The War in Ukraine Began in Yugoslavia

The attack on Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War has been certified as an act of criminal aggression according to both international and U.S. law.

Next month, it will be 19 years since the monstrous aggression of the U.S. (NATO) against Yugoslavia. In less than a month, we may again have a war in Ukraine, one much worse than the one that occurred four years ago and which could involve and ignite surrounding countries and those farther away. A war that could slip easily into a destructive confrontation on a planetary level.

I have been preparing an analysis of the situation in Ukraine for a while. This is a situation that I define as simply “nuclear” given its destructive potential (not to mention the possibility – which is actually very high – of it even leading to a nuclear confrontation) and its possible effects. Today’s Ukraine is within the same parameters and on the same path as Germany before Hitler came to power, which may seem shocking, but I will come back and prove it. And, because nothing is accidental, Ukraine has the same kind of sponsors.

The large number of readers – absolutely surprising to me – of the article about the disordered situation in Kosovo ten years after its declaration of independence and 19 years after the war against Yugoslavia has made me think more about what happened in 1999.

Reading and rereading various analyses, narrations, opinions, interviews, the final report of the prosecutor in charge of investigating the possible war crimes of NATO in this conflict, etc., the link between that moment and now, between Yugoslavia and Ukraine, has appeared naturally on its own through the imperial interests of the most militaristic nations of the past 100 years, the U.S. among them. And these can be clearly seen, on the one hand, in both the conflict preparation phase and in the real motivations of American aggression – which we can only now see and understand better due to having the advantage of consuming so many events and information since then – and on the other hand, in the consequences of the Balkan Wars.

If we try to identify them [i.e., the imperial interests] accurately in the monstrous aggression that took place 19 years ago, we will be able to find them easily in the criminal aggressions that followed against Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, etc. Moreover, we will also identify them easily in the preparations for three future wars: Ukraine, Iran, North Korea.

In order to understand what is happening in our immediate neighborhood and what is happening in the world in general, I propose an analysis of what happened 19 years ago in Yugoslavia; events in which, against the will of most of us, Romania was also involved, being on the side of the aggressors. Even though Romania did not participate directly in the attacks, it was indirectly a participant in the war crimes of that time and is a participant in all the consequences of the present and future years.

On the evening of March 24, 1999, NATO launched Operation Allied Force. There were 19 countries that participated in the aggression against Yugoslavia, a true army with 3,500 Euro-Atlantic aircraft (including attack helicopters), three aircraft carriers, six submarines equipped with atomic weapons, two cruisers, seven destroyers, 13 frigates, and four amphibious warships with more than 10,000 arine rifles on board. More than 25,000 air strikes were executed and 995 targets were neutralized. More than 3,000 cruise missiles were fired. Human casualties: 2,200 civilians (of whom 400 were children). Economic losses: over $200 billion.

The “humanitarian” war – as it was called by the aggressor, the press and the subordinated nongovernmental organizations – marked several firsts.

In “NATO’S ‘Humanitarian War’ over Kosovo” published under the auspices of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Adam Roberts reveals from the very beginning of the article that “this was the first sustained use of armed force by the NATO alliance in its 50-year existence; the first time a major use of destructive armed force had been undertaken with the stated purpose of implementing U.N. Security Council resolutions but without Security Council authorisation.”

I chose this quote because the author is someone who approves of the intervention. For example, he claims that NATO states have been united by a sense of shame (!!!) that, in the first four years of atrocious war in the former Yugoslavia (1991-95), they had failed – individually and collectively – to propose and implement coherent policies for the region. However, he cannot conceal an essential truth: the use of force against Yugoslavia – by a force with military capabilities many times stronger than those of Yugoslavia, and representing countries that, willingly or unwillingly, had more than half a billion aggressors when counted together, compared to the 11 million attacked – was not authorized by the United Nations.

We will carefully investigate this extremely important war, analyzing its legality, official motives and myths, its aspects, the real motives of the U.S., and its consequences that not only haunt us, but today seem more threatening than ever. I will present and discuss the pitiful, cynical, irresponsible, opportunistic, ignoble and anti-human appeal of the Romanian intellectuals to support the campaign of killings and destruction in Yugoslavia under the pretext of unseating the tyrant Slobodan Milošević. And, of course, I will refer to Ukraine as necessary, and then, after discussing the conflict in Yugoslavia, we will go deep into the Ukrainian reality.

Beyond the Motives, Legal or Illegal?

Here is what Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco, where he chairs the program on Middle Eastern Studies, tells us about the legality of aggression in “The US War on Yugoslavia: Ten Years Later,” published by Huffington Post in 2009:

“The war against Yugoslavia was illegal. Any such use of force is a violation of the U.N. Charter unless in self-defense against an armed attack or authorized by the United Nations as an act of collective security. Kosovo was internationally recognized as part of Serbia; it was, legally speaking, an internal conflict. In addition, the democratically elected president of the self-proclaimed, if unrecognized, Kosovar Albanian Republic, Ibrahim Rugova, didn’t request such intervention. Indeed, he opposed it. The war was also illegal under U.S. law. The Constitution places war-making authority under the responsibility of Congress. While it’s widely recognized that the president as commander in chief has latitude in short-term emergencies, the 1973 War Powers Act prevents the executive branch from waging war without the express consent of Congress beyond a 60-day period.”

To be continued.