The Balkans: Lies Vs. Facts
By Gary Wilson
President Bill Clinton says that the U.S. must bomb Yugoslavia because its
leader, Slobodan Milosevic, is like Hitler and must be stopped. Clinton even
says that if the U.S. doesn't do this, a new world war is certain.
Clinton's words are clearly meant to justify the U.S. war against little
Yugoslavia. No one in the world believes that Yugoslavia is in any way a
threat to the U.S. So Clinton has to say something to justify what would
otherwise be seen clearly as a criminal bombing campaign by the U.S.
military.
But Clinton's statement is so inflammatory that it is clear he does not want
any kind of negotiated settlement. The U.S. government is demanding the full
surrender of Yugoslavia on terms dictated by the State Department.
That's why Clinton is making such extreme statements. However, the facts do
not in any way justify U.S. military action against Yugoslavia.
Here are some of the things the Clinton administration claims justify its war
on Yugoslavia and the answers to those claims.
CLINTON SAYS THAT MILOSEVIC IS LIKE HITLER.
FACT: Germany under Hitler was a major industrial country, an imperialist
power that invaded its neighbors.
Yugoslavia is primarily a farming country that has had its small industrial
base severely weakened by years of U.S.- imposed sanctions. Yugoslavia has not
invaded any other country and has never made any threats to do so.
The United States military, on the other hand, has attacked four countries--
Iraq, Sudan, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia--in the last six months. This puts the
U.S. at the top of the list of aggressor countries in the world today.
CLINTON SAYS THAT THE YUGOSLAV GOVERNMENT IS CARRYING OUT NAZI-LIKE GENOCIDE.
FACT: The Yugoslav government's policy of defending its own country from
attack, both internal and external, cannot be characterized as different from
what any other government in the world would do under similar circumstances. A
civil war, abetted from abroad, has broken out in Kosovo. As in any civil war
there have been casualties, some of them involving innocent people. War is
terrible, but it is not genocide.
To call what is happening in Kosovo genocide is an affront to those who have
been victims of genocide. What is happening in Kosovo now is nothing like the
Holocaust of the Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe or the genocide of the
Native peoples of North America by the U.S. military in the 1800s.
The stories being propagated by the White House, the Pentagon and NATO are
intended to justify their military aggression. This is a war against
Yugoslavia, and in a war the first thing to question is the daily barrage of
propaganda from the officials of the attacking countries.
For example, thousands of civilians are reportedly fleeing Kosovo. Why are
they fleeing now, after this monstrous high- tech war has begun? The
explanation carried by the media comes completely from U.S. and NATO military
authorities, who claim the refugees are victims of a Serbian "rampage." No
really independent reporting is allowed. The possibility that they may be
fleeing because their villages are being destroyed by U.S. and NATO missiles
and bombs is curtly dismissed.
While the Pentagon claims to be bombing only military sites, its record in
every other war says it is hitting both military and civilian targets. In
fact, according to a study done by the U.S. Congress, only 40 percent of the
bombs used against Iraq during the Gulf War actually hit their targets.
Civilian casualties were quite high in that war, and were all caused by U.S.
bombs.
After just four days of the attack on Yugoslavia the U.S. had killed over
1,000 civilians, according to reports by the Russian government. Yugoslavia
is not releasing casualty figures, for the same reasons that the U.S.
government refuses to release militarily sensitive information about its
planes that are downed.
Since most of the NATO bombs have been dropped on Kosovo, that would indeed be
a very good reason to flee.
CLINTON SAYS THE U.S. IS ENGAGED IN A HUMANITARIAN MISSION.
FACT: This isn't the first time Washington has used the humanitarian excuse
for outright intervention.
The U.S. said it was involved in a humanitarian mission in Somalia in 1993.
But U.S. troops were finally forced out by an enraged populace after they
assaulted the population and killed 500 Somali civilians, according to the
just-published book, "Black Hawk Down." The U.S. also claimed the invasion of
little Grenada was part of a humanitarian mission to rescue medical students.
There are, however, many places in the world where genuine liberation
struggles are being repressed by reactionary governments. And in not one case
has the U.S. acted to support those who've been brutally oppressed. Here are
just a few examples:
* the Palestinian fight for self-determination against the Israeli
oppressors; * the Kurdish fight for independence from Turkey, where over
35,000 Kurds have been murdered by the government; * the Tamil fight for
liberation in Sri Lanka; * the East Timorese fight for independence, in which
a third of the Timorese people have been massacred by U.S.- armed Indonesian
forces; * the Zapatista liberation struggle in Chiapas, Mexico, where a
massacre by pro- government forces took place in December 1997; * the
revolutionary liberation struggle in Colombia that is fighting U.S.- trained
death squads.
Big powers usually claim self-defense when they launch aggression. They seldom
declare they are launching a war for purely humanitarian goals. That has
happened only three times in this century.
JAPAN'S INVASION OF MANCHURIA in 1931. Japanese imperialists said the
invasion was necessary to protect Manchuria from Chinese terrorists. The
so-called terrorists were actually fighters for Chinese independence. The
attack led to a long and bloody occupation by the Japanese military.
MUSSOLINI'S INVASION OF ETHIOPIA in 1935. Mussolini claimed the invasion was
necessary to free people enslaved by the Ethiopian emperor, Haile Selassie.
In fact, Italian imperialists wanted to be the slave masters. Selassie's
crime was that he resisted their claims to Ethiopia.
HITLER'S INVASION OF CZECHOSLOVAKIA in 1938. Hitler said the invasion was
necessary to end ethnic violence in the Sudeten region. The Nazis had
encouraged an anti-Czech movement in the region and then used the repression
of that movement as an excuse for invading.
Clinton's war against Yugoslavia fits into this same imperialist pattern.
Yugoslavia is the only country in Europe to refuse U.S. military bases. At the
talks in Paris, the Yugoslav authorities agreed to the autonomy terms for
Kosovo demanded by the U.S. government.
But they refused to allow Kosovo to be occupied by foreign troops from the
U.S. and NATO. For insisting on their rights as a sovereign nation, they were
attacked by Clinton's "humanitarian" bombers.
--
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