MISSOURI COMMENTARY: THREAT TO EUROPE IS THREAT TO US

Do you know why I don't like to drink plum brandy, why I drink beer always? Because the Serbs sometimes do their killing after drinking plum brandy. Do you know what it is to throw a child in the air and catch it on a knife in front of its mother? To be tied to a burning log? To have your ass split with an axe so that you beg the Serbs, beg them to shoot you in the head and they don't? And they go to their church after. They go to their goddamn church. I have no words. ... There are things that are beyond evil, that you just can't speak about."

-- Unidentified Muslim quoted in "Balkan Ghosts" by Robert Kaplan.

The best the president can hope for is that Americans will be cautiously tolerant of his decision to send troops to Bosnia. Marching to the Balkans is not the stuff of euphoria. Despite the maiming and slaughter, Bosnia does not weigh heavily on the American conscience. Separating warring factions in southeastern Europe doesn't have the clarion ring of a crusade against a Hitler or a Tojo. Bosnia is a far-off place where strange people seem hell-bent to practice mass extermination.

Pitiful Bosnia is at the crossroads of three great religions and of commensurate hate. Like the rest of the troubled Balkan, Bosnia has known terrorism, assassination, hostage-taking and the killing of innocents off and on for centuries. It is a place where fanaticism is recognized as an acceptable way of life.

President Clinton's men have drawn a map in Dayton. Its lines meander through Bosnia as if they were written by politicians concocting congressional district boundaries that put all the blacks here and all of the whites there or all of the Muslims here and all of the Serbs there.

Despite the lines, all involved pretend there will be a unitary state with an executive and legislative branch governing all. Fiction, pure fiction. Bosnia will be a place on a map, but not a country that can function.

For the moment the Croats seem to have the most to brag about. Along with our bombing and Slovodan Milosevic's reticence, the Croat military triggered the collapse of the Bosnian Serb army. They achieved the return of Eastern Slavonia. They were dealt into the Bosnian solution as nominal partners of the Muslims in half of Bosnia.

The Croats, self-proclaimed as urbane, loathe the Muslims with the same intensity as the Serbs. Centuries of Hapsburg rule in Croatia have convinced the Croats that they are culturally superior to the Bosnian Muslims and as well as the Serbs.

Bosnia is a backwater filled with suspicions and fears. Bosnian Croats, face to face with antagonists, are even more Croatian than their kinsmen in Croatia. So too the Serbs in Bosnia. Living in proximity to people they despise, they are more intensely Serbian than their fellow Serbs in Belgrade.

Back in 1993, Muslims and Croatians were battling each other ferociously. Now they are partners on half the land. Once again, diplomacy needs a heavy touch of fiction now and then.

The Dayton design will not endure forever. Ultimately the day will come when a Greater Serbia and a Greater Croatia will devour what remains of Bosnia. After all, Milosevic and Croatia's President Franjo Tudjman agreed to carve up Bosnia in 1991. The carving is now partially completed. We know what part will go to Serbia. We are not as precise as to how and when the Croats and Muslims will fashion their disentanglement.

Despite the time bombs left behind by history, despite the difficulty of keeping peace amongst such bellicose people, President Clinton is correct in sending troops. The issue is greater than obscure Bosnia. The issue is Europe and the solidarity of the European alliance. That alliance has served us well for half a century and will serve us well in the future if we protect it.

The Balkans are the back door to Europe. Rife with discord, the Balkans pose a threat to European security -- which means a threat to our security. In terms of the maintenance of international peace and stability, we and Europe are as one. It is unthinkable that with a peace, however unpredictable, fashioned by the United States, we would forsake its implementation.

The century is ending as it began, with obscure Balkan vendettas threatening the stability of Europe and beyond. The risks of preserving peace in Bosnia are very high. History demonstrates that the risks of scuttling the peace in Bosnia would be even higher.

~Tom Eagleton of St. Louis is a former U.S. senator from Missouri.