The 1999 US-NATO bombing War against the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: 10 Years After, By: Andrew Taylor

The 1999 US-NATO bombing War against the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: 10 Years After, By: Andrew Taylor

by: Andrew Taylor











Do you remember the 78-day US-NATO bombing campaign (Operation AlliedForce)
against the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from March until June 1999? I remember it well. In March of 1999 I was living in the US and taking an anti-war stance in the Democratic Socialists of America. I was very much in the minority, the leader of the organization and other intellectual Ids were firmly lined up in the pro-war column. The fact that the current US administration was of the Democratic Party seemed to neutralize all questioning of the Official Story. My friends kept assuring me that this one was "a good war". Every pretext toted out by the administration's shills was treated as a statement of moral law by progressives of my aquaintance.

On the 24th of March 1999, the US with full NATO cooperation, began an aerial bombing War against the former Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Under the pretext of "humanitarian intervention", rockets and bombs destroyed both military targets and civilian infrastructure and civilian centres in the great city of Belgrade and in the coutryside for 78 days of terror.

The War was coined "Operation Allied Force" by the US and its NATO bum-boys.This cowardly, aerial war against the last European state espousing the goal of socialism, displaced 1 million plus people and killed thousands of innocents.

And what do we see in the former Yugoslavia 10 years later? Kosovo's assertion of 'independence' has resulted in a structure of 'ethnic' enclaves watched over by an ubiquitous security apparatus,- in short, the US and NATO client 'partners' possess a new client state in central Europe which poses no trade or ideological contradictions for imperialist hegemony.

The people of Serbia and Montenegro are now being bullied through a perilous ‘transition' to neoliberal economics by an unpopular western client democracy that backs brutal shock-privatization, the growth of poverty, and the marginalization of minorities such as the Roma.

For the Serbian and Montenegrin workers, the students, for refugees and the displaced communities, for the international anti-imperialist movement -- the 1999 US Clinton war is a campaign of cowardice and infamy.