Federal troops to Bosnia?

"The Truth About Yugoslavia" is a book published in 1993 by Pathfinder Press, the publishing arm of the U.S. Socialist Workers Party. The book argues against US/UN/NATO intervention in the Balkan Wars. However, its position on other issues is far from clear. Sometimes, the book seems to be suggesting that Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia were equally bad. However, they never mention Bosnia explicitly, simply talking about "other republics". Serbia and Croatia *are* mentioned explicitly as nations ruled by rival gangs of would-be capitalists. At other times, the SWP seems to support Bosnia against Serbia and Croatia. The book argues for ending the arms embargo against Bosnia, so the "people of Sarajevo" can get guns to defend their city against the Serb right-wing thugs. Since Sarajevo was the seat of the Bosnian government, this can only mean that the SWP wants to supply the Bosnian army with weapons. However, their main goal is to stop Western, military intervention. Now, it can hardly be denied that the really existing U.S. intervention in 1995 left much to be asked for. It wasn't really pro-Bosnian but pro-Croatian, forced the Bosnian Muslims to enter a "federation" with the Bosnian Croats and a "confederation" with Croatia, and didn't really stop the partition of Bosnia, since the Serbs were allowed to retain many of their conquests. Also, the U.S. looked the other way when Croatia carried out Operation Storm, the largest single ethnic cleansing operation during the entire Balkan Wars (it was directed at Serbs). Despite all this, however, the NATO intervention *did* put an end to the genocide in Bosnia, and forced the Serb rightist forces to lift their murderous siege of Sarajevo, a supposed goal of the SWP itself. It's therefore unclear why the SWP are opposed to all "imperialist" interventions in the Balkans. Besides, their demand to lift the arms embargo would, in practice, give "the people of Sarajevo" the chance to buy large amounts of arms, either from the Muslim world, or directly from the Western powers. Turkey and Pakistan, both with pro-Western governments, had expressed support for Bosnia. While having control of the guns yourself is better than being dependent on NATO warplanes, in both cases the guns come from "imperialists" or their allies. Frankly, who else would be interested in selling arms to Bosnia? Burundi? The SWP doesn't answer the obvious follow-up question: If "working people" should oppose intervention, does this mean that working people in the Balkans should support the *Serbs* if and when they are attacked by NATO? After all, many left-wing groups believe that it's both imperative and mandatory to side with those who are in conflict with "imperialism". In 1995, that would have been the rightist forces in Republika Srpska. The good people of Sarajevo had joined, perhaps involuntarily, the federation-confederation with the Croats, who were backed by Bill Clinton. Hence, they were on the side of the intervention "working people" should oppose! I don't think it's a co-incidence that the SWP skips around this question. Their position is really a sectarian muddle. I suspect they were torn both ways: in a pro-Bosnian direction by their hatred for the Serb forces, which they correctly saw as right-wing gangsters, and in a quite different direction by their complete opposition to any U.S. interventions, anywhere, at any time. (Including World War II?) In the end, the SWP have little real advice to give the people of Bosnia, except to learn from the experience of Cuba and post-apartheid South Africa (the SWP's favourite regimes at the time). The SWP were for federal troops to Boston. But, apparently not, to Bosnia.