With all the talk about the Neocon’s fabulously evil and incompetent foreign policy one might forget that it did not all begin with Dubya and his administration. The first elective war which was fought in blatant and clear violation of international law, the UN charter and even basic decency was the US-lead NATO aggression on Yugoslavia.
It all really began with the joint US-Croatian attack on the UN protection areas in Croatia (in which UNPROFOR forces were secretly ordered to stand down and let the attacking forces enter the UN protection areas) and it ended with the NATO air campaign in support of the KLA in Kosovo.
As usual in such cases, the aggression was described as a ‘humanitarian operation’ in defense of the Kosovo Albanians. A Serbian police operation against a KLA unit in the village of Racak was re-branded a ‘massacre’ (the EU investigation which had uncovered the truth about this event was immediately classified as ‘secret’ and quickly forgotten, just like the UNPROFOR investigation of the Markale bombing in Sarajevo). Finally, the panicked exile of thousands of Kosovo Albanians was deemed a ‘genocide’ and the full scale bombing of Yugoslavia could be veiled in a pious ‘humanitarian’ cloak.
That huge air campaign failed miserably, at least in Kosovo proper: only a couple of tanks and APCs were destroyed, but the rest of the Army Corps deployed in Kosovo was left unscathed. The Empire then used its favorite and time-tested method: it expanded its air strikes to the civil infrastructure of Serbia and even Montenegro (the tactic used by Israel in 2006 against Lebanon). But even that did not really do the trick. The Empire then played its strongest card: it promised Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic that he could stay in power as long as he agreed to betray his fellow Serbs in Kosovo.
Milosevic, who had already betrayed the Serbs in Bosnia and Croatia by supporting a NATO blockade against them and, even more crucially, by ordering the Yugoslav armored units to withdraw when the Croats attacked, could be counted on to also betray the Serbs in Kosovo. The Serb forces withdrew from Kosovo, the Albanian returned, the Serbs fled and the systematic destruction of Orthodox churches and ancient monasteries by KLA goons began under the indifferent eyes of the NATO occupying forces.
Still, the Empire needed one more lie to fully achieve its aims: a promise that a negotiated solution for Kosovo would be found within international law, meaning that Kosovo would not simply be allowed to unilaterally secede from Yugoslavia and declare independence. Milosevic did not care as long as he was allowed to remain in power, and Russia was too busy being sucked dry by the ‘oligarchs’ and their western patrons. The Empire had won: th KLA thugs, which the Empire used to brand as ‘terrorists’ only a few years ago, were now presented to the world as respectable politicians.
Predictably, the KLA thugs now in power in Pristina were told that if no negotiated agreement was found with Belgrade they could declare independence and that, regardless of what the UNSC would decide, their independence would be recognized. Unsurprisingly, these negotiations failed and now the KLA is about to declare independence without a UNSC Resolution, but with a vast majority of western countries supporting such a move. Their approach is simple: its not like the Albanians would accept anything else anyway and screw Serbia – who cares about what they have to say!
The problem with this ‘easy’ solution is that it overlooks a number of important issues.
1) Albanians are not only Serbia’s problem. They are also Greece’s and Macedonia’s problem. Not only that, but the KLA ideology claims that a good chunk of Macedonia should be part of a greater ‘historical’ Albania. The reality is that an independent Kosovo would can exist as long as the Empire’s forces are willing to prop it up. Should the Empire collapse, or its forces be withdrawn, the ‘Kosova’ statelet would immediately be taken over by its neighbors (I remember having a conversation with a Greek officer who told me: “you know what? the Serbs should send one battalion into Macedonia, we should send another and just get it over with“. I can just imagine what he would say about Kosovo). While Greece is more than capable to deal with its Albanian problem, Macedonia is not, and Albanian terrorists and criminal gangs are regularly involved in clashes with the Macedonian police and military forces. A KLA-controlled Kosovo will make this situation infinitely worse.
2) the Serbs will *never* accept an Albanian-controlled Kosovo for the simply reason that Kosovo is the birthplace of the Serbian national identity. It is, in many ways, far more important to teh Serb nation that Belgrade or any other part of Serbia. Having lived under the brutal Ottoman occupation for many centuries the Serbs are used to waiting for a long time if needed before liberating themselves. The Empire thinks about as far as the next election. The Serbs will, if needed, wait for centuries before re-taking Kosovo. Only a person wholly ignorant of the Serb culture and history could think that they would ever accept to be booted out of Kosovo by a joint KLA-NATO occupation.
3) Kosovo is totally landlocked and economically under-developed, even by local standards. As soon as independence is declared, it will come under embargo from Serbia (and possibly, at a later time, from Macedonia and Montenego). Kosovo’s only ‘economy’ will be the one of illegal trade and trafficking (an Albanian long time specialty anyway). The fact that it will be run by former KLA field commanders will only make things worse. Finally, Kosovo’s only neighbor who will be generally sympathetic to its independence will be Albania proper – yet another hotbed of crime, corruption and trafficking. It would be laughable to assume that US or European forces could do anything to stop the inevitable descent of Kosovo and Albania even further into state of crime and lawlessness which will affect all its neighbors. Simply put – nobody in the Balkans can afford a KLA run Kosovo which will prove a crime-spreading tumor which will metastasize throughout the Balkans and the rest of Europe.
4) Kosovo’s independence will have another dangerous consequence: it will set a precedent. First, it will show that international law doesn’t matter any more. Second, it will lead the way for a number of other national and ethnic groups aspiring for their own state. All these groups will now need is a single powerful patron. Paradoxically, a lot of client states of the USA in the former Soviet Union are likely to suffer from this: Georgia, the Ukraine, Moldavia, Azerbaijan and many others are already involved in armed struggles against their own separatist groups. All Moscow will need to do is recognize them “as the USA did with Kosovo” and they will be able to secede and there will be exactly nothing which Washington will be able to do to help its distressed clients. More insidiously, Moscow will also be able to only *threaten* to recognized such states in order to pressure the former allies of the USA to bring them into Russia’s sphere of influence (this is the scenario which I find most likely, in particular in Georgia).
The situation is Kosovo is nothing short of a complete disaster, and it is about the become worse. Under Clinton the Empire was already lead by clueless, ignorant and narrow-minded politicians whose only concern at the time was to look good politically, to show some muscle, and to beat up what they perceived as Russia’s ally in the region (keep in mind that at the same time when the West supported Albanian terrorists in Kosovo it also supported them in Chechnia). As usual, such illiterate policies will result in many forms of blowback, not only in the Balkans but far beyond.
I do not predict that anything truly dramatic will happen right after Kosovo declares its independence. NATO forces will be on high alert, the Albanians on their best behavior, and the Balkan countries will be quiet. TV crews will report scenes of elation in Pristina, and some will even report from the small Serb controlled enclaves. Belgrade will protest, and so will Moscow. There will be a lot of back-slapping in Brussels and Washington. And then everybody will forget about this statelet and turn to other, more important, issues. Then, and only slowly and gradually, will the tumor created by the Empire begin to spread throughout the Balkans and the first instances of blowback begin to strike back at the Empire.
I backed the enthic Albanian and Bosnian muslims in their struggle for their own survival, and to stop their own genocide at the hands of the Serbs.
The Serbs were wrong and the muslims were right. Period.
I don’t apologize for this position. It is Manichean, not Machiavellian.
I was disgusted by what James Baker and Pres Bush senior said in 1992 regarding the former Yugoslavia. And I am very disappointed that you, Vineyard, seem to somewhat agree with them.
Why do you back the Serbs?
I knew many people who backed the Serbs (Greeks, other orthodox Christians from the South Eastern Europe, Russians, and some Israelis who were a bit too prejudiced against muslims for my comfort.)
I have yet to meet a muslim with that position. (Many felt that the West didn’t confront the Serbs nearly enough or quickly enough, however. They were anti-American and anti-Western because the West wasn’t anti-Serb enough.)
Do any of your other readers also take a pro-Serb position? If so, why?
I recall in 1999 I was very much in favor of Clinton’s bombing of Serbia. I guess for reasons very similar to Anand’s.
Since then I’ve certainly learned better. While I still resent what the Bosnian Serbs did in the early 90’s It was not a mater for U.S. involvement. And the motive for that involvement was hardly sympathy for beleguered Muslims. It was to antagonize Russia. Seemingly for its own sake. Or perhaps for gas pipelines. If I checked a map, it would probably all make some sense.
Thanks for an interesting analysis.
VS,
Am I missing something? Wasn’t it the Serbs who were the first to start ethnically cleansing Yugoslavia? A “Greater Serbia” was their goal? This “self-exile” of the Albanian population of Kosovo, was it the same “self-exile” of the Palestinians duirng 1967? Under the guns of nationalists?
@anand
The Serbs get a pass from the Jews because of their “anti-fascist” opposition during World War II. In spite of what VS says here, equating the bombing of Serbia to bombing of Iraq is ridiculous. It is nothing like what we do daily to Iraq.
Yugoslavia and Israel have long had a close relationship (but feared what they considered muslim extremists). Later Serbia and Israel formed a close relationship in the 1990s. In fact, a lot of the Serbs best weapons in the 1990s came from Israel (they were used against NATO in 1995 and 1999). Israel quietly backed the Serbs in the 1990s, seeing the Serbs as waging a war against Jihadis. This is one reason why anyone who thinks Israel is an American puppet are smoking a little too much weed.
The Serbs did fight Zawahiri, Al Qaeda and other Jihadi groups. The Serbs and Israel were right about that.
Some Eastern Europeans who did not dislike America were genuinely shocked by America’s siding with the muslims in the 1990s. Some people asked me why? Why would America side with the muslims? They (non-muslim South East Europeans) liked America and would be good allies with America (they mentioned their fighting fascism-especially the Serb contribution to defeating Hitler.) Muslim extremists by contrast could not be trusted. They might stab America and Western Europe in the back when we least expect it.
So Israel was not alone in supporting the Serbs. Far from it. But Israel managed to be both pro-Serb and pro-American at the same time (without most pro-Israeli American even knowing what the Israelis were doing). In my opinion, every other small country in the world can learn a ton from Israel about how to do things. Every small country should try to do as Israel does (including the West Bank, Gaza, Hezbollah, Lebanon.)
Am I missing something? Wasn’t it the Serbs who were the first to start ethnically cleansing Yugoslavia?
That is the official, Empire-approved, narrative. The reality is that while the non-Serbs of Yugoslavia were given the right to secede and were given military support to do so, the Serbs were told that their right counted for nothing. So self-determination for all the non-Serbs and no self-determination for the Serbs was the ‘justice’ of the West. Not only that, but the *internal* provincial borders drawn by the Communist rulers of Yugoslavia were declared sacred and inviolable while the borders of Yugoslavia proper where ignored. What followed was the single biggest displacement of population in Europe since WWII: Serb refugees from Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.
So, VS, what are we trying to achieve by supporting the Albanian Kosovars? A puppet/client state in the Balkans? But don’t we already have bases in Macedonia, as well as Kosovo and maybe Albania?
What is our (or our elite’s) interest in Kosovo?
So, VS, what are we trying to achieve by supporting the Albanian Kosovars? A puppet/client state in the Balkans? But don’t we already have bases in Macedonia, as well as Kosovo and maybe Albania? What is our (or our elite’s) interest in Kosovo?
Very good question indeed. Bases are not the reason. The US can have bases in Albania and Macedonia and does not need tiny landlocked Kosovo or the Pristina airport. No, the key to the Empire’s policy in Kosovo is not in pragmatic realist policies (no wonder that Papa-Bush wanted nothing to do with this stuff). Nope, the Imperial Kosovo policy is really a case of ideology run amok. First, the desire to beat up ‘Russia’s ally’ and second, to show that the only Empire gets to decide who has the right to exist and who does not. Last, but not least, the West and Neocons have a long held common, atavistic, hatred of anything Orthodox. Remember the grand ‘ecumenistic coalition’ of Protestants, Roman Catholics and Muslims during the Crimean War? Nothing can unite these otherwise mutually hostile religions as the old enemy which they all hate: the Orthodox Church, the Christian Church which did not bow to their rule, the ‘Eastern’ Christian Church.
Kosovo: We’re On The Brink Of A Balkans Bloodbath
by George Galloway
Global Research, December 14, 2007
Daily Record (UK)
WHILE most were asleep, we’ve walked to the brink of yet another war in the Balkans.
Kosovo is a part of Serbia. That’s a legal and political fact. It wants to break away and appears to have secured British and American agreement, but not, alas, the agreement of either Serbia, whose land it is, or Russia, which will veto any breakaway in the UN. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) rules the roost and has said it will make a unilateral declaration of independence soon. The Serbs cannot allow Kosovo, sacred to their orthodox Christian heritage for 1000 years, to go without a fight.
Serbia, with Russian help, outguns the KLA, who can only fight with outside help. That’s where we come in.
In the Nineties, we provided the air force for the breakaway KLA, branded as late as 2000 by the US as a “terrorist organisation”. But this time we would have to be their infantry as well. Fancy another war, anyone?
And Serbia is not the only place where there is a substantial Albanian minority.
One quarter of the former Yugoslavian republic of Macedonia is Albanian. They want independence too.
And 50 per cent of Bosnia-Herzegovina is Serb. If Kosovo declares independence, so might the Bosnian-Serbs. Then we will be back in the bloody Balkan wars.
Moreover, the principle that a state can be dismembered against its will is pregnant with problems all over the world.
The Kurdish people are 20 million strong in Turkey and would like to break away. Would we fight for them? Of course not.
Which goes to show the hypocrisy which has accompanied the break-up of Yugoslavia all along.
Lord George “Bomber” Robertson was one of the chief propagandists for the last Kosovo war. You will remember his sonorous claim that the Serbs had murdered 100,000 Albanians and we must act. In fact, 3000 people died, less than the death toll in Northern Ireland, and picture if you will the outrage in Britain if the US Air Force had started bombing us over that. No one knows how many of the 3000 were Albanians or Serbs, or who killed them and how. Kosovo is a garrison for foreign soldiers, and at the same time Europe’s major hub for gun-running, drugsmuggling, people-trafficking and prostitution.
If it becomes independent on the point of our bayonets, don’t say you weren’t warned.
‘In the Nineties, we provided the air force for the KLA. This time we would have to be their infantry as well’
George Galloway is an anti Albanian and anti-Iraqi racist.
He took money from Saddam. It is documented in the Volcker report.
The Hitch has documented the crimes of Galloway and Kissinger. The two of them represent the ugly Brit and the ugly American. They are the reason so many non-Westerners have such mixed feelings about the west.
Perhaps Galloway should be thrown into a group of Albanians or Iraqis. Let the common people (of Albania and Iraq) handle him.
If it were up to me, Galloway would be deported to Albania, Kosovo, or Iraq to be tried in their courts for crimes against humanity.
Then we should focus on setting up the Kissinger tribunals. The Hitch has some ideas on that.
Marko says:
Anand: you say the Serbs were wrong and unsupported in the 90s. You’ll presumably be surprised to know that you’re wrong on both counts:
The opposition to secession at Yug’s expense was a view held not just by Serbians, but by Bosnia’s Muslims (and Macedonians) as well. Externally it was held by nearly all the mambers of the EU, bar the biggest. It was only when the EU had its arm twisted by that big member, Germany, to support Croatia and Slovenia’s unilateral and illegal secession, and Bosnia’s Izetbegovic was brought on board by the carrot of a unitary Bosnia, that Bosnia’s Muslims switched sides.
Even then an EC peace plan based on Bosnia’s cantonisation was agreed by all sides in bosnia and would have prevented the war. Sadly, however, the US as dowager at the feast responded by encouraging Izetbegovic to renege and torpedo this EC plan.
Result: war and war crimes. Which none of us support.
But I think the Serb cause is very easy to support:
Of the three communities in bosnia only the Serbs had the memories of the appalling Ustashi genocide performed on them two generations earlier in WW2, when hundreds of thousands of them were herded into Jasenovac concentration camp by Croats to be exterminated for being Serbs. Only the Serbs had a real past experience to fear. So the Serbs wanted the status quo, not to be forced into someone else’s (illegal) secession. Whereas in the 90’s Bosnian Muslims could only have the fear of a possible imagined future, against the temptation of having a state of their own.
When the goalposts were unilaterally moved by Germany, the Serbians were then presented as defending the wrong corner by all those in the West with a vested interest in hiding their agreement to illegality.
And now they’re back; still Serb-hunting.
Welcome to the Empire. It rather likes your support. .
The opposition to secession at Yug’s expense was a view held not just by Serbians, but by Bosnia’s Muslims (and Macedonians) as well. Externally it was held by nearly all the mambers of the EU, bar the biggest
I would add that even Papa-Bush did not want to get into that kind if war either, he understood all too well what the consequences would be.
Marko is correct. Germany is the prime culprit here, followed by an appalling lack of courage or vision by most Europeans, and only then by a typically Orthodox and Slav hating pre-Neocon Clinton administration. But the responsibility bombing of Kosovo is already firmly on the pegged on the USA. But the war over Kosovo is far, far from over, in particular as long as the Empire keeps propping up the KLA government in Pristina.
There was no justification for the Serbian genocide of Bosnian and Kosovo muslims.
“Bosnian Muslims could only have the fear of a possible imagined future, against the temptation of having a state of their own.” = 0 sense. They were afraid of getting massacred.
I have heard the Serb position through Greek friends, Russians, some Israelis (fighting Jihadis) etc.
Read Samantha Powers’ book. In it she says that President Clinton only decided to intervene in Bosnia when he realized that Bob Dole was making him pay a price in his poll ratings.
To my mind, one man stopped the Serb genocide, Bob Dole. He had an affection and affinity for Bosnians, Croats and Italians going back to his time in medical facilities in Italy. He gradually and with great effort won over the American people and Congress. He shamed North America and Europe into acting.
Marko, most of the world’s 1.2 billion muslims have little understanding about the differences between European Christians. Few are interested in taking the time to learn about it. For that matter the vast majority of Indians and Chinese people have little interest in the fact that there is an Eastern church and Western church.
(Few Indians—and for that matter Chinese, Japanese, Koreans (except for maybe their growing evangelical community), Taiwanese, Hong Kong residents, Singaporeans, Thais I talk to have any interest or knowledge about Israel Palestine, except to wish that it would disappear from the news.)
To the vast majority of the world’s people (especially muslim people) what they understood—to the degree they knew anything about the Balkans conflict–was that Christian Caucasian Europeans were committing ethnic cleansing against muslim civilians. That is pretty much it.
The West (most of the world probably considers Russia western) collectively had to stop it, or the West’s image in the non-Western World would have tanked, and much more importantly most of the world’s more than a billion muslims would have gotten very upset.
If you think muslims are upset about Iraq today, know that they would have been far more upset about the Serbian ethnic cleansing/genocide, and not just upset with Serbs, but upset at all westerners, and to some degree all non-muslims (who many muslims believe are involved in some type of conspiracy against the Ummah.)
What is empire? Globalization, free trade, free investment (Wall Street), multinational (transnational) corporations, and international institutions?
Marko says:
Anand, your entire position could be summed up in your initial sentence, namely “there was no justification for the Serbian genocide of Bosnian and Kosovo muslims.”
In claiming this ‘genocide’ as fact, you have swallowed the Great Power aka Empire propaganda line; ie you have decided to believe what is convenient to you. But let’s look at the reality instead:
In Serbia’s Kosovo province, there are more Albanians than ever before, and fewer Serbians. This has been ongoing for over a century, but extremist Albanians latterly coined the phrase “ethnic cleansing” to describe the eviction or extermination of some 120,000 Serbian civilians during the period from the 1960’s to 1989, during most of which time Albanians had been given legislative, judicial and police power over all of Kosovo.
This de facto peacetime genocide (by muslims against christians) may not be of any concern to you because it was being perpetrated by your fellow-Muslims (esp. as you have indicated that what happens to christians is not a great concern for muslims).
However, it does make your claim of genocide against, rather than by, Kosovo’s muslims seem very strange. Especially as today you will be killed in Kosovo if you sound as if your’re speaking Serbian (as happened to a Bulgarian mamber of UNMIK, and would happen to all the mainly elderly Serbians left in this Serbian province).
UNESCO-protected Serbian churches and religious monuments which survived the Ottoman occupation are now living on borrowed time, protected from Albanians by NATO troops. I’m sure this is not of great concern to you either. But the reality of Kosovo is that genocide there has been perpetrated mainly by Muslim Albanians against Christians – and against non-Albanian Muslims – who have all been evicted or exterminated wherever possible.
In the US war of 1999 there were some 4000 victims on all sides in Kosovo, including massacres perpetrated by all sides (Serbian, Albanian and Clinton/Albright). There was also a massive refugee exodus after the bombing began (temporary in the case of the Albanians who left; permanent in the case of the Serbians, Jews and Roma). But the genocide happened before and has happened since. Everything else is PR by Uncle Sam designed to appease a Muslim world irate about Israel and Iraq (the illegal attack on which was Yugoslavia part 2.)
(By the way, the 1999 attack on Serbia/FRY, a sovereign state, violating all tenets of international law, was to establish the right to unilateral military action by that new western ‘humanitarianism’ which then moved against Iraq. If Muslims had done more to oppose the attack on Serbia/Yugoslavia on grounds of principle, would the Empire have been so able to attack Iraq as it did?)
Before I deconstruct your Bosnia claim for you, I’m sure we’d all like to hear your reply to the above
I am not a muslim.
I know many who were sympathetic to the Serbs, including friends. But they don’t really matter. The reason is that non-muslims write polite letters, organize disciplined protest rallies, and politely share why they believe that they were abused. With few expections, they don’t’ engage in large scale violence or terrorism. So the world ignores them and always usually sides with the muslim side, whether correct or not.
Notice how China and India always try to “publicly” support the muslims. So does the rest of the world. We all feel that we have no other choice.
I heard what happened to the Serbs in Kosovo and Bosnia. In many cases it wasn’t pretty.
The fact is that Albania, is one of the few muslim countries that is genuinely pro-American and pro-European. So Albania will be supported regardless.
The Turks also support the Albanians. And everyone is tying to bend over backwards to pacify the Turks and persuade them not to engage in too much violence with respect to northern Iraq.
I am sorry to break it too you, but in most of the world (Asia) the Balkans received little to no press coverage 1995-1999. No one (except for the muslims) cares about it. So they decide policy.
For that matter, I have met few non-muslim Indian or Chinese person who cared much about Palestine (except for academic leftists who represent a very small percentage of the population.)
Most people in the world are very provincial (we Americans are pretty representative), and have little interest in the rest of the world except with respect to global business.
You can talk to people around the world for hours on global business and global stock markets. Few care to discuss boring political issues.
It may not be perfect, that that is life.
You know that President Bush has 60% popularity ratings in India. Most Indians could care less about Bush’s policies elsewhere in the world. All most know, assuming they know anything about Bush, is that he visited India and (to a lesser degree) supported outsourcing and Indian Americans in America. Which is mostly all they care about anyway.
Very few Indians have any interest in learning about Iraq. It is not covered in the news there (or in most countries around the world.) When I read foreign news publications, I rarely notice articles about Iraq.
I doubt very many even know where Kosovo is on the map. I respect their right not to be interested in these types of issues.
Marko says:
I may well agree with the points you have now made.
But perhaps the one thing that the wider world should care about is that the plan to destroy territorial integrity by imperialist decree, as is being suggested at Serbia’s expense represents a huge danger to that wider world itself, because:
a) Accepted international law (UN Charter, Helsinki Final Act) is being consigned to the dustbin by one party – the US
b) It is being replaced by might against right
c) Henceforth, small countries will only have the right to exist in toto if big neighbours decide to allow it
d) Great powerswill have no consensual mechanism for solving potential disputes within an agreed legal framework. Especially as the US and its allies have by their behaviour toward Serbia and Iraq shown that they will only adhere to supposedly binding international treaties, pillars of international law when and so long as they find it convenient. And will be militarily aggressive when it suits them.
Since the international legal system is no longer a deterrent to unilateral military attacks, other powers will have to find other methods to deter this militarism.
Increased tension with the other great powers and increased danger of conflict between them will be the consequence – resembling the situation in 1914, when the then alliance system between great powers and need to strike before it was too late made world war inevitable. The current policies of the US and allies are taking us back to that situation.
For these reasons I suggest we should all be opposing the US-inspired plan to dismantle Serbia by imperialist decree. Ask not for whom the bell tolls…