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Serbia Marks the 10th Anniversary of the Nato-Led Bombing Campaign
March 24 marks the 10th anniversary of the Nato bombing campaign that left the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in ruins. The bombing was part of the conflict in Serbia's now renegade province of Kosovo and lasted 79 days and nights between March 24 and June 11 1999. When Nato planes started striking targets in Yugoslavia, it marked the first military assault over a sovereign European nation since World War II.
A man walks past a poster reading "Ten years of NATO occupation of Serbia". Air-raid sirens wailed as Serbia marked the 10th anniversary of NATO's bombing campaign against the regime of late president Slobodan Milosevic to halt its violent Kosovo crackdown. (AFP/Andrej Isakovic) The campaign aimed to force Milošević to withdraw his troops and mechanised units from Kosovo. Air strikes occurred in conjunction with continued skirmishes between Albanian guerrillas and Yugoslav forces, resulting in a further massive displacement of population in Kosovo. During the conflict, roughly a million ethnic Albanians fled or were forcefully driven from the province.
Numerous government buildings and military buildings and installations, including the Yugoslavian Army Headquarters, as well as several key infrastructure bridges in major cities - Novi Sad in particular - were heavily hit. The country's radio and telecommunication installations across Serbia and Kosovo were bombed into obliteration. During the bombing many civilian buildings and areas were hit including apartment blocks, a maternity hospital, a passenger train, an Albanian refugee convoy. Most notoriously, a smart bomb levelled the Chinese Embassy, which caused international uproar and embarrassment for Nato, and the US in particular.
The aftermath for Serbia was grim as the war left the country with little or no infrastructure. Novi Sad had no bridges left and water purification and waste treatment plants and electricity supplies were severely disrupted. The Balkan peninsula also suffered an ecological disaster as missiles struck oil refineries which subsequently released carcinogenic and toxic gases into the air and water supplies were polluted.
More importantly, however, as a result of the conflict, Europe witnessed the birth of another republic. Kosovo declared independence and, as of October 9 2008, all of Kosovo's immediate neighbour states, except Serbia, have recognised the country's status.
Macedonia and Montenegro recognised Kosovo on October 9, with Albania, Croatia, Bulgaria and Hungary also following suit subsequently.
On March 24 2009, air raid sirens will sound and church bells will ring across Serbia as the country marks 10 years since Nato's bombing campaign. According to Balkanfile.com, Serbs will gather at sites where people were killed and government ministers will lay wreaths for the dead.
Serbian defence minister Dragan Sutanovac said he had not changed his mind about the bombing, which he considered unnecessary.
"Then and now I think it was a great mistake of Nato and that the bombing shouldn't have happened," he told Reuters news agency. "I think that Nato's goals could have been achieved in other ways and that citizens could have been spared the consequences."
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11 Comments so far
Show AllThese were war crimes committed by US-led NATO forces and Clinton and Co. are as guilty as George W. is for his administrations crimes.
Yes They hug each other, these partners in War Crimes.
The corrupt system is goin down and the captains know it and they know the system is rigged to suck up any wealth it can on the way down.
Considering what emerged from the corridors of power in Belgrade under the misrule of Slobodan Milosevic, characterizing the Serbs as completely innocent victims of NATO aggression is truly misguided.
Those that condemn Serbia are victims of US propaganda. Belgrade was the most integrated region of the former Jugoslavia with more Albanians living there than in Kosovo. Many had fled the organized criminal Albanians that had moved in to Kosovo -- a historic Serbian heartland. Now that it has been "liberated" it is an area where sex slavery, the drug trade, and other crimes proliferate. Those that can remember know that Milosevic, for all his faults, tried to settle the issue peacefully but was rebuffed by a US intent on invading and splitting up what remained of Jugoslavia. They remember our bombing of hospitals and trains and factories in Belgrade and our use of depleted uranium weapons.
The Jaded Prole
You have no idea what you're talking about.
Had you spent three years under Serbian siege - starved, terrorized by shelling and snipers, deprived of water and energy in the middle of winter, watching young mothers desperate for baby formula - you would have had quite a different view of Serbian role in the Balkans "war". I put "war" under quotes, for it was a mere aggretion of a local hegemon supported by traditional allies, GB and France.
As a "prole", you're probably deceived by Chomsky's misunderstanding (at best) of that sorry strech of history.
This was the precursor to Afghanistan and Iraq.
It succeeded perfectly.
An armed force, NATO, which had not fired one single bullet in all its 50 years of existence was unleashed upon a defenseless civilian target(s).
Tens of thousands of sorties flown and 13 tanks destroyed?
Perhaps the most resounding victory resulted when an almost totally lock step world press toed the line as one. The line being a series of lie after lie after lie. All easily disproved, yet to this day smoldering.
When is Serbia gonna mark the anniversary of it's genocide in Croatia and Bosnia? I wonder if CD is going to write about that?
"We March 24th, 2009 5:23 pm
You have no idea what you're talking about.
Had you spent three years under Serbian siege - starved, terrorized by shelling and snipers, deprived of water and energy in the middle of winter, watching young mothers desperate for baby formula - you would have had quite a different view of Serbian role in the Balkans "war". I put "war" under quotes, for it was a mere aggretion of a local hegemon supported by traditional allies, GB and France.
As a "prole", you're probably deceived by Chomsky's misunderstanding (at best) of that sorry strech of history."
PURE PROPAGANDA based on lies, disinformation, and it's therefore not difficult to understand why [no] supporting resources are linked in We March's post. He or she is only pulling stuff out of his hat of western msm "news" media and therefore western imperialism, etcetera.
A good resource on Serbia and the Balkan's is Scott Taylor's website, Esprit de Corps Military Magazine, which is evidently read by most of the Canadian military.
http://www.espritdecorps.ca
His youtube channel, http://www.youtube.com/EDcorps
He served in the Canadian Armed Forces as a soldier and started EdeC in 1987 or 1988, and has been in the Balkans, etcetera, as well as Iraq, during Gulf War I or shortly thereafter and therefore during the period of the criminal economic sanctions imposed on Iraq, instead of only military sanctions. What he says is from truth, as much as he can ascertain or knows what the truth is and he's very careful to not publish lies; contrary to what people like We March like try to do, which is to spread or repeat bs propaganda, or else false "news" reporting.
Some additional resources:
"1999 2009 NATO Bombing against Yugoslavia:
'There is no humanitarian war'.
Interview with Zivadin Jovanovic, last Foreign affairs minister of Yugoslavia"
by Zivadin Jovanovic, Mar 22 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12855
The video with the above article or for it is the following one, and it's very good, btw.
"1999 2009 'there is no humanitarian war'"(9:42), investigaction, Mar 20 2009
("Zivadin Jovanovic, last minister of Foreign Affairs of Yugoslavia, interviewed in Belgrade by Vanessa Stojilkovic and Zoran Jevric www.michelcollon.info" - via "Video: 1999 2009 NATO Bombing against Yugoslavia: ...")
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH1Xf4zFilE
"Bosnians and Serbs: tensions remain" (3:37), RussiaToday, Mar 23 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlgGcuumFeY
"Strain shows in Bosnia-Herzogovina" (2:57), RussiaToday, Mar 18 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HadIxyg1yxg
"Mladic: one mans war criminal, another mans hero" (2:56), RussiaToday, Mar 12 2009
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXaBg1CB1vI
"Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War. Part 1 of 2" (1:21:02), Frontier Theatre and Film, Feb 24 2006
(A doc. tracing "how crucial mistakes made by the West helped lead to the unnecessary breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, culminating in the devastating NATO bombing campaign in 1999.")
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5860186121153047571&ei=YVCeSNucMoWI4QLN7ZQV
Part 2 (1:24:30):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6371060303901674397&hl=en
We March posted nearly word for word what the western imperialists like to see in their western msm "news" media. And it's easily spottable. BUT, I of course will still invite him or her and ilk to provide links to their supposed supporting resources so that we can have a fair chance to see where they derive their so-called information or views from.
Oh, another btw, what We March posted reminds (me anyway) of the bs LIE the Kuwaiti "princess" had stated about the invading Iraqi forces during 1990 or 1991, about the Iraqi forces supposedly entering Kuwaiti hospitals and killing infants in incubators, or a story similar enough to that; for it was about Kuwaiti infants and while they're were in incubators, as well as a statement to try to terrify the world into supporting Kuwait and war against the Iraqi forces, with her demonisation of the Iraqi forces. It was [incredible] that the military of Iraq would commit such heinous crimes even if the Iraqi government was sometimes harsh in punishing people, but not only was it incredible, it was quickly proven to be a complete LIE. It was very quickly proven that the Kuwaiti "princess" had concocted and stated, or at least stated, a totally bogus story; one she most likely also knew was bogus.
Yes, We March's post does have such a "ring" to it; definitely.
"Serbian defence minister Dragan Sutanovac said he had not changed his mind about the bombing, which he considered unnecessary."
All bombings, officially sanctioned or not, are acts of terrorism.
It was terrorism that the U.S. and NATO conducted there, and that the UN came to basically support with its alliance in maintaining what the U.S. and NATO had done; basically anyway.
And it was certainly much worse than 'unnecessary'. It was rather totally was a war of aggression, aka against peace, but that's a way that I don't usually refer to wars of aggression, for "against peace" just seems to soft compared to the hard reality that the "against peace" is used to refer to.
It was a war of total aggression and U.S.-NATO gangsterism, with the basically sole purpose of spreading the military and economic powers of the western imperialists, while also adding another military base in Eastern Europe, so in the vicinity of Russia. It was part of the whole program of "full spectrum dominance" that the U.S. has. It's another "War is a RACKET" sort of western aggression. It's hell-bent or -bound criminality.
Yeah, it was unncessary, but that depends on which position is considered. For the western imperialists, this war was strategically necessary. And for the western gangster capitalists, the war might not have been necessary to or for them at first, but if not at first, then it nevertheless became a war in a region that was opened for the predatory western capitalists with the privatization of ... plenty and foreign investors allowed to go for the "spoils".
In any sane terms, the war was certainly unncessary, but the real rulers of the U.S. and NATO governments are not sane people; they're predatory capitalists, imperialists, colonialists, and so on. They're psychopaths; violent sociopaths, violent to the [extreme]. They're terrorists because nearly everything they do and represent is terrifying, and they do command and conduct political terrorism, as described in the documentaries of "War on Democracy" by John Pilger and "Secrets of the CIA", made by ... I don't know who made the documentary, but believe to refer to it in an earlier post of mine in this CD page, while saying which Youtube provider or user to refer to for the fuller-length documentary. And both of those documentaries can certainly remind viewers of what John Perkins, author of "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man", has said, including in an interview with DemocracyNow.org I believe in Jan. 2008. Etcetera.
Hey, Mike,
I woke you up? Getting triggered by a grain of truth emerging on CD or elsewhere?
First off, there's no need to repeat my statement in full. People have already read what I said, repeating it is tiring and counterproductive - you should know that much.
Your long list of "sources of information" just shows where you're coming from - all of them are connected to the clogs of Serbian propaganda machine. Canada, for instance, played its own royal role (pun intended) during the Serbian aggression on Croatia and Bosnia, UNPROFOR general Lewis MacKenzie having been the major exponent of British policy in the Balkans:
General Lewis MacKenzie - Paid Serbian Lobbyist and Outspoken Srebrenica Genocide Denier
(http://srebrenicamassacregenocidemassgraves.wordpress.com/2006/11/25/
general-lewis-mackenzie-srebrenica-denier-exposed-as-a-serbian-lobbyist/)
Canadian General Lewis MacKenzie: Still a Liar
(http://americansforbosnia.blogspot.com/2008/02/canadian-general-lewis-mackenzie-still.html)
Or take Russia, for instance, which gave shelter to former Yugoslav Army general and Minister of Defence 1988-1992, Veljko Kadijevic, now a proud owner of Russian passport. Veljko Kadijevic drew the map of Greater Serbia in late '80-ies, together with the rest of the criminals in then HQ of YA.
That you take a former foreign minister of Serbia as a reliable "source of information" tells me what a fool, or professional misinformator, you are - a clumsy one at it.
Let me paint it for you: Slobodan Milosevic was "socialist" the same way Hitler was - a national socialist, known in history as "nazi". Slobodan Milosevic was cherry-picked by then Yugoslav Army to create the Greater Serbia on the ruins of Yugoslavia, quartered by brute military force.
To get a feeling of British role in the Balkans "war", read "The Unfinest Hour" by Brendan Simms, a British historian of Cambridge University. He understood, and he was ashamed - unlike you.
And then go back to the woodwork.
PS: I just recalled a detail. You provide a link "Mladic: one mans war criminal, another mans hero" in your blurt. He certainly wasn't a hero in his daughter's eyes: she committed suicide when she realized who her father was, while he was hiding in the caves of the Balkans. Still is.