COLUMN RIGHT/ MURRAY N. ROTHBARD : America, Keep Out of Bosnia : People in plush offices are thirsting for blood, which our youth will have to supply. Why?

Not long ago, the entire New World Order crowd, from the New York Times to the New Republic to every “foreign-policy expert” on TV, was defending the Serbs, who spoke for the “territorial integrity of Yugoslavia.”

Every Establishment article on Yugoslavia was not considered complete unless the beleaguered Croats were attacked for being “Nazis.” The Serbs, on the other hand, were supposedly “anti-Nazi,” this grossly oversimplified version of World War II in the Balkans presumably defining their positions for all time.

Suddenly, it’s a different story. The same old suspects, now including the Clinton-Gore ticket, are denouncing the Bush Administration for not making war upon the Serbs.

Is there to be no conflict, no war, no problem anywhere in the world where the poor United States, already declining in productivity and living standards, mired in depression and groaning under a $400-billion annual deficit, won’t send its troops and its treasure to set everything right? How long is it going to take to learn the lesson that, just as government throwing money at social problems only makes them worse, so the United States is not able to cure all the ills of mankind?

As usual, it is the fat-cat civilians, the “experts” and the media elite sitting in their plush offices that are thirsting for blood, and the youth of the armed forces who are supposed to supply it.

To his credit, President Bush is at least cautious at getting in a Balkan quagmire, reflecting the position of the Pentagon, which is very mindful of the lessons of Vietnam and Lebanon. Military experts estimate that it would take an army of 500,000 to secure Sarajevo and Bosnia alone, and far more to try to occupy Serbia.

As if our home-grown jingoes weren’t enough, we also have the malignant Mrs. Thatcher urging the United States and our allies to give an immediate ultimatum to the Serbs. They must comply with a series of absurd demands, or else face maximum military force. Those demands include “demilitarization of Bosnia” and the entire region (fat chance) and, in particular, the protection of the “territorial integrity” of Bosnia. Thatcher adds that the West’s aim should be to “restore the Bosnian state,” which must also be guaranteed as a unitary country, “not allowing for its partition into three cantons.”

“Territorial integrity” of Bosnia? For heaven’s sake, Bosnia didn’t even exist until a few months ago.

The idea of maintaining Bosnia-Herzegovina as a unitary, multiethnic “democracy” is idiotic. It can only cause permanent trouble for everyone. Since the Bosnian Muslims are gentle folk without much of an armed force, they have gotten the dirty end of the de facto partition, but they should be happy, eventually, to take their ethnic areas and forget the multiethnic nonsense. In the Balkans, there isn’t and won’t be any “melting pot” or even a “gorgeous mosaic.”

Many of the mavens acknowledge that our choices are hard, that the problem is difficult, but they are prepared for Serb civilians, young Americans in the armed forces and the U.S. taxpayer to pay any price needed for ultimate victory. But why? Why is the United States supposed to be the world’s policeman and nanny?

Because, we’re told, we have to stop the Serbs before it is “too late.” Too late for what? My least favorite senator, (yes, I know, it’s a tough choice) Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), said that if we don’t stop the Serbs in Bosnia, then they will go on next to Kosovo, and then maybe even Macedonia. Ooohh? Must we go all-out to stop them before they get to Skopje? And if that happens, the war will spread, Bulgaria and Turkey will step in (eh?) and then . . . . The rest of the sentence after “and then” is always left hanging. And then what exactly, senator? If we don’t stop the Serbs in Sarajevo, will they swim the Atlantic and, daggers in their teeth, invade Connecticut?

In the space of no more than a year, the elite that runs American opinion has discovered no less than five “Hitlers,” against each of whom we have had to be mobilized. Let’s call the roll: Saddam Hussein, David Duke, Pat Buchanan, Ross Perot and Slobodan Milosevic. All have been treated as an immediate menace to the American Republic.

You’d think that after a while this baloney wouldn’t work. How many times does the kid have to cry wolf before no one takes him seriously?