"Humanitarian" Bombs

 “To Kill a Nation – The Attack on Yugoslavia” by Michael Parenti, 2000

This book is a hard one to read, because it provides a grim ‘negative’ to the usual view of this conflict.  It is a counter-narrative to the pro-war propaganda of the U.S. media and some European media during the dismemberment of Yugoslavia in 1991-2000.  It goes into detail about the Slovenian, Croatian, Bosnian and Kosovo struggles, which, given the complexity of actors and locations, has never been clear.  But one thing is obvious from this book – the intent of the U.S. and NATO was to foment ethnic nationalism and division in pursuit of cheap labor, privatization, mineral exploitation, debt, minimized economic competition and political control.  In a word, social counter-revolution.

Yugoslavia was a multi-ethnic state born out of the socialist and anti-fascist struggles of World-War II.  It combined peoples of many ethnicities, religions and regions, led by Josip Broz Tito, with a significant state and cooperative sector.  It had ‘un-Balkanized’ the Balkans. To capitalist Germany, NATO and the U.S., this could not stand - especially after the collapse of the USSR. 

Parenti discusses each part of Yugoslavia in turn, making these main points.  1. Serbs and pro-Yugoslavian ethnics were the main target of ethnic cleansing, as 1.3M Serbs were driven out of their homes. 2. The anti-Serb and Milosevic propaganda by Clinton and NATO was heavily flawed – full of lies, rumors, exaggerations and provable falsehoods.  3. The Rambouillet negotiations were fraudulent on the part of NATO, which led to the targeted bombing of what remained of Yugoslavia.  4. NATO’s allies were many times the dregs of fascism and the far-right. 5. The whole NATO operation was illegal by international and U.S. law. 6.  The excuse for intervention and bombing was ‘humanitarian,’ hiding neo-colonial and imperialist aims.  7.  The main target was any residue of socialism.

Yugoslavia up to 1980 had free education and health care, inexpensive housing, transport and utilities, a right to an income, 90% literacy and one month vacations. 60% of the economy was in the public sector or in self-managed cooperatives.  It also had problems, especially after the death of Tito.  It had taken on too much IMF/World Bank debt, which led to the privatization of banks and industrial concerns through ‘restructuring.’  It had weakened its federal system in favor of ‘provincial rights.’  It had earned the wrath of NATO for its independent role in the Non-Aligned movement. The collapse of central and eastern European workers’ states had left it exposed to predators.  The book does not cover events after 2000, such as Milosevic’s indictment or Montenegro’s independence.  

The press, led by celebrated journalists like Ted Koppel, Bill Moyers, Frontline and Silvia Poggioli, all propagated stories given them by the U.S. State Department, Clinton, NATO, right-wing separatist leaders and third-hand sources repeating unchecked rumors. It was journalism at its worst. Madeleine Albright, the butcher of Iraqi children, was another ‘source.’  Many independent journalists and agencies found little to nothing to substantiate their stories. There were fabricated atrocities.  There were instances of false flags by separatists, blaming others for their own crimes.  Instead Serbs and Yugoslavs were demonized as terrorists, Communists or genocidal, deserving of whatever happened to them.  The Serbs were the only nationality that had no legitimate role in the fate of Yugoslavia according to this press. 

The U.S. selectively supported ‘self-determination’ – which meant ethnic cleansing and the end of multi-culturalism for Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Roma, Muslims, Orthodox, Turks, Gorani, Kosovars and the like in these new, weak mini-states.  Guns, money and aid poured into separate republics of Yugoslavia from Germany and the U.S. starting in 1991.  In 1992 the U.S. got the U.N. to fully embargo hold-outs Serbia and Montenegro, which Parenti calls the most sweeping sanctions ever instituted at the time.     

     1.   Slovenia. The wealthiest part of Yugoslavia, Slovenia declared its independence first in 1991. Yet Slovenia resisted many of the free-market dictats until 1999 when it allowed foreign firms to buy Slovene land and capital to have free movement, while increasing austerity for labor.

     2.   Croatia.  The separatist movement was led by Franco Tudjman, who believed genocide was ‘in harmony with nature.’  Tudjman was a successor to the Ustashe, who backed the Nazis in WWII, running ‘the Auschwitz of the Balkans,’ Jasenovac, that liquidated 750K Serbs.  Trudjman’s forces drove more than half a million Serbs from their homes in Croatia, with NATO bombing Krajina’s Serbs as an aid. Croats even attacked Croatian Muslims and visa versa.  In 1999 the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) found no advances in ‘democracy’ in Croatia, just an authoritarian and criminal ethno-state. 

     3.   Bosnia-Herzegovina.  Bosnia had no ethnic majority between Serbs, Muslims and Croats.  The 1995 Dayton ‘Accords’ declared Bosnia to be two states, and instituted a neo-colonial administration run by the U.S. and EU., with the IMF playing a central economic role, including controlling the Central Bank.  The chosen leader was another crypto-fascist, Alija Isetbegovic, who had been a member of the Young Muslims in WWII.  They recruited for the Nazi SS during the war. NATO aerial attacks allowed Isetbegovic’s faction to win against Serbs and more liberal Muslims.  Nearly all Bosnian state assets were sold off at fire-sale prices, as was normal for the counter-revolution throughout central and eastern Europe.  In a way, Bosnia became a neo-colonial protectorate according to Parenti, a process he describes as ‘third-worldization.’ 

     4.   Republika Srpska. A partitioned area for Bosnian Serbs, NATO disapproved of their close relations with Serbia and instead promoted a right-wing monarchist as President, Biljana Plavsic. He purged leftist officers and dissolved the People’s Assembly in 1997, while NATO took over the police in the republic, firing many, while seizing all radio and TV stations. The biggest issue between the sides was privatization.  When Plavsic lost the next election, the winner was deposed and a series of NATO assassinations followed that helped eliminate further opposition.

     5.   Kosovo.  The Kosovo ethnic war waged by the fascist/criminal KLA (Kosovar Liberation Army) was the excuse NATO needed for the bombing of Serbia for 2.5 months straight in 1999.  The KLA purged every non-Albanian ethnic group with terror attacks, assassinations, burning houses and Orthodox churches, finally reducing the non-Albanian population from 60% to 15%.  All this in pursuit of a ‘Greater Albania,’ much like Hungary's current appetite for a 'Greater Hungary" in Transylvanian Rumania and Vojvodina in Serbia. They were armed by NATO countries and aided by Clinton’s CIA.  The ethnic cleansing of Kosovo was of non-Albanian ethnics, which was aided by the 1999 NATO bombing campaign in Kosovo too.  Yet it was in Kosovo that the false allegation of ‘genocide’ was leveled at … the Serbs.      

Parenti discusses a long list of atrocities claimed or actual in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo.  NATO and tabloid press claims of mass murder and death camps ‘on a genocidal scale’ or mass rape and rape camps, or use of poison gas, were found to be lacking when investigated by independent sources, including official ones like the U.N., the FBI and the EU’s Committee on Women’s Rights. Phrases like ‘killing fields,’ Milosevic as “Hitler” and ‘holocaust’ were used to drum up support for the war. Parenti understands that both sides committed war crimes, but the singular and only focus on the Serbs was politically motivated and not born out.  Yet humanitarian orgs like Doctors Without Borders, the Green Party and various left-liberal luminaries all piled on. 

The siege of Sarajevo in Bosnia became a press focal point in ‘92-’94.  Parenti blames the Serbs for most of the damage at Sarajevo and Vokovar, along with others.  Yet he goes into detail on how the Bosnian Muslim forces actually perpetuated the siege by rejecting negotiations to harvest sympathy. They were responsible for some of the 3 main massacres reported in the press as Serbian-caused.  The Croatian shelling of Mostar created more dead than the Sarajevo siege, but went unmentioned, as they were dead Serbs.  Christopher Hitchens, no friend of the Serbs, says that NATO knew this.  This was similar to the massacre and disappearance of hundreds of Serbs in Krajina. In Srebrenica, Moyers reported 7,414 Muslims were killed.  Investigators found only 70 bodies.  Damage from the battle in Dubrovnik was partly caused by Croat gunners placing themselves on the old city walls. And so on.

Everything done by NATO, Clinton, Genl. Wesley Clark and others was illegal under the U.N. Charter, NATO Charter, the U.S. Constitution and the War Powers Act. This is why, since the 1950s, the John Birch Society and other U.S. forces have called for limits or ends to various U.N. programs or entities.  It is now Trump's turn.  Albright instead pushed for a separate court for the Yugoslav conflict, outside the normal U.N. legal structures, called the International Criminal Tribunal.  The Rambouillet negotiations were designed to make the Serbs reject them, as unpublished demands of NATO included free entry into all of Serbia.  It was an agreement to be occupied as a vassal state.  The $5B Trepca mining complex in Kosovo, the biggest in the Balkans, was also to be privatized, which gives you an idea of the economics behind these ‘negotiations.’ It was agree to occupation or be attacked.      

The Serbs rejected the ‘peace’ treaty, which Parenti calls a real declaration of war.  NATO followed with round-the-clock bombing against Belgrade and elsewhere.  They hit:  the Chinese Embassy, anti-NATO Serbian TV and radio stations, 164 socialized or cooperative factories, the headquarters of the Socialist Party, fertilizer plants, energy facilities, water utilities, public transit, hospitals and apartment buildings. Even the Yugo auto plant was bombed, which finished that brand.  Yet no foreign-owned concerns were hit, nor pro-NATO, anti-Milosevic radio or TV stations. NATO used banned cluster, depleted uranium, anti-personnel and poison munitions, not just conventional bombs. This assault resulted in 2,500 dead and 6,000 wounded. 

That is the sorry story of the destruction of Yugoslavia by ‘humanitarians.’  The book has far more detail if you are interested in the full picture.

Prior blogspot reviews, use blog search box, upper left, to investigate our 19 year archive, using these terms:  “Yugoslavia,” “Quo Vadis Aida?” “NATO.” 

And I Bought it at May Day Books!

Red Frog / February 6, 2025