Recent news has rekindled memories of the Yugoslav Wars of the 1990's. First, Ratko Mladic died on 27 August. Mladic, Slobodan Milosevic, and Radovan Karadžic are the the most famous Serbian figures associated with the Bosnian War. The Republika Srpska was a Serbian autonomous region within Bosnia - which in turn was a component of the larger Yugoslavia which had already started to break up in 1991 with the departure of both Slovenia and Croatia. In 1992, Bosnian independence led to a conflict with its Serbian population over territorial claims. The Republika Srpska was backed by Belgrade and its Serb-led government.
A considerable case can be made that the US helped facilitate the break-up of Yugoslavia. After the death of Tito in 1980, the Serbs became the dominant force in Yugoslav politics and so in many respects they wanted to retain the Yugoslav ideal (which as a state only came into being in 1918) as it was to their advantage. Others, less so. The US would have been content with Yugoslavia remaining as a unified state - but not under Serb dominance. At that point, divide and conquer became the policy, even if it was obfuscated at times and lost in the fog of pseudo-humanitarian geopolitics.
I remember well arriving in Northeast Italy in the 1990's. The ghosts of World War II loomed large and it was easy to see how history had been put on 'pause' in 1945. The 'play' button was hit again in 1989-1991 as the Berlin Wall fell, the Warsaw Pact collapsed, and the Soviet Union was dissolved.
For the people of Yugoslavia, the Second World War was not a distant memory but a raw wound that had been allowed to fester for decades. The entire region had been conquered by the Turks in the 14th and 15th century (creating another long historical pause) and when the region won its independence in the 19th and early 20th century, the play button was hit again. The Balkans exploded into violence as groups made their historical claims and counter-claims. It was all further complicated by the fact that during the Ottoman centuries, groups like the Albanians and Bosnians had converted to Islam - making them apostates and collaborators in the eyes of the Catholic Croats, but especially so for the Orthodox Serbs.
There was the additional legacy of Habsburg rule in the 19th and early 20th century as well as Russian alliances and the cultural affiliation for those within the pale of Eastern Orthodoxy. For the three Serbo-Croat peoples who are all ethnically and linguistically the same (Croats, Serbs, and Bosnians) and yet divided by religion, each looked (culturally) to either Catholic Habsburg Vienna, Orthodox Moscow, or Ottoman Constantinople for aid and inspiration. And during the 19th and early 20th centuries, the inclusion and intervention of these powerful sponsors only poured fuel on top of the already smouldering fires. But then came the later additions of Nazi Berlin and Soviet Moscow - leading to a white hot explosion of consuming hate and unimaginable violence.
Nationalism in the region helped light the geopolitical powder keg of World War I and in its aftermath an uneasy alliance was formed in the creation of the Yugoslav Kingdom. It in turn was overthrown by the Nazis and their Croat allies in 1941. The Croat Ustaše set up a brutal fascist regime and with the blessing of Catholic prelates launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing, mass slaughter, and genocide. The Ustaše had its own concentration camps where Orthodox Serbs were especially targeted. Tens if not hundreds of thousands died with Serbs, Romani, and Jews compromising the highest death tolls.
The defeat of the Nazis led to the political rise of Josip Tito and his partisans. They were communists but unaffiliated with Moscow and would famously fall out with Stalin. Yugoslav communism was relatively mild when compared to what took place elsewhere in the Eastern Bloc and it must be recalled that Tito never joined the Warsaw Pact either.
As mentioned, the death of Tito in 1980 marked the beginning of troubles though Yugoslavia basked momentarily in its non-aligned triumph, with Sarajevo hosting the Winter Olympics in 1984.
The stability gave way and by the 1990's the Croats, Bosnians, and Serbs were at each others throats. Everyone wanted revenge and vindication for all the crimes that had taken place over the centuries but especially during World War II. At that time there were still plenty of people alive who could remember the events of the 1940's.
The Serbs in Bosnia were determined to protect their interests and while war crimes were committed on all sides, the Serbs were targeted by Western media and geopolitical stratagems. The reason is simple - of all the ethnic groups in Yugoslavia and the Balkans, the Orthodox Serbs were the most friendly with Moscow. In the 1990's the EU was on the rise, NATO was looking to expand, and Russia was effectively broken and defeated. It was the hour of conquest and consolidation. The West and the Americans in particular flooded Eastern Europe with money and political activists. By the time Russia would get back on its feet, Western strategists wanted to ensure the entire Eastern Bloc was in Western hands. And if they could pull it off, they wanted to break-up Russia and break its power forever. As I've written elsewhere, I became conscious of the fact that I was a stooge in this chess game and I firmly believe that the actions taking place in the Balkans during the 1990's were but the first in a series of events and actions taken by the Washington-led Atlanticist Empire that would lead ultimately to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. They are more than tangentially connected.
The Atlanticist Empire would enjoy considerable success in NATO expansion and the dismantling of the Warsaw Pact as well as portions of the former Soviet Union - but it was blocked in the Balkans, the Serbs stood in the way. Bosnia was the first chapter and the Serbs were desperate and vicious and Ratko Mladic was the field commander in charge and most associated with the atrocities - and especially the most notorious of all, that of Srebrenica. There's no doubt a massacre took place, but there are lingering questions. But all discussion has been shut down by the West and its servile media. To question Srebrenica (even in part or in any respect) is like denying the Holocaust.
The Bosnian Serbs were defeated in the 1995 air campaign (I was involved on the logistics end while based in Italy, unloading the bombs from the cargo aircraft) and yet survive to this day and remain defiant as an autonomous region within the independent state of Bosnia and Hercegovina. The celebrations surrounding Mladic in recent days testify to this defiance.
And though the Bosnian Serbs were defeated, there was still the Milosevic government in Belgrade, in what remained of an ever-shrinking Yugoslavia.
The next chapter was the Kosovo War - or the secession of Kosovo from Yugoslav Serbia. Historically part of the Serbian heartland and with deep cultural attachments, this region was settled by Albanian Muslims throughout the Cold War period and eventually they became a majority. The US has and continues to work with neighbouring Albania and by the late 1990's the region was in crisis once more. There's a great deal of confusion regarding the origins of the war and the massive refugee crisis. Were they fleeing Milosevic and the Serbs, or were they fleeing the NATO bombing campaign? Was it both and all? It's something of a parlour game as it's abundantly clear the US wanted Kosovar independence and an excuse to wage war on the Serbian-led government in Belgrade. Madeleine Albright blocked any efforts to avoid this. War was on the agenda and a lesson for the world in American aerial might and Washington's ability to project its power on far sides of the globe.
The US, wishing to accomplish its geopolitical goals in the region and to demonstrate its overwhelming military superiority launched the 78 day air campaign in 1999, bombing both Kosovo and Serbia directly - and the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, an event Americans have forgotten, but the Chinese haven't.
The Serbs were defeated and Kosovo gained its de facto independence, and with American backing claimed its full autonomy in 2008 - though only about half the countries in the UN recognize its independence from Serbia, something rarely mentioned in US media.
Milosevic would fall from power and Yugoslavia would soon be erased from the map. By this time all that was left was Serbia and Montenegro and they would finally part ways in 2006. This leaves only Serbia as well as the Serbian Republic (Republika Srpska) within Bosnia to resist Atlanticist aspirations and the mastery of the European continent.
Mladic is revered in both Serbian polities and while the West has tried to woo Serbia, twist its arm, and do everything it can to break Serbia's relationship with Moscow and to bring it into the Western orbit. The relationship with the Brussels has ebbed and flowed but the recent Mladic tributes demonstrate just how removed the Serbs are from the liberal Western values and the mindset of the EU. Many within Serbia would like the prosperity but they are unwilling to compromise their values and identity. The presidency of Aleksandar Vučić has in some respects typified this ambiguity and ambivalence.
During the Kosovo phase of the Balkan Wars, the Kosovar Albanian fight was spearheaded by the KLA - the Kosovo Liberation Army, with Hashim Thaçi as one of its primary leaders. This group was championed in the media and yet it was well known that it was involved in the drug trade, and it worked alongside Salafists, including elements that had been involved in the Chechen Wars against Russia and in the nascent forms of what would become al Qaeda. The US quietly backed these elements against the Serbs and in Chechnya as well. Until 9/11, the US had no problem working with Salafists - and starting doing so again around 2011. The fact that a former al Qaeda/ISIS commander is now president of Syria and gets to shake hands with the US president is testimony to the farcical nature of the War on Terror which in reality was a pretense for America's now de-railed global agenda.
The drug charges and mafia connections concerning Thaçi and the KLA raise eyebrows in the West, but in actuality this was just another operation straight from the Langley play-book. The CIA has repeatedly worked with such paramilitary groups that overlap with mafia and drug interests. It's how they fund these secret wars (like in Nicaragua and Laos) and the fact that Western societies are flooded with drug money (with hundreds of billions of dollars move through American banks alone) - that's a price they believe well worth paying. In fact if that money were taken out of circulation, the US economy would be in trouble.
But now some twenty-seven years later and after having served as both prime minister and president of Kosovo, Hashim Thaçi was (on 16 September) convicted by the Kosovo Specialist Chambers (KSC) in connection with war crimes - of which he (just like Mladic) is certainly guilty.
The timing is odd because the political will that led to these charges (it might be argued) was meant to throw a bone to the Serbs as they certainly demonize Thaçi in the way the West and the Bosnians demonize someone like Mladic. But the death of Mladic and the emotional outpouring associated with it certainly countered any kind of triumph or vindication that might have been felt in connection to the conviction of Thaçi who now faces what is tantamount to a life sentence. If anything the two events have simply stirred up the old passions associated with that period. I know these two events have certainly stirred my memories.
And rather than move Serbia toward the West, the nation's internal politics are in a state of upheaval as Vučić has called a snap election and seeks to regain the office of Prime Minister - extending his de facto 14 year rule. He insists he wants to join the EU, but his actions indicate otherwise and he remains close to Moscow.
It's strange though. Thaçi was the darling of the West for the better part of two decades. It would seem that either his connections and protectors are all now dead or retired, or again, his fall and conviction may have been calculated - closing the book on old operations or locking the skeletons in the closet and throwing away the key. Western intelligence agencies would be critical to such an investigation's success. He was clearly betrayed by his former handlers and protectors. I tend to think a decision was made at some level to sacrifice him in order to secure Serbia. As things stand right now, I don't think it will prove successful.
Though it's rarely talked about, a lot of Kosovar Albanians have been convicted of war crimes, along with Serbs, and Croats as well. They too played their part in the brutality of the Bosnian War. I knew it at the time. It was there in the news but not in the American mainstream or network news. Given both the history and the reality on the ground, I found myself seriously questioning US motivations for involvement as well as my own status as a Christian wearing the uniform of the empire. The more I studied and read, the more I came to understand what it was all about. Even at the time there were open discussions in the military about preparations for a shift away from Europe to the Mediterranean and the Middle East. The base build-up in Italy was tailor-made for the Balkans and later operations in places like Libya.
Thirty years later, there are convictions and now men sitting in prison, but nothing is really resolved. The hope for some is that time will heal these wounds. That's not likely in the Balkans. The West's goals were derailed and remain unfinished and that's no small warning for the people of the region.
See also:
https://proto-protestantism.blogspot.com/2024/06/albrights-war-to-break-yugoslavia.html
https://pilgrimunderground.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-death-of-madeleine-albright-1937.html