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Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the Failure of the West

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Published while the slaughter in Bosnia was not yet over this book provides a dated, yet chilling, view of the conflict in this God forsaken region. I say conflict because it cannot be considered war. I've read it before in other books and seen it in pictures and movies but Bosnia truly was the "Slaughterhouse" that Mr. Rieff describes.

These were ordinary people; doctors, teachers, parents, etc. that grew up in the bosom of civilization, in Europe. They expected that civilization to shield them from the horrors unleashed by the Bosnian Serbs and were shellshocked when it didn't. Comprehension was beyond them, this simply COULD NOT happen at the end of the 20th century in the heart of Europe, but it did. The worst slaughter in Europe since the Holocaust, 250,000 dead. Why? Mr. Rieff comes to the same conclusion as most; myth and delusion. The Turk/Janissary/Handzar were coming for the Serbs in their beds, only, it was actually the Chetniks murdering and raping instead.

"Why did they murder a 70 year old Bosniac?

Don't you understand they did it because in 1389 the Turks beat Prince Lazar on the Kossovo Polje?"

GAAAH!

Because of when this was written it is a dated history but still very valuable because Mr. Rieff was there, as an American, whose perspective any American (Westerner) will understand. His disbelief and horror echoes your own. A horrible read in that it will make you want to weep but a great way to begin to comprehend what happened.

I have been interested in reading about the history of the Bosnian war as my father was in the US army stationed there for a time during my youth and I am now married to a refugee from that war. This book has a very interesting story but I was thrown off from becoming lost in the book due to the writer's aggravating writing. The run-on sentences and rambling made me feel like he was just writing down his thoughts of his experience and its too distracting. In addition the lack of organization of the chapters, topics, the book period makes it even more frustrating. Just not my style

On January 8, 1993 a UN convoy was transporting the vice-President of Bosnia, Dr. Hakija Turajlic back to Sarajevo when it was stopped by a Serb convoy. The UN commander, French Colonel Patrice Sartre did not call for help from the UNPROFOR aiport garrison. Instead he sent away three British Warrior fighting vehicles on the scene, saying there wasn't a problem. In order to demonstrate that there were no "Mujahedin" riding along with Dr. Turajlic, Sartre opened the door to the truck Turajlic was sitting in. Whereupon a Bosnian Serb promptly assasinated him. For this grotesque act of incompetence, Sartre was not court-martialed and shot, but fully exonerated by the United Nations, and on his return to France was given the Legion of Honor. Later he would help the French intervention to save their genocidal allies in Rwanda.

One might say that this horrible episode, as recounted in David Rieff's excellent and properly outraged book, was typical of the world's reaction to Bosnia: a false neutrality between the murderer and the victim moving towards active indulgence of the former against the latter; a refusal to accept the blame or responsibility for one's actions; a member country of the United Nations actively betrayed by the UN whose paths to peace amount to its liquidation. One might say this, but that would not be enough. Rieff reminds us of the full horror and obscenity of the Bosnian war, and provides a shocking picture of Western callousness.

He reminds us of the obvious. Here is a democratic multicultural republic who has no defenders in either the United Nations or in the European Community. For years the Soviet grip on Eastern Europe was the United States' best argument in the cold war. Yet nothing Husak or Honecker ever did was as foul as the butchery of Srebrenica. 200,000 people were slaughtered in ethnic cleansing and millions made homeless, the worst atrocity in Europe since the death of Stalin. But the ironies of the war are such that the one multicultural community in Bosnia found itself called "the Muslims." Meanwhile the irridentists seeking to destroy it were called the "Serbs" and "Croats" in the international press, and not Orthodox or Catholic, Chetnik or Ustashe. There is the whole pointlessness of the nationalist enterprise, as Serbs and Croats emphasize their distinct variety of Christianity when most of them are agnostic, while special nationalist intellectuals seeks to dream up new vocabularies or emphasize special alphabets to get around the fact that all three countries speak the same language.

Rieff argues, rightly, that only NATO intervention could have stopped ethnic cleansing. He also points out, again rightly as we can see from the case of Kosovo, that had they done so the Bosnian Serbs would have quickly compromised or been quickly defeated. He also notes the strain and pressure that the multicultural and democratic values of Bosnia were put under by the unrelenting strain and viciousness, and he also notes how the thugs of Karadzic and the cowards of the UN and the US leaped on the rising fundamentalism and intolerance as vindication of their own vile stand. We see the United Nations trapped in the worst set of bureaucratic mindset, with corrupt soldiers on the ground. The UN fully accepts George Orwell's ironic dictum that the quickest way to end a war is to lose it, and do everything they can to discourage the Bosnians. Increasingly, it seems that instead of sacrificing its political capital to help Bosnians, Bosnians should sacrifice everything for the UN's convenience. And so we see the Canadian general Lewis Mackenzie and the British General Sir Michael Rose insinuating, never frankly declaring, that the Bosnians shelled their own people. It is amazing that Mackenzie entered federal politics after his return home, and had the voters of an otherwise extremely conservative rural Ontario riding wisely re-elected the liberal incumbent, this most overrated of men could have been viewed as a potential leader of the opposition, even a potential prime minister. Rieff's book is worth reading alone just for pointing out the truth about him.

David Rieff's book is one of many I have read on the Balkan conflict in the 1990s and I must say I was pretty disappointed with it. The book reads like an extended news report -- dry, factual and extremely boring. There wasn't much personal interpretation of the events, or sadly, anything new to say. The worst thing about Rieff's book I can think of is that it does nothing for one who knows zero about the war. A background of the conflict was not given, and he just went straight into talking about the war itself and the crimes on all sides. Mind-boggling and unfriendly.

Mr. Rieff writes with such a poetic style that the subject becomes alive and fluid! Though the subject is tragic the writing style is magical. Every page drew me in and refused to let me go until I had turned to the next. A very well researched and poignant book.

This book defininitely opened my eyes to the "Slaughterhouse" of the Balkans. The book was definitely well-researched and well-written, but it definitely dragged on at times. Rieff seemed to be repeating himself throughout the whole book, but his points were obviously well-taken. It also described various detailed, graphic accounts of some of the hardships that many people had to live with. It portrayed all sides of the whole Bosnia/Serbia/Croatia genocide and compared it to the Holocaust. Rieff also berates the rest of the world for not coming to the aid of the thousands of victims of this war. A good overview of the entire Balkan conflict.

This book is an excellent analysis of the Bosnian war. While the writer at times might ramble on, it is still one of the best books out there by a great journalist. Rieff knows his stuff and I would say that this book is essential for any study on the conflict. His points are quite cogent and he makes an excellent case against the UN's conduct in the war. This is an important piece for the serious Balkan reader.

By way of introduction, I would like to state that this book contains virtually every essential element of the Bosnian tragedy. The author reveals the sheer indifference of the United Nations to the slaughter of a great number of innocent Bosnian civilians. As is well-known, one of the worst massacres after the World War 2 took place in Srebrenica before the eyes of the whole world! Admittedly, the United Nations failed to undertake necessary measures to prevent the bloodshed. In spite of the fact that Srebrenica was under UN "protection", eight thousand innocent Bosnian civilians had been killed!! Even today, no one knows whether or not these people are alive. However, it is most likely that these helpless people were brutally murdered. Indisputably, the war in Bosnia was not considered a priority by the international community; on that acccount many innocent civilians were killed. This book divulges that the international community is highly accountable for the Bosnian tragedy and the fact that approximately 300.000 people were killed!

Slaughterhouse; Bosnia and the failure of the west; in David Rieff's mind and words this means, Slaughterhouse the by Ustashi & Chetniks; Bosnia, not Herzegovina, and the failure of the west to do anything. This book basically has been written by an Alngo-Saxon, Capitalist, who has not been into the depth of the Bosnian conflict. I am a Croatian-Born Australian, but me myslef, i know the full effect of the Croatian war, meeting people who have been hardest effected by it. And now spending my freetime researching the Balkans and wars and conflicts and as to why they errupted. Mr Rieff basically didn't go into the fact that the west didn't do anything to stop or lessen the effect of the Bosnian and Hercegovina war, but all he managed to do was to get the point of view from either Serbs or Moslem Nationalists. Therefor pointing the finger at Serbs and Croats, many times re-phrasing the Ustashi and Chetnik terms. he wrote a whol;e 220 page or so book, rewritting what thew western world had kept saying while Bosnia and Herzegovina, many of u have forgotten it's Bosnia and Herzegovina, that the west have tried to steer clear of the bosnian conflict.

ei, the western world, saw the power of the serbs and saw that if the croats and bosnjaks were crushed there would be peace in the balkans because the serbs were chiefs. they didn't step in due to that... why did all of a sudden in 94-95 the USA turn on the side of the croats??? the croats were throwing the serbs out of western BiH. Rieff manages only to say that the western world did what it could to spare lives in BiH. exactly what the west had been wanting to hear all along.

Propaganda......Tudman was said to have questioned Jasenovac, he himself went to jasenovac to comemorate the jews and serbs killed there. he was also said to have written a book doubting the holocaust. he wrote a statement saying that the killing of jews and serbs in Croatia duroing WW2 by facsists was exagguratted by the communists.

the authour needs to get his facts write before he writes such a book.