Was NATO&#x27;s bombing of yugoslavia in the 90&#x27;s the right thing to do?

You're probably correct about Major, Bush and Mitterand; after all they (especially Major and Mitterand) shamefully colluded in Milosevic's destruction of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, and there is no reason that they would have behaved any differently over Kosovo.

Yes the bombing was justified. NATO's bombing of Serbia can only been seen in the context of the Milosevic regime's long histroy of aggression and destabalisation in the region.

I've always found the claims that NATO only bombed FRY because it was "communist" to be pretty baffling, quite honestly. The Milosevic regime's credentials as a ‘left-wing’ regime were pretty poor: Milosevic’s ruling party was called the ‘Socialist Party of Serbia’ and had formerly been the League of Communists of Serbia, but SPS leaders Milosevic and Borisav Jovic emphasised from the start their commitment to free-market reforms. Under their tenure the gap between rich and poor massively increased, social services were greatly reduced, free healthcare effectively ended, public transport collapsed, and a large new class of black marketeers and organised criminals created (those who point to Kosovo's organised crime problems, almost all of them with an agenda agaisnt Kosovo's independence, rarely mention that in the 1990s Serbia was a virtual mafia state).

Not only that, but until 1999, the West's policy was, if anything, quite favourable towards Milosevic. It supported the JNA's intervention in Slovenia, and (initially) its invasion of Croatia, it attempted to get Croatia to consent to changes to its borders, it imposed and enforced the arms embargo in Bosnia, and from the very beginning it legitimised the SDS's and (Boban wing) HDZ's platforms of ethnically partitioning Bosnia-Herzegovina. This policy of appeasement culminated in October 1995, when Karadzic, on the verge of total defeat, was ignominiously rescued by Western deplomacy, and the Bosnian government was imposed a territorial settlement which was quite favourable to the Serbs (they got 49% of Bosnia, despite having less than 1/3 of the population, with more autonomy that was ever offered to the Kosovar Albanians, even though Kosovo was a legitimate entity of Yugoslavia, whereas Republika Srpska was an entity created purely out of military aggression, ethnic cleansing and genocide).

Milosevic showed himself ready, time and time again, to collaborate with the US and the West, he sold much of his country's assets to British companies and supported the liberation of Kuwait. The problem was that his collaboration came at too high a price - acquiesence in Great Serbian genocide and expansion in front of the TV cameras, and in destabilisation of the entire region. It is in this context which the bombing of 1999 must be viewed.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 3

Rakas21

21

'Yes'.

Whilst both sides in a conflict are rarely entirely innocent (Libya and Syria to name but 2 recent examples) we have to ask ourselves whether the region would be better off if we sat back and did nothing. Given the genocide being committed it was certainly the correct decision to liberate these people and i am glad that Blair took swift and decisive action on the issue (supposedly Clinton wasn't going to go in).

Reply 4

Swanbow

19

In the case of Kosovo it definitely helped put pressure on the Serbians to put an end to conflict quicker than would've happened without coercive air power, saving many lives. Although we shouldn't fall into the trap of believing that such interventions are purely to prevent the deaths of non-combatants, its purposes are often political and supportive of a particular side rather than being a referee of war. in Kosovo it was almost like a surrogate air force KLA and in Libya it was the surrogate air force of the NTC against Gaddafi.

Reply 5

One of the worst crimes we committed.

The Serbs were our allies in WWII against Nazis, they suffered horrifically.

Milosevic came into power because the Serbs wanted a strong leader to deal with the Islamic insurgency that they were facing. Cross border attacks from Muslims into Serb villages.

Once the war started, Arabs from the middle east came flooding in to fight alongside the Muslims.

I remember seeing a documentary about it. There were whole Arab brigades that went about beheading Serbs and Christians.

A disgusting betrayal and I'm not surprised Serbs feel utter contempt for what we did.

Reply 6

Original post by Chindits

One of the worst crimes we committed.

The Serbs were our allies in WWII against Nazis, they suffered horrifically

Standard WW2 obfuscation card. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but;

The Serb chauvanists of the 1990s loved to present themselves as patriots and brave warriors. However, the tradition of ‘patriotism’ from which they derive was that which expressed itself through collaboration with the Nazis and Italian Fascists during World War II, against those Serbs and other Yugoslavs who were fighting the occupation of their country.

One infamous Serb paramilitary leader was called Vojislav Šešelj (currently on trial for war crimes). In 1989, Seselj visited the US and was awarded the honourary title of ‘Vojvoda’ (warlord) by a widely known rapist and mass murderer called Momčilo Djujić. Djujić was an Orthodox priest and Nazi-collaborationist Chetnik warlord who, during World War II, had distinguished himself by having fired not so much as a bullet against the German or the Italian occupiers. His forces had literally fought alongside the Nazis against the (overwhelmingly Croat in his region) Partisans in World War II. No mere opportunistic collaborator, Djujić was an ideological fascist-sympathiser and anti-Semite. During 1944 he was in contact with Milan Nedić, the president of the government of Serbia. Of him, Djujić spoke only good words. He deemed that Nedic, along with Ljotic and Mihailović, 'are doing the same work for the Serb nation, but each in his own way.’ Nedić was the Nazi-quisling Serbian leader who served Hitler directly and who helped implement the Holocaust. Ljotić was the Serbian fascist leader, whose Serbian Volunteer Corps formed part of the Nazi SS during 1944. Mihailović was the Chetnik commander, therefore Djujić’s leader (and subsequetly a convicted war criminal and nazi collaborater).

This, then, was the heritage to which Seselj and his supporters subscribed from the start. During the war in Bosnia in the 1990s, Seselj and the Radicals organised a militia called the ‘Chetniks’, after the Nazi-collaborationist militia of World War II. Seselj’s Chetniks were under Yugoslav military command during the assault on Bosnia, and were centrally involved in ethnic-cleansing operations.

During the war, the Bosnian Serb leadership was openly anti-communist and stood openly in the Chetnik tradition; This reflected SDS resentment of the fact that the Partisan movement (which actually fought the Nazis) was identified with the defeat of the Great Serb project and the establishment of the Bosnian Republic. In July 1993 SDS regime annulled all decisions of the 'Territorial Antifascist Council for the People's Liberation of Bosnia Herzegovina' (ZAVNOBiH), the Bosnian Partisan representative assembly that formally founded the Bosnian state. The SDS did so on the grounds that these decisions had been reached without the presence of Serb representatives, despite the fact that the majority of ZAVNOBiH's delegates were Serbs. Republika Srpska's 1996 law on the rights of veterans explicitly covers former Chetniks, but makes no direct mention of Partisans. In 1996 the Vraca Memorial Park, a splendid memorial to the Partisan war-dead and to victims of fascism in Sarajevo, was systematically destroyed by Serbian forces as they withdrew. In 1998 Biljana Plavsic, President of Republika Srpska, bestowed an honorary award on the aforementioned Djujic.

I suggest you actually educate yourself on WW2 Yugoslav history, rather than repeating uncritically Serb nationalist propoganda.

Milosevic came into power because the Serbs wanted a strong leader to deal with the Islamic insurgency that they were facing. Cross border attacks from Muslims into Serb villages.

What on earth are you talking about? Milosevic came to power because of his patronage by Stambolic, as well as his contacts in the military, Serb Academy of Arts and Science, and the Serbian Communist Party. He was popular during the 1980s because of his challenges to the 1974 Constitution, which many saw as allegedly "anti-Serb" (to be fair, some of these grievances were argubly legitimate, but they were grossly exaggerated by the Serbian media and Serbian intellectuals). To understand this, one must go back in history.

The establishment of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia as a state in 1918–21 involved the imposition of a centralist constitutional order which placed almost all power in Serb hands. The new kingdom’s ruling dynasty was the Serbian royal house; the officer corps was overwhelmingly Serb; and all its prime ministers – with one brief exception – were Serbs. The Croats and Slovenes were denied any autonomy, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo Albanians any recognition whatsoever. This was understandably greatly resented by these non-Serb groups, as they were treated extremely badly. Kosovar Albanians for example, were not allowed to own any land, were not allowed to have any education, and there were attempts to deport them to Turkey.

The Second World War overturned the balance of power within Yugoslavia. Following a British-backed coup in Belgrade in 1941, the Axis powers invaded Yugoslavia (which had been their ally) and dismembered the country to the detriment of Serbia, which was reduced to a small quisling rump-state. The Partisan movement of resistance that then arose in opposition to the Axis was essentially a western-Yugoslav movement. The Communist party, which headed the Partisans, had been a Croatian-oriented party before the war, based in Zagreb with a Croat leader, Josip Broz Tito, and committed to the liberation of the non-Serb nations from Serbian domination. The Partisans proclaimed a new, federal Yugoslavia in November 1943; by this time, of 97 Partisan brigades in existence, 38 were from Croatia (predominantly Croat, though with a significant number of Serbs), 23 from Bosnia-Herzegovina (mostly, though not exclusively Serb) and 18 from Slovenia (overwhelmingly Slovene).

In the new Yugoslavia, Serbia was cut down to size: Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and Macedonia were established as republics, separate from and equal in status to Serbia, alongside Croatia and Slovenia. Kosovo and Vojvodina were granted autonomy within Serbia (it should be noted that these regions were overwhelmingly non-Serb).

The Communists retained Belgrade as the capital of Yugoslavia, partly to keep tight control over politically unreliable Serbia, but this worked both ways: Serbia, which had been on the fringes of the Partisan movement, now became Yugoslavia’s centre, as it had been before the war. Initially, Serbia was very much first amongst equals in Yugoslavia, but this began to change as Yugoslavia decentralised in the 1960s and 1970s, culminating in the 1974 constitution which made the republics essentially states. It was thus Serbia, of all members of the federation, which had the greatest motive to rebel against this system, and would do so under Milosevic’s leadership.

It had literally nothing to do with an "Islamic insurgency attacking Serb villages", or any other such nonsense.

Once the war started, Arabs from the middle east came flooding in to fight alongside the Muslims.

I remember seeing a documentary about it. There were whole Arab brigades that went about beheading Serbs and Christians.

The Mujihadeen (which only numbered a maximum of 3,000 according to reliable estimates, out of an army of over 200,000), only came long after the war, which was started by Serbia, had already begun. Leaving aside the fact that the Bosnian government never asked them to come, and the fact that their relations with the Bosnian army were adversarial and confrontational, and were widely seen as a political embarrassement (see the judgement of Halilovic for confirmation), when your under genocidal assault, and are faced with the indifferance of the UN and international community, you tend not to be too picky about the assistance you take. The Mujihadeen were deported after the war ended, and Bosnia remains a secular state. The Serbs took help from neo-Nazis as well you know.

A disgusting betrayal and I'm not surprised Serbs feel utter contempt for what we did.

You mean, greater Serbian nationalists are offended?? Long may their misery last. Their genocidal campaign to break up Yugoslavia, redraw borders and establish a Great Serbia was the direct cause of Kosovo’s independence. They sought to dismember their neighbours, yet this led only to Serbia’s loss of Kosovo. What goes around comes around. Unfortunately, their misery will not be as great as the misery of the mothers of Racak, Srebrenica and Vukovar; they should bear that in mind while they wallow in their self-pity.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 7

Clessus, you're obviously a Croat and extremely biased, so you'll excuse me if I don't reply to your post specifically, as it'll be a waste of time given your entrenched views.

Milosevic became popular because he visited the villages that were under attack whilst other politicians stayed away.

The Croats have acted terribly against the Serbs from WWII onwards.

Your people unjustly escaped the criticism and war crimes, whilst the Serbs copped the lot.

Reply 8

Original post by Chindits

Clessus, you're obviously a Croat and extremely biased, so you'll excuse me if I don't reply to your post specifically, as it'll be a waste of time given your entrenched views.

Milosevic became popular because he visited the villages that were under attack whilst other politicians stayed away.

The Croats have acted terribly against the Serbs from WWII onwards.

Your people unjustly escaped the criticism and war crimes, whilst the Serbs copped the lot.

I have studied the history of Yugoslavia for several years, I can read Serbo-Croatian and I have studied numerous primary documents, including the memoirs and diaries of the major participants. If you read my previous posts, you will find that I have actually criticised Croatia on numerous occasions, including its attempts to expand into Bosnia-Herzegovina and war crimes carried out by Croatian forces during the War of Independence, so my ethnic origins are not really relevent. You on the other hand, have obviously not studied the topic at all, especially given the fact that you are unable to actually challenge anything I posted above.

I've already explained in detail the reason why Milosevic became popular, because of his challenges to the allegedly "unfair" 1974 constitution, and to the 1946 nationalities settlement. There were no Serbian villages "under attack" in 1987, what the hell are you talking about?

During World War 2, yes, the Croatian nazi-puppet state behaved horribly against the Serbian people, but it's not as though Croatia escapes criticism for it. Indeed, during the 1990s the British media and parliament in particular would constantly bring it up to "explain" Serbian aggression 50 years later, and even repeated Serb nationalist myths and falsehoods uncritically (such as the claim that the Croatian flag is a "fascist" symbol). One may contrast the outrage shown in the British media and amongst pundits at the acquittal of Gotovina and Cermak, and the complete silence at the acquittal of Perisic. Very few people know, for example, that the Croatian wing of the Partisan movement was the strongest wing for most of the war, that in proportion to their population, more Croats fought in the Partisans than Poles, that the first partisan unit was formed in Croatia, and that Serbia, after the crushing of the Uzice Republic in November 1941 (with the assistance of Nedic and Chetnik quisling troops), was one of the areas of least resistance to the Nazis in Yugoslavia. Very few in the British media commented on the fact that Serbian units openly identified with the Chetniks far more openly than Croatian units ever did with the Ustashe.

I also fail to see how Croatia behaved horribly towards Serbs after World War 2, given that Serbs were made into a constituent nation of Croatia (despite having only around 12% of the population), and were greatly overrepresented in virtually all areas of employment (for example, almost 50% of Croatia's police force was Serb until the 1990s). I would hardly call that horrible treatment.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 9

tehFrance

17

Original post by ThreadPoster

It's interesting because I sometimes wonder if George HW Bush had won a second term the US would have probably never gotten involved. Same thing is Sir John Major and Francois Mitterand had remained in power. There are also seems to be a controversy as to whether or not the bombing was to stop genocide or whether or not it was meant because yugoslavia was communist. And of course many britons believe the lack of intervention would have meant radicalizing the muslim community.

So considering all this do you believe that the bombing of yugoslavia in the 90's was the right thing?

Yes the 1999 bombing campaign of Yugoslavia was the right thing to do, ethnic cleansing was happening again in Europe and we could not go through that again, Yugoslavia is indeed a complicated subject, especially the breakup due to the bloodbath that happened but at the end of the day, ethnic cleansing was being committed and we had a duty to stop that from happening.

I am confused as to where you got that Bush, Major and Mitterrand were in power for this bombing campaign as it was Clinton, Blair and Chirac. I have a feeling you are actually referring to the NATO bombing in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995 not the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. Either way it was the right thing to do and I would hope that Britain and France do it again should the need arise in Europe.

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 10

TaylorGang_4

12

Original post by Studentus-anonymous

Whether it was the right thing or not, picking sides was pretty vulgar. Everyone is killing everyone down there but it always seems to come back to 'the Serbs done it' despite the fact that in the Kosovo situation, it was the Kosovan Albanians who were pushing the buttons, and now we find ourselves with a new psuedo-state run by Albanian mafia.

Good times.

What a load of nonsense. Ethnical genocide was taking place in Kosovo at the same, the US was morally obliged to intervene, or else there would have been a second European holocaust. Don't you dare sit there with your factoids making up false accusations about the war. My family witnessed our neighbours bein murdered and our houses being torched by Slavic soldiers who wanted us all dead. So before you speak, make sure you think about what you are saying.

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Reply 11

Morgsie

7

Ethnic cleansing in Europe's back yard

Reply 12

Original post by Clessus

I've already explained in detail the reason why Milosevic became popular, because of his challenges to the allegedly "unfair" 1974 constitution, and to the 1946 nationalities settlement. There were no Serbian villages "under attack" in 1987, what the hell are you talking about?

I watched a documentary years ago in which it showed Milosevic visiting a village that had been attacked in a cross-border raid by Islamists.

This was not the first time and he was standing up on a balcony or platform. The crowd were cheering and he promised to do something about these attacks.

I have looked on youtube, but can't find the clip.

Sky news did an excellent piece at the time and showed the awful Arab terrorists at work, beheading a young man.

Reply 13

Morgsie

7

The UN was involved in the Bosnian conflict, it asked for NATO to get involved, initially for a no fly zone.

I am not sure about Kosovo

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 14

Original post by Chindits

I watched a documentary years ago in which it showed Milosevic visiting a village that had been attacked in a cross-border raid by Islamists.

This was not the first time and he was standing up on a balcony or platform. The crowd were cheering and he promised to do something about these attacks.

I have looked on youtube, but can't find the clip.

Sky news did an excellent piece at the time and showed the awful Arab terrorists at work, beheading a young man.

Where was this village that was allegedly attacked located? I can assure you that you will have a hard time finding any information on cross-border raids by Islamists in 1987 (when Milosevic took power). Are you talking about the "no-one has the right to beat you" clip? Because that was when the cult of Milosevic really took off.

The claim that the Serbs were fighting a 'jihad' and 'al-Qaeda' in Bosnia or Kosovo is pure propoganda. This propoganda increased after 9/11, above all from the ranks of Serb nationalists as well as right-wing and left-wing extremists, who seek to equate the Izetbegovic regime (for which I have no love), or the Bosnian army, or the (pro-American) KLA with Al-Qaeda. Scholarship on the topic by authors such as Esad Hecimovic, Marko Attila Hoare, Evan Kohlmann, Norman Cigar, Noel Malcolm, Tim Judah and others has completely demolished the case for such a conflation.

During the war there was a trickle of right wing extremists and 'volunteers' who joined on different sides. Some Greek and Russian neo-Nazis joined the Serbs, and a small number of neo-Nazis and other volunteers joined the Croats, and a small number of Islamists from the Muslim world fought for the Bosnian army. Informed estimates for the number of Mujahadeen range from a few hundred to about 3,000 (out of an army of over 200,000), rather than the tens of thousands of fanatical bearded Arabs as presented in Serb (and unfortunately, sometimes Croat) propoganda. They operated outside the ARBiH's main command structure, and their relationship was one of hostility. The Mujahadeen were all gradually evicted from Bosnia after the Dayton accords, and Bosnia supported the US-led ‘War on Terror’ has arrested Islamist terrorist suspects and was essentially free of genuine Islamist terrorist outrages on its soil.

I've already addressed the point about the Mujahadeen. I'm sure we can both link graphic videos from that war if you want. None of that changes the fact that:

1. The war was started by the Republic of Serbia and their proxies in Pale, who killed at least 86% of all civilians during the war (conservative estimate). This was before any "Islamists" had set foot in Yugoslavia.
2. The Mujahadeen never numbered more than 3,000 out of an army of over 200,000 (whose deputy commander was a Croat).
3. The Bosnian army and the Mujahadeen did not endure a good relationship, nor was the Mujahadeen under the official or de-facto command of the Bosnian army. The Bosnian government did not ask them to come, and viewed them (rightly) as a political embarrassment.
4. Bosnia was and is a secular state, and there is no evidence that the Bosnan goernment was linked to Al Qaeda. Indeed, Islamist terrorist suspects have been arrested in Bosnia.
5. All the groups during the war had foreign volunteers. The Serbs for example received help from Greek and Russian neo-Nazis.

Also, if the Serbian leadership was so concerned with cross-border raids by Islamists, why was Catholic Croatia the first country they invaded and ethnically cleansed?

(edited 11 years ago)

Reply 15

This was one of the documentaries I watched.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=052WjpCYYTU

But there was definitely a Sky news one.

Reply 16

tehFrance

17

Original post by TaylorGang_4

What a load of nonsense. Ethnical genocide was taking place in Kosovo at the same, the US was morally obliged to intervene, or else there would have been a second European holocaust. Don't you dare sit there with your factoids making up false accusations about the war. My family witnessed our neighbours bein murdered and our houses being torched by Slavic soldiers who wanted us all dead. So before you speak, make sure you think about what you are saying.

I am sorry, the US was morally obliged to intervene? personally I would not wish for US intervention in any European conflict, European conflicts should be fought by Europeans for Europeans. Slavic soldiers? what nationality were they as I do not believe they were under the banner "Slavic", I presume you're muslim?

Reply 17

TaylorGang_4

12

Original post by tehFrance

I am sorry, the US was morally obliged to intervene? personally I would not wish for US intervention in any European conflict, European conflicts should be fought by Europeans for Europeans. Slavic soldiers? what nationality were they as I do not believe they were under the banner "Slavic", I presume you're muslim?

However it was acceptable for the US to intervene during the World Wars? Of course it was. They are the world's most powerful country. Well, Yugoslavian. And you can presume all you want.

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Reply 18