WHY DID THE BALKAN WARS HAPPEN?

Final word on Yugoslavia’s disintegration

WHY DID THE BALKAN WARS HAPPEN?

In conclusion to the excerpts from my wartime diaries, I will try to answer a question some of you have been asking: Why did the Balkan wars happen in the 1990s that led to disintegration of Yugoslavia, a country cobbled together after the Treaty of Versailles in 1918, and a founding member of the United Nations.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, here’s the answer to the above question.

During the years I worked as a war correspondent and geopolitical commentator (1989-2002), I had written literally hundreds of articles and hundreds of thousands of words on that topic.

It would be, therefore, nigh impossible for any of you to distill the truth and the answer to my title question without spending enormous amounts of time researching this topic. So let me try to answer it succinctly, paraphrasing almost word-for-word my comments about the Dayton Peace Agreement signed on Nov 25, 1995 – 22 years ago almost to the day – https://www.truthinmedia.org/Bulletins/tim95-11.html.

Here’s an excerpt from the article written on that day during my layover in Paris, enroute to Belgrade:

CONNECTING “NATO WEST” WITH “NATO EAST” – THAT’S WHY

“The former Yugoslavia, and especially Bosnia, represents an important strategic link between NATO’s western and eastern wings (connecting Turkey and Greece with Italy and the future NATO members – Bulgaria, Macedonia, Hungary).

It so happens that the same route, the so-called “Green Interstate,” also connects the various Muslim enclaves between Bosnia and Turkey (see the map, also published with that 1995 article). The Bihac-Sarajevo-Gorazde-Pristina-Skopje-Instanbul line marks the way Islam is supposed to expand from Turkey into Europe.

That’s why the Sarajevo Muslim government fought tooth and nail to keep Gorazde and Bihac, while giving up relatively easily on the less strategic enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa (further north).

That’s also why the American globalists – liberals or conservatives alike – have been backing the Bosnian Muslims – the truth be damned at times. One of them is Warren Zimmermann, a member of the Council for Foreign Relations (CFR), a liberal-minded Yale graduate, and the last U.S. ambassador in Belgrade.”

SERBS BECAME “DESIGNATED VILLAINS” BECAUSE OF THEIR TRADITIONAL FRIENDSHIP WITH RUSSIA

And now, 22 years later, let’s look at the upshot of all these wars which, for the ignorant, including the local ethnic groups, had been characterized as “ethnic wars.”

But that was just a cover story. The real reason was that following the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the territory of the former Yugoslavia represented a political vacuum. And NATO, meaning Washington, wanted to grab it before the Russians did.

That is why the Serbs, the largest ethnic group in Yugoslavia before the wars (40% – see the map) were picked as Designated Villains. It was because of their Orthodox Christian faith and the traditional friendship and alliance with Russia.

The rest was just a smoke screen – the way the forces of the New World Order sold this war to the local Yugoslav and the world.

PROOF IS IN THE PUDDING, OR IN KOSOVO IN THIS CASE

And the proof is in the pudding, or Kosovo in this case.

In that same 1995 article (“Green Interstate”), written on the day the Bosnian war officially ended, I predicted that the next Balkan war would be over Kosovo.

Lo and behold, in 1999, the entire NATO threw its military might against Serbia in order to grab this strategically important Serbian province.

Now, 22 years later, the US base Bondsteel in Kosovo is the largest military installation Washington has built in Europe since WW II.

Furthermore, Washington and its vassals have even minted Kosovo into a new “country” although more than half the world (geographically – see the map) is still refusing to go along with such a land grab.

Also, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania and Albania are all now NATO countries, in addition to Turkey and Greece which had been NATO members before the Yugoslav wars.

Which means the US has now achieved its strategic objective of cutting off Russia from the Balkans, and therefore, that part of the Mediterranean Sea.

COSTS OF WAR AND BIGGEST WAR CRIMINALS

And at what cost did US/NATO achieve its strategic objective?

At least 140,000 people killed, 2.4 million refugees, and another 2 million internally displaced (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars).

And then the monsters who caused such carnage and suffering (Clinton, Blair, Chirac, Chretien, Schroeder, etc. – see the photo), had the audacity to prosecute others for war crimes?

Which is why the verdicts by the International War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague amount to MOCKERY OF JUSTICE, a fig leaf covering the bigger crimes of much bigger criminals.

https://www.truthinmedia.org/Bulletins/tim95-11.html

UPDATE NOVEMBER 28, 2017

HOW SERB DUMMIES FOOLED NATO DUMMIES – REVISITED

When I filed that editorial “Final word on Yugoslavia’s disintegration: WHY DID THE BALKAN WARS HAPPEN?” (https://wp.me/p3QU1S-2MH) a few days ago, I thought I was done with that topic which I rarely visited in the last 15 years since I stopped working as a war correspondent. But it was not to be.

There is a story buzzing around the internet in the last couple of days which is sending the lamestream media into apoplexy.  A Serb general, who was convicted by the Hague Kangaroo Court for alleged war crimes during NATO’s bombing of Serbia, has been invited to teach at the Serbian Military Academy (https://goo.gl/8oLoV3 – US News and World Report; or https://nyti.ms/2i0ksUI – New York Times).

Do you want to know what General Vladimir Lazarevic’s and his bosses’ General Nebojsa Pavkovic’s real “crimes” were?

They made fools out of the NATO pompous asses.

Reading the above story made me chuckle ear-to-ear, as I recalled two editorials I wrote 17 and 11 years ago respectively of HOW SERB DUMMIES FOOLED NATO DUMMIES. Here are links to these two stories and the photo album of Serb decoys:

• HOW SERB DUMMIES FOOLED NATO DUMMIES – https://www.truthinmedia.org/Kosovo/Peace/ps8.html (June 24, 1999)
• PHOTO ALBUM OF SERB DECOYS –  https://www.truthinmedia.org/Kosovo/War/PhotoAlbum/photos-war-10.html
• NATO’s SECRET LOSSES – How Serbian Air Force Outwitted World’s Greatest Military Force and Inflicted Heavy Losses on NATO Planes, Helicopters and Personnel in Bosnia, Albania – http://truthinmedia.org/Bulletins2006/NATO_secrets.html

Meanwhile, the Serb general who has upset the lamestream media’s and NATO’s apple cart, went on Serbian television recently (Nov 18) and shared in a lengthy interview some additional details about how the Serbian military outwitted the mighty NATO in during the 1999.

When the Serbs rolled out their troops and equipment out of Kosovo after the peace treaty was signed in June 1999, “the NATO generals were nearly fainted,” he said. Because after 78 days of bombing, during which NATO dropped 23,000 bombs and missiles, more than 95% of the Serbian military arsenal remained intact.

“We were saving them for when and if the ground attack came,”General Lazarevic explained. “For example, they only hit 7 out of 750 tanks we had in Kosovo.”

And how did they manage that?

By building over 3,000 “dummies’ which left the same imprint on the NATO radars as the real tanks. Ditto re. the phantom MIG’s made out of wood which NATO kept hitting.

“That’s what they’ve been mostly hitting with their multi-million dollar bombs,” he said.

That, and the civilian targets, I might add. Like these in Nis, the third largest city in Serbia, where NATO used cluster bombs designed for maximum casualties among the civilians (see https://www.truthinmedia.org/Tour-de-Serbia-99/Nis/nis-photos-1.html).

HOW I WAS CONTACTED WHILE IN SERBIA BY THE CLINTON WHITE HOUSE VIA AN INTERMEDIARY

Alas, the ground attack never came.  Because Bill Clinton and his “powdered prince” Wesley Clark, who commanded the NATO attack on Serbia, didn’t have the balls or the stomach for it. And it’s a good thing they did not. Because it would have been slaughter. And a lot more American and British families would have lost their loved ones.

You see, according to General Clark’s and other top NATO estimates, the war on Serbia was supposed to last 7 to 10 days (see https://www.truthinmedia.org/Kosovo/Peace/ps8.html, June 24, 1999). By middle of April 1999, however, both Clinton and Clark and other NATO co-belligerents were already getting desperate.

While I was in Belgrade during the bombing (in mid-April), for example, I was contacted over an open phone line by a Washington source who said he had just spoken to Bill Clinton at the White House.  My source said Clinton was appealing to Americans of Serbian descent to try to procure a peace negotiations with the Belgrade government. So he wanted to see what I can do while I was on the ground in Serbia.

Of course, I refused to do any such thing. Trying to bail out war criminals like Clinton and Clark was the last thing on my mind while their bombs were raining on my native city,  But I did meet with two top Serb generals in Belgrade the following day. And was impressed with their resolve to fight on no matter what.

Here’s an excerpt from my report on that day:

“Sometimes, the truth comes out in dribbles, years after an event has taken place.  Two new stories out of Belgrade about NATO’s 1999 war on Serbia make this point.  To appreciate their significance, however, we must turn our clocks back to April 16, 1999…

That Friday, Day 24 of NATO’s war on Serbia, NATO had launched its first daytime bombing raids on Belgrade.  The air raid sirens went off mid-morning, just as this writer was meeting with the Serbian Patriarch Pavle, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church.  From then on, daytime attacks became routine.  Such an escalation of war was a clear sign that NATO leaders were getting exasperated.  The bombing was supposed to last 7-10 days and result in a surrender of Serbia, according to a pre-war estimate by General Wesley Clark, then the supreme NATO commander.  Yet here we were, already in the fourth week of the war, and there was no let up in the Serbian resolve to fight back.

What followed was a wild and woolly Saturday night, Day 25 of NATO’s war on Serbia.  Salvos of anti-aircraft artillery fire (AAA) filled in the audio gaps between detonations of NATO bombs and missiles.  It was a horrifying symphony of death and destruction orchestrated from Brussels by one General Clark, and from Washington by one draft dodger Bill Clinton.  Ground shook as the cold spring air whipped up by explosions occasionally swirled around this writer’s head like a mini-tornado.  Belgrade was getting it, Novi Sad was being pounded (the second largest city in Serbia), Sremska Mitrovica was also taking heavy hits. But the worst off was Mount Fruska Gora, that lies between these three cities.  It was being raked over by NATO bombers as if it were a meadow (click on the image left for a detailed map of this area and of the Balkans).” (from http://truthinmedia.org/Bulletins2006/NATO_secrets.html)

MEETING WITH GENERAL PAVKOVIC AND HIS GENERAL STAFF

A few months later, in September 1999, during my post-war Tour of Serbia (http://www.truthinmedia.org/Tour-de-Serbia-99/tim99-10-1.html), I also met and had breakfast with General Nebojsa Pavkovi in Nis, Serbia.  As commander of the Third Army, Pavkovic was General Lazarevic’s boss at the time.

After a cordial conversation with General Pavkovic and his top officers (General Lazarevic may have been among them, though I honestly do not remember him), General Pavkovic presented me with a book – recognition of my service to the Truth during the war (see the photo).

Like Lazarevic, Pavkovic was also charged with and convicted of war crimes by the Hague kangaroo court. Pavkovic is now serving a 22-year sentence in Finland. Lazarevi was released on December 2015 after serving 2/3 of his 14-year sentence.

MILOSEVIC’S STRATEGIC ERROR WHICH ULTIMATELY COST HIM HIS LIFE

So agreeing to that peace treaty in June 1999 while his army was still virtually intact was a STRATEGIC ERROR on the part of Milosevic, Serbia’s president at the time. Because it opened the door to NATO to march into Kosovo unopposed. And it ultimately cost him his life.

It was just a matter of time before the tables were turned, and Milosevic, along with the Serb generals, ended up being rounded up and charged with war crimes by the Hague War Crimes Tribunal. Milosevic died there under mysterious circumstances in March 2006 (see Who Says There Is No Death Penalty at the Hague, Mar 11, 2006 – http://truthinmedia.org/Bulletins2006/Milosevic.html).

Meanwhile, back to General Lazarevic, in recognition of his cunning military skills and tactics, he received a medal from the Russian Minister of Defense, General Igor Sergeyev, before being carted off to the Hague in 2005 to face the New World Order charges.

So not only is Gen. Lazarevic qualified to teach at the Military College in Serbia for having made such fools out of NATO, if the NATO military had an ounce of humility, he should been invited as lecturer to the West Point and/or Sandringham.

And now, with that as a preamble, check out my 2006 editorial, about NATO’s SECRET LOSSES – How Serbian Air Force Outwitted World’s Greatest Military Force and Inflicted Heavy Losses on NATO Planes, Helicopters and Personnel in Bosnia, Albania – http://truthinmedia.org/Bulletins2006/NATO_secrets.html.

The “NATO Doctrine”

“A military alliance of 19 nations and 780 million people; with over half of the world’s gross economic product, possessing two-thirds of the global military power, ganged up on a tiny nation of 10 million. For 78 days, NATO terrorized the people of Serbia, dropping 23,000 bombs and missiles on them in 36,000 sorties. Yet the Serbs remained unbowed and uncowed.  This is not hearsay.  I saw their defiance with my own eyes during the six days I had spent under NATO’s bombardment.” 

(An excerpt from Bob Djurdjevic’s global speaking tour, Fall/Winter 1999)

The “Clinton Doctrine”

“Bomb the civilians and the civilian structures until that country’s military can’t stand to watch it anymore.” [(Late) Col. David Hackworth, one of America’s most decorated soldiers]

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona, Aug 29, 2006 – Sometimes, the truth comes out in dribbles, years after an event has taken place.  Two new stories out of Belgrade about NATO’s 1999 war on Serbia make this point.  To appreciate their significance, however, we must turn our clocks back to April 16, 1999…

That Friday, Day 24 of NATO’s war on Serbia, NATO had launched its first daytime bombing raids on Belgrade.  The air raid sirens went off mid-morning, just as this writer was meeting with the Serbian Patriarch Pavle, the head of the Serbian Orthodox Church.  From then on, daytime attacks became routine.  Such an escalation of war was a clear sign that NATO leaders were getting exasperated.  The bombing was supposed to last 7-10 days and result in a surrender of Serbia, according to a pre-war estimate by General Wesley Clark, then the supreme NATO commander.  Yet here we were, already in the fourth week of the war, and there was no let up in the Serbian resolve to fight back.

What followed was a wild and woolly Saturday night, Day 25 of NATO’s war on Serbia.  Salvos of anti-aircraft artillery fire (AAA) filled in the audio gaps between detonations of NATO bombs and missiles.  It was a horrifying symphony of death and destruction orchestrated from Brussels by one General Clark, and from Washington by one draft dodger Bill Clinton.  Ground shook as the cold spring air whipped up by explosions occasionally swirled around this writer’s head like a mini-tornado.  Belgrade was getting it, Novi Sad was being pounded (the second largest city in Serbia), Sremska Mitrovica was also taking heavy hits. But the worst off was Mount Fruska Gora, that lies between these three cities.  It was being raked over by NATO bombers as if it were a meadow (click on the image left for a detailed map of this area and of the Balkans).

For more, see… http://truthinmedia.org/Bulletins2006/NATO_secrets.htm

Here’s a video story about these Serbian Air Force attacks on NATO (in Serbian),

https://youtu.be/GjVwComvzoY