NATO, Clark and Yugoslavia by Michael Parenti in '99. Bad, very bad.

http://michaelparenti.org/yugoslavia.html

(Several times I've posted to Clarkies that they should consider the man's actual track record and consequently been accused of parroting GOP talking-points or being a damned freeper. I'm truly dismayed to see du-ers failing to look at this horrid NATO episode in Yugoslavia that Clark commanded. I have a lot of respect for Michael Parenti's analysis of international politics and recommend that anyone who gives a damn read the whole article and more.)

Small excerpt:

"With words that might make us question his humanity, the NATO commander, U.S. General Wesley Clark boasted that the aim of the air war was to "demolish, destroy, devastate, degrade, and ultimately eliminate the essential infrastructure" of Yugoslavia.
>snip<
...bombing fifteen cities in hundreds of around-the-clock raids for over two months, spewing hundreds of thousands of tons of highly toxic and carcinogenic chemicals into the water, air, and soil, killing thousands of Serbs, Albanians, Roma, Turks, and others, and destroying bridges, residential areas, and over two hundred hospitals, clinics, schools, and churches, along with the productive capital of an entire nation."

Larger excerpt:

"NATO's attacks on Yugoslavia have been in violation of its own charter, which says it can take military action only in response to aggression committed against one of its members. Yugoslavia attacked no NATO member. U.S. leaders discarded international law and diplomacy. Traditional diplomacy is a process of negotiating disputes through give and take, proposal and counterproposal, a way of pressing one's interests only so far, arriving eventually at a solution that may leave one side more dissatisfied than the other but not to the point of forcing either party to war.

U.S. diplomacy is something else, as evidenced in its dealings with Vietnam, Nicaragua, Panama, Iraq, and now Yugoslavia. It consists of laying down a set of demands that are treated as nonnegotiable, though called "accords" or "agreements," as in the Dayton Accords or Rambouillet Agreements. The other side's reluctance to surrender completely to every condition is labeled "stonewalling," and is publicly misrepresented as an unwillingness to negotiate in good faith. U.S. leaders, we hear, run out of patience as their "offers" are "snubbed." Ultimatums are issued, then aerial destruction is delivered upon the recalcitrant nation so that it might learn to see things the way Washington does.

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

>snip<

Hmm. Does this sound familiar? Just asking...

he is not. He is not.

He is not.

Thanks for posting this.

Anything more to bolster Parenti's credentials as a journalist?

Or will people just call him a Rovester freeper agent?

Looks like a success to me.

rehashed for the 200th time.

(Several times I've posted to Clarkies that they should consider the man's actual track record and consequently been accused of parroting GOP talking-points or being a damned freeper. I'm truly dismayed to see du-ers failing to look at this horrid NATO episode in Yugoslavia that Clark commanded. I have a lot of respect for Michael Parenti's analysis of international politics and recommend that anyone who gives a damn read the whole article and more.)

I don't. I've read enough other things on Yugoslavia to have reached a different conclusion about the war there, and I'm not interested in someone like yourself coming along to tell me I should 'consider the man's actual record,' when I've already done so. I won't bother accusing you of being a 'freeper,' just someone who can't accept the fact that other people don't think Michael Parenti's ramblings come from a burning bush.

That's exactly the attitude that discounts legitimate discussion of widely documented NATO atrocities because it doesn't fit your opinion of Clark.

Some say 'war is hell' and Clark just did his job. Well, there you go. That's his record. He did that fucked-up NATO shit. And it had many of the same unnecessary destructive and illegal tactics of mass destruction that Rummy's perpetrating now. This should be a big red flag warning you that maybe this isn't the guy to stop that shit going down because he's already done it himself.

garbage. War is hell, and you want to know why? Because in a just war, the alternative is worse. I believe Kosovo was a just war, and that the alternative to not fighting was far worse than anything that was done there. You believe it was 'fucked up shit.' That's called a difference of opinion. That should be a big red flag to you that I'm not all that interested in being lectured to by someone who has reduced a complex issue to the level of 'fucked up shit,' based on Michael Parenti's article. I've already read the thing, and several other works on Kosovo as well, and the 'big red flag' I see is someone spouting off on an issue when they only have one viewpoint to work with. That's some fucked up shit, dude.

contextual situations. But there is an absolute value
to the intentional destruction of civilian infrastructure, high-altitude bombing of civilians to avoid a single politically unacceptable US death, widespread contamination from DU weapons etc.

Hence my verbal outburst about "fucked up NATO shit."

This quote from Clark about destroying the infrastructure along with his CNN side-line commentary on BushWar II PLUS his being part of the advisory panel recommendations that Congress (Americans) get ready to pay through the nose and hunker down for a long, long occupation of Iraq are very troubling.

In short, he thinks and acts like a general, not a democratic populist despite what he's said since polling indicated he might have a shot at the big one. Isn't that what we are trying to get away from in '04?

In reading This thread, in which an article by Michael Parenti" is used to level the same daily charge of "war criminal" against Wesley Clark, an old memory of Parenti's reputation resurfaced from my college days.

So I researched it.

It seems Parenti has a reputation for playing fast and loose with the facts. Here is one example:

David Walls, professor of sociology at Sonoma State University and author of The Activist's Almanac: The Concerned Citizen's Guide to the Leading Advocacy Organizations in America took exception with Parenti's views on Kosovo.

I was surprised by my reaction to its treatment of Kosovo. Project Censored had given this single topic an unprecedented five story awards plus a commentary by Michael Parenti... who has served on Project Censored's national panel of judges for several years. Even more troubling, for two years in a row Project Censored had whitewashed human rights atrocities committed by Serbs in the former Yugoslavia: Censored 1999 denies gruesome crimes at the Omarska camp in Bosnia in 1992 and Censored 2000 denies a massacre of civilians at Racak in Kosovo in 1999.

Speaking of Parenti and his participation in Project Censored, Walls also said, Reliance on dubious sources and a lack of rigorous research and fact-checking have tarnished the project's reputation as a media watchdog. On the subject of the former Yugoslavia, Project Censored, I sadly concluded, had departed the terrain of the democratic Left for a netherworld of conspiracy theorists, Marxist-Leninist sects, and apologists for authoritarian regimes.

The Marxist-Humanist News & Letters of June 2001 details how protesters showed up outside the office of San Francisco radio station KPFA to protest Parenti's appearance on that station's "Flashpoints" show. The protestors distributed a flyer which read, in part:

Divorcing Marxism from freedom all too easily leads to lending support to tyrants who claim the label "socialist." In a letter to the SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN (3/21/01), Michael Parenti claims a nostalgia for "the guaranteed income, free education, medical care and affordable housing" of the Milosevic era, and dismisses allegations of ethnic cleansing, rape camps and mass atrocities. He contends that only 70 bodies have been recovered from the supposed massacre of Srebrenica. This last contention openly conflicts with the report by the UN Commission on Human Rights on Srebrenica, issued 11/15/99, which provided pages and pages of evidence on the massacre, including an account by one Croat member of the Bosnian Serb Army, Drazen Erdemovic, whose unit by itself executed over 1,000 Muslim men and boys on the Pilica state farm.

Parenti consistently downplays the extent of Joseph Stalin's crimes. He recently claimed on KPFA that the number in the Gulags may have been as low as in the thousands. And he dismisses counts of victims in the millions, presented by the likes of Russian Marxist Roy Medvedev, as exaggerations and propaganda.

How conspiracy minded is Parenti? He once said, "The owners and managers of the press determine which person, which facts, which version of the facts, and which ideas shall reach the public.” quoted in Democracy for the Few, by Michael Parenti.

Parenti's most recent work, "To Kill a Nation", praises Milosevic!

He has been called a Stalinist apologist.

That stuff is all over his works. I remember he blamed the Soviet installed Communists and then the Soviet invasion oon the US, and called the Afghani Communist Government 'progressive'.
The Afgani Communists were among the most brutal of all the communist movements. Najibullah, who later became dictator, presided over at least 90,000 executions and personally tortured prisoners.
He claims that the Soviets invaded in response to CIA activities---but the Soviets had already set the groundwork long before they invaded--It happened like the US in Vietnam---first with helping their puppets--then removing their puppets when they failed, and then sending advisors and then taking over when the majority of the population rebelled.
If the Afghanis were so lucky to have this 'progressive' government, as Parenti suggests, then why did over 90% of the Afgani population either join or support the mujahids? The communists and their Soviet allies had even less support than we did in Vietnam.

And all the Mujaheeds were not taliban types--there were at least 7 major groups. the Taliban overpowered all other Mujahids by 1996 to seize power.

Parenti uses too many adjectives to be taken seriously.

Ignore him at your peril.

they are loaded with inaccuracies. I am at work, but if anyone wants examples, either e-mail me or check my other posts where I listed some ones from memory. I will go through against Empire and tear it apart--it is utterly vapid, so fraught with absolutely unforgivable factual errors that make it about as important as 'Ain't No rag' by Charlie Daniels.

... to death. I understand your viewpoint but I don't agree with it. He was conducting a war. War=Ugly, unimaginable violence. Which is why he said it should only, only, only be used as a last resort. Clark wanted boots on the ground to help protect NATO troops and civilians, he was overruled by Shelton and Cohen. His pushing of this eventually got him relieved of his command early. And the people of Kosovo do not share your opinion of him. I understand that that someone with your viewpoint would never support Clark. Fine. I would point out that this area of the world, while damaged, is no longer under active conflict. Clark had something to do with that. If you want someone to blame for the brutality listed above - I suggest you look in the Haig.

That was written during the war. I wonder if Parenti has evaluated his position over the last four years.

especially since there is no evidence of genocide and that the record shows we caused more harm there then good.

:hi:

peace

http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/09/milotrial-sept.htm
Milosevic is charged with a total of approximately 10,000 killings and 250,000 deportations in Bosnia. In Croatia, he is accused of "the extermination or murder of hundreds of Croat and other non-Serb civilians" and the deportation of at least 170,000 people. These are the second and third indictments he faces before the ICTY. The first indictment covered crimes committed in Kosovo. The three indictments, which have been joined in a single trial, span the years of the Balkan Wars from 1991 to 1999.

Then why the hell is Milosevic in the Hague??

http://emperors-clothes.com/interviews/nothing.htm

Later, when the Bosnian Islamist leader Izetbegovic signed an agreement with Croatian and Serbian leaders to peacefully partition Bosnia, Zimmermann met with Izetbegovic and 'helped' by persuading him to renege on the deal and demand instead a unitary Bosnian state under Islamist control. Izetbegovic did renege, as Zimmermann asked, and this launched the Bosnian civil war.


The old fascist marching songs were sung, a moment of silence was observed for all who died defending the fatherland, and the gathering was reminded that today was the 57th anniversary of the founding of Croatia's Nazi-allied wartime government. Then came the most chilling words of the afternoon.

"For Home!" shouted Anto Dapic, surrounded by bodyguards in black suits and crew cuts.

"Ready!" responded the crowd of 500 supporters, their arms rising in a stiff Nazi salute.

The call and response -- the Croatian equivalent of "Sieg!" "Heil!" -- was the wartime greeting used by supporters of the fascist Independent State of Croatia, which governed the country for most the Second World War and murdered hundreds of thousands of Jews, Serbs and Croatian resistance fighters.

http://emperors-clothes.com/bosnia/svijet.htm

We were told Mr. Izetbegovic was a great moderate, and the Sarajevo weekly magazine, Svijet, supported Mr. Izetbegovic. So isn't it curious that Svijet's pictures and captions, scanned and posted below, fondly remember a World War II Nazi SS Division made up entirely of Islamic Fundamentalists from Bosnia?

This SS division was called Handzhar, which means Scimitar, the curved sword of the Ottoman Empire. The US-backed Bosnian leader, Mr. Izetbegovic, was enamored of Handzhar. He even set up an army division, commanded by Islamic terrorists from Albania, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Arab countries, and called it Handzar. That is discussed in our forthcoming article, "Wolves in Sheeps' Clothing." According to a recent Dutch report, the US sponsored the Islamic terror specialists who traveled to Bosnia to train and indoctrinate Izetbegovic's troops. (1) There are many rocks in Bosnia, and when one turns them over one finds ugly things hiding underneath.

http://emperors-clothes.com/docs/backin.htm

The greatest genocide during World War II, in proportion to a nation's population, took place, not in Nazi Germany but in the Nazi-created puppet state of Croatia. There, in the years 1941-1945, some 750,000 Serbs, 60,000 Jews and 26,000 Gypsies - men, women and children - perished in a gigantic holocaust. These are the figures used by most foreign authors, especially Germans, who were in the best position to know...

"...The magnitude and the bestial nature of these atrocities makes it difficult to believe that such a thing could have happened in an allegedly civilized part of the world. Yet even a book such as this can attempt to tell only a part of the story."

http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/thompson/rootsof.htm

No one is certain of human destruction suffered in this Fascist Albanian Holocaust. Estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000 Serbs murdered. At least 100,000 were driven from Kosovo and replaced with "immigrants" from Albania proper.(14)

In justifying current Kosovo Albanian demands to secede from Serbia, the media has repeated, like a mantra: 90% of the population is Albanian. While this figure is most likely exaggerated (nobody knows for sure because Kosovo Albanians boycotted the census for years!) - the province has been largely Albanian. But a major cause of the current demographic imbalance: was the Albanians' success as Hitler's willing executioners during World War II.(15)

And their attention was not limited to Serbs. Unknown numbers of Roma ("Gypsies") were liquidated. And Kosovo Albanians, acting alone as well as under German direction, eliminated many of Kosovo's Jews.

--------------

What Kosovo was to Serbia, the Krajina was to Croatia, which ethnically cleansed all the Serbs from it with the help of American and German mercenaries.

http://www.icdsmireland.org/resources/background/2003/mpri.htm

The massacres conducted under Operation Storm "set the stage" for the "ethnic cleansing" of at least 180,000 Krajina Serbs (according to estimates of the Croatian Helsinki Committee and Amnesty International). According to other sources, the number of victims of ethnic cleansing in Krajina was much larger.

Moreover, there are indications that chemical weapons may have been used in the Yugoslav civil war (1991-95).36 Although there is no firm evidence of the use of chemical weapons against Croatian Serbs, an ongoing enquiry by the Canadian Minister of Defence (launched in July 1999) points to the possibility of toxic poisoning of Canadian Peacekeepers while on service in Croatia between 1993 and 1995:

Prior to the onslaught, Croatian radio had previously broadcasted a message by president Franjo Tudjman, calling upon "Croatian citizens of Serbian ethnicity... to remain in their homes and not to fear the Croatian authorities, which will respect their minority rights."38 Canadian peacekeepers of the Second Battalion of the Royal 22nd Regiment witnessed the atrocities committed by Croatian troops in the Krajina offensive in September 1995:

"Any Serb who had failed to evacuate their property were systematically "cleansed" by roving death squads. Every abandoned animal was slaughtered and any Serb household was ransacked and torched".39

Also confirmed by Canadian peacekeepers was the participation of German mercenaries in Operation Storm:

"Immediately behind the frontline Croatian combat troops and German mercenaries, a large number of hardline extremists had pushed into the Krajina. ...Many of these atrocities were carried out within the Canadian Sector, but as the peacekeepers were soon informed by the Croat authorities, the UN no longer had any formal authority in the region."40

-------------------------

Given all the above, Milosevic was legitimately fighting terror and ethnic cleansing. Unfortunately, he's a lot like George Bush--fighting by striking back indiscriminately against anyone in the way. So does he belong at the Hague? Sure, but so did Itzbegovic and Tudjman, except that ethnic cleansing by non-Serbians is deemed by the US and Western Europe to be a wonderful thing.

lol

You have got to be kidding me.

Why not give us Slobo's website as a "source"?


:crazy:

Got any answers to anything that's actually said in there? No.

The Croatian--Muslim atrocities happened in WWII. Milosevic has no right to commit genocide because other groups did it fifty years before. Do not forget, the mainly Serbian Partisans killed hundreds of thousands of muslims after taking power in 1945--a year of mass killing and revenge.

Let's just wait and see if even this kangaroo court convicts him. Mostly he has made mincemeat of the charges.

For the record I think Milosevic is a mass murderer, too, perhaps the biggest among the other mass murderers involved in the Yugoslavian civil war.

When it started with Croatia & Slovenia declaring independence in 1991, the Yugoslav Federal Army tried to take over these seceding republics and failed. Was this action that different from Lincoln's response to South Carolina?

The worst Serb atrocities were committed by the Sprska Republic in Bosnia - not under Milosevic's control. He supported them, at first with a blessing from Britain and France. Ultimately he joined the blockade and put an end to their power.

Meanwhile, a Croatia armed by the U.S. in 1995 committed the single largest ethnic cleansing of the war, deporting 250,000 Serbs from their ancient homeland in the Krajina. Why isn't Gen. Agcu, who ran "Operation Storm," also at Den Haag? Instead he's running a KLA unit and working alongside KFOR!

It's time for people to acknowledge the complexities of the Balkans and stop being so righteous in support of one side or another's mythology. Yugoslavia was a civil war and Milosevic was not simply Satan.

I will be posting a new thread at length about the Kosovo war soon...

We caused more harm then good? Unbelievable. This is like the people who argue the holocaust never occurred.

In this case, there was a little 'holocaust,' but the NATO powers (who had ulterior motives for breaking up Yugoslavia), presented their little 'holocaust' as "rescuing people from genocide." This was just like bombing Iraq and calling it "liberation."

I dare you to go to Bosnia and say that. I have a friend who is at Salisbury U, getting a degree in International Affairs and Conflict resolutions who spent the summer there. He was in Kosovo and Bosnia and what happened there in the 1990s was no joke. I cannot believe that ignoramuses like Ramsey Clark and michael parenti can sell you this tripe.
There were awful things happening in the Balkans in the 1990s, and the NATO air war was the least of it.

Ossining, New York, July 14, 2001—The story leading up to the discovery of documents on the bodies of Agron, Mehmet, and Ylli Bytyqi in a mass grave in Petrovo Selo, Serbia, began on July 2, when the Albanian American Civic League held a book signing and reception in Yonkers, New York, in honor of General Wesley Clark, NATO Supreme Allied Commander, Europe for the critical role that he played in putting a stop to Slobodan Milosevic’s decade-long genocidal march across Southeast Europe.

During the question-and-answer session that followed General Clark’s address to the 400 people in attendance, members of the Atlantic Battalion (Albanian Americans who fought with the Kosova Liberation Army) appealed to General Clark for help in determining the fate of the missing brothers, who had disappeared without a trace at the end of the war. General Clark promised to initiate an investigation by phoning U.S. Ambassador William Montgomery in Belgrade, which he did on July 3.

On July 4, former Congressman and Civic League chairman Joe DioGuardi received a phone call from Vladimir Radomirovic, an editor at the Serbian Democratic opposition paper, The Reporter. Radomirovic explained that one of the Serbian ministries had leaked him information that a mass grave had been uncovered in Petrovo Selo and that the Bytyqi brothers were believed to be among the bodies. The three were found at the top of a heap of thirteen other bodies. They were the only ones who were blindfolded, their hands tied behind their backs with wire. The bullet holes in their chests indicated that they had been shot at close range. A Serbian court document, dated June 27, 1999, and listing the names of the Bytyqi brothers, was found on one of the bodies. It indicated that Agron, Mehmet, and Ylli Bytyqi had been sentenced to fifteen days in the Proluplje penitentiary, just north of Kosova, for entering Serbia illegally.

Radomirovic told Joe DioGuardi the incredible story of how the Bytyqi brothers ended up in Serbia and eventually were murdered by Serbian authorities. At the end of the war, in June 1999, Agron, Mehmet, and Ylli traveled from Albania to Prizren, having heard reports that their mother, Bahrije, sister, Bukerje, and brother, Fatos, had been killed. But when they arrived in Prizren, they were overjoyed to find them alive.

http://www.aacl.com/THREE_ALBANIAN_AMERICANS.htm

****************************************

Goodness, what a right bastard. Doing his job and continuing to help people out.

Oh, and let's not leave out that at tonight's dinner in New Hampshire, the following occurred:
"One especially poignant moment was when a waiter from the hotel came up to General Clark while he was sitting at his table and thanked him for liberating Kosovo. A little later, he came back over and brought his wife who was also working as a waiter and the two of them shook the General's hand and asked for photos. They thanked the General several times for liberating Kosovo and saving them and their families. It was obvious General Clark was very touched by them. The man quietly slipped us his name and address so we could send the photo to him."

You obviously didn't read the entire linked article or even the excerpts. I'll bet Rumsfeld can find two Iraqis to thank him for "doing his job."

...court, because last time I checked Clinton, Albright, Javier Solana, Schroeder, Chirac and Clark submitted to international law (though the US has not signed on to an international crimes court) and they were cleared of all charges.

And as for the legitimacy of NATO's involvement, it did fall under Article 5 of the Charter which states that any conflict that that threatens a member nation's territorial integrity can be considered a threat to the entire alliance. Seeing as the past 2 World Wars either began or escalated in the Balkans. So they were within a legal framework.

Just out of curiosity, would you have supported military intervention in the Rwandan massacre which ended up killing 2-3 million people?

If there was any damage done to the country or any civilians killed then it would have been an outrageous war crime and completley negated saving the lives of millions.

Look, if you were against the intervention in Kosovo, it's obvious that any of the usual damage done in war is going to look like a crime and an outrage.

Some of us where far more outraged by the crimes that Milosevic and company where engaging in. We believed that force was not only justified but that we had honestly no other choice at that point other than to stand by and watch them do what they already done before in Bosnia.

http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/09/milotrial-sept.htm
Milosevic is charged with a total of approximately 10,000 killings and 250,000 deportations in Bosnia. In Croatia, he is accused of "the extermination or murder of hundreds of Croat and other non-Serb civilians" and the deportation of at least 170,000 people. These are the second and third indictments he faces before the ICTY. The first indictment covered crimes committed in Kosovo. The three indictments, which have been joined in a single trial, span the years of the Balkan Wars from 1991 to 1999.

Of course, if we did intervene in Rwanda, and we prevented some of the almost 1 million people from being slaughtered in 3 months, it would have all been about neo-colonization, oil, whatever. And if the US killed any Rwandans, Ramsey Clark and ANSWER and some of these guys would call the commander war criminals--Ramsey Clark meanwhile defended a Priest who helped militias murder hundreds of people in his congregation during the genocide and prevented the US from extraditing him back to Rwanda for a war crimes trial.
If we do act to stop genocide, then we are the war criminals--if we don't then hundreds of thousands die. We cannot win. That is why it is so politicallyt difficult for big powers and International powers from stopping this kind of slaughter--people like these guys make it very politically risky by harping over every little bit of damage done to a country while ending massacres.

How convenient that he turned into an expert on the Balkans as soon as a war started there. But then, that's always the way with the denizens of (to quote Michael Moore) "the professional left." No matter what's happening, why, they instantly know everything about it! And exactly what the "correct line" is on it! It's almost miraculous.

He doesn't know shit. And hons, the Kosovars really are overwhelmingly fans of the guy who bucked the Pentagon in order to stop a genocide, Wesley Clark.

an an expert in POLITICAL SCIENCE and has dedicated his life to it and you are suprised he has informed opinions on world events :crazy:

peace

what rightwingers say about liberals!! Clark supporters loathe leftists -- all the Clark posters on this thread demonstrate that.

Here, for example, "11cents" says, "How convenient that he turned into an expert on the Balkans as soon as a war started there.." Is it supposed to be uniquely leftist writers, that begin to study & comment upon wars that break out? I was under the impression that when the US gets involved in a shooting war, it is rather common for journalists, authors, scholars, & analysts of ALL political stripes, to begin examining & commenting upon the given war. The fact that this poster exhibits such contempt and scorn for only the LEFTIST analysts says much more about the poster, than about the analyst.

11cents assures us that Parenti (Ph.D. from Yale in political science, author of 17 books, long proud record of work as an anti-war activist, keynote speaker at numerous high-quality events such as the "Project Censored" awards) "doesn't know shit," and that Kosovars "overwhelmingly" love Gen. Clark. I wonder how much time 11cents spent doing research in the former Yugoslavia (Parenti went there himself when the war broke out). I'd like to hear a debate between 11cents and Parenti on ANY subject pertaining to world affairs -- & let the rest of us decide who does and does not "know shit."

I may laugh myself to death at that! Love your reasoning (well, actually, you presented none, but...) and substantiation (ditto). What a waste of proximity. For shame.

"A report released in London in August 1999 by the Economist Intelligence Unit concluded that the enormous damage NATO's aerial war inflicted on Yugoslavia's infrastructure will cause the economy to shrink dramatically in the next few years." <snip>

Actually the report released by the Economist Intelligence Unit in 1999 said the following:

"The bombing came on top of the expensive campaign Belgrade had been waging against the ethnic-Albanian guerrillas of the Kosovo Liberation Army.

The Serbian leadership had spent vast sums financing wars in Croatia and Bosnia which led to the imposition of United Nations sanctions on Yugoslavia in the first half of the 1990s."

So to be clear, while the bombing did impact the economy of Yugoslavia, the numbers quoted of GDP decline of 40% were largely caused by the "expensive campaign Belgrade waged" and the "imposition of UNITED NATIONS sanctions." (UN - not NATO)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/the_economy/427670.stm

General Clark is a humanitarian as well as a soldier. If it hadn't been for Clark the Serbs would still be murdering the Muslims of Kosovo. The hatred had and to some extent still has existed for years and nobody was doing anything about it.

There were mass graves of innocents killed by Serbian soldiers and young girls forced to have sex with them and if they got pregnant they were disowned by their families. They were as young as twelve and in some cases, younger.

Say what you will about Wesley Clark but he is a brave and noble human being because he wanted to stop the genocide. If he hadn't done it, nobody else would have. The murders would still be going on while an apathic world looked on---just like in Rwanda.

From a report on a Democratic meeting Clark attended tonight in New Hampshire:

"One especially poignant moment was when a waiter from the hotel
came up to General Clark while he was sitting at his table and
thanked him for liberating Kosovo. A little later, he came back
over and brought his wife who was also working as a waiter and
the two of them shook the General's hand and asked for photos.
They thanked the General several times for liberating Kosovo and
saving them and their families. It was obvious General Clark was
very touched by them. The man quietly slipped us his name and
address so we could send the photo to him."

Obviously, this benighted couple is direly in need of a nice lecture from Michael Parenti.

doesn't much care about the ethnic cleansing that is being perpetrated in Kosovo right now, of Serbians, Gypsies and Jews.

And don't give me some left-wing version of the moonie times (like indymedia).

omg America, what is to become of you? I believe this place is populated by more conservative reactionaries than "democrats".
And do they love Clark!

...who are DINOS.

Love it!!

The man never met a left-wing dictatorship he wouldn't defend up to and including Stalin. Listening to him on US actions is like listening to David Duke on race relations. His extreme bias destroys his credibility.

... but Michael Parenti is a loon.

Shouldn't some of the Parentites be out trying to sell Trotskyist newspapers on a college campus somewhere? Parneti? good God.

They'd take the word of Adolph Hitler if it meant Wesley Clark losing the nomination.

In reading This thread, in which an article by Michael Parenti" is used to level the same daily charge of "war criminal" against Wesley Clark, an old memory of Parenti's reputation resurfaced from my college days.

So I researched it.

It seems Parenti has a reputation for playing fast and loose with the facts. Here is one example:

David Walls, professor of sociology at Sonoma State University and author of The Activist's Almanac: The Concerned Citizen's Guide to the Leading Advocacy Organizations in America took exception with Parenti's views on Kosovo.

I was surprised by my reaction to its treatment of Kosovo. Project Censored had given this single topic an unprecedented five story awards plus a commentary by Michael Parenti... who has served on Project Censored's national panel of judges for several years. Even more troubling, for two years in a row Project Censored had whitewashed human rights atrocities committed by Serbs in the former Yugoslavia: Censored 1999 denies gruesome crimes at the Omarska camp in Bosnia in 1992 and Censored 2000 denies a massacre of civilians at Racak in Kosovo in 1999.

Speaking of Parenti and his participation in Project Censored, Walls also said, Reliance on dubious sources and a lack of rigorous research and fact-checking have tarnished the project's reputation as a media watchdog. On the subject of the former Yugoslavia, Project Censored, I sadly concluded, had departed the terrain of the democratic Left for a netherworld of conspiracy theorists, Marxist-Leninist sects, and apologists for authoritarian regimes.

The Marxist-Humanist News & Letters of June 2001 details how protesters showed up outside the office of San Francisco radio station KPFA to protest Parenti's appearance on that station's "Flashpoints" show. The protestors distributed a flyer which read, in part:

Divorcing Marxism from freedom all too easily leads to lending support to tyrants who claim the label "socialist." In a letter to the SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN (3/21/01), Michael Parenti claims a nostalgia for "the guaranteed income, free education, medical care and affordable housing" of the Milosevic era, and dismisses allegations of ethnic cleansing, rape camps and mass atrocities. He contends that only 70 bodies have been recovered from the supposed massacre of Srebrenica. This last contention openly conflicts with the report by the UN Commission on Human Rights on Srebrenica, issued 11/15/99, which provided pages and pages of evidence on the massacre, including an account by one Croat member of the Bosnian Serb Army, Drazen Erdemovic, whose unit by itself executed over 1,000 Muslim men and boys on the Pilica state farm.

Parenti consistently downplays the extent of Joseph Stalin's crimes. He recently claimed on KPFA that the number in the Gulags may have been as low as in the thousands. And he dismisses counts of victims in the millions, presented by the likes of Russian Marxist Roy Medvedev, as exaggerations and propaganda.

How conspiracy minded is Parenti? He once said, "The owners and managers of the press determine which person, which facts, which version of the facts, and which ideas shall reach the public.” quoted in Democracy for the Few, by Michael Parenti.

Parenti's most recent work, "To Kill a Nation", praises Milosevic!

He has been called a Stalinist apologist.

You write,

"How conspiracy minded is Parenti? He once said, "The owners and managers of the press determine which person, which facts, which version of the facts, and which ideas shall reach the public.” quoted in Democracy for the Few, by Michael Parenti.

I find this statement you quote to be entirely uncontroversial. I can't imagine why you'd think otherwise. It has nothing to do with being conspiracy minded; it's simply a description of how the press operates. DU is filled daily with observations about how the media systematically denigrates Democrats and supports Bush -- that's an example of what he's talking about.

About charges like "He has been called a Stalinist apologist" --
So what? Anyone who criticizes American society gets called nasty names. There is no such thing as someone on the political left who isn't called lots of bad things, thus it's always easy to find instances of "being called _____."

There's a process here that you don't grasp. American politics consists in large measure of strategic demonization of certain foreign figures - like Noriega, Saddam, Khadaffi, Milosevic etc. The demonization is so intense that everyone here begins to take it as gospel. In many cases, it's not gospel -- the misdeeds of the supposed villains are exaggerated or distorted. Then, when someone like Parenti comes along to question the exaggeration, they get savagely denounced for it - in just the way you're doing here.

For the record: he's not a "Stalin apologist." It's not the same thing to say, "Stalin was a nice man," as it is to say, "Stalin's crimes have been significantly exaggerated in the US version of history."

It seems Parenti has a reputation for playing fast and loose with the facts. Here is one example:

David Walls, professor of sociology at Sonoma State University and author of The Activist's Almanac: The Concerned Citizen's Guide to the Leading Advocacy Organizations in America took exception with Parenti's views on Kosovo.

I was surprised by my reaction to its treatment of Kosovo. Project Censored had given this single topic an unprecedented five story awards plus a commentary by Michael Parenti... who has served on Project Censored's national panel of judges for several years. Even more troubling, for two years in a row Project Censored had whitewashed human rights atrocities committed by Serbs in the former Yugoslavia: Censored 1999 denies gruesome crimes at the Omarska camp in Bosnia in 1992 and Censored 2000 denies a massacre of civilians at Racak in Kosovo in 1999.

Speaking of Parenti and his participation in Project Censored, Walls also said, Reliance on dubious sources and a lack of rigorous research and fact-checking have tarnished the project's reputation as a media watchdog. On the subject of the former Yugoslavia, Project Censored, I sadly concluded, had departed the terrain of the democratic Left for a netherworld of conspiracy theorists, Marxist-Leninist sects, and apologists for authoritarian regimes.

The Marxist-Humanist News & Letters of June 2001 details how protesters showed up outside the office of San Francisco radio station KPFA to protest Parenti's appearance on that station's "Flashpoints" show. The protestors distributed a flyer which read, in part:

Divorcing Marxism from freedom all too easily leads to lending support to tyrants who claim the label "socialist." In a letter to the SAN FRANCISCO BAY GUARDIAN (3/21/01), Michael Parenti claims a nostalgia for "the guaranteed income, free education, medical care and affordable housing" of the Milosevic era, and dismisses allegations of ethnic cleansing, rape camps and mass atrocities. He contends that only 70 bodies have been recovered from the supposed massacre of Srebrenica. This last contention openly conflicts with the report by the UN Commission on Human Rights on Srebrenica, issued 11/15/99, which provided pages and pages of evidence on the massacre, including an account by one Croat member of the Bosnian Serb Army, Drazen Erdemovic, whose unit by itself executed over 1,000 Muslim men and boys on the Pilica state farm.

Parenti consistently downplays the extent of Joseph Stalin's crimes. He recently claimed on KPFA that the number in the Gulags may have been as low as in the thousands. And he dismisses counts of victims in the millions, presented by the likes of Russian Marxist Roy Medvedev, as exaggerations and propaganda.

How conspiracy minded is Parenti? He once said, "The owners and managers of the press determine which person, which facts, which version of the facts, and which ideas shall reach the public.” quoted in Democracy for the Few, by Michael Parenti.

Parenti's most recent work, "To Kill a Nation", praises Milosevic!

He has been called a Stalinist apologist.

Read his book--Against Empire--it is so full of factual errors that it is laughable. Honestly, he needs a fact checker before he sits down and publishes anything.
I am not home right now (at work), but that text is on my bookshelf. It is utterly worthless, simply because of the MASSIVE errors in facts in it.
For those who are going to jump on me, I can think of several factual errors off the top of my head (I do not have the book here)---He claims Lenin overthrew Tsar Nicholas II--fact--Tsar Nicholas II abdicated while Lenin was still in Switzerland. lenin overthrew the reformist provisional government of Alexander kerensky in the Oktober Revolution.
I remember he calls the Sandanistas 'Christian Democrats' when they were anti-Catholic Marxist-Leninist authoritarians.
He also asserts that the Soviets never used chemical weapons in Afghanistan.
There were so many more errors that i scarecly turned a page without shuddering at the garbage.

Luckily I did not buy the book. my friend left it at my house.

..dig up is quickly and effectively discredited.

I find it sad, though, that they wait a few days, post the same crap, in hopes that the people who discredited it before aren't online to do it again.

not very effectively, as every one knows.
This was during a left-wing government as well.

There was Serbian genocide of Muslims at Srebrenika all right.

Serbs I know here in The Hague back the war and The Hague Tribunal 100%.

I'll believe sources and contacts I find reputable, certainly no genocide apologists or deniers.

DemEx

i dont think so.

unless general motors really was afraid that the yugo was taking market share from their cadillac division.

having read too many reports from human rights watch, the red cross, and the hague's own documents on massive human rights violations by the milosivich regime, i do not consider what was done by NATO to prevent greater violence in the region, reduce the flood of refugees spreading out all thru europe, and stop more mass murders in the old yugoslavian region beyond reasonable force to stop it.

if what was done in yugoslavia by NATO had been done in cambodia in the mid-late 1970's would the people complaining about NATO in yugoslavia still blame NATO for killing civilians and hurting the environment in cambodia to prevent the killing fields in that country?

i feel bad about saying this, beause i realize that those who are extremely critical of NATOs actions in yugoslavia are good meaning people, but i dont think that they are correct and i feel that they are incrediably naive and have a simplistic view of the way the world operates.

but, perhaps it is i who is naive for believing the croatians i have met who told me of the incredible violence they saw at the hands of the serbs.

...intervention.

A year ago, they probably would have been all for it.

But now it is convenient for them to take this position because they THINK it holds Clark in a bad light.

and i am not a clark supporter, but i am surprised by the ignorance of historical perspective and knee-jerk reactionary attitude of those who are smearing clark for what he succeeded in doing to stop further tragedy in the region.

i dont know if these folks are just really young or just have some dense ideological filters thru which they view the world.

perhaps a little of each.

The people who right this crap know nothing of balkan history and cannot see a problem unless they can blame it on the major western powers.

I agree with you 100% on your post.