To kill a nation : the attack on Yugoslavia by Michael Parenti

Author:Michael Parenti
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Kosovo War, 1998-1999
Publisher: London ; New York : Verso
Published: 2000-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

With words that might cause us to question his humanity, the NATO commander General Wesley Clark boasted that the aim of the air war was to “demolish, destroy, devastate, degrade, and ultimately eliminate the essential infrastructure” of Yugoslavia. No doubt atrocities were committed by all sides including the Serbs, but where is the sense of proportionality? Serbian paramilitary killings in Kosovo (many of which occurred after the aerial war began) are no justification for bombing fifteen cities in round-the-clock raids for over two months, spewing hundreds of thousands of tons of highly toxic and carcinogenic chemicals into the water, air, and soil, poisoning agricultural fields and rivers, maiming and killing thousands, exposing millions to depleted uranium, and obliterating the productive capital of an entire nation. Such a massive aggression amounts to a vastly greater war crime than anything that has been charged against Milosevic.

It may come as a surprise—or an irrelevancy—to some, but unrestricted aerial attacks of the kind NATO rained down upon Yugoslavia are prohibited under international law. Destroying a country’s infrastructure, its waterworks, power plants, bridges, factories, hospitals, schools, churches, agriculture, civilian transportation, and communications system—not to mention the attendant loss of life and injury to civilians—is nothing less than a horrendous war crime.16 Yet, the realities of power being what they are, major war criminals such as Clinton, Blair, and their associates go unchallenged.

In June 1999 President Clinton delivered a thirteen-minute address on national television, into which he managed to pack a record number of deceptions justifying the US-NATO attack on Yugoslavia:

Fiction: Clinton claimed that “the demands of an outraged and united international community have been met.”

Fact: The international community, as represented by the 154-member United Nations, was bypassed, and war was waged by the US-dominated NATO. If anything, argues Martin McLaughlin, much of the international community was “outraged by the savagery of the NATO bombing of a sovereign country.”17

Fiction: Clinton claimed that he waged war “to enable the Kosovar people, the victims of some of the most vicious atrocities in Europe since the Second World War, to return to their homes with safety and self-government.”

Fact: The great majority of Kosovo Albanians did not leave their homes until the bombing started, nor had they been subjected to widespread atrocities, certainly not prior to the NATO bombings.

Fiction: Clinton claimed that the NATO victory brought new hope that the US and the world would always support peoples who are subjected to ethnic or religious oppression.

Fact: The US government actively supports dozens of governments around the world that oppress ethnic and religious minorities including Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Guatemala, and Mexico, as well as several NATO allies, most notoriously Turkey, whose mass killings and expulsions of Kurds far outstrip anything Milosevic has been accused of doing.

Fiction: Clinton praised US pilots for “risking their lives to attack their targets” while avoiding civilian casualties, even though they were “fired upon from populated areas.”

Fact: There were no US combat casualties, and US pilots were rarely in danger as they dropped thousands of tons of bombs on virtually defenseless civilian populations.

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