"Let's Divide Iraq as We Did in Yugoslavia!"

[Clara T]

WASHINGTON HAS FOUND THE SOLUTION

"Let's Divide Iraq as We Did in Yugoslavia!"

Michel Collon

The New York Times published an editorial on November 25, 2003 carrying Leslie Gelb's by-line. He's an influential man who, until recently, presided over the very important Council of Foreign Affairs, a think tank that brings together the CIA, the secretary of state and big shots from U.S. multinational corporations.

Gelb's plan? Replace Iraq with three mini-states: "Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the center and Shiites in the south." The objective? "To put most of its money and troops where they would do the most good quickly -- with the Kurds and Shiites. The United States could extricate most of its forces from the so-called Sunni Triangle, north and west of Baghdad.... American officials could then wait for the troublesome and domineering Sunnis, without oil or oil revenues, to moderate their ambitions or suffer the consequences." In short, starve the central state around Baghdad because the Sunnis have always spearheaded the resistance to U.S. imperialism.

We denounced this CIA plan, which has been around for some time now, albeit discreetly, in an article that appeared in September 2002. But, to divide Iraq has, in fact, been an old Israeli dream. In 1982, Oded Yinon, an official from the Israeli Foreign Affairs office, wrote: "To dissolve Iraq is even more important for us than dissolving Syria. In the short term, it's Iraqi power that constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. The Iran-Iraq war tore Iraq apart and provoked its downfall. All manner of inter-Arab conflict help us and accelerate our goal of breaking up Iraq into small, diverse pieces."

<snip>

But didn't this method provoke a civil war and a bloodbath in Yugoslavia? Because all the diverse regions in that country contained significant minorities, and partition was impossible without the forced transfer of populations. That is why Berlin, and then Washington, discreetly financed and armed racist extremists, who were nostalgic for World War II. This made civil war almost inevitable because the IMF and the World Bank had plunged Yugoslavia into bankrupt to make it submit to triumphant neo-liberalism after the fall of the Berlin Wall. All of this was carefully concealed from the public. Just as they are now concealing from the public the fact that all of the peoples of the former Yugoslavia have been plunged into misery and unemployment, which is worse now than it has ever been. Meanwhile, multinational corporations have taken the upper hand in controlling the country's wealth.

http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/iraq_partition.html

[teryang]

1. And the Iranians win! n/t

[tocqueville]

2. Milosevic started the civil war, not the CIA

the West had not interest in a partitioned Yugoslavia. The death of Tito and the fall of communism caused the explosion, who was ignited by Serbian nationalism. The pattern was similar to the one in the former Soviet Union. It's another story that the West intervened to support different groups AFTERWARDS when the crisis was a fact. But there are, what I know of, no indications that the crisis was instigated by the West. Old tensions broke lose when the central power couldn't master the whole territory.

Is that another way of blaming Clinton ?

[Clara T]

3. The Real Reasons for War in Yugoslavia

The Real Reasons for War in Yugoslavia:

Backing up Globalization with Military Might

Karen Talbot

The United States and its NATO underlings clearly were emboldened by their "success" in bombing Yugoslavia, by their earlier bombing of the Serb areas of Bosnia and by their victories in the other remnants of Yugoslavia--Croatia, and Slovenia and Macedonia. Burgeoning military alliances, with the U.S. at the helm, are now more likely than ever to try to intervene in a similar way against any country that refuses to be a new-world-order colony by allowing its wealth and labor power to be plundered by transnational corporations (TNCs). The assault against Yugoslavia threw open the floodgates for new wars, including wars of competition among the industrial powers. President Bill Clinton praised NATO for its campaign in Kosovo, saying the alliance could intervene elsewhere in Europe or Africa to fight repression. "We can do it now. We can do it tomorrow, if it is necessary, somewhere else," he told U.S. troops gathered at the Skopje, Macedonia airport (1)

It is hardly surprising that Clinton and the leaders of the other NATO countries glorified the aggression against Yugoslavia as "preventing a humanitarian catastrophe," "promoting democracy," and "keeping the peace" against a "Hitler-like" dictator who would not adhere to peace agreements. The public was repeatedly assured that the means--the bombing of the people of Yugoslavia--were justified by the ends. The media hype, including unprecedented demonization of the Serbs, was designed to mold public opinion to accept the "justice" of the war. The unmistakable message was that the "Serbs got what they deserved." This rationale also concealed, and allowed unimpeded momentum toward, the true goals behind the stepped-up saber-rattling of the world's superpower and its allies. The skillful disinformation campaign was spectacularly successful even in confusing and derailing sections of the traditional peace and progressive movement in the U.S. and Europe. So let's examine more closely the pretexts for the war and then look at the real motives.

Who Were the Real Terrorists?

In the United States, we were told that the relentless U.S.-led NATO blitzkrieg (23,000 "dumb" bombs and "smart" missiles rained upon Yugoslavia for 79 days) was necessary to protect the human rights of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. The U.S. Senate labeled Serbia a "terrorist state" (2). But what could be more "terrorist" than dropping upon civilians--from the sanctuary of high altitude, and from computer-guided missiles--radioactive depleted uranium weapons and outlawed cluster bombs designed to rip human flesh to shreds? Was it not terrorism to deliberately target the entire infrastructure of this small nation including the electrical and water filtration systems critical to the survival of civilians? Was it not terrorism to obliterate 200 factories and destroy the jobs of millions of workers? What of the constant air assault--"fire from the sky"--against cities, villages, schools, hospitals, senior residences, TV towers and studios, oil refineries, chemical plants, electrical power plants, transmission towers, gas stations, homes, farms, marketplaces, buses, trains, railroad lines, bridges, roads, medieval monasteries, churches, historic monuments--destruction amounting to more than $100 billion? What of the incalculable destruction of the environment including the deliberate bombardment of chemical plants. Above all, was it not terrorism to kill, maim, traumatize, impoverish, or render homeless tens of thousands of men, women and children? Not only was NATO's war a reprehensible act of inhumanity, it was in contravention of all norms of international law, including the Charter of the United Nations. It was an unprecedented war by the most powerful military force in history. It involved the 19 wealthiest nations which possess 95 percent of the world's armaments against a small sovereign nation that had little chance of countering such an attack.

<snip>

Destabilizing Yugoslavia

Yugoslavia was a victim of the worldwide process of capital restructuring and profit- maximization. The targeting of Yugoslavia did not begin with the bombing. Economic destabilization of that nation began in the 1980's with IMF and World Bank structural adjustment programs (SAPs). As happens throughout the world where such SAPs have been imposed as conditions for debt relief, they devastated the economy laying the groundwork for the break-up of Yugoslavia.

Here:
http://icpj.org/millitary_build.html

It's not a matter of blaming Clinton or demonizing Milosevic. Too easily and often we position our political perspectives framed by personalities rather than historical context and power relations (particular

[tocqueville]

4. COMPLETE BULLSHIT COMMUNIST PROPAGANDA

in response to :

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=197092&mesg_id=197111


"It is hardly surprising that Clinton and the leaders of the other NATO countries glorified the aggression against Yugoslavia as "preventing a humanitarian catastrophe," "promoting democracy," and "keeping the peace" against a "Hitler-like" dictator who would not adhere to peace agreements."

COME ON !!!!!!!!!!!!


the author purposedly mix historical events :

1) Milosevic STARTED to agress first Slovenia, then Croatia, then Bosnia with not only ground troops but even with middle range-missiles towards TOWNS

2) There was no bombing of "Yugoslavia" (ie Serbia) in the Bosnian episode.
Milosevic backed up the genocide of Srebenicza where 7000 innocents were executed in a row
This later event and the shelling of the market in Sarajevo triggered a stronger UN intervention of mostly British/French troops (UN-mandated) on the ground. They had relatively little air support in the beginning and no mass aerial bombing like during the Kosovo war was done.Bombing in Bosnia was limited to military targets in the last stage of the war

3) NATO wasn't involved in Bosnia, except in the end, through UN mandate. Operation Deliberate Force was a sustained air campaign conducted by NATO to undermine the military capability of Bosnian Serbs who threatened or attacked UN-designated "safe areas" in Bosnia. The operation was carried out between the 30 August 1995 and the 20 September 1995, involving 400 aircraft and 5000 personnel from 15 nations. It was initiated by NATO in response to a deteriorating situation. Although planned and approved by the NATO Atlantic Council in July 1995, the operation was triggered in direct response to the Bosnian Serb shelling of the Sarajevo marketplace on 28 Aug 95 killing 38. Eventually even NATO shot down four Serb aircraft over central Bosnia on February 8, 1994, in what was supposed to be a UN declared "no-fly zone"; this was the alliance's first use of force since it was founded in 1949. NATO sorties were aimed at Serb ammunition, not at "towns".

4) Kosovo : it was Milosevic that started the repression and cleansing in Kosovo, not the contrary. It can be discussed if all the collateral damage that was done in the war was necessary. But remember that the majority of today's Serbs see it the same way that the Germans did it after Hitler. The support for the Nationalist party is down to 5% today. The attempt to mix the two events, mix NATO and mix the geography is nothing else than lousy propaganda.

Besides the US involvement except for air support in Yugoslavia (both wars) has been minimal. The bulk of the peacekeeping and intervention has been done by Europeans (70 000) against US Maximum 3000 on the ground. Today the former republics are all applying to be EU members, have a good economy. Slovenia is even a full integrated member. No insurgency, no Iraq. The troops were greeted with flowers, even the Germans.

5) "Yugoslavia was a victim of the worldwide process of capital restructuring and profit- maximization. The targeting of Yugoslavia did not begin with the bombing. Economic destabilization of that nation began in the 1980's with IMF and World Bank structural adjustment programs (SAPs). As happens throughout the world where such SAPs have been imposed as conditions for debt relief, they devastated the economy laying the groundwork for the break-up of Yugoslavia."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_SFRY

"After the boom of post-war years and the prosperous 1970s, the economic stagnation of the 1980s, just after Tito had died, brought some public discontent. This was in part muted by the spectacular draining of the banking system, caused by the rising inflation, in which millions of people were effectively forgiven debts or even allowed to make fortunes on perfectly legal bank-milking schemes. The banks adjusted their interest rates to inflation, but old credit contracts stipulated constant interest rates. Repayments of debts for privately owned housing, which was massively built during the prosperous 1970s, became ridiculously small and banks suffered huge losses. Indexation was introduced to take inflation into account, but the resourceful population continued to drain the system through other schemes, many of them having to do with personal cheques."

it's obvious that Yugoslavia had difficulties to adapt from a socialist economy to the market one. This is common to all former Eastern block countries, not only to Yugoslavia. Besides Yugoslavia didn't have a very good relation to the former Soviet and had to buy oil at world market prices.

It's one thing to criticize excesses in warfare, but transforming the bad guys into good guys is the specialty of these peaceniks : Saddam, Kim Il Sung, Castro etc... turns always to be misunderstood angels. In the end the peaceniks turn on the RWs side implying that Clinton poisoned Milosevic not to be called at the Hague...

the author Karen Talbot (now dead) was a known activist of the WPC : what is the WPC ?

World Peace Council
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The World Peace Council (or World Council of Peace) was formed in 1949 in order to promote peaceful coexistence and nuclear disarmament. It has been alleged to be a front organization of Communist parties due to its advocacy of unilateral disarmament in western countries and the active participation and funding of the council by the Soviet bloc as well as the leading role taken in the WPC by Communists such as Frédéric Joliot-Curie, the WPC's founding president.

The WPC was especially active in those areas bordering U.S. military installations, in Western Europe, believed to house nuclear weapons. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union the council has dwindled down to a small core group.

It was involved in many demonstrations and protests from the late 1940s to the late 1980s and attempted to lead the peace movement though it was largely sidelined beginning in the 1960s by the New Left which distrusted the Soviet Union and its supporters in the "old left".

The People's Republic of China resigned from the council in 1966 as a result of the Sino-Soviet split, a move which undermined the WPC's credibility among Maoists and their sympathisers who dominated the New Left in many western countries.

The WPC had its headquarters in Helsinki, Finland, at Lönnrotinkatu 25 A, until the 1990s when the Council moved to Greece.

In May 2004, the Council held its world congress in Athens attended by representatives of 100 peace groups from around the world.

The west and especially the United States, has always maintained that the WPC had been formed by Soviet intelligence as a front organization, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Morale : it's not because an article is posted on a "peace site" that what stands there is true...

[Clara T]

5. The Third Worldization of Yugoslavia

The Third Worldization of Yugoslavia

The dismemberment and mutilation of the Yugoslav federation is part of a concerted policy initiated by the United States and the other Western powers in 1989. Yugoslavia was the one country in Eastern Europe that would not voluntarily overthrow what remained of its socialist system and install a free-market economic order. The U.S. goal has been to transform Yugoslavia into a cluster of weak right-wing principalities with the following characteristics:
• incapable of charting an independent course of self- development;
• natural resources completely accessible to multinational corporate exploitation;
• an impoverished population forced to work at subsistence wages;
• dismantled petroleum, engineering, mining, and automobile industries that offer no competition with existing Western producers;
• a shattered economy wide open to transnational companies that could invest and rebuild on their own terms.

U.S. policymakers also want a Yugoslavia whose public sector services and social programs are abolished. Why so? For the same reason they want to abolish our public sector services and social programs. The goal is the privatization and Third Worldization of both Yugoslavia and the United States. Yugoslavia was built on an idea, as Ramsey Clark once noted, namely that the Southern Slavs would not remain weak and divided, falling out among themselves or easy prey to outside imperial interests. United they could form a substantial territory capable of its own economic development. Indeed, after World War II, multi-ethnic, socialist Yugoslavia became a viable nation and something of an economic success. Between 1960 and 1980 it had one of the most vigorous growth rates: a decent standard of living, free medical care and education, a guaranteed right to a job, one month free vacation with pay, a literacy rate of over 90 percent, and a life expectancy of 72 years. Yugoslavia also offered its multi-ethnic citizenry affordable public transportation, housing, and utilities, with a not-for-profit economy that was mostly publicly owned.

This was not the kind of country global capitalism would normally tolerate. Still, Yugoslavia was allowed to exist for 45 more years because it was seen as a nonaligned buffer to the Soviet Union and the other Warsaw Pact nations.

http://www.newyouth.com/archives/balkans/destruction_of_yugoslavia.html

Kosovo cannot be fathomed without appreciating the strategy devised and implemented for at least an entire decade. By 1992, attentive observers could sense that the road the Western carvers were taking would probably lead to Belgrade through Kosovo-Metohija. By 1995, the probability had become a certainty. Parenti must have been one such observer as, instead of merely focusing on Kosovo and the illegal war against Serbia in the Spring of 1999, he reviews each step of the dismemberment, starting with the secession of Slovenia and Croatia under the "sponsorship" of Germany (and the Vatican) in a series of short chapters that lay bare the policies put in place in Bonn and Washington. As Parenti puts it in the introduction of the book, "Top policy makers are intelligent, resourceful, and generally more aware of what they are doing than those who see them as foolish and bungling. US policy is not filled with contradictions and inconsistencies. It has performed brilliantly and steadily…" Here again Parenti shows with persuasive argumentation backed by documented facts that indeed the policies were steady…and bloody. He convincingly replaces the conflict in the realm of the end of the Cold War (has it really ended?) and the ineluctable march Eastward of the Western Powers in the name of democracy and free-markets. Each chapter brings new details and new revelations of the deceptions put in place toward the achievement of the final breakup of Yugoslavia; and while some, particularly the chapter dedicated to Bosnia-Herzegovina, could have used further exploration, they significantly facilitate the understanding of the whole Yugoslav tragedy.

For years most people have only read and listened to a one-sided story; a story repeated ad nauseum, filled with insinuations, PR campaigns, deceptions, slander, all with remarkable effectiveness. The consequences of this story will be with us for many years. No one can even apprehend how extensive the repercussions will be, not just in the Balkans, but in the entire world (notice already the direct impact on Russia, China, India, and possibly even in Europe). Honest-minded people, whether they agree or not with Parenti's conclusions, will want to read To Kill a Nation in order to draw their own informed conclusions. They finally will have heard the other side of the story.

http://www.swans.com/library/art7/ga104.html

Again suspend the politics of personalities and uncover the reality of hard geopolitical affairs.

[tocqueville]

6. so the CIA invented Milosevic ?

have you ever been to Yugoslavia ?

I have : 1967

I saw

dead horses overrun by cars in ditches
people clothed in tatters
people begging us for medicine (I gave them aspirin)
people living in houses made of clay with a chimneyhole in the middle
people begging us for jeans
students inviting us home : now we can speak here in peace, nobody is listening (no language problem when you speak French, German or Italian). I bought guitar strings for a guy that asked me to find some in France. The Yugoslavian post system sent it back : "forbidden import" (price $1).

the party bosses in their Mercedeses picked us up when we hitch-hiked and told us to avoid the countryside and stay in Belgrade...

I was 21

so much for the socialist dream

Yugoslavia was probably better off than the other countries behind the curtain, but still. Yugoslavia played the role of an involuntarily ally at that time against the Russians, permitted informal non official contact with countries like Cuba etc..., was a bulk against Maoist financed Albania. Stategically it was BLOCKING the Warsaw pact to access the Mediterranean, which pissed off Krutsjev, Bresjnev et al.

Why dismantle it ?

The bias of the above articles is so blatant : socialism (and they don't mean social-democracy like Sweden - but communism) is ALWAYS good, the rest is evil. Everything the capitalists do is evil (specially the US) even if it doesn't make sense or even goes against their own short-term interests.

100 people cheered Milosevic at his burial today. 100. Probably another CIA plot...

"Yugoslavia was the one country in Eastern Europe that would not voluntarily overthrow what remained of its socialist system and install a free-market economic order."

ROTFLMAO

have you ever spoken to one of the hundred of thousands of Yugoslavian migrants that went to work (freely must be said) to Western Europe to then go back home 10 years after TO START A BUSINESS !!!

please do uncover the reality of hard geopolitical affairs

[Clara T]

7. Yugoslavia has been crushed

Primarily by the economic policies (structural adjustment programs) of the World Bank-IMF just as has most of the rest of the world. Same pattern, same internal strife, same corporate looting. So after the "humanitarian interventions what is life like in Yugoslavia? And why the explosion of poverty between the years 1990-2000?
What bodies intervened, not coincidentally, in the internal economic affairs of Yugoslavia during these years?



Just how bad is the economic situation?

What is specific about the poverty in Yugoslavia today? First, as in most of the Southeastern Europe region, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) is traditionally less developed, and as a matter of history, a poor European area that has witnessed the spread of poverty in all sectors of social, economic and cultural life.

Second, the explosion of poverty in FRY between 1990 and 2000 is regarded as a unique trend in the world. Negative and destructive economic growth in the ten years that came after 45 years of relative high growth literally produced an unprecedented rate of the expansion of poverty in a very short period of time. Interestingly, during this same period of time, poverty was mainly stagnating or declining around the rest of the world.

What happened in FRY? The last decade in Yugoslavia's history was not only decade of retrograde political thinking and behavior, it was also a decade of a new kind of economic practice. Producing only a seven percent average rate of economic growth, in ten years' time, FRY offers a unique case in Europe and probably worldwide in terms of economic behavior in the 20th century. Contrary to popular global economic practices, Yugoslavia centralized its decision making processes, spreading a "distributive economy" into the public sector and backing Mafia-led economic institutions and actions-wild banks, pyramid savings scams, etc.

The product of that new economic practice, combined with the political destruction of the past 13 years is very clear: today around one-third of Yugoslav citizens live below the poverty line and on just one USD of spending per day.<1> This poverty figure is not to be taken lightly; it is six times greater than the five percent European average. Equally alarming is the fact that most likely another one-third of people in FRY survives on somewhere between one and five USD per day.

During the former regime, hyperinflation practically destroyed the middle class in less than two years and most members of the middle class became part of the entrenched poverty class. At the beginning of 2000, 503,000 refugees were registered in Yugoslavia and 211,000 internally displaced persons were accounted for, nearly all of them living in poverty.

http://www.ce-review.org/01/20/cetinic20.html

[tocqueville]

8. it's pathetic... this guy talks AGAINST YOU

"Second, the explosion of poverty in FRY between 1990 and 2000 is regarded as a unique trend in the world."

that what happens when an already bankupt country starts 4 consecutive wars...

"At the beginning of 2000, 503,000 refugees were registered in Yugoslavia and 211,000 internally displaced"

it's called the result ethnic cleansing


"What happened in FRY? The last decade in Yugoslavia's history was not only decade of retrograde political thinking and behavior, it was also a decade of a new kind of economic practice. Producing only a seven percent average rate of economic growth, in ten years' time, FRY offers a unique case in Europe and probably worldwide in terms of economic behavior in the 20th century.

Contrary to popular global economic practices, Yugoslavia centralized its decision making processes, spreading a "distributive economy" into the public sector and backing Mafia-led economic institutions and actions-wild banks, pyramid savings scams, etc.

During the former regime, hyperinflation practically destroyed the middle class in less than two years and most members of the middle class became part of the entrenched poverty class.

so it's still the CIA fault ?

http://www.ce-review.org/01/20/cetinic20.html

[rfkrfk]

9. Yugoslavia was an imminent threat to the security of the US

Clinton had no choice but to act

Slobo's ten plane air force and two rowboat navy
had to be destroyed

[eyepaddle]

13. Indeed, Clinton had no choice but to act but for

different reasons than generally assumed.

The implosion of Yugoslavia was regretted by all international parties, and to some extent by various national public opinions--including the US. It was a topic in the US--but not one which ever rose to the top of the "to do" list. Clinton's strategy was to avoid direct involvment at all costs--this explains the often contradictory nature of his reasons for doing nothing comcrete.

Until the '96 election at any rate.

Bob Dole made Bosnia something of a personal issue, and it started to hurt Clinton. After all, by now it had become obvious even to the American public that the civil war wasn't coming to a negotiated solution ever. There are even more sub-currents and motivations among the international powers and "peacekeeeprs" who were involved prior to NATO's bombing campaign, but that is it in a nuthsell.

It may seem strange--but there are some nations whose interests and the interests of the US are tangentially related at best. Most of them are in Africa, this one was in Europe, and as such stayed on the nightly news. London's The Economist and the Christian Science Monitor had superlative coverage if your interested in following up, and the Peter Maas book Love Thy Neighbor is a wonderful (though tragic and overlooked) book on the Insanity of the Yugoslav civil war.

[rman]

12. the West needs a pipeline passing through that area

Dividing it up in small and conflicting states is likely to help keep it under our control rather then under their control.

[brooklynite]

10. Yugoslavia worked because...

you had a "strongman" (Tito) who kept everything moving, allowing a nominal amount of autonomy but imposing a national identity. Now, where could we find a strongman who could impose that same strong will over all of Iraq? Perhaps someone we've worked with before...

[brooklynite]

11. The problem with the partition plan...

is that the Turks will never accept an independent Kurdish state right next to the Turkish border and their Kurdish population.