Stop Bosnia Aggression With Military Cleansing : Balkans: The rationale is clear-cut for the use of Western force in Bosnia. It’s time to tackle causes, not symptoms.

Western leaders are looking for attainable objectives to justify U.N. military involvement to end the slaughter of innocent civilians in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The European Community has already wasted three months in pointless “peace negotiations” while the U.N. effort has been confined to supplying food to terrorized residents of Sarajevo.

It is time that the causes, not the symptoms, of the crisis be tackled head-on with the full moral and military weight of the United Nations. Only Washington can assemble the necessary multinational resources to help stifle the Serbian guns and rescue thousands of Muslims, Croats and Serbs from further massacres.

If the Administration needs a rationale for military involvement, at least four spring to mind:

-- Without military action, the scale of human suffering will accelerate: extermination, torture, deportation, millions of refugees swarming across Europe and destabilizing neighboring countries.

-- Inaction will mean that the world has appeased aggression and the partition of an independent state and U.N. member.

-- The partition of Bosnia will set a precedent for other multiethnic countries at the mercy of predatory expansionist powers hellbent on creating racist states.

-- The conflict and butchery will not end with partition. There will be an inevitable spillover of warfare, terrorism, sabotage and self-perpetuating vendettas. Western Europe will not be immune to the mayhem as Muslims and Croats seek retribution against Serbian targets and sympathizers. Hostile Arab states and other radical powers would welcome the opportunity to cause mischief in Western capitals and preoccupy Washington.

The rationale is clear-cut for military engagement in Bosnia; the goals can also be readily specified:

First, the chief aggressor and instigator of conflict has to be pinpointed--the Serb-Yugoslav army consisting of militant local guerrillas, military recruits and irregulars from Serbia and Montenegro. These forces engage in the most ruthless and systematic atrocities and have manufactured ethnic strife on a scale not witnessed since World War II. They have captured nearly three-quarters of Bosnian territory, and must be neutralized if the conflict is to subside and the partition of Bosnia is to be reversed.

Second, the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina has to be restored in all its prewar territories. An important strategic and political objective must be the liberation of Sarajevo through a policy of “military cleansing” around the capital to stop the murder of unarmed civilians. With Sarajevo liberated, other regional and municipal capitals can be tackled to re-establish Bosnian authority.

Third, “ethnic cleansing” must be stopped. The U.N. mandate in Serb-occupied areas of Croatia has to be extended to occupied Bosnian zones. Although the prewar demographic structure cannot be re-created, conditions must be met for the return of evicted Muslim families to their home villages. An orderly departure of Serb colonists has to be implemented, with international monitors ensuring that legalism and human rights are respected by all sides. Only in this way will pressures for revenge be defused and a credible multiethnic government re-established.

A short ultimatum must be declared for the cessation of Serb hostilities in Bosnia-Herzegovina. If the ultimatum fails, several military steps must be pursued without delay. First, the Yugoslav air force can be quickly grounded. Yugo MIGs can be rapidly intercepted and shot out of the sky by planes from U.S. carriers in the Adriatic. Second, large arms-production and storage facilities in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia itself can be quickly destroyed from the air; the locations are well known. Third, supply lines of war materiel from Serbia to Bosnia should be paralyzed by a severing of road and rail arteries across the border.

In Bosnia itself, once Sarajevo is sufficiently secured and Serbian mortars are blasted out of the hills, Serb-held corridors across the republic can be severed at certain key points. Serbian forces are trying to secure permanent land bridges to the Adriatic and to occupied territories of Croatia. The disruption of lines of communication, war supplies and manpower will steadily weaken Belgrade’s hold and isolate local paramilitary units.

The oft-repeated warning about the dangers of using Western ground troops is a smoke screen for inaction. The Bosnian authorities are not calling for U.N. ground forces, they simply demand the means to defend themselves and to thwart the aggressor. Once the arms embargo is lifted for all forces under Sarajevo’s authority, the government could swiftly arm thousands of fighters to regain its lost territories. The infusion of highly motivated local troops and the availability of necessary firepower would help deflate Serbian morale and restore the credibility of the central government.

The quagmire scenario has been touted uncritically in the West. Despite some similarities in terrain and the methods of war, Bosnia is not Vietnam. There is no superpower behind Serbia that the West must beware of provoking. Moreover, the vast majority of the Bosnian population would welcome U.N. military support. Bosnians, unlike Kuwaitis, are willing to fight against the occupation forces, given sufficient weaponry and logistical support. There is no need for long-term Western military entanglement, only for consistent engagement in a political settlement.