Tipu gloats about 50,000 Kodavas being made captives, converted to Islam and incorporated into the Ahmadi class. In the letter to Ranmast Khan above, Tipu is gloating about 50,000 prisoners whom he converted. In his account, Kirmani states that ‘in the course of seven months and a few days, eighty thousand men, women and children were made prisoners . . . the prisoners . . . had been all made Musulmans and were styled Ahmudees, were formed into eight risalas or regiments and veteran officers were appointed to train and discipline them.’2"

"In another letter to Meer Muinudeen, dated 13 January 1786, Tipu once again corroborates the act of transporting and converting the captives from Coorg: ‘By the favour of the Almighty and the assistance of the Prophet, we have arranged and adjusted the affairs of the taluk of Zufeerabad in the most suitable manner; the tribe of Koorgs to the number of fifty thousand men and women, having been made captives, and incorporated with the Ahmadi class . . . this being an event calculated to give strength to the people of Islam, we wish that brother [all co-religionists] all joy on this auspicious occasion.’"

"In a self-congratulatory account of the successful Coorg expedition, Tipu writes to the Nawab of Kurnool, Ranmast Khan, in a letter dated 5 January 1786:Some time ago . . . the exciters of sedition in the Koorg country . . . raised their heads, one and all, in tumult. Immediately, on our hearing of this circumstance, we proceeded with the utmost speed, and at once, made prisoners of forty thousand sedition-exciting Koorgs, who, alarmed at the approach of our victorious army, had slunk into woods, and concealed themselves in lofty mountains, inaccessible even to birds. Then carrying them away from their native country we raised them to the honour of Islam, and incorporated them with our Ahmadi corps. As these happy tidings are calculated, at once, to convey a warning to hypocrites, and to afford delight to friends, [but more especially] to the chiefs of the true believers, then pen of amity has here recited them [for your information]."

"Some of the temples of the Kodavas, like the Bhagavathy temple near Kotakeri was demolished and the Biddatanda Ainmane was burnt down by Tipu.18 However, several temples and their deities were secretly translocated by the Kodavas and the Brahmin priests to be hidden in safety and escape the wrath of Tipu’s marauding forces.19 The Omkareshwara temple was replaced with a tomb.20 It is believed that several of these shrines, including that of the famous Bhagandeshwara temple, remained in disuse or ruins and the idols hidden in several secret locations, only to be reinstalled and worshipped later, once the Coorg Raja’s power was re-established.21 The Bhagandeshwara temple was made into a fortress and renamed as Afzalabad."

"To the Sheik and Syed converts whom he transplanted into a depopulated, barren Coorg, Tipu gave a cruel task: The country is given to you in Jaghir, improve it and be happy; the extermination of those mountaineers being determined on you, you are required as an imperious duty, to search for and to slay all who may have escaped our just vengeance; their wives and children will become your slaves."

"Rev. Hermann Moegling, a German missionary from the Basel mission, who came to Coorg in 1853, mentions in his Coorg Memoirs: After fifteen days, he [Tipu] went to Talakaveri. He encamped at Devatiparambu. At first, he negotiated. When the Coorgs felt secure, he seized them suddenly with their families and carried them to Mysore. There he separated them and forced them to become Musulmans. They were received as Sheiks, Syeds, Mogals and Patans. In course he sent Mohammadans of the four classes into Coorg and gave to them the lands and slaves of the rulers. Besides, he transplanted large numbers of farmers from Adwani [Adoni] in the Bellary district into Coorg as labourers on the estates of the new Musulman rulers. Nagappaya, the nephew of Subarasaya, was charged with the Government of the country."

"Akbar sent Raja Man Sing and Asaf Khan against Rana Pratap of Mewar in 1576. There were Rajput soldiers on both sides; those under Rana Pratap were fighting the ones under Raja Man Singh. At one stage in the fierce struggle, Badaoni asked Asaf Khan how he could distinguish between the friendly and the enemy Rajputs. Asaf Khan replied: “Shoot at whomsoever you like, on whichever side they may be killed, it will be a gain to Islam.”"

"When Man Singh was appointed the leader of the expedition against Maharana Pratap, the appointment caused some resentment in the Muslim military circles. Badayuni accompanied Man Singh in this expedition. On the battle-field he failed to distinguish between the Imperial Rajputs and those led by Maharana Pratap. He consulted a Muslim friend nearby who told him that he need not worry. He should shoot indiscriminately ; whosoever would be killed would mean one Rajput less and hence Islam would gain."

"Sivagy, in the mean time, was resolved to be revenged on the Mogul by any means whatsoever, provided it might be to his advantage, and knowing very well that the Town of Surrat was full of Riches, he took measures how he might plunder it: But that no body might suspect his Design, he divided the Forces he had into two Camps; and seeing his Territories lie chiefly in the Mountains, upon the Road betwixt Bassaim and Chaoul, he pitched one Camp towards Chaoul, where he planted one of his Pavillions, and posted another at the same time towards Bassaim; and having ordered his Commanders not to plunder, but on the contrary, to pay for all they had, he secretly disguised himself in the habit of a Faquir. Thus he went to discover the most commodious ways that might lead him speedily to Surrat: He entered the Town to examine the places of it, and by that means had as much time as he pleased to view it all over. Being come back to his Chief Camp, he ordered four thousand of his Men to follow him without noise, and the rest to remain encamped, and to make during his absence as much noise as if all were there, to the end none might suspect the enterprise he was about, but think he was still in one of his Camps. Every thing was put in execution according to his orders…Sivagy’s Men entered the Town and plundered it for a space of four days burning down several Houses….it is believed at Surrat that this Raja Carried away in Jewels, Gold and Silver, to the value of above thirty French Millions…The Great Mogul was sensibly affected with the Pillage of that Town, and the boldness of Sivagy…when he Plundered Surrat in the Year One thousand six hundred and sixty four, he was but thirty-five years of Age."

"Contrary to the current notion that the Arab conquest of Sind was an unimportant episode in the history of India and affected merely the fringe of the subcontinent, we should stress the great commercial importance of this province. Sind was the hinge of the In­dian Ocean trade as well as the overland pass way."

"The conquest of Sindh opened a new chapter in the history of South Asia. Muslims had ever lasting effects on their existence in the region. [. . . .] For the first time the people of Sindh were introduced to Islam, its political system and way of the government. The people here had seen only the atrocities of the Hindu Rajas. [. . . .] The people of Sindh were so much impressed by the benevolence of Muslims that they regarded Muhammad bin-Qasim as their savior. [. . . .] Muhammad bin-Qasim stayed in Sindh for over three years. On his departure from Sindh, the local people were overwhelmed with grief."

"When we remember their wonderful military success in other parts of the world, the comparatively insignificant results the Arabs achieved in India certainly stand out in marked contrast. The cause of this, however, does not lie in the religious and social peculiarities of India as old historians like Elphinstone vainly attempted to establish. The cause lies undoubtedly in the superior military strength and state-organisation of the Indians as compared with most other nations of the time. However incredible this might appear in the light of subsequent events, this is the plain verdict of history. page 175"

"Reports of human rights atrocities in Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey are growing, with victims speaking out on forced disappearances and murder. [...] In a further ominous turn, the culture of impunity has spread beyond Turkey's borders to northern Syria, where Turkish forces occupy broad swaths of territory. Reports of ill-treatment, sexual abuse and extrajudicial killings carried out by Turkish-supervised Syrian rebels have been described as "war crimes" by the United Nations. At the same time, Turkish forces have been abducting and jailing Syrians accused of terrorist ties with little evidence to support the charges, a flagrant violation of the , rights groups say."

"War is as old as Europe. Our continent bears the scars of spears and swords, canons and guns, trenches and tanks, and more. The tragedy of it all resonates in the words of Herodotus, 25 centuries ago: “In Peace, Sons bury their Fathers. In War, Fathers bury their Sons.” Yet, … after two terrible wars engulfed the continent and the world with it, … finally lasting peace came to Europe. In those grey days, its cities were in ruins, the hearts of many still simmering with mourning and resentment. How difficult it then seemed, as Winston Churchill said, “to regain the simple joys and hopes that make life worth living“. As a child born in Belgium just after the war, I heard the stories first-hand. My grandmother spoke about the Great War. In 1940, my father, then seventeen, had to dig his own grave. He got away; otherwise I would not be here today. So what a bold bet it was, for Europe’s Founders, to say, yes, we can break this endless cycle of violence, we can stop the logic of vengeance, we can build a brighter future, together. What power of the imagination."

"But Elias did propose an exogenous trigger to get the whole thing started, indeed, two triggers. The first was the consolidation of a genuine Leviathan after centuries of anarchy in Europe’s feudal patchwork of baronies and fiefs. Centralized monarchies gained in strength, brought the warring knights under their control, and extended their tentacles into the outer reaches of their kingdoms. According to the military historian Quincy Wright, Europe had five thousand independent political units (mainly baronies and principalities) in the 15th century, five hundred at the time of the Thirty Years’ War in the early 17th, two hundred at the time of Napoleon in the early 19th, and fewer than thirty in 1953. The consolidation of political units was in part a natural process of agglomeration in which a moderately powerful warlord swallowed his neighbors and became a still more powerful warlord. But the process was accelerated by what historians call the military revolution: the appearance of gunpowder weapons, standing armies, and other expensive technologies of war that could only be supported by a large bureaucracy and revenue base. A guy on a horse with a sword and a ragtag band of peasants was no match for the massed infantry and artillery that a genuine state could put on the battlefield. As the sociologist Charles Tilly put it, “States make war and vice-versa.” Turf battles among knights were a nuisance to the increasingly powerful kings, because regardless of which side prevailed, peasants were killed and productive capacity was destroyed that from the kings’ point of view would be better off stoking their revenues and armies. And once they got into the peace business—“the king’s peace,” as it was called—they had an incentive to do it right. For a knight to lay down his arms and let the state deter his enemies was a risky move, because his enemies could see it as a sign of weakness. The state had to keep up its end of the bargain, lest everyone lose faith in its peacekeeping powers and resume their raids and vendettas."

"[H]istorical patterns are clear: When Europeans feel sufficiently threatened–even when the threat's concocted nonsense–they don't just react, they overreact with stunning ferocity. One of their more humane (and frequently employed) techniques has been ethnic cleansing."

"Most obvious to historians is the part tribal and later communal differences have played in the violent conflicts that have been Europe’s default setting. These conflicts emerged from the Middle Ages as an ingrained, almost ritualized, addiction to war, practised by youths mostly still in their teens and twenties, men such as Clovis, Frederick II of Germany, Edward III of England, Charles V of Spain, Louis XIV and Napoleon. At this level, Europe’s story has been a tragedy of competing virilities. Each of the treaties that have waymarked history–Augsburg, Westphalia, Utrecht, Vienna, Versailles–has struggled to keep the peace but has done so for little more than two generations before war resumed. Even Potsdam in 1945 lasted only until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. Now the conspicuous lack of a post-cold-war settlement is putting Europe’s diplomacy under renewed strain. The continent’s DNA seems to allow people to live calmly with each other only as long as the memory of the last bout of bloodletting survives. A note of wisdom from the past might be that of the dying Louis XIV, ‘Above all, remain at peace with your neighbours. I loved war too much.’ Whether Europe’s belligerence can be attributed to the fractiousness of its original tribes I cannot tell."

"It was the fate of Europe to be always a battleground. Differences in race, in religion, in political genius and social ideals, seemed always ... to be invitations to contest by battle."

"Europe must keep its promise of peace. I believe this is still our Union’s ultimate purpose. But Europe can no longer rely on this promise alone to inspire citizens. In a way, it’s a good thing; war-time memories are fading. Even if not yet everywhere. Soviet rule over Eastern Europe ended just two decades ago. Horrendous massacres took place in the Balkans shortly after. The children born at the time of Srebrenica will only turn eighteen next year. But they already have little brothers and sisters born after that war: the first real post-war generation of Europe. This must remain so. Presidents, Prime Ministers, Excellencies, So, where there was war, there is now peace. But another historic task now lies ahead of us: keeping peace where there is peace. After all, history is not a novel, a book we can close after a Happy Ending: we remain fully responsible for what is yet to come."

"The notion of civility does not submit easily to definition. To pardon a phrase, it's sort of a "we know it when we see it" phenomenon. Most of us know when we are treated rudely, disrespectfully, or improperly. We also know in our hearts when we treat others uncivilly. Perhaps with all the problems in the world today, this might not seem very important. In this country, crime and poverty still plague us. In Bosnia, we see the attempted extermination of an entire people. Yet, notions of fair play, civility, and respect for the inherent worth of another person's ideas, are all values that have been vital to the continued success of this country, and essential tools which our leaders must bring to any domestic or international crisis."

"Conclusion: Military intervention without an attainable purpose creates as many problems as it solves. This was further demonstrated in the former Yugoslavia, where early action to arm the victims of aggression, so that they could defend themselves, would have been far more effective than the United Nations' half-hearted, multilateral intervention. A neutral peacekeeping operation, lightly-armed, in an area where there was no peace to keep, served mainly to consolidate the gains from aggression. Eventually, the United Nations peacekeepers became hostages, used by the aggressor to deter more effective action against him. All in all, a sorry and tragic episode, ended by the Croatian army, NATO air power, and American diplomacy. The combined effect of interventions in Bosnia, Somalia and, indeed, Rwanda has been to shake the self-confidence of key Western powers and to tarnish the reputation of the United Nations. And now a dangerous trend is evident: as the Haiti case shows, the Security Council seems increasingly prepared to widen the legal basis for intervention. We are seeing, in fact, that classically dangerous combination -- a growing disproportion between theoretical claims and practical means."

"And we successfully were able to deter the Soviet Union and the Cold War ended without any shot being fired, and -- and we started after the end of the Cold War to try to build a partnership with Russia. We enlarged more and more of those countries that were previously members of the Warsaw Pact. They became NATO members. And people started also to ask whether we needed NATO anymore, because the reason why we existed, to confront the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact, didn’t exist anymore. But then we soon discovered that it was still a...need, still a reason to keep NATO as a strong alliance, because we saw that we had instability around our borders close to NATO allies, first in the Balkans, where we had a civil war in the 1990’s, or several wars in the 1990’s, and NATO moved into Bosnia and Herzegovina with a big military operation. We...went into Kosovo to preserve, or to...end the war and to preserve the peace and stability in the Balkans. That was, of course, important for our own security because the fighting and the civil war we saw in the Balkans was also a direct threat to NATO allied countries."

"In general, I am an opponent of Pan-Slavism. I do not think that we should be doing anything either in the Balkans or with the Slavs. But the West has now tipped the balance very heavily against Serbia, as if she is to blame for everything. But it's not the Serbs or Croats or Bosnians who are guilty. In Yugoslavia the problems began for the same reason as in the U.S.S.R. The communists--they had Tito, we had Lenin and Stalin--charted out arbitrary, ethnically nonsensical and historically unjustifiable internal administrative boundaries, and for years moved inhabitants from one region to another. And when--also in the period of a few days--Yugoslavia began to fall apart, the leading powers of the West, with inexplicable haste and irresponsibility, rushed to recognize these states within their artificial borders. Therefore, for the exhausting, bloody war which is today convulsing the unfortunate peoples of the former Yugoslavia, the leaders of the Western powers must share the blame with Tito. Now, attempting to somehow correct the very problem they helped to create, they essentially repeat the well-known maxim of Metternich [the backward-looking Hapsburg diplomat who dominated the post-Napoleonic Congress of Vienna in the early 19th century] for the Holy Alliance: "Intervention for the sake of making others healthy." Today the slogan is "Intervention for the sake of humanism." It is an ironic similarity! But intervention is a very dangerous thing. It is not so easy for the great powers to control the world."

"The barbarous violence was brought to an end in 1995 by an agreement signed in Dayton, Ohio; and Milošević was momentarily hailed around the world as a peacemaker. But he had suspended action in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina only because he currently lacked the necessary military power. Kosovo, morever, was another matter and in 1998 he carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing which forced Albanians to flee for their lives over the border into Albania. President Clinton convinced the UN to sanction armed intervention. In March 1999, after Milošević refused to give way, Belgrade suffered relentless NATO bombing from the air. By June he had no alternative but to pull out of Kosovo. Political demonstrations began against him in Belgrade. In the following year he went down to defeat in Serbia’s elections and was ousted from office. In 2001 the Serbian authorities surrendered him for trial as a war criminal at the International Criminal Tribunal at The Hague; he died in March 2006 before any verdict was reached. Yugoslavia had long since been dismembered and its communism consigned to the dustbin of history. Nationalism, casting off the light disguise of constitutional federalism, had triumphed – and only to a partial degree did it lead to liberal democracy. The system of political patronage and financial corruption outlived the communist order in the states carved out of Yugoslavia."

"Although there was peaceful abandonment of communism in most states of the former Soviet Union, some terrible exceptions occurred. Russian and Moldovan elites fought for supremacy in Moldova (which had dropped its Soviet name of Moldavia). Tribal and religious rivalries produced a vicious civil war in Tajikistan on the Afghan border. Chechnya rose in revolt against the Russian Federation. A bloody war sputtered on between Armenia and Azerbaijan about the Armenian-inhabited enclave in Karabagh. But it could have been so much worse and most of the countries of the former USSR at least achieved independence without bloodshed. The same was true across the Kremlin’s ‘outer empire’. Eastern Europe’s peoples coped calmly with life after communism without ‘Russian’ interference. There was a political emergency in Czechoslovakia when the Slovaks, after years of resenting the Czechs, demanded the right to secede. But the dispute was resolved. Not a shot was fired as the Czech Republic and Slovakia went their separate ways in January 1993. The great exception was Yugoslavia (which had anyway never submitted to Soviet Imperial control). Conflicts broke out across the borders of many republics after Milošević’s rise to power in Serbia. Ethnic strife convulsed the internal affairs of Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo. Suddenly in mid-1991 Yugoslavia broke apart when Slovenia and Croatia unilaterally declared their independence. Macedonia followed in September 1991, Bosnia-Herzegovina in March 1992. Inflamed by Milošević's speeches, Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina demanded broad self-rule. This was reasonably interpreted by resident Moslems and Croats as the first steps towards annexation by Serbia. The Croatian government under Franjo Tudjman poured finance and arms into Bosnia-Herzegovina in support of its conationals. The whole federal state collapsed in concurrent processes of secessions, civil wars, inter-republican invasions and ethnic expulsions."

"The specific nature of the Yugoslav crisis was somewhat different. Yugoslavia was not at war, and the system was not in the throes of vast social and institutional transformations on a par with those engineered by the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany in the 1930s or by the Khmer Rouge in their first months of power. But Yugoslavia did face its own combined domestic and international crisis that rapidly undermined the premises of the existing system. The collapse of communism and the increasing power of globalized capitalism destroyed the Cold War umbrella that had given Yugoslavia its protected and privileged place in the international order. Its economy stagnated and lacked the flexibility to function effectively in the more competitive global markets of the late twentieth century. As the communist system’s ability to provide for its people deteriorated, and the political order became mired in internal conflicts and incompetence, people turned to extreme nationalism for solutions. But the dissolution of Yugoslavia and the transition to violent population politics were not the result of age-old ethnic hatreds, as the popular media and government circles in the West often proclaimed. At a moment of crisis, in large part self-generated, nationalist leaders opted to destroy the system. To accomplish their aims, they mobilized longstanding national sentiments but also drew upon the very character of Yugoslavia as a federation of nationally based republics and as a communist society."

"When I was liberated in 1945, April 11, by the American army, somehow many of us were convinced that at least one lesson will have been learned -- that never again will there be war; that hatred is not an option; that racism is stupid; and the will to conquer other people's minds or territories or aspirations, that will is meaningless. I was so hopeful. Paradoxically, I was so hopeful then. Many of us were, although we had the right to give up on humanity, to give up on culture, to give up on education, to give up on the possibility of living one's life with dignity in a world that has no place for dignity. We rejected that possibility. And we said, "No, we must continue believing in a future, because the world has learned." But again, the world hasn't. Had the world learned, there would have been no Cambodia and no Rwanda and no Darfur and no Bosnia. Will the world ever learn?"

"And yet, my friends, good things have also happened in this traumatic century: the defeat of Nazism, the collapse of communism, the rebirth of Israel on its ancestral soil, the demise of apartheid, Israel's peace treaty with Egypt, the peace accord in Ireland. And let us remember the meeting, filled with drama and emotion, between Rabin and Arafat that you, Mr. President, convened in this very place. I was here and I will never forget it. And then, of course, the joint decision of the United States and NATO to intervene in Kosovo and save those victims, those refugees, those who were uprooted by a man, whom I believe that because of his crimes, should be charged with crimes against humanity. But this time, the world was not silent. This time, we do respond. This time, we intervene. Does it mean that we have learned from the past? Does it mean that society has changed? Has the human being become less indifferent and more human? Have we really learned from our experiences? Are we less insensitive to the plight of victims of ethnic cleansing and other forms of injustices in places near and far? Is today's justified intervention in Kosovo, led by you, Mr. President, a lasting warning that never again will the deportation, the terrorization of children and their parents, be allowed anywhere in the world? Will it discourage other dictators in other lands to do the same?"

"We are on the threshold of a new century, a new millennium. What will the legacy of this vanishing century be? How will it be remembered in the new millennium? Surely it will be judged, and judged severely, in both moral and metaphysical terms. These failures have cast a dark shadow over humanity: two World Wars, countless civil wars, the senseless chain of assassinations (Gandhi, the Kennedys, Martin Luther King, Sadat, Rabin), bloodbaths in Cambodia and Algeria, India and Pakistan, Ireland and Rwanda, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Sarajevo and Kosovo; the inhumanity in the gulag and the tragedy of Hiroshima. And, on a different level, of course, Auschwitz and Treblinka. So much violence; so much indifference."

"Again, the 9/11] hijackers were described as deviants who had lost their way and did not represent either their society or the true Islam. But the Saudi hijackers were not outcasts, they weren’t even living on the far margins, not even the way Mansour had done. They had gone to school and learned the Quran, grown up in mostly middle-class, deeply religious families, and gone to university to study law. Some were school dropouts; only one of them had mental difficulties, for which he found solace at the mosque. They were imams in neighborhood mosques, or hafiz, men who had learned the entire Quran by heart. Most of them had gone briefly to Afghanistan, Bosnia, or Chechnya in 1999 or 2000, although few had made it to an actual battlefield. Bosnia and Chechnya were wars deemed righteous by Saudi officialdom, a fight in the name of Islam, a battle to protect Muslims from slaughter. Prince Salman, governor of Riyadh and future king, had fund-raised for Bosnia just as he had done for Afghanistan. In the mid-1990s, dismayed by Western inaction in Bosnia, Saudi Arabia reportedly channeled $300 million worth of weapons to the Muslim-led government of Bosnia, on top of $500 million in humanitarian aid."

"Milosevic realized that he could not rule Yugoslavia. Instead, he decided to build a powerful Serbia that would include all Serbs living in the other republics. To that end, he launched a war against Croatia, destroying frontier cities, occupying territory and supporting the large block of Serbs in the Krajina region. The biggest problem was Bosnia, which declared its independence in March 1992. It had a hopelessly mixed population of Serbs, Croatians, and Moslems but Milosevic wanted to dominate it. Rather than sending in the army, he operated behind the scenes by organizing and supplying paramilitary units who embarked on a programme of 'ethnic cleansing', which involved expelling or killing Moslems and establishing concentration camps. Hundreds of thousands fled as the Serbs occupied 70 per cent of the country and mercilessly shelled its capital Sarajevo. The violence culminated in the massacre of 6000 men and boys in the Moslem enclave of Srebrenica in July 1995. The Bosnian war turned the West against the Serbs. The UN imposed an economic blockade, the costs of the war led to hyperinflation, and the Serbian economy faced collapse. Despite constant demonstrations against his policies, and erratic attempts to achieve stability - most notably choosing a rich American Yugoslav as Prime Minister - Milosevic was re-elected in 1992, with the help of vote rigging. He realized it was time to make peace - the situation was growing desperate. By 1995 NATO was backing the Moslems and Croats who pushed the Serbs out of Krajina and much of Bosnia. Milosevic ditched the Bosnian Serbs and went to Dayton in Ohio for discussions that produced an agreement to divide Bosnia among the three communities. He was praised abroad as a peacemaker, but the Serbs saw the agreement as a defeat."

"The blame for this war lies with us, the Yugoslavs. This does not detract from the fact that certain European positions, taken by certain European states, may have encouraged the various nationalisms. I do not have much confidence in what they are doing in Geneva and, so far, apart from a few speeches, we have seen no concrete results. We need to increase the UN's military presence in Yugoslavia and step up pressure on the governments at war. This is the only concrete course of action."

"Yugoslavia is prey to three forms of Fascism: Serbian, Croatian and Muslim. Let me explain: these are not Mediterranean forms of fascism; here there is something more, and worse, the element of racist nationalism. In this sense, these regimes have more in common with Nazism than with Fascism. However, if they do not share the ideology of Fascism, they do share its methods."

"There are only three nationalisms: Serbian, Croatian and Muslim. A new Fascism, different from Italian Fascism or Nazism: an anarchic, violent, intolerant Fascism. The old Balkan political banditry, which the West has failed to recognise: you can negotiate with these people, but reaching a compromise is impossible."

"In his first Inaugural Address, Thomas Jefferson warned of entangling alliances. But in our times, America cannot and must not disentangle itself from the world. If we want the world to embody our shared values, then we must assume a shared responsibility. If the wars of the 20th century, especially the recent ones in Kosovo and Bosnia, have taught us anything, it is that we achieve our aims by defending our values and leading the forces of freedom and peace. We must embrace boldly and resolutely that duty to lead—to stand with our allies in word and deed and to put a human face on the global economy, so that expanded trade benefits all peoples in all nations, lifting lives and hopes all across the world."

"We should be proud of our role in bringing the Middle East closer to a lasting peace, building peace in Northern Ireland, working for peace in East Timor and Africa, promoting reconciliation between Greece and Turkey and in Cyprus, working to defuse these crises between India and Pakistan, in defending human rights and religious freedom. And we should be proud of the men and women of our Armed Forces and those of our allies who stopped the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, enabling a million people to return to their homes. When Slobodan Milosevic unleashed his terror on Kosovo, Captain John Cherrey was one of the brave airmen who turned the tide. And when another American plane was shot down over Serbia, he flew into the teeth of enemy air defenses to bring his fellow pilot home. Thanks to our Armed Forces' skill and bravery, we prevailed in Kosovo without losing a single American in combat. I want to introduce Captain Cherrey to you. We honor Captain Cherrey, and we promise you, Captain, we'll finish the job you began. Stand up so we can see you."