"The Demonization of Slobodan Milosovic"

[Dirk39]

by Michael Parenti
"U.S. leaders profess a dedication to democracy. Yet over the past five decades, democratically elected governments---guilty of introducing redistributive economic programs or otherwise pursuing independent courses that do not properly fit into the U.S.-sponsored global free market system---have found themselves targeted by the U.S. national security state. Thus democratic governments in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Cyprus, the Dominican Republic, Greece, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Syria, Uruguay, and numerous other nations were overthrown by their respective military forces, funded and advised by the United States. The newly installed military rulers then rolled back the egalitarian reforms and opened their countries all the wider to foreign corporate investors.

The U.S. national security state also has participated in destabilizing covert actions, proxy mercenary wars, or direct military attacks against revolutionary or nationalist governments in Afghanistan (in the 1980s), Angola, Cambodia, Cuba, East Timor, Egypt, Ethiopia, the Fiji Islands, Grenada, Haiti, Indonesia (under Sukarno), Iran, Jamaica, Lebanon, Libya, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Portugal, Syria, South Yemen, Venezuela (under Hugo Chavez), Western Sahara, and Iraq (under the CIA-sponsored autocratic Saddam Hussein, after he emerged as an economic nationalist and tried to cut a better deal on oil prices).

The propaganda method used to discredit many of these governments is not particularly original, indeed by now it is quite transparently predictable. Their leaders are denounced as bombastic, hostile, and psychologically flawed. They are labeled power hungry demagogues, mercurial strongmen, and the worst sort of dictators likened to Hitler himself. The countries in question are designated as "terrorist" or "rogue" states, guilty of being "anti-American" and "anti-West." Some choice few are even condemned as members of an "evil axis." When targeting a country and demonizing its leadership, U.S. leaders are assisted by ideologically attuned publicists, pundits, academics, and former government officials. Together they create a climate of opinion that enables Washington to do whatever is necessary to inflict serious damage upon the designated nation's infrastructure and population, all in the name of human rights, anti-terrorism, and national security.

There is no better example of this than the tireless demonization of democratically-elected President Slobodan Milosevic and the U.S.-supported wars against Yugoslavia." (more...)

Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[FrankBooth]

1. B.S.

How do you demonize a demon?

[TexasPatriot]

2. bah

an evil man who deserves worse than his fate.
let's hope for reincarnation - he can spend an eternity as uncountable grasshoppers to be crushed by the windshields of the victims of his crimes.

[deminflorida]

3. Let me think, I believe that....

Adolf Hitler was democratically elected also...Hello to you too Dirk..

"There is no better example of this than the tireless demonization of democratically-elected President Slobodan Milosevic

"Hello from Germany,
Dirk"

[deminflorida]

4. Deleted by poster....

.....

[Dirk39]

8. He wasn't democratically elected...

it takes a Reichstagsbrand to come to power, it takes a "since 7 o'clock we shoot back" (Adolf Hitler), to legitimate an illegal war.
The US was hoping that the five days before the launch of the bombing and the first week of the war would give various forces in Serbia the opportunity for atrocities that could then be used to legitimate the air war.
Dirk

[bobbieinok]

35. Reichstagsbrand happened after Hitler was chancellor

..

[Rowdyboy]

5. Milosovich is beneath contempt...

He deserves what he gets-and probably a grrat deal more.

[SeveneightyWhoa]

6. His next article:

"Saddam Was A Good Man".
Whats with some of these people giving all leftists/liberals a bad name? This guys pretty big in leftist circles (he just came to my university w/ Naomi Klein and Chuck D, if I recall). How can you possibly defend Slobodan Milosevic?

[Dirk39]

7. I don't agree with the article, I just found it worth posting it...

but I have to admit, the more I know about what was going on in Yuguslavia, the less I believe the official version.
I simply don't know enough about Serbia to judge, but I'm convinced that the official version we were told in Europe and even more so in the USA is full of lies.

Clark, for example, did even admit that the bombings didn't start to stop, but to provoke Milosovic's reaction.
I'm 100% convinced that the USA along with Germany tried to destroy Yuguslavia economically in the years before the war mainly using the IMF and the Worldbank. They provoked the even the ethnic conflicts.
BTW the serbs were the only ones in Yuguslavia that didn't welcome Hitler with open arms.

The Clinton administration was giving the Serbian authorities the opportunity to provide the NATO attack with an ex post facto legitimation. The US was hoping that the five days before the launch of the bombing and the first week of the war would give various forces in Serbia the opportunity for atrocities that could then be used to legitimate the air war.

This was a rational calculation on the part of the US planners. They knew that the main political opponents in Serbia of Milosevic's Socialist Party -- the Radical Party of Seselj and various Serbian fascist groups -- supported the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo, though the Socialist Party did not. They knew also that Yugoslav military forces would pour into positions in Kosovo as the OSCE personnel left, clearing strategic villages, driving forward against KLA-US supporters. They could predict also that there would be a refugee flow across the borders into Macedonia and Albania.

And the US planners were proved right. Extremist Serbian groups did, it seems, go on the rampage in Pristina for three days after the start of the war. Refugees did start to flood across the borders. And the resulting news pictures did indeed swing European public opinion behind the war. As for the Serbian government organising a genocidal mass slaughter, this did not happen: the Clinton administration organised the launch of the war to invited the Serbian authorities to launch a genocide, but the Milosevic government declined the invitation.

It is simply impossible to argue that the US military campaign was designed to stop the brutalities against the Kosovo Albanians. It would be far easier to demonstrate that this thoroughly planned and prepared war was designed to increase the chances of such brutalities being escalated to qualitatively higher levels. The way that the war was launched was designed to increase the sufferings of the Kosovar Albanians in order to justify an open-ended US bombing campaign against the Serbian state. The technique worked. But this success cannot be acknowledged.

Hi,
Dirk

[EdGy]

16. ummm on "Serbs" and Hitler; and more generally on history...

Belgrade was the first European city to be "Judenrein", that is, "cleansed" of Jews. So what.

Saying "The Serbs" did or didn't do XYZ 50 years ago and so we have to support whatever Serbia's leadership does now is ridiculous, sorry. Things were much more complicated than that in all parts of the former Yugoslavia. The history is not quite as cut and dry as the simplistic versions most people are familiar with.

In addition, it is totally irrelevant to events in the 1990s what "side" various countries were on in world war II. Even if "Serbia" was against the nazis, does that mean that "Serbia" can do no wrong?

"Serbia" obviously includes all kinds of political forces, from liberal to social democratic to fascistic to Stalinist. Unfortunately, the Milosevic regime combined the fascistic and stalinist in a way to repress the Serbian people and destroy the country of Yugoslavia.

Tudjman in Croatia did the same thing, and Croatia and Croatians (as well as others of course) suffered for it.

Milosevic is very clearly responsible for the atrocities in Croatia and Bosnia (as is Tudjman). He is also responsible for events in Kosovo, going back long before 1999.

It is true that the NATO strategy played right into his hands, that the expulsion of ALbanians followed the air attacks rather than preceding them.

But the expulsion was not the doings of some "extremist serbian groups." They were done as a policy determined in Belgrade, by Milosevic. Again, this is not really controversial in Serbia.

I think it would be better to see this as a typical case of the west using local dictators to do its bidding until they turn on the west... think Noriega, Saddam, etc. While Milosevic was not quite the puppet that those guys were, he and the west were complicit.

Making him out to be a wrongly accused victim, a good guy being persecuted, is morally and empirically wrong.

[Dirk39]

10. I just followed the atmosphere here in Germany, when the war...

started. The Nazis and the germans, who were their followers did always hate the Serbs for being everything, germans couldn't be or wouldn't want to be. The serbs enjoyed life, the serbs didn't care about discipline and all that preussian "virtues". They had the kind of libertinage, putting them close to the french.
I remember that one german journalist, who used to write travel-journals and who had that kind of ambigious love-hate relationship with the serbs, he seemed to some kind of jealous, just became the biggest racist serb-hater ever, after the war started.

More people and organisations giving leftists/liberals a bad name:

"Observers who offer a more independently critical perspective, such as Sean Gervassi, Diana Johnstone, Gregory Elich, Nicholas Stavrous, Michel Collon, Raju Thomas, and Michel Chossudovsky are left untouched and uncited. Important Western sources I reference in my book on Yugoslavia offer evidence, testimony, and documentation that do not fit Sell's conclusions, including sources from within the European Union, the European Community's Commission on Women's Rights, the OSCE and its Kosovo Verification Mission, the UN War Crimes Commission, and various other UN commissions, various State Department reports, the German Foreign Office and German Defense Ministry reports, and the International Red Cross. Sell does not touch these sources.

Also ignored by him are the testimonies and statements of members of the U.S. Congress who visited the Balkans, a former State Department official under the Bush administration, a former deputy commander of the U.S. European command, several UN and NATO generals and international negotiators, Spanish air force pilots, forensic teams from various countries, and UN monitors who offer revelations that contradict the picture drawn by Sell and other apologists of U.S. officialdom."
So many people, giving leftists a bad name, it's a shame,
Dirk

[Mercurius]

9. Slobodan Milosovic

He deserves exactly what he gets, and probably far, far more. Tell his victims that he was democratically elected, and you'll get a far different story.

[bemildred]

11. Hi Dirk.

An interesting post.
I've run into these ideas before, it seems to be one
of Mr. Parenti's interests. It's probably worth remembering
that the fact that the interests of the Western powers in
Yugoslavia were not innocent does not mean Mr. Milosevic was
a great fellow. They could all be assholes. I haven't made
up my mind about it, and I have too many other things to do
to fix that.

[Dirk39]

12. Yes they could...

and I pretty much share your perspective. But it must be allowed to ask these questions. And the article I posted to me doesn't seem like a demagogic or cheap "celebration" of Milosovic. And I would go as far as stating that after all I come to know about Kosovo and Serbia, Milosovic is in no way comparable to Hussein. And many people are still victims of the propaganda during the war. In Germany, during the war against Kosovo, it was like this: we were told incredible lies during the war. Day by day. When the war was over, even the news-stations had to admit that they were somehow victims of misinformation, but that was just about 3 minutes after nobody was interested anymore compared to hours and hours everyday, during the war. And then, at times, when most people already sleep, complex documentations were shown, proving how many lies were told to us before.
And to me it seems, after the cold war ended, the magic tool is to compare "enemies" with Hitler. Esp. in Germany, this was just very cheap, considering what Serbia has done to fight the Nazis.
Hi,
Dirk

[FrankBooth]

13. Read these two books ...

"The Fall of Yugoslavia" by Misha Glenny, and "Srebrenica: Record of a War Crime" by Honig and Both. I don't believe either of these books were written by propogandists, and they both conclude that Milosevic is guilty, plain and simple.

I can empathise with your distrust of Western intervention into the conflict. And it is without a doubt that others beside Milosevic share complicity in the tragic war - particularly Tudman from Croatia - but Milosevic was the catalyst. He knowingly used the Yugoslav Army to lay seige to and destroy cities in the seccesionist states, and he funded and secretly armed the serb minorites in Croatia and Bosnia, and agitated them until they threw up barricades in the street and started rounding up and shooting their neighbors.

Milosevic knowingly facilitated the war for his own partisan political gain - (sound familiar?) The fact that we were lied to is to be expected. As long as there are wars there is going to be propoganda, and it is going to come from all sides. Milosevic is deserving of any punishment he receives. He has much to atone for.

[bemildred]

17. It certainly must be allowed to ask these questions.

I think Mr. Parenti is too kind to Slobo in pursuit of his thesis.

Neither Slobo or Saddam seem to be all that impressive, to me, in
terms of evil dictators, and comparing them to the more impressive
efforts of other 20th century totalitarian states is ridiculous, so
I would agree that the propaganda offensive against them both is
motivated by something other than their "achievements". Every
incompetent government needs one or two external enemies or threats
to wave around and take the pressure off when their failures come
to light.

My own interpretation, on that basis, is that our leaders feel the
need for big evil threats to wave around, hence they must have some
big problems to distract us from.

I do find the invocation by way of comparison of Hitler and Stalin
with every two-bit tin-pot dictator these days tedious, it betrays
a lack of understanding of the historical events at the time, and
indicates a desire to propagandize rather than inform.

That said, the idea of either Slobo or Saddam as the light of their
nations is ridiculous.

[The Magistrate]

14. Apparently The United Nations Joins In "Demonizing" This Wretch

Here is a connection to the trial transcripts: they are worth wading through.

http://www.un.org/icty/milosevic/

There is no point whatever to pretending Butcher Slobo was anything but that, and the idea Serbia in the post-Titro period was any sort of Socialist light to the world, or offered any desaireable target for economic exploitation, is only the risible result of blithering ignorance.

[EdGy]

15. the US supported and was complicit in what Milosevic did...

the US knew exactly who and what Milosevic was in the late 1980s but supported him nevertheless.

During the war in Bosnia, the US supported Milosevic as a "man of peace."

As for Milosevic's crimes, those are beyond doubt and have been widely reported in the Serbian press.

See this thread for an example of even the Bosnian Serb leadership admitting to these crimes:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=116&topic_id=2440

It's important to realize that just because the US opposes someone does not automatically make that person a good person. Just ask the people of Bosnia and Serbia. Unfortunately leftists in the west fall all too easily into this trap.

[Wetzelbill]

18. I'm not sure what to make of this

Parenti is a well-respected writer. I have heard nothing but good things about him. This tossed me for a loop.

[Zuni]

19. Parenti is a hardcore soviet apologist who

is utterly unreadable. his books are filled with enormous factual errors---I mean big stuff. He asserted that Lenin overthrew the Tsar! There was much more of this.

[Dirk39]

22. Djesus I can't believe this...,

I have to admit that somehow, I was a victim of that outrageous propaganda. If it wasn't for you, I would still believe that Lenin and the Bolsheviks did overthrew the Tsar, and not the other way round. Hell, I always had the impression that there's something wrong with my world-views, but I could never found out, what was wrong. Now, you did reveal the secret and save me from communist propaganda: The Tsar did overthrew Lenin in his revolution against whatever makes sense to you, but it must have been about 1917.
I strew my head with ashes, I give up all my private and public duties, I revoke all the statements, I ever made: I didn't know that the Tsar did overthrew Lenin,

Desperate,
Dirk

[bpilgrim]

23. bs he is a very well respected historian/political scientist

Michael Parenti is an internationally known award-winning author and lecturer. He is one of the nation's leading progressive political analysts. His highly informative and entertaining books and talks have reached a wide range of audiences in North America and abroad.

his latest book - The Assassination of Julius Caesar - is an EXCELLENT book with rave reviews and has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, Oct 2003

http://www.michaelparenti.org/Caesar.html

peace

[Dirk39]

25. Slow down bpilgrim and openly admit it:

It's not just me, even you didn't know that the Tsar did overthrew communism ín the year 1917 and saved our freedom and killed those, who hate us for our freedom, if not for the wisdom, Zuni allowed us to be a part off? Don't leave me here standing. Let's admit, even if it hurts: the history of the world must be rewritten:-) A lot of baby-eating communists and other Dean-fundraisers tried to mislead us into false-believing, but we stay strong, don't we?
Dirk

[Zuni]

20. Michael parenti is among the worst of left wing writers imaginable.

the scale of factual errors inm his works boggles the mind.

[bpilgrim]

24. zzZZ

peace

[Name removed]

21. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Dirk39]

26. More lies and deceptions concerning Kosovo

This is about the PR-company behind the Kosovo-war:

"James Harff, director of Ruder & Finn Global Public Affairs, in an interview with French journalist Jacques Merlino which was published in his book, Les Verites Yougoslaves ne sont pas toutes bonnes en dire (Albin Michel, Paris, 1994), talked about his new clients and his (i.e., Harff's) strategy for success. According to Harff: 'Between August 2nd and 5th, 1992, the New York Newsday came out with a lead story on (Serbian death) camps. We jumped at the opportunity and immediately distributed it to three major Jewish organizations - the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish Congress ... The engagement of Jewish organizations on the side of the Bosnians was a superb poker play. Immediately thereafter, we were able to associate the Serbs and the Nazis in the public's mind ... It is not our job to verify information ... Our job is to accelerate the circulation of news items which are favourable to us ... We are not paid to moralize ...'"

"At the beginning of July 1992, New York Newsday came out with the article on Serb camps. We jumped at the opportunity immediately. We outwitted three big Jewish organizations.... That was a tremendous coup. When the Jewish organizations entered the game on the side of the Bosnians we could promptly equate the Serbs with the Nazis in the public mind. Nobody understood what was happening in Yugoslavia ... By a single move, we were able to present a simple story of good guys and bad guys which would hereafter play itself. We won by targeting the Jewish audience. Almost immediately there was a clear change of language in the press, with the use of words with high emotional content such as ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, etc, which evoke images of Nazi Germany and the gas chambers of Auschwitz."

"The PR firm was piling hoax upon hoax. The famous story of Serb concentration camps was built on a photo of a gaunt man surrounded by others, staring at the viewer from behind barbed wire; surely an image to chill one to the bones. It took years before a German journalist Thomas Deichman, in an article titled 'The picture that fooled the world', described how the famous photo was staged by its takers, British journalists, who were photographing the inhabitants from inside barbed wire which was protecting agricultural products and machinery from theft in a refugee and transit camp; the men stood outside of it; and at no time was there a barbed-wire fence surrounding the camp. But by that time the image had done its deed, terminally slamming the Serbs as genocidal mass murderers.

"There are countless other stories, all deliberately maligning the Serbs to further the ends of military intervention. These stories and photos of 'genocide' and 'ethnic cleansing' (a la Hitler) in a civil war, in which Serbs are guilty as sin and others are their innocent victims, are repeated ad nauseam by western reporters without the slightest evidence, and have provided the ground for the public's (hopefully only temporary) acceptance of the illegal and brutal war against the sovereign nation of Yugoslavia. They continue after NATO's bombing began, unabated, with new absurdities such as the suggestion that the Serbs are really bombing themselves! Perhaps in the war crimes court there will soon be a place for journalists and PR firms who with their inflammatory reporting and fraudulent actions cause wars to begin." <7>


http://www.endtimesnetwork.com/oldnews/vol8no6.html

Goebbels seems to wear red, white and blue these days, not to mention black, yellow and red...


We are not paid to moralize
We are not paid to moralize
We are not paid to moralize
Hello from Germany,
Dirk

[Spinoza]

27. CLINTON A WAR CRIMINAL?

You sound exactly like Pat Buchanan who called Clinton a war crinminal for his actions in Yugoslavia. Buchanan also denied the reams of documented evidence that genocidal actions were taken place. Buchanan also talked about shadowy "zionist" associations. You have now joined the right-wing fruitcakes. Congratulations.

[Dirk39]

28. shadowy "zionist" associations?

Did you read my post?
If a Pentagon hired PR-agency, states that the way it manipulated the B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish Congress and calls this a "superb poker play".
Than I just wished those, who have survived the Holocaust and their children and relatives will puke. This is one of the most cynical abuses of the Holocaust I did ever come aware of. There are no "shadowy zionist associations" of any kind. A Pentagon hired and paid PR agency speaks openly about, how it manipulated and brainwashed three lobby groups to make them advocates of a crimal war based on Hoax.

"We're not payed to moralize" is just a slap in the face of every single surviving member of the Shoa, their relatives, their sons and their daughters.
Dirk

[NV1962]

29. I don't subscribe

...to "don't throw a rock unless you're 100% without sin" when applied to foreign policy in its extreme: war.

I also believe there can be legitimate wars (ius ad bellum) just as I believe that war can be waged with respect for essential laws (ius in bello)

The tragedy of the Balkans is not simply about some "bad guy" (i.e., Milosevic) who went on a rampage plunging the region to its destruction through war, genocide and what not.

Kosovo was the cradle of the four wars that ravaged former Yugoslavia within a decade, and it was center stage during the last one.

But it was a staged argument, presented by ruthless politicos grandstanding over corpses to "capitalize on the opportunity" of the fallen Soviet satellite system. They fanned ethnic flames to propel their particular "political project" within a regional vacuum, and amidst a lot of inert fidgeting by nearby countries in Europe. Italy and France come to mind as strong examples: the former due to the proximity of Kosovo (and Albania) and the latter due to historic strong ties to Belgrade.

Even after the carnage and destruction of three (!) wars in former Yugoslavia made their rounds in mainstream European media, little else but frustrated, paralyzed and self-exculpatory noise was offered by Berlin, Paris, Rome, and London. In the end, Dayton was the bare-bones minimum on offer; last time I looked, Ohio still isn't anywhere near Europe.

I find it quite shameful that not until the Racak massacre anything meaningful happened.

Once the news (and the evidence) of that mass murder hit the headlines, the first loud voices for a military intervention appeared across Europe.

By that time, positions and politics within the remains of former Yugoslavia had solidified along ethnic lines up to such a point that even the prospect of war couldn't sway the lines.

Hundreds of Serbs died during the ensuing NATO air campaign. And a ground war was drawing inexorably near. Reasons enough for Milosevic to consider negotiations. Eventually, over 70 days of targeted bombing folded him into accepting a negotiated exit strategy: accepting autonomy for Kosovo, and the prospect of some referendum-type consultation in Kosovo over its future.

In the end, the Serbs have their bad guy and his henchmen, so did the Croats and Muslims.

But not being the "sole culprit" is not an exculpatory argument. Nor does a technically illegal but necessary (i.e., "just") war become any less justified, only because the driving force in the coalition (the US) happens to have engaged in dubious foreign expeditions before (and afterward, as seen in Iraq...)

In hindsight, I'd like to see more bright light exposing the accessory lack of action by key Western European governments, before the Kosovo war. They're as much to blame, in my opinion, as the brutally opportunist Milosevic, his equally opportunistic and at times just as brutal copycats on "opposing" ethnic / political positions.

Is Milosevic solely responsible, and in that regard justly "demonized" in hindsight? Of course not. As I said: not being solely responsible doesn't exculpate the Butcher of Belgrade. Milosevic isn't exactly the only person on trial in The Hague, either.

In fact, the Milosevic dossier should serve as a reminder that the Butcher of Baghdad could and should have been dealt with differently. Unlike the war in Kosovo, which was technically illegal (remember, it was vetoed in the UN SC) but quite justified, while the war in Iraq was technically legal, but hardly justified.

I appreciate articles that unsettle comfortable "historic truths" such as quoted in the opener of this topic - but as far as I read it, I couldn't get past a sense of blaming precisely the party that intervened hardest, to put an end to a long string of atrocities.

The Clinton administration didn't exactly deliver a picture-perfect performance with the Kosovo war. Judged by the standards of the present situation surrounding Iraq, a recommendation for sainthood is probably in order, however.

While I'm on it: not a single American soldier perished during the Kosovo war...

[salin]

30. Right... ethnic cleansing is defensible...

Blech!

I was against both Gulf wars. I was initially more mixed about the war in Afghanistan (which IMO has been carried out horrendously.) But I am not a pacifist and against all wars. Back in the days when the first Gulf War was being pumped up (before the actual invasion) I was reading about the situation regarding Milosevic, and the early ethnic cleansing in Croatia, and couldn't understand why immediate humanitarian issues were ignored while a situation of "aggression" where there was admitted confusion over apparent US "Okaying" of Iraq's initial invasion into KuWait (search Google for April Glaspie (sp?), Iraq and Kuwait invasion.)

One of my most admired political figures (a local man who was our Mayor, and later our congressman, who recently {prematurely} left us due to cancer), Frank McCloskey spent a lot of time in the former Yugoslavia and at the risk of losing political capital at home (for spending so much time on an issue that was - at the time - of little interest concern to the home district), and brought back a great deal of information spanning the late Bush1 years and the early Clinton years. This is long before the US was taking any action... thus long before the supposed trumping up of the situation.

Shortly after Clinton came into office - Frank took a stand backing a State Dept Official who quit in protest over the ignoring of serious human rights violations on the behalf of Milosovic (related to ethnic cleansing). This was LONG before US policy changed to become anti-Milosevic.

As someone who NEVER heard of the Kmer Rouge or Pol Pot and the mass extermination of nearly one-third of the population in Cambodia until long after the fact - and was so shaken to the core by US policy that would stand by during such atrocious actions - but who would take aggressive actions against other countries (for more "real politik" reasons), until long after the atrocities occured, I moved into the camp of "Just Action." Not necessarily just war - but times when intervention - in the face of immediate human carnation - was justified. I believe that we should have acted immediately in Rwanda. I believe that our 'mission' (of "peace keeping") in Somalia was justified. And I believe, based on reports of ethnic cleansing at the hands of Milosevic - LONG before it was viewed as in the US national interest to act - was real and justified action.

Likewise I believe our actions in Iraq - both times - was not justified. I believe that our actions in Nicaragua, and other actions in Central and South America were not justified- and indeed facilitated some of the same kind of mass carnage that was sought to be stopped in the former Yugoslavia.

Sorry to disagree with some of ya'll - but I had been hearing of atrocities and human carnage in the old Yugoslavia at the hands of Milosovic for many years before the US took any action - and from very trusted (for me) sources. I believe that in immediate moments of human carnage, intervention is justified. It would have been heroic if the US had switched its position in El Salvidor in the eighties and would have stepped in to prevent the death squads from being a common face in the El Salvidoran landscapte. Intervening in the former Cambodia to try to prevent the extermination of 1/3 of the countries population would have been, in my view, justified. I view the former Yugoslavia, under Milosovic, in much of the same light.

[bemildred]

31. I think all you have to do is recall the Sarajevo

Olympics and then see what a mess he made of that gorgeous and
peaceful place that it was at the time. I don't see how you
can defend that, I don't seem how you can blame that on someone
else. Nobody made him do that.

[The Magistrate]

32. Well Said, Mr. Salin

There is a good deal of impudent swill being peddled long after the fact, by persons who depend upon the ignorance of a distracted audience in attempts to impose fantasies.

There are certainly legitimate questions to be asked about the policies, both of the U.S. and other NATO members, and the United Nations, in the early stages of this beastliness: chief among those questions is why they allowed the murderous course to begin and sustain into profitability. There is no legitimate question whatever to be asked concerning whether Butcher Slobo employed state murder in quest of Greater Serbia; that is undeniable by honest persons sufficiently aware of their surroundings to avoid traffic when crossing streets.

[salin]

34. Points well made... btw

a little reminder... it's ms salin ;-)

[wingnut]

33. BS

he made himself a demon