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THE FORMER YUGOSLAVIA

This godforsaken corner of the world has been the source of much of our collective misery for the last century. Its residents' inability to get along‑‑with Serbs fighting Croats fighting Muslims fighting Macedonians fighting Albanians fighting Kosovars fighting Serbs‑‑can be traced to the following single event: in 1914 a Serb anarchist by the name of Gavrilo Princip assassinated the Archduke Ferdinand. This incident kicked off World War 1. Which led to World War 11. Over fifty million people died from both wars.

I don't know what it is about these people. I mean, I don't go around killing Texans. I don't go burn down whole villages in Florida. I've learned to live with it. Why can't they?

It hasn't always been this violent in Yugoslavia. After World War 11, those few Yugoslavians who had fought against Hider (mostly the Serbs; the Croats and others welcomed the Nazis and their Final Solution with open arms) took over and formed a Communist government under the leadership of Marshall Tito.

Tito refused to answer to Moscow, and set off on his own mission of uniting the ethnic factions of his country.

For nearly forty years the people of Yugoslavia stopped killing each other. They became a civilized country. They made Yugos. Basketball became the national sport. Life was good.

Then Tito died, and all hell broke loose. Croats started killing Serbs. Serbs killed Muslims in Bosnia. Serbs killed Albanians in Kosovo. Then the United States bombed Kosovo, to show them

killing was wrong. In the past few years there has been peace, then war, then peace again, and now war again. It never stops. These people are addicts.

And that means it's time for an intervention.

Not a military one, but a twelve‑step intervention, the kind you do with an alcoholic.

I am suggesting to the people of the former Yugoslavia that you take a pledge to wean yourselves off the violence. Set up weekly meetings in church basements all across the country (what's left of it), sit in a circle, and get it‑whatever "it" is off your chest. Yes, you can smoke there, and there's plenty of coffee.

If you don't do this, we are going to drop thousands of those shitty little Yugo cars from cargo planes high above your country. It will never be safe to go out of the house because you'll never know when one of those 2,000‑‑pound lemons is heading for your head.

Then again, maybe science has a better solution: perhaps this is that occasion we've been looking for, to invent a way to bring someone back from the dead. Nobody in America liked Tito much when he was alive, but now he looks like Lady Bird Johnson. If we can clone humans, shouldn't we be able to bring one back who's already been alive? I wouldn't mind seeing the U.S. Government commit a few billion dollars to this Lazarus Project. That big lug in‑ his silly hat taking charge of his unruly citizens once more would be a sight for sore eyes. In the name of the millions who didn't need to die in the twentieth century thanks to Yugoslavian misbehavior, we may have no other hope to restore Yugoslavian domestic peace and tranquility. Arise, Tito!