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To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia
Drawing on a wide range of unpublished material and observations gathered from his visit to Yugoslavia in 1999, Michael Parenti challenges mainstream media coverage of the war and uncovers hidden agendas behind the Western talk of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and democracy.
258 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2001
About the author
Michael Parenti
61 books1,143 followersMichael John Parenti, Ph.D. (Yale University) is an American political scientist, academic historian and cultural critic who writes on scholarly and popular subjects. He has taught at universities as well as run for political office. Parenti is well known for his Marxist writings and lectures. He is a notable intellectual of the American Left and he is most known for his criticism of capitalism and American foreign policy.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 81 reviews
April 11, 2010
If you want any sort of "balance" to your understanding of the Balkan Wars, start here. See how the Europeans (particularly Germany) allowed the wars to unfold (and indirectly encouraged them), and then sat by passively as Croats, Serbs and Muslims butchered each other in Bosnia. The Serbs were then systematically demonized across the board to justify Western intervention. The reality on the ground was much, much different. Until today, the official "Serbs bad, everyone else good" story is largely what is perpetuated by the West to justify their "humanitarian intervention". The reality on the ground was far from the "good vs. evil" struggle perpetuated by the West as they pounded Serbia into subservience. The result was the division and neo-colonization of former Yugoslavia - precisely what was desired by the western powers from the outset. This book will open your eyes to all sorts of evidence largely ignored by the Western media and give a much more well-balanced understanding of the Balkan Wars.
July 13, 2020
Fuck NATO all my homies hate NATO
November 17, 2010
should have paid more attention to this guy back when he was my college professor.
September 17, 2011
I found this to be an exceptional informative book and having a very personal interest in Serbia and the former Yugoslavia I was keen to see what it had to say. To be honest, I half expected another character assassination of the the Serbian people & their culture as is the norm in the western media. How wrong I was......
From the start it is made clear that the western knowledge of the breakup of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) was manipulated and at times manufactured by the western politicians & media for their own gains. Throughout the text there are exact examples & evidence of how this was orchestrated and all are clearly referenced removing any ideas of conspiracy or falsification.
What is clear is that the terrible reputation that Serbians have in the west is not deserved and although they clearly were responsible for some of the wrong-doing in the Balkan Conflicts, they did not act alone and at times were blamed for incidents that were perpetrated by others.
Some may feel that the book lacks a balance of opinion being heavily weighted towards 'pro Serbia', however if one considers the amount of opinion in the media that is just as heavily weighted the other way then this one book is a very small but powerful voice that deserves to be heard.
This is well worth reading for anyone interested in the terrible events that happened during the break-up of the FRY, whichever side of the fence you stand.
From the start it is made clear that the western knowledge of the breakup of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) was manipulated and at times manufactured by the western politicians & media for their own gains. Throughout the text there are exact examples & evidence of how this was orchestrated and all are clearly referenced removing any ideas of conspiracy or falsification.
What is clear is that the terrible reputation that Serbians have in the west is not deserved and although they clearly were responsible for some of the wrong-doing in the Balkan Conflicts, they did not act alone and at times were blamed for incidents that were perpetrated by others.
Some may feel that the book lacks a balance of opinion being heavily weighted towards 'pro Serbia', however if one considers the amount of opinion in the media that is just as heavily weighted the other way then this one book is a very small but powerful voice that deserves to be heard.
This is well worth reading for anyone interested in the terrible events that happened during the break-up of the FRY, whichever side of the fence you stand.
August 12, 2021
I'm actually very glad that I read Karadjis' "Bosnia, Kosova and the West" before this. Both authors approach this subject with very distinct methodologies. Basically, whereas Karadjis focuses a lot on the acts and intentions of the West, in particular NATO, Parenti makes it his goal of disproving the prevailing view of the conflicts for the average Western audience that witnessed each war exclusively through the lens of the Western European and American mainstream news media.
These approaches end up necessitating different focuses when it comes to the sources they use. Karadjis discusses the inter-political conflicts of the major NATO countries and explains their proposals and actions that way. For instance, the push of Germany and France for a solely European defense force outside of NATO using the perceived mismanagement and domination of the US of the whole NATO engagement. The attempt of the US to keep a post Cold War NATO relevant as well as setting a precedent of NATO engagement outside of member countries. A lot of the numbers that Parenti questions and for which he finds contradictory sources, retractions in newspapers and other ways to argue their non-believability, Karadjis straight up just takes them at face value.
So the issue here with Parenti's arguments is that at various points they are very sloppy. His end goal is to prove that the Serbs and Milosevic were demonized which to a certain extent is definitely true. However, he ends up blasting past his initial point and repeats sources and quotations at face value without ever bothering to question that. There's a few that particularly stuck out to me and I'll just list them:
- Within a few paragraphs he mentions that Serbs accounted for about 30% of the population in Bosnia and that the army of the RS held 70% of the territory which the person he quotes argues was exclusively populated by Serbian people anyway. Which first of all is not true, neither before the conflict nor after the ethnic cleansing campaigns during the Bosnian War. He just repeats the quote without any comment whatsoever. The same quote is in Karadjis' book by the way and he gives a different context to it.
- With regards to the genocide committed in Srebrenica. He quotes that (at the time) only around 70 bodies out of the nearly 8000 dead men and boys were identified and pretends that the number of identified bodies is the number of found bodies. It's a subtle but crucial mistake on his part.
- He euphemistically calls the actions of the Serbian army and paramilitaries after the start of the NATO bombing campaign a forced mass evacuation of the Albanian population in Kosova. He later argues using anecdotal interviews that a major part of fleeing Albanians fled because of the NATO bombs even though the mass "evacuation" started right after the start of the bombing campaign which in the first weeks dropped most of its bombs in Serbia proper and not Kosova.
All in all, I am glad I read this book because Parenti has a different focus than Karadjis and both of them paint contradictory narratives of the Bosnia and Kosova wars but they only rarely directly contradict each other. It really comes down to their focus in the sources they used. The truth surely lies somewhere in between. There are parts that Parenti simply got wrong and overall I would say that Karadjis has a more materialist analysis but nevertheless this book has valuable arguments and data in it. At the very least it taught me that you can never stop at reading just one account of a particular historical event which is why I'm already reading another book about it and plan to read several more.
These approaches end up necessitating different focuses when it comes to the sources they use. Karadjis discusses the inter-political conflicts of the major NATO countries and explains their proposals and actions that way. For instance, the push of Germany and France for a solely European defense force outside of NATO using the perceived mismanagement and domination of the US of the whole NATO engagement. The attempt of the US to keep a post Cold War NATO relevant as well as setting a precedent of NATO engagement outside of member countries. A lot of the numbers that Parenti questions and for which he finds contradictory sources, retractions in newspapers and other ways to argue their non-believability, Karadjis straight up just takes them at face value.
So the issue here with Parenti's arguments is that at various points they are very sloppy. His end goal is to prove that the Serbs and Milosevic were demonized which to a certain extent is definitely true. However, he ends up blasting past his initial point and repeats sources and quotations at face value without ever bothering to question that. There's a few that particularly stuck out to me and I'll just list them:
- Within a few paragraphs he mentions that Serbs accounted for about 30% of the population in Bosnia and that the army of the RS held 70% of the territory which the person he quotes argues was exclusively populated by Serbian people anyway. Which first of all is not true, neither before the conflict nor after the ethnic cleansing campaigns during the Bosnian War. He just repeats the quote without any comment whatsoever. The same quote is in Karadjis' book by the way and he gives a different context to it.
- With regards to the genocide committed in Srebrenica. He quotes that (at the time) only around 70 bodies out of the nearly 8000 dead men and boys were identified and pretends that the number of identified bodies is the number of found bodies. It's a subtle but crucial mistake on his part.
- He euphemistically calls the actions of the Serbian army and paramilitaries after the start of the NATO bombing campaign a forced mass evacuation of the Albanian population in Kosova. He later argues using anecdotal interviews that a major part of fleeing Albanians fled because of the NATO bombs even though the mass "evacuation" started right after the start of the bombing campaign which in the first weeks dropped most of its bombs in Serbia proper and not Kosova.
All in all, I am glad I read this book because Parenti has a different focus than Karadjis and both of them paint contradictory narratives of the Bosnia and Kosova wars but they only rarely directly contradict each other. It really comes down to their focus in the sources they used. The truth surely lies somewhere in between. There are parts that Parenti simply got wrong and overall I would say that Karadjis has a more materialist analysis but nevertheless this book has valuable arguments and data in it. At the very least it taught me that you can never stop at reading just one account of a particular historical event which is why I'm already reading another book about it and plan to read several more.
October 29, 2021
"There are many ways to Third Worldize a country: deprive it of markets and trade, retard its technological development, undermine its financial structure, privatize and deindustrialize its industry, impoverish and demoralize its people. One of the quickest ways to do much of this is by using massive military force to destroy its infrastructure and productive base, and seriously damage its ecological system. This is what NATO's humanitarian bombing of Yugoslavia accomplished." - Michael Parenti
"Your leaders talk about human rights, but the right of children to live is among the highest of human rights. Was it democracy in action when NATO bombs destroyed schools, daycare centers, and hospitals with patients in their beds? Your leaders talk of freedom of information, yet they kill journalists. They talk of responsible government and accountable rule, yet NATO members engaged in hostilities against Yugoslavia without consent of any of their own parliaments and against mass protests in their countries. We wish most of all that the international community would leave us alone, lift the sanctions, and stop giving us the benefit of their 'guidance' and 'aid'. Clinton and Albright have destroyed us and now we will have to rebuild-on their terms. The only god worshipped in the New World Order is the dollar. The war was good only for business and arms dealers." - Zivorad Smiljanic (the president of the the provincial government of Vojvodovina in 1999).
"As of 2000, Yugoslavia did seem to be headed in a Third World direction that could go only from bad to worse. A report released in London in August 1999 by the Economist Intelligence Unit concluded that the enormous damage that NATO inflicted on Yugoslavia's infrastructure will cause the economy to shrink dramatically in the next few years. GDP dropped by 40 per cent in the first year after the bombing, and will stay at levels far below those of a decade earlier. Yugoslavia, the report predicted, will soon become the poorest country in Europe. Mission accomplished." - Parenti
"I departed from Yugoslavia in August 1999 on a van that traveled all night to Budapest. Riding with me was a Serbian yuppie: a young broker who worked via computer with the New York Stock Exchange. He was of the opinion that Milosevic was not a war criminal but still should hand himself over to the International Criminal Tribunal, just so the rest of the country might get some peace (as if having Milosevic's head would cause Western leaders to leave Yugoslavia in peace). He went on to tell me what a wonderful place Belgrade was to live in, with its remarkable abundance of beautiful women and its low prices. The ample income he made went twice as far in the economically depressed city. His comments reminded me that hard times are not hard for everyone, especially not for people with money.
The van made an additional stop in Belgrade to pick up an attractive but unhappy-looking young woman who, once seated, began crying as she told us that she was going to Spain for a long and indefinite period, leaving home and family because things were so difficult in Yugoslavia. War victimizes all sorts of people who are never included in the final toll. It was not long before the stockbroker, displaying a most sympathetic demeanor, was making his moves on the young lady, as if encircling a prey. Again, I was reminded that hard times for the many bring new opportunities for the privileged few." - Parenti
You should read this book, not just for to know what happened in/to Yugoslavia, but to know how reality is invented; how we do live in an Orwellian world where truth is often converted to a monstrous lie. A world where those who are for the "free market paradise" are considered allies by the U.S. and those who are against it or just an inconvenience to it are deemed evil and enemies.
"Your leaders talk about human rights, but the right of children to live is among the highest of human rights. Was it democracy in action when NATO bombs destroyed schools, daycare centers, and hospitals with patients in their beds? Your leaders talk of freedom of information, yet they kill journalists. They talk of responsible government and accountable rule, yet NATO members engaged in hostilities against Yugoslavia without consent of any of their own parliaments and against mass protests in their countries. We wish most of all that the international community would leave us alone, lift the sanctions, and stop giving us the benefit of their 'guidance' and 'aid'. Clinton and Albright have destroyed us and now we will have to rebuild-on their terms. The only god worshipped in the New World Order is the dollar. The war was good only for business and arms dealers." - Zivorad Smiljanic (the president of the the provincial government of Vojvodovina in 1999).
"As of 2000, Yugoslavia did seem to be headed in a Third World direction that could go only from bad to worse. A report released in London in August 1999 by the Economist Intelligence Unit concluded that the enormous damage that NATO inflicted on Yugoslavia's infrastructure will cause the economy to shrink dramatically in the next few years. GDP dropped by 40 per cent in the first year after the bombing, and will stay at levels far below those of a decade earlier. Yugoslavia, the report predicted, will soon become the poorest country in Europe. Mission accomplished." - Parenti
"I departed from Yugoslavia in August 1999 on a van that traveled all night to Budapest. Riding with me was a Serbian yuppie: a young broker who worked via computer with the New York Stock Exchange. He was of the opinion that Milosevic was not a war criminal but still should hand himself over to the International Criminal Tribunal, just so the rest of the country might get some peace (as if having Milosevic's head would cause Western leaders to leave Yugoslavia in peace). He went on to tell me what a wonderful place Belgrade was to live in, with its remarkable abundance of beautiful women and its low prices. The ample income he made went twice as far in the economically depressed city. His comments reminded me that hard times are not hard for everyone, especially not for people with money.
The van made an additional stop in Belgrade to pick up an attractive but unhappy-looking young woman who, once seated, began crying as she told us that she was going to Spain for a long and indefinite period, leaving home and family because things were so difficult in Yugoslavia. War victimizes all sorts of people who are never included in the final toll. It was not long before the stockbroker, displaying a most sympathetic demeanor, was making his moves on the young lady, as if encircling a prey. Again, I was reminded that hard times for the many bring new opportunities for the privileged few." - Parenti
You should read this book, not just for to know what happened in/to Yugoslavia, but to know how reality is invented; how we do live in an Orwellian world where truth is often converted to a monstrous lie. A world where those who are for the "free market paradise" are considered allies by the U.S. and those who are against it or just an inconvenience to it are deemed evil and enemies.
January 5, 2023
I have great respect for Michael Parenti and there is much in this book that is good and needed to be said back in 2001 but reading it today one can't help but aware that it is, while passionate in its commitment to truth and the demolition of the lies of governments and media, it is a one sided passion that ultimately it is full of contrary denials and distortions.
The shallow hollowness of triumphalist rhetoric of the USA and many European governments in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the apparent triumph of the particular form of American capitalism that emerged under Regan and his successors is no longer questioned. That the high moral tone of the rhetoric behind intervening in other countries hide the usual economic and political strategies of selfishness.
That so much of what was said to support involvement in the war against Serbia was as chimerical was the 'proof' of Adam's weapons of mass destruction is not in doubt but Mr. Parenti goes from establishing this to white washing the very ugly actions of the Miloshevic regimen and his army, generals and ideologues and political cronies. Exposing the hypocracy behind the actions by the USA and other Western powers is one thing turning a blind eye to the actions of a corrupt and brutal government that deliberately played up and on the ethnic tensions is something else. Parenti's book is to one sided to be handled with anything but considerable caution and honestly there are plenty of better books to read about the the collapse of Yugoslavia and what happened without getting trapped in dated partisan and frankly one sided reporting such as this.
The shallow hollowness of triumphalist rhetoric of the USA and many European governments in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the apparent triumph of the particular form of American capitalism that emerged under Regan and his successors is no longer questioned. That the high moral tone of the rhetoric behind intervening in other countries hide the usual economic and political strategies of selfishness.
That so much of what was said to support involvement in the war against Serbia was as chimerical was the 'proof' of Adam's weapons of mass destruction is not in doubt but Mr. Parenti goes from establishing this to white washing the very ugly actions of the Miloshevic regimen and his army, generals and ideologues and political cronies. Exposing the hypocracy behind the actions by the USA and other Western powers is one thing turning a blind eye to the actions of a corrupt and brutal government that deliberately played up and on the ethnic tensions is something else. Parenti's book is to one sided to be handled with anything but considerable caution and honestly there are plenty of better books to read about the the collapse of Yugoslavia and what happened without getting trapped in dated partisan and frankly one sided reporting such as this.
January 30, 2023
The book is a rare Parenti L imo. I’m normally a big fan of his work and have an immense amount of respect for him, and this book does a phenomenal job of exposing the atrocities unleashed on Yugoslavia by NATO & the Western powers. But I just can’t get past the weird Bosnian genocide denialism & sweeping of Milošević’s crimes under the rug.
January 16, 2013
Absolutely essential reading for understanding how NATO operates. The most important historical book I have read in years.
Read
September 19, 2023Ova knjiga već nedelju dana uspeva da izbegne bilo kakvu moju (pr)ocenu.
Ako želite potpuni, objektivni, istiniti prikaz situacije raspada Jugoslavije, ova knjiga nije to. Čak je i previše apologetična prema Slobodanu Miloševiću za moj ukus. Ali ova knjiga je i dalje veoma važna. Važna u smislu da je neko, posle 10 godina orgijanja zapadnih medija prema Srbima, ponudio alternativu. Mnogo je ovde posrednih dokaza, stvari koje su veoma loše ostarile i koje su se pokazale kao neistinite (što je, donekle, i oprostivo pošto je knjiga izašla 2000. godine), ali i razbijanja uvrženih predrasuda koji i do dan danas opstaju, primarno na zapadu.
Ako želite potpuni, objektivni, istiniti prikaz situacije raspada Jugoslavije, ova knjiga nije to. Čak je i previše apologetična prema Slobodanu Miloševiću za moj ukus. Ali ova knjiga je i dalje veoma važna. Važna u smislu da je neko, posle 10 godina orgijanja zapadnih medija prema Srbima, ponudio alternativu. Mnogo je ovde posrednih dokaza, stvari koje su veoma loše ostarile i koje su se pokazale kao neistinite (što je, donekle, i oprostivo pošto je knjiga izašla 2000. godine), ali i razbijanja uvrženih predrasuda koji i do dan danas opstaju, primarno na zapadu.
November 1, 2023
In short, f*** the USA, f*** NATO, and f*** capitalism. US globalization is just another pathway for totalitarianism, and the West continues to perpetuate their ideologies through extreme violence and destabilization.
While some parts of the book felt a bit anecdotal, the message that Parenti was trying to convey rang true throughout the book. War is tragedy - there are no winners or heroes, and seldom is humanitarianism the actual goal, especially when Western powers are involved. Grateful to have had the opportunity to read this. It’s absolutely worth a read if you want a point of view that doesn’t glorify the atrocity that is the Balkan Wars.
While some parts of the book felt a bit anecdotal, the message that Parenti was trying to convey rang true throughout the book. War is tragedy - there are no winners or heroes, and seldom is humanitarianism the actual goal, especially when Western powers are involved. Grateful to have had the opportunity to read this. It’s absolutely worth a read if you want a point of view that doesn’t glorify the atrocity that is the Balkan Wars.
September 19, 2021
The west can not stand Slavs hanging out and having fun and will do everything in their power to stop them.
January 5, 2023
“Hard times for the many bring new opportunities for the privileged few”
The destruction against Yugoslavia should be enough for all people to distrust and despise the USA. Their media, government and military are corrupt without compare. There is no terrorist organization as accomplished yet beloved as the American government.
I do consider this text as essential not only does it shed light on history many can’t even summarize but it gives a modestly in-depth analysis of destruction caused by the Americans
The destruction against Yugoslavia should be enough for all people to distrust and despise the USA. Their media, government and military are corrupt without compare. There is no terrorist organization as accomplished yet beloved as the American government.
I do consider this text as essential not only does it shed light on history many can’t even summarize but it gives a modestly in-depth analysis of destruction caused by the Americans
November 10, 2013
This book will be controversial even more today than when it was written due to the evidence we have gained on atrocities committed by Serb military forces in Bosnia, which this book disputed. This does not make it any less important or satisfying to read. The universal level of support NATO was given for the attack on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by the media and political thinkers is unparalleled in my generation's lifetime, so any well written and factual criticism of that message should be required reading for "millennials". Dr. Parenti gives us that criticism in this book. It should not be treated as an infallible source of facts that have been proven or disproved over time, especially for facts that would need eye-witness support. The story of how NATO was given a blank check to wage a war on a country with an alternative vision of the political economy of post-communist Europe, and did it in the name of humanitarianism, is what Parenti does well and is worth reading for.
Note: even the official use of its chosen name was attacked with NATO calling it "Serbia and Montenegro" which eventually did become its official name after 2003, and bizarrely even the English language Wikipedia's article on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is titled "Serbia and Montenegro" in a decision confirmed by a vote of its editors in 2012.
Note: even the official use of its chosen name was attacked with NATO calling it "Serbia and Montenegro" which eventually did become its official name after 2003, and bizarrely even the English language Wikipedia's article on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia is titled "Serbia and Montenegro" in a decision confirmed by a vote of its editors in 2012.
February 25, 2023
I loved Slovenia when I visited. It's a beautiful country, with an interesting geography and a resulting interesting history. Spanning an opening in the alps, it forms a passage between western Europe and eastern Europe. As a result, it has historically been a strategic territory to hold, and was part of empires ranging from Rome’s to Byzantine’s to Napoleon’s to Austro-Hungary’s to the Nazi’s. The territory was liberated from this latter empire by socialist Partisans, and became part of the Socialist Republic of Yugoslavia.
Slovenia's relationship with its past was fascinating. It spoke positively of its socialist era, but similarly it was proud of being part of the European Union and NATO. I wanted to learn a little more about this era, so I was happy to see Parenti wrote a book on the last few years of Yugoslavia.
As Parenti lays out, Yugoslavia was a particularly multi-cultural country that showed strong economic success:
In the late 1960s-1970s, Yugoslavia took out loans from the West to invest in their industrial capacity, however when a recession hit western economies, Yugoslavia found their export market dried up, and had challenges servicing their debt. In response, the IMF demanded an economic restructuring: wage freezes, elimination of worker-owned enterprises, cuts to social spending. These cuts led to an economic depression that “helped fuel the ensuing ethnic conflicts and secessionist movements.”
These conflicts, or rather, the aggressions of the Serbs against the Albanians, specifically, formed the basis of NATO’s justification to violently intervene in Yugoslavia. Parenti investigates the claims of NATO and the West, looking for evidence that (a) mass murder and mass rape was committed on a “genocidal” scale and that (b) these acts formed part of a government-sanctioned policy. Citing sources like The New York Times, Amnesty International and the UN, he finds that oft-repeated allegations that 100,000-500,000 people were unaccounted for and presumed dead are based on poor evidence, that detailed investigation of grave sites by French, British and other Western sources found evidence of about 2,000 dead — just a fraction. Nor could the UN War Crimes Commission nor Amnesty International find evidence of mass-rape campaigns, nor survivors of rape in any substantial numbers.
These allegations of violence are put into context of the devastation wrecked by NATO. The US itself estimated NATO killed 500 (Belgrade puts the number at 2,500 dead), and displaced 100,000 civilians hoping to flee the destruction. (This refugee crisis was then pointed to by NATO as post hoc justification for NATO’s intervention.) NATO’s bombing surgically eliminated waterworks, power plants, bridges, hospitals, schools, churches — marvelously sparing all foreign-owned firms while destroying 164 state-owned factories. These strikes constituted illegal war crimes, and were committed by an institution without elections: “the first major war declared by a body that has no constituency or geography as would be found in a nation-state.”
So if the humanitarian crisis shows no strong basis in reality, why did NATO invade? Parenti lays out a more compelling explanation: (1) the Balkans form a strategic territory from which to exert power towards the east, (2) prior to IMF interference, Yugoslavia was an admirable socialist success story (despite Margaret Thatcher’s insistence that There Is No Alternative [to capitalism]), (3) the financial and US hegemonic benefit of “Third Worldizing” a non-allied country, that is, converting Yugoslavia to a smattering of small, right-wing nations that are (a) incapable of charting an independent course, (b) open to transnational corporations to extract labour and natural resources, (c) populated with literate but impoverished workers who labour at subsistence wages, depressing wages in Europe and elsewhere, and (d) no longer possess competitive mining, automotive, pharmaceutical, etc industries of their own.
While this text is two decades old, and Yugoslavia has generally faded from pop culture memory, and even from current criticism of NATO, this book felt highly relevant. In it, we see the same media patterns used to allege genocide of minority groups by socialist nations and the humanitarian justification of Western atrocities. As the Russian invasion of Ukraine reaches its first anniversary, I also see hints of how negotiation talks might unwind. Yugoslavia proposed peace conditions that included “guaranteed human rights for all citizens and promotion of the cultural and linguistic identity of each national community” as well as legislative assemblies with representation specifically designated for national communities. NATO instead put forth the Rambouillet Peace Agreement, which “demanded complete autonomy for Kosovo, the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops from the province, and occupation by NATO forces”, with Yugoslavia barred from legislation over Kosovo’s affairs while Kosovo would be able to exercise influence within Yugoslavia’s parliament and receive funds from Yugoslavia’s budget. The Serbian delegation was told they had two choices: sign the agreement as written or face NATO bombing. Russia is in a little better of a negotiating position than Yugoslavia was, with its tiny population and GDP. However, I think we can expect to see very one-sided reporting, little good-faith effort on NATO’s behalf, and we are unlikely to arrive at a solution involving an unaligned, thriving, multi-ethnic state.
This book, out of all of Parenti’s, is particularly controversial, with his critics charging him of minimizing or denying the genocide of Albanians. However, I haven’t seen a critique that lays out what evidence Parenti leaves out or misconstrues, and the sources Parenti cites (such as UN tribunals or New York Times retractions) are likely trustworthy on this line of messaging. (Parenti notes, “Generally, mainstream information that goes against the mainstream’s own dominant paradigm is likely to be reliable. It certainly cannot be dismissed as self-serving.”) These criticisms of Parenti often come from avowed fans of Parenti — those who like him but insist that while his other books are great, in this one he takes an uncharacteristic mistep. To those critics, I ask what part of Parenti’s philosophy or research methods could lead him to come to the correct conclusion in his much-beloved Blackshirts and Reds, but to the wrong conclusion when aimed at Yugoslavia.
Updated review here.
Slovenia's relationship with its past was fascinating. It spoke positively of its socialist era, but similarly it was proud of being part of the European Union and NATO. I wanted to learn a little more about this era, so I was happy to see Parenti wrote a book on the last few years of Yugoslavia.
As Parenti lays out, Yugoslavia was a particularly multi-cultural country that showed strong economic success:
Between 1960 and 1980 it had one of the most vigorous growth rates, along with free medical care and education, a guaranteed right to an income, one-month vacation with pay, a literacy rate of over 90 per cent, and a life expectancy of seventy-two years. Yugoslavia also offered its multi-ethnic citizenry affordable public transportation, housing, and utilities, in a mostly publicly owned, market-socialist economy.
In the late 1960s-1970s, Yugoslavia took out loans from the West to invest in their industrial capacity, however when a recession hit western economies, Yugoslavia found their export market dried up, and had challenges servicing their debt. In response, the IMF demanded an economic restructuring: wage freezes, elimination of worker-owned enterprises, cuts to social spending. These cuts led to an economic depression that “helped fuel the ensuing ethnic conflicts and secessionist movements.”
These conflicts, or rather, the aggressions of the Serbs against the Albanians, specifically, formed the basis of NATO’s justification to violently intervene in Yugoslavia. Parenti investigates the claims of NATO and the West, looking for evidence that (a) mass murder and mass rape was committed on a “genocidal” scale and that (b) these acts formed part of a government-sanctioned policy. Citing sources like The New York Times, Amnesty International and the UN, he finds that oft-repeated allegations that 100,000-500,000 people were unaccounted for and presumed dead are based on poor evidence, that detailed investigation of grave sites by French, British and other Western sources found evidence of about 2,000 dead — just a fraction. Nor could the UN War Crimes Commission nor Amnesty International find evidence of mass-rape campaigns, nor survivors of rape in any substantial numbers.
No doubt there also were despicable grudge killings and executions of prisoners and innocent civilians as in any war, but not on a scale that would warrant the label of genocide or justify the death, destruction and misery inflicted upon Yugoslavia by bombings and sanctions.
These allegations of violence are put into context of the devastation wrecked by NATO. The US itself estimated NATO killed 500 (Belgrade puts the number at 2,500 dead), and displaced 100,000 civilians hoping to flee the destruction. (This refugee crisis was then pointed to by NATO as post hoc justification for NATO’s intervention.) NATO’s bombing surgically eliminated waterworks, power plants, bridges, hospitals, schools, churches — marvelously sparing all foreign-owned firms while destroying 164 state-owned factories. These strikes constituted illegal war crimes, and were committed by an institution without elections: “the first major war declared by a body that has no constituency or geography as would be found in a nation-state.”
So if the humanitarian crisis shows no strong basis in reality, why did NATO invade? Parenti lays out a more compelling explanation: (1) the Balkans form a strategic territory from which to exert power towards the east, (2) prior to IMF interference, Yugoslavia was an admirable socialist success story (despite Margaret Thatcher’s insistence that There Is No Alternative [to capitalism]), (3) the financial and US hegemonic benefit of “Third Worldizing” a non-allied country, that is, converting Yugoslavia to a smattering of small, right-wing nations that are (a) incapable of charting an independent course, (b) open to transnational corporations to extract labour and natural resources, (c) populated with literate but impoverished workers who labour at subsistence wages, depressing wages in Europe and elsewhere, and (d) no longer possess competitive mining, automotive, pharmaceutical, etc industries of their own.
While this text is two decades old, and Yugoslavia has generally faded from pop culture memory, and even from current criticism of NATO, this book felt highly relevant. In it, we see the same media patterns used to allege genocide of minority groups by socialist nations and the humanitarian justification of Western atrocities. As the Russian invasion of Ukraine reaches its first anniversary, I also see hints of how negotiation talks might unwind. Yugoslavia proposed peace conditions that included “guaranteed human rights for all citizens and promotion of the cultural and linguistic identity of each national community” as well as legislative assemblies with representation specifically designated for national communities. NATO instead put forth the Rambouillet Peace Agreement, which “demanded complete autonomy for Kosovo, the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops from the province, and occupation by NATO forces”, with Yugoslavia barred from legislation over Kosovo’s affairs while Kosovo would be able to exercise influence within Yugoslavia’s parliament and receive funds from Yugoslavia’s budget. The Serbian delegation was told they had two choices: sign the agreement as written or face NATO bombing. Russia is in a little better of a negotiating position than Yugoslavia was, with its tiny population and GDP. However, I think we can expect to see very one-sided reporting, little good-faith effort on NATO’s behalf, and we are unlikely to arrive at a solution involving an unaligned, thriving, multi-ethnic state.
This book, out of all of Parenti’s, is particularly controversial, with his critics charging him of minimizing or denying the genocide of Albanians. However, I haven’t seen a critique that lays out what evidence Parenti leaves out or misconstrues, and the sources Parenti cites (such as UN tribunals or New York Times retractions) are likely trustworthy on this line of messaging. (Parenti notes, “Generally, mainstream information that goes against the mainstream’s own dominant paradigm is likely to be reliable. It certainly cannot be dismissed as self-serving.”) These criticisms of Parenti often come from avowed fans of Parenti — those who like him but insist that while his other books are great, in this one he takes an uncharacteristic mistep. To those critics, I ask what part of Parenti’s philosophy or research methods could lead him to come to the correct conclusion in his much-beloved Blackshirts and Reds, but to the wrong conclusion when aimed at Yugoslavia.
Updated review here.
March 6, 2022
Essential
February 28, 2023
This book had potential but ended up being a huge disappointment. The author could have made the case that the US was too involved/in the wrong and he could also have discussed the ways in which Serbians were victimized, without resorting to outright genocide denial. Anyone who reads this with a critical eye will see how he downplays one side (e.g. "so-called Srebrenica massacre") while accepting scant evidence for Serb deaths that he considers an example of serious crimes.
At one point, he suggests NATO actions were intended to 'terrorize and demoralize the civilian population' and that 'even Hitler' didn't destroy cultural monuments, museums, churches (Russia must love this guy). He focuses on anecdotes to further a point, but he's rarely making the point he thinks he is. Hitler may have tried to avoid destroying churches, but he did attempt to destroy the Jewish people in Europe and ultimately, that's the salient point here. Anyone reading this book with human suffering in mind will regularly feel frustrated and sad with where his focus lies.
A more nuanced approach would have been able to note the good intentions of certain Yugoslav leaders without skimming over, or outright questioning, the egregious things they did - and admitted to! For a book written by an academic, this simply doesn't make the pass as a worthwhile review of the conflict.
At one point, he suggests NATO actions were intended to 'terrorize and demoralize the civilian population' and that 'even Hitler' didn't destroy cultural monuments, museums, churches (Russia must love this guy). He focuses on anecdotes to further a point, but he's rarely making the point he thinks he is. Hitler may have tried to avoid destroying churches, but he did attempt to destroy the Jewish people in Europe and ultimately, that's the salient point here. Anyone reading this book with human suffering in mind will regularly feel frustrated and sad with where his focus lies.
A more nuanced approach would have been able to note the good intentions of certain Yugoslav leaders without skimming over, or outright questioning, the egregious things they did - and admitted to! For a book written by an academic, this simply doesn't make the pass as a worthwhile review of the conflict.
March 6, 2022
This book was very interesting and made me hate and distrust NATO.
June 20, 2022
Honestly, I expected more from Parenti. While I do agree with his estimation in goals and results - neoliberalisation and Third-Worldisation of Yugoslavia, I have to disagree on too many specific points he raises and just how "planned" this was in detail. I believe western powers did not want dissolution of Yugoslavia, merely to break it's independence and to neoliberalize it's economy. The dissolution was a surprise to them, to which eventually they adapted.
He's also correct in how often western actions are considered good, even as they are just as bad or worse crimes than what other sides do.
However, in too many instances he is willing to take the narrative of Milosevic government as truth for no other reason than it is counter to the western narrative. Both sides were lying, all too often.
SFR Yugoslavia was indeed founded with lofty goals and achieved many victories. But FR Yugoslavia under Milosevic was not that country.
He's also correct in how often western actions are considered good, even as they are just as bad or worse crimes than what other sides do.
However, in too many instances he is willing to take the narrative of Milosevic government as truth for no other reason than it is counter to the western narrative. Both sides were lying, all too often.
SFR Yugoslavia was indeed founded with lofty goals and achieved many victories. But FR Yugoslavia under Milosevic was not that country.
Read
May 15, 2012Well documented account of US motives in the dismemberment and destruction of Yugoslavia. Although my Hungarian brother-in-law, from a bit closer to the action, understandably disagrees, it certainly highlights the hypocrisy by which political actors like Milosovic and undisputedly brutal dictators like Saddam Hussein are put through show trials by far greater criminals who (sofar) act with impunity. The Spanish trial of Pinochet and the recent Malaysian conviction in absentia of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeldt et.al. offer signs of hope that the International War Crimes Tribunal may be rehabilitated and command the respect required for war criminals of all nations to be brought to justice.
April 22, 2020
Stunning and heart-breaking. Parenti gives a passionate, detailed and unapologetic history of the US' immoral and merciless imperialist dismembering of Yugoslavia.
January 10, 2023
This book utterly bulldozes any notion the reader may have about NATO being a "defensive alliance".
Parenti really delves into the ways in which NATO and its member states manufactured consent for the subsequent picking apart of Yugoslavia and the ways in which Western organisations engaged in the subjugation of the Balkans to bring about the destruction of Yugoslav socialism.
I fully recommend this book to anybody interested in learning about the tragedy that is the destruction of Yugoslavia.
Parenti really delves into the ways in which NATO and its member states manufactured consent for the subsequent picking apart of Yugoslavia and the ways in which Western organisations engaged in the subjugation of the Balkans to bring about the destruction of Yugoslav socialism.
I fully recommend this book to anybody interested in learning about the tragedy that is the destruction of Yugoslavia.
November 6, 2022
“To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia” by Michael Parenti is the best book on the Balkan wars I have ever read. Parenti is my two favourite authors (the other being Victor Perlo), and this is probably my favourite book by him. Anyone interested in the Balkans and NATO’s aggressive expansion since the overthrow of the USSR needs to read this book.
Although marketed to Western audiences as a humanitarian intervention against Serbian atrocities, the US and NATO had been interfering in Yugoslavia’s internal affairs long before any Serbian atrocities. In 1984, the Reagan administration in the US issued National Security Decision Directive 133, which called for the support of “quiet revolutions” in communist Eastern Europe. This involved supporting reactionary secessionist leaders and their movements in Yugoslavia. The US threatened to cut off all aid to Yugoslavia unless elections were held, but only within the various republics and not at the federal level, inflaming inter-ethnic tensions. The US National Endowment for Democracy and other CIA fronts supported the electoral campaigns of pro-West, anti-Serb, and anti-socialist leaders in the national republics. At the same time, countries such as Germany and Austria sent arms shipments and military advisors to secessionist leaders in Croatia and Slovenia. German military instructors even engaged in combat with Yugoslav troops. By 1991, a European conference on Yugoslavia declared its support for “sovereign and independent republics” within Yugoslavia, effectively repudiating Yugoslavia’s sovereignty.
Alongside US-NATO support for right-wing secessionist leaders was the IMF-imposed fiscal dismemberment of Yugoslavia. In the 1960s and 1970s, Yugoslav leaders had made a catastrophic error in borrowing money from the West, and by 1991 Yugoslavia’s international creditors were in complete control of domestic monetary policy. Under the IMF-imposed structural adjustment and capitalist shock therapy, transfer payments from the federal government to the national republics were cut, leaving the republics to fend for themselves. As Chossudovsky wrote:
By cutting the financial arteries between Belgrade and the republics, the reforms fueled secessionist tendencies that fed on economic factors as well as ethnic divisions, virtually ensuring the de facto secession of the republics. The IMF-induced budgetary crisis created an economic fait accompli that paved the way for Croatia’s and Slovenia’s formal secession in June 1991.
Between 1991-1992 Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia, and the US and its NATO allies hastened to recognize the right to self-determination of these republics. The secession and subsequent US-NATO recognition of these republics led to a bloody cycle of violence that ravaged the Balkans. Under the Yugoslav constitution, the will of a republican majority could not override the equally valid will of a constituent national minority within that republic. The large Serb population inhabiting Croatia and Bosnia had a constitutionally protected right to self-determination and overwhelmingly wished to remain within the Yugoslav federation. US and NATO recognition of Croatian and Bosnian self-determination was, therefore, an implicit rejection of the right to self-determination of the large Serb population inhabiting these republics.
Moreover, the secessionist leaders supported by US and NATO were violently opposed to sharing power with constituent national minorities. Although Slobodan Milošević has frequently been compared to Hitler, it is more appropriate to compare Hitler with the secessionist republican leaders supported by the US and NATO. In Croatia, the US and NATO’s ally was President Franjo Tudjman. In 1989, Tudjman wrote how “the establishment of Hitler’s new European order can be justified by the need to be rid of the Jews” and how “Genocide is a natural phenomenon in harmony with the sociological and mythological divine nature.” As independent Croatia’s first president, he appointed Nazi collaborators to government posts, adopted the currency and emblem of Nazi-controlled Croatia, and boasted to his generals that the Serbian question had been resolved after the war. With NATO-supplied weapons and aerial support, the Croatian military under Tudjman ethnically cleansed the republic’s Serb population, “replete with rapes, summary executions, and indiscriminate shelling, driving over half a million Serbs from their ancestral homes in Croatia,” Parenti writes. In Bosnia, the US and NATO’s ally was President Alija Izetbegovic. During WWII, Izetbegovic was a member of the pro-Nazi Young Muslims, which recruited Muslims to serve in the Nazi SS. Izetbegovic intended to transform Bosnia into a fundamentalist Islamic state, claiming “Islamic society without an Islamic government is incomplete and impotent.” Months before the outbreak of the war, his fundamentalist militia waged a civil war against more moderate Bosnian forces and, according to a White House estimate, ethnically cleansed 100,000 Serbs before the war.
Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia naturally armed and organized themselves in defense against ethnic cleansing and massacres by Croat and Bosnian militias. These Serbs were supported by the Yugoslav People’s Army, which took active measures to ensure the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia against US-NATO-supported aggression. This is not to deny that the Serbs and Yugoslav troops committed horrible atrocities, but I haven’t seen evidence that what atrocities were committed could be classified as “genocide”. The US and NATO and their fascist proxies are responsible for the conflict. Once war starts, it develops a momentum of its own. Moreover, US-NATO countries or their allies have committed comparable and even worse atrocities without there ever being a genocide tribunal, such as in the Philippines, Indonesia, Colombia, Sri Lanka, or the British in Northern Ireland or the Russians in Chechnya. In Canada, Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act and suspended civil liberties because the FLQ kidnapped two people, killing one. How would Trudeau have responded if Quebec armed itself with foreign weapons and ethnically cleansed its non-French population?
US-NATO humanitarianism revealed its true self after the 1995 Dayton Accords. Bosnia became a virtual colony of the US and NATO. Under US-NATO control, Parenti writes,
Bosnia-Herzegovina became a Western colonial protectorate. Western officials imposed most of the fiscal and monetary policies. Western intelligence agents operated at will throughout the society. The media and the schools were cleansed of any dissident viewpoints. If any groups were to organize and agitate for an end to debt payments, or a return to socialism, or complete independence from Western occupation, SFOR, the NATO-stabilization forces in Bosnia, was ready to deal with them.
That “the Western powers put aside indirect forms of neo-imperialism and opted for direct colonialism” in Bosnia is most clearly evident in the Serb-inhabited Republika Srpska. US-NATO forces denied the Bosnian Serbs the right to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, independent media, free elections, and every other fundamental human right. In response to crowds angrily protesting against media censorship, NATO Secretary General Javier Solana went so far as to announce that NATO “will not hesitate to take the necessary measures, including the use of force, against media networks or programs” critical of NATO. “For all intents and purposes,” writes Parenti, “Republika Srpska became a NATO colony. Its citizens were free to pursue only those policies pleasing to their imperialist overlords, free to listen only to media programs and elect only candidates approved by NATO. By definition, the free-market reforms and NATO domination were equated with democracy. And by definition, any resistance to such rule, even by duly selected RS representatives, was deemed hard-line, anti-reformist, and anti-democratic.”
In other words, the US and NATO supported fascists with arms and weapons who ethnically cleansed Serbs from their republics. When Yugoslav forces retaliated, the US and NATO battered Yugoslavia and imposed a colonial regime on Bosnia that was more oppressive than under Milosevic. This might seem irrational, but empire is not irrational. The Bosnian War enabled the US and NATO to achieve their ultimate objective: the Third Worldization of Bosnia. Bosnia’s “state-owned assets, including energy, water, telecommunications, media and transportation, were sold off to private firms at garage-sale prices. Essential health services fell into a state of neglect, and the economy as a whole remained in a sorry condition.” US-NATO forces forced Bosnians “to reconstruct the shattered economy along free-market economy lines, including significant privatization and close cooperation with the World Bank.”
But this wasn’t enough for US-NATO leaders. What was left of Yugoslavia, i.e., Serbia and Montenegro, still refused to be Third Worldized. For Western free-marketeers, an unacceptable state of affairs continued in Serbia: 75% of Serbia’s industry remained publicly owned as late as 1999. These publicly-owned industries needed to either be privatized or destroyed. As Parenti writes, “a massive aerial destruction like the one delivered upon Iraq might be just the thing needed to put Belgrade more in step with the New World Order.”
The US-NATO needed a new pretext to bomb Serbia — this was Kosovo. Parenti makes a convincing case that Kosovo was far from requiring a humanitarian intervention:
As an autonomous province of the Serb republic, Kosovo enjoyed far more extensive rights and powers within the FRY than were allowed national minorities in any Western European state or the United States. Kosovo was allowed to have its own supreme court and its own Albanian flag. University education was in Albanian, with Albanian textbooks and teachers. There were also Albanian newspapers, magazines, television, radio, movies, and sporting and cultural events. All education below the university level was exclusively in Albanian, a language radically different from Serbo-Croat. With only 8 per cent of Yugoslavia’s population, Kosovo was allocated up to 30 per cent of the federal development budget, including 24 per cent of World Bank development credits.
The terrorist activities of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) deliberately undermined Kosovar-Serb relations. The KLA attacked police stations, Serbian villagers and farmers, government officials, and professionals, all to provoke conflict between Albanians and Serbs. Even moderate Albanians were terrorized and murdered if they didn’t support the KLA. These attacks continued for more than a year before triggering a concerted response from Yugoslav authorities. As even a UN court ruled, Serbian troops did not carry out genocide against ethnic Albanians during Milosevic’s campaign of aggression in Kosovo from 1998 to 1999.
Just like in Bosnia, the objective of US-NATO bombing was not human rights, democracy, or humanitarianism, but the Third Worldization of Serbia. Besides supporting an organization that the US itself considered a terrorist organization only a few months before, the US and NATO’s agenda to Third Worldize Serbia was most clearly evident in its choice of targets. In what Parenti describes as “privatization by bombing,” NATO humanitarian bombing targeted Serbia’s economic and cultural capital:
NATO’s attacks revealed a consistent pattern that bespoke its underlying political agenda. The Confederation of Trade Unions of Serbia produced a list of 164 factories destroyed by the bombings — all of them state-owned. Not a single foreign-owned firm was targeted. As I observed on a trip to Yugoslavia shortly after the war, the huge, state-run Hotel Yugoslavia was made uninhabitable by NATO missiles, while the corporate owned Hyatt Hotel, with its all-glass facade — as inviting a target as any mad bomber might want — suffered not a scratched window-pane. Buildings that displayed highly visible rooftop signs that advertised Panasonic, Coca-Cola, Diners International, and McDonald’s, the latter replete with immense golden arches, survived perfectly intact.
The NATO bombing targeted only publicly-owned schools, libraries, telecommunications, energy and transportation infrastructure, factories, theaters, hospitals, and clinics, as well as historical sites, cultural monuments, museums, and churches — “something not even Hitler did.”
Considering the current conflict in Ukraine and NATO’s involvement in it, this book is a powerful indictment of NATO, the world’s largest terrorist organization. Everyone should read this book.
Although marketed to Western audiences as a humanitarian intervention against Serbian atrocities, the US and NATO had been interfering in Yugoslavia’s internal affairs long before any Serbian atrocities. In 1984, the Reagan administration in the US issued National Security Decision Directive 133, which called for the support of “quiet revolutions” in communist Eastern Europe. This involved supporting reactionary secessionist leaders and their movements in Yugoslavia. The US threatened to cut off all aid to Yugoslavia unless elections were held, but only within the various republics and not at the federal level, inflaming inter-ethnic tensions. The US National Endowment for Democracy and other CIA fronts supported the electoral campaigns of pro-West, anti-Serb, and anti-socialist leaders in the national republics. At the same time, countries such as Germany and Austria sent arms shipments and military advisors to secessionist leaders in Croatia and Slovenia. German military instructors even engaged in combat with Yugoslav troops. By 1991, a European conference on Yugoslavia declared its support for “sovereign and independent republics” within Yugoslavia, effectively repudiating Yugoslavia’s sovereignty.
Alongside US-NATO support for right-wing secessionist leaders was the IMF-imposed fiscal dismemberment of Yugoslavia. In the 1960s and 1970s, Yugoslav leaders had made a catastrophic error in borrowing money from the West, and by 1991 Yugoslavia’s international creditors were in complete control of domestic monetary policy. Under the IMF-imposed structural adjustment and capitalist shock therapy, transfer payments from the federal government to the national republics were cut, leaving the republics to fend for themselves. As Chossudovsky wrote:
By cutting the financial arteries between Belgrade and the republics, the reforms fueled secessionist tendencies that fed on economic factors as well as ethnic divisions, virtually ensuring the de facto secession of the republics. The IMF-induced budgetary crisis created an economic fait accompli that paved the way for Croatia’s and Slovenia’s formal secession in June 1991.
Between 1991-1992 Croatia, Slovenia, Macedonia, and Bosnia declared independence from Yugoslavia, and the US and its NATO allies hastened to recognize the right to self-determination of these republics. The secession and subsequent US-NATO recognition of these republics led to a bloody cycle of violence that ravaged the Balkans. Under the Yugoslav constitution, the will of a republican majority could not override the equally valid will of a constituent national minority within that republic. The large Serb population inhabiting Croatia and Bosnia had a constitutionally protected right to self-determination and overwhelmingly wished to remain within the Yugoslav federation. US and NATO recognition of Croatian and Bosnian self-determination was, therefore, an implicit rejection of the right to self-determination of the large Serb population inhabiting these republics.
Moreover, the secessionist leaders supported by US and NATO were violently opposed to sharing power with constituent national minorities. Although Slobodan Milošević has frequently been compared to Hitler, it is more appropriate to compare Hitler with the secessionist republican leaders supported by the US and NATO. In Croatia, the US and NATO’s ally was President Franjo Tudjman. In 1989, Tudjman wrote how “the establishment of Hitler’s new European order can be justified by the need to be rid of the Jews” and how “Genocide is a natural phenomenon in harmony with the sociological and mythological divine nature.” As independent Croatia’s first president, he appointed Nazi collaborators to government posts, adopted the currency and emblem of Nazi-controlled Croatia, and boasted to his generals that the Serbian question had been resolved after the war. With NATO-supplied weapons and aerial support, the Croatian military under Tudjman ethnically cleansed the republic’s Serb population, “replete with rapes, summary executions, and indiscriminate shelling, driving over half a million Serbs from their ancestral homes in Croatia,” Parenti writes. In Bosnia, the US and NATO’s ally was President Alija Izetbegovic. During WWII, Izetbegovic was a member of the pro-Nazi Young Muslims, which recruited Muslims to serve in the Nazi SS. Izetbegovic intended to transform Bosnia into a fundamentalist Islamic state, claiming “Islamic society without an Islamic government is incomplete and impotent.” Months before the outbreak of the war, his fundamentalist militia waged a civil war against more moderate Bosnian forces and, according to a White House estimate, ethnically cleansed 100,000 Serbs before the war.
Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia naturally armed and organized themselves in defense against ethnic cleansing and massacres by Croat and Bosnian militias. These Serbs were supported by the Yugoslav People’s Army, which took active measures to ensure the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Yugoslavia against US-NATO-supported aggression. This is not to deny that the Serbs and Yugoslav troops committed horrible atrocities, but I haven’t seen evidence that what atrocities were committed could be classified as “genocide”. The US and NATO and their fascist proxies are responsible for the conflict. Once war starts, it develops a momentum of its own. Moreover, US-NATO countries or their allies have committed comparable and even worse atrocities without there ever being a genocide tribunal, such as in the Philippines, Indonesia, Colombia, Sri Lanka, or the British in Northern Ireland or the Russians in Chechnya. In Canada, Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act and suspended civil liberties because the FLQ kidnapped two people, killing one. How would Trudeau have responded if Quebec armed itself with foreign weapons and ethnically cleansed its non-French population?
US-NATO humanitarianism revealed its true self after the 1995 Dayton Accords. Bosnia became a virtual colony of the US and NATO. Under US-NATO control, Parenti writes,
Bosnia-Herzegovina became a Western colonial protectorate. Western officials imposed most of the fiscal and monetary policies. Western intelligence agents operated at will throughout the society. The media and the schools were cleansed of any dissident viewpoints. If any groups were to organize and agitate for an end to debt payments, or a return to socialism, or complete independence from Western occupation, SFOR, the NATO-stabilization forces in Bosnia, was ready to deal with them.
That “the Western powers put aside indirect forms of neo-imperialism and opted for direct colonialism” in Bosnia is most clearly evident in the Serb-inhabited Republika Srpska. US-NATO forces denied the Bosnian Serbs the right to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, independent media, free elections, and every other fundamental human right. In response to crowds angrily protesting against media censorship, NATO Secretary General Javier Solana went so far as to announce that NATO “will not hesitate to take the necessary measures, including the use of force, against media networks or programs” critical of NATO. “For all intents and purposes,” writes Parenti, “Republika Srpska became a NATO colony. Its citizens were free to pursue only those policies pleasing to their imperialist overlords, free to listen only to media programs and elect only candidates approved by NATO. By definition, the free-market reforms and NATO domination were equated with democracy. And by definition, any resistance to such rule, even by duly selected RS representatives, was deemed hard-line, anti-reformist, and anti-democratic.”
In other words, the US and NATO supported fascists with arms and weapons who ethnically cleansed Serbs from their republics. When Yugoslav forces retaliated, the US and NATO battered Yugoslavia and imposed a colonial regime on Bosnia that was more oppressive than under Milosevic. This might seem irrational, but empire is not irrational. The Bosnian War enabled the US and NATO to achieve their ultimate objective: the Third Worldization of Bosnia. Bosnia’s “state-owned assets, including energy, water, telecommunications, media and transportation, were sold off to private firms at garage-sale prices. Essential health services fell into a state of neglect, and the economy as a whole remained in a sorry condition.” US-NATO forces forced Bosnians “to reconstruct the shattered economy along free-market economy lines, including significant privatization and close cooperation with the World Bank.”
But this wasn’t enough for US-NATO leaders. What was left of Yugoslavia, i.e., Serbia and Montenegro, still refused to be Third Worldized. For Western free-marketeers, an unacceptable state of affairs continued in Serbia: 75% of Serbia’s industry remained publicly owned as late as 1999. These publicly-owned industries needed to either be privatized or destroyed. As Parenti writes, “a massive aerial destruction like the one delivered upon Iraq might be just the thing needed to put Belgrade more in step with the New World Order.”
The US-NATO needed a new pretext to bomb Serbia — this was Kosovo. Parenti makes a convincing case that Kosovo was far from requiring a humanitarian intervention:
As an autonomous province of the Serb republic, Kosovo enjoyed far more extensive rights and powers within the FRY than were allowed national minorities in any Western European state or the United States. Kosovo was allowed to have its own supreme court and its own Albanian flag. University education was in Albanian, with Albanian textbooks and teachers. There were also Albanian newspapers, magazines, television, radio, movies, and sporting and cultural events. All education below the university level was exclusively in Albanian, a language radically different from Serbo-Croat. With only 8 per cent of Yugoslavia’s population, Kosovo was allocated up to 30 per cent of the federal development budget, including 24 per cent of World Bank development credits.
The terrorist activities of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) deliberately undermined Kosovar-Serb relations. The KLA attacked police stations, Serbian villagers and farmers, government officials, and professionals, all to provoke conflict between Albanians and Serbs. Even moderate Albanians were terrorized and murdered if they didn’t support the KLA. These attacks continued for more than a year before triggering a concerted response from Yugoslav authorities. As even a UN court ruled, Serbian troops did not carry out genocide against ethnic Albanians during Milosevic’s campaign of aggression in Kosovo from 1998 to 1999.
Just like in Bosnia, the objective of US-NATO bombing was not human rights, democracy, or humanitarianism, but the Third Worldization of Serbia. Besides supporting an organization that the US itself considered a terrorist organization only a few months before, the US and NATO’s agenda to Third Worldize Serbia was most clearly evident in its choice of targets. In what Parenti describes as “privatization by bombing,” NATO humanitarian bombing targeted Serbia’s economic and cultural capital:
NATO’s attacks revealed a consistent pattern that bespoke its underlying political agenda. The Confederation of Trade Unions of Serbia produced a list of 164 factories destroyed by the bombings — all of them state-owned. Not a single foreign-owned firm was targeted. As I observed on a trip to Yugoslavia shortly after the war, the huge, state-run Hotel Yugoslavia was made uninhabitable by NATO missiles, while the corporate owned Hyatt Hotel, with its all-glass facade — as inviting a target as any mad bomber might want — suffered not a scratched window-pane. Buildings that displayed highly visible rooftop signs that advertised Panasonic, Coca-Cola, Diners International, and McDonald’s, the latter replete with immense golden arches, survived perfectly intact.
The NATO bombing targeted only publicly-owned schools, libraries, telecommunications, energy and transportation infrastructure, factories, theaters, hospitals, and clinics, as well as historical sites, cultural monuments, museums, and churches — “something not even Hitler did.”
Considering the current conflict in Ukraine and NATO’s involvement in it, this book is a powerful indictment of NATO, the world’s largest terrorist organization. Everyone should read this book.
January 20, 2022
Disturbing take on how governments work with PR firms to plant stories and/or fables in the media to drive public sentiment towards war. In this case, the break up of the former Yugoslavia to benefit western industrial interests.
September 2, 2013
amazing book i cant recommend it enough,
"Leaders and media find authentication for the images they propagate in the images they have already propagated."
this quote embodies us propaganda during their demonization and ethnic cleansing of the Serbian people in the name of free markets and anti-communism.
It is important now that were are at the eve of the neo-liberal imperialist destruction of Syria that we look back on the neo-liberal destruction of Yugoslavia and displacement of the Serbs.
we need to take a critical perspective and ask ourselves what are our real motives, and what is the real truth. history has shown us that what we are being fed by our own media has never been the true narrative and all the signs are always there we just refuse to acknowledge. we believe we have a free press because we are told its free. but its not free its expensive ass hell and those behind cnn nbc fox and even the precious NGO's like npr pbs and amnesty benefit from this destruction and exploitation and are more than happy to feed us the same false narrative no matter what the cost to innocent life.
Parenti is always dead on.
he details the us operations in all of the former FRY states and gives us the official line then the harsh reality backed up by countless sources in our own media as well as the strongly ignored opposition to detail yet another horror in the colonial neo-liberal crusades of nato and the American empire in the name of global capitalist hegemony.
"Leaders and media find authentication for the images they propagate in the images they have already propagated."
this quote embodies us propaganda during their demonization and ethnic cleansing of the Serbian people in the name of free markets and anti-communism.
It is important now that were are at the eve of the neo-liberal imperialist destruction of Syria that we look back on the neo-liberal destruction of Yugoslavia and displacement of the Serbs.
we need to take a critical perspective and ask ourselves what are our real motives, and what is the real truth. history has shown us that what we are being fed by our own media has never been the true narrative and all the signs are always there we just refuse to acknowledge. we believe we have a free press because we are told its free. but its not free its expensive ass hell and those behind cnn nbc fox and even the precious NGO's like npr pbs and amnesty benefit from this destruction and exploitation and are more than happy to feed us the same false narrative no matter what the cost to innocent life.
Parenti is always dead on.
he details the us operations in all of the former FRY states and gives us the official line then the harsh reality backed up by countless sources in our own media as well as the strongly ignored opposition to detail yet another horror in the colonial neo-liberal crusades of nato and the American empire in the name of global capitalist hegemony.
March 20, 2009
This is a surprising, eye-opening book that reveals that much of what we heard in the West about the goings-on in Yugoslavia as it broke up and in Serbia, was manufactured. It also shows convincingly that the NATO aggression against Serbia in 1999 was an illegal action and that things during those times (from the Bosnian war in 1992 to Kosovo in 1999) were not as simple as the Western press made them out to be. I was surprised to learn that much of what we thought happened turned out to have been made up or exaggerated. A must-read for anyone who seeks a nuanced, propaganda-free understanding of what went on in the Balkans in the 1990s and how the US and the Western press were complicit in much of it.
November 24, 2021
Cliched but rings true: NATO = North American Terrorist Organization
Absurd falsehoods I had sadly taken to heart in college about Yugoslavia were thoroughly obliterated, mainly about Kosovo and Bosnia and the media's breathless pearl clutching and uncritical reporting of absurdities like dog/human hybrids and mass war rape by Serbs
Absurd falsehoods I had sadly taken to heart in college about Yugoslavia were thoroughly obliterated, mainly about Kosovo and Bosnia and the media's breathless pearl clutching and uncritical reporting of absurdities like dog/human hybrids and mass war rape by Serbs
January 27, 2022
Fuck NATO.
July 19, 2023
A very good alternative view to what the mainstream media portrayed throughout the Yugoslavia war in the West. Using unbiased sources and factual journalism, Parenti will make you question the very reality you live in and whether steps should be taken to change it. As a European, I wasn't shocked to learn once again the US has used shady tactics to spread its influence, but I was surprised how far its fingers reached into the depths of an independent nation.
The author also acknowledges the wrongs of Milosevic, and never says the Yugoslavian government is not to blame. Keep in mind, though, that this is an account of all the inconsistencies and exaggerations spread by the media to justify the war and the reasons the US had to start it. This is not an act of balance or a spreadsheet. If that's what you're looking for, I suggest you find a different book.
The author also acknowledges the wrongs of Milosevic, and never says the Yugoslavian government is not to blame. Keep in mind, though, that this is an account of all the inconsistencies and exaggerations spread by the media to justify the war and the reasons the US had to start it. This is not an act of balance or a spreadsheet. If that's what you're looking for, I suggest you find a different book.
November 2, 2023
Mycket intressant och ögonöppnande. Inte hört så mycket om Jugoslaviens upplösning innan, men nu bombades även jag av exempel på västmedias hyckleri, och världskapitalismens oändliga törst
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