US-NATO agenda

Nearly everything this government says about nuclear subs is ludicrous and highly damaging.

Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan will remain in office after the no-confidence motion to be voted on today was rejected.

Syrian women are helping to save Syria and all of humanity against the scourge of Western-supported terrorism. The Canadian government, [Candobetter.net editor: and others, including Australia's, supporting the US-NATO agenda] on the other hand, is destroying women’s rights (and all human rights) in Syria and beyond.  If the truth were ever accepted by broad-based populations, then our government, led by those who project progressive fronts, would be exposed as the misogynist, life-hating rot that it is.

This article was first published at https://www.globalresearch.ca/womens-rights-in-syria/5629648

Canada's Sanctions Regime against Syria Undermines Women's Rights

Trudeau is destroying Syria through illegal sanctions, and through direct and indirect support of every single terrorist in Syria. Canada is a member of the NATO terror organization, which along with its allies, seeks to create “regime change” in Syria, — the highest crime according to Nuremburg Principles.

All Syrians, but especially Syrian women, have much to lose if the Canadian government’s diabolical ambitions are realized.

Amany Ashy[1] lives in a government-secured area of Syria where she is headmistress of a high school.  She explains that life for women in government-secured areas hasn’t changed much. She explains that

The government supports women’s right and liberty before and now. We have the liberty to choose our work , to wear whatever we like , to choose the type of education we want and even to fight side by side with the army. We have the safety to go at anytime during day or night.

She also explains that

men now are busy fighting with the army or trying hard to work double shift after the crazy raise of prices and after the sanctions. Women’s life as the life of all Syrian has been affected badly by the sanctions. The prices of food and vegetables have become double. Medicine prices are very high and some are not available.

Life in terrorist-occupied areas, however, is entirely different, and alien to Syria and to most Syrians. Ashy explains that

women in the areas controlled by the US- backed terrorists have no rights at all. They have to wear a black uniforms to cover their bodies and this uniform must be very simple and loose and if any women try to break their rules they take them to Hespah (prison). They keep them imprisoned for hours and force them to buy a uniform that they have and agree on … Women are prevented from going to schools or working any kind of job that they don’t approve of.

Ashy adds that the government respects freedom of thinking and religion and that nobody has the right to interfere in someone’s religion.

Saudi Arabia, one of Canada’s allies in the war for terrorism and against human rights is both a fountainhead of terrorism and Wahhabism, and it is this Wahhabi ideology that prevails in terrorist-occupied areas of Syria.  It is also this Wahhabi ideology (takfiri/salafi) that is referenced in a 2012 DIA document[2] (14-L-0052/DIA/287) which laid out clearly the West’s plans to destroy Syria, one of the 7 countries targeted for destruction as enumerated by General Flynn.

As the U.S and its terrorist allies occupy the oil rich areas of Eastern Syria – also laid out in the aforementioned DIA document — Canadians should remember that this war, like its predecessors in Libya, Iraq and beyond, was sold to them and continues to be sold to them through outrageous, constantly repeated, war lies.

*

Notes

[1]Amany Ashy is a pseudonym for an actual Syrian source. She shared her narrative in a private Facebook message dated 2 October, 2017.

[2] Brad Hof, “2012 Defense Intelligence Agency document: West will facilitate rise of Islamic State ‘in order to isolate the Syrian regime.’ “ LEVANT REPORT THE REAL MIDDLE EAST, DEBUNKING THE SOUND BITES. 19 May 2015. (https://levantreport.com/2015/05/19/2012-defense-intelligence-agency-document-west-will-facilitate-rise-of-islamic-state-in-order-to-isolate-the-syrian-regime/) Accessed 18 February, 2018.

Order Mark Taliano’s Book “Voices from Syria” directly from Global Research.  

Taliano talks and listens to the people of Syria. He reveals the courage and resilience of a Nation and its people in their day to day lives, after more than six years of US-NATO sponsored terrorism and three years of US “peacemaking” airstrikes.

Mark Taliano combines years of research with on-the-ground observations to present an informed and well-documented analysis that refutes  the mainstream media narratives on Syria. 

President Bashar al-Assad : “[The ]West is telling Russia that Syrian Army went too far in defeating terrorists … Daesh could only attack Palmyra the way it did with supervision of U.S. alliance”. President Obama’s announcement of a waiver for arming unspecified rebel groups in Syria came shortly before the terrorist group Islamic State launched a massive attack on Palmyra. Syrian President Bashar Assad believes it was no coincidence, he told RussiaToday. In the interview, the Syrian leader explained how his approach to fighting terrorism differs from that of the US, why he believes the military success of his forces in Aleppo was taken so negatively in the West, and what he expects from US President-elect Donald Trump. [Full Video and Transcript]

“The announcement of the lifting of that embargo is related directly to the attack on Palmyra and to the support of other terrorists outside Aleppo, because when they are defeated in Aleppo, the United States and the West, they need to support their proxies somewhere else,” Bashar al-Assad said.

“The crux of that announcement is to create more chaos, because the United States creates chaos in order to manage this chaos,” Assad added.

He added that Islamic State (Daesh, IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) forces “came with different and huge manpower and firepower that ISIS never had before during this attack, and they attacked on a huge front, tens of kilometers that could be a front of armies. ISIS could only have done that with the support of states. Not state; states.”

Russia Today (Maria Finoshina): Mr. President, thank you very much for agreeing to speak with us.

President Bashar al-Assad: You’re most welcome in Damascus.

RT: We start with Aleppo, of course. Aleppo is now seeing what is perhaps the most fierce fighting since the war started almost six years ago here in Syria, but the Western politicians and Western media have been largely negative about your army’s advance. Why you think this is happening? Do they take it as their own defeat?

B.A.: Actually, after they failed in Damascus, because the whole narrative was about “liberating Damascus from the state” during the first three years. When they failed, they moved to Homs, when they failed in Homs, they moved to Aleppo, they focused on Aleppo during the last three years, and for them this is the last most important card they could have played on the Syrian battlefield. Of course, they still have terrorists in different areas in Syria, but it’s not like talking about Aleppo as the second largest city which has the political, military, economic, and even moral sense when their terrorists are defeated. So, for them the defeat of the terrorists is the defeating of their proxies, to talk bluntly. These are their proxies, and for them the defeat of these terrorists is the defeat of the countries that supervised them, whether regional countries or Western countries like United States, first of all United States, and France, and UK.

RT: So, you think they take it as their own defeat, right?

B.A.: Exactly, that’s what I mean. The defeat of the terrorists, this is their own defeat because these are their real army on the ground. They didn’t interfere in Syria, or intervened, directly; they have intervened through these proxies. So, that’s how we have to look at it if we want to be realistic, regardless of their statements, of course.

RT: Palmyra is another troubled region now, and it’s now taken by ISIS or ISIL, but we don’t hear a lot of condemnation about it. Is that because of the same reason?

B.A.: Exactly, because if it was captured by the government, they will be worried about the heritage. If we liberate Aleppo from the terrorists, they would be – I mean, the Western officials and the mainstream media – they’re going to be worried about the civilians. They’re not worried when the opposite happens, when the terrorists are killing those civilians or attacking Palmyra and started destroying the human heritage, not only the Syrian heritage. Exactly, you are right, because ISIS, if you look at the timing of the attack, it’s related to what’s happening in Aleppo. This is the response to what’s happening in Aleppo, the advancement of the Syrian Arab Army, and they wanted to make this… or let’s say, to undermine the victory in Aleppo, and at the same time to distract the Syrian Army from Aleppo, to make it move toward Palmyra and stop the advancement, but of course it didn’t work.

#0000ff;">‘ISIS could only attack Palmyra the way it did with supervision of US alliance’

RT: We also hear reports that Palmyra siege was not only related to Aleppo battle, but also to what was happening in Iraq, and there are reports that the US-led coalition – which is almost 70 countries – allowed ISIL fighters in Mosul in Iraq to leave, and that strengthened ISIL here in Syria. Do you think it could be the case?

B.A.: It could be, but this is only to wash the hand of the American politicians from their responsibility on the attack, when they say “just because of Mosul, of course, the Iraqi army attacked Mosul, and ISIS left Mosul to Syria.” That’s not the case. Why? Because they came with different and huge manpower and firepower that ISIS never had before during this attack, and they attacked on a huge front, tens of kilometers that could be a front of armies. ISIS could only have done that with the support of states. Not state; states. They came with different machineguns, cannons, artillery, everything is different. So, it could only happen when they come in this desert with the supervision of the American alliance that’s supposed to attack them in al-Raqqa and Mosul and Deir Ezzor, but it didn’t happen; they either turned a blind eye on what ISIS is going to do, and, or – and that’s what I believe – they pushed toward Palmyra. So, it’s not about Mosul. We don’t have to fall in that trap. It’s about al-Raqqa and Deir Ezzor. They are very close, only a few hundred kilometers, they could come under the supervision of the American satellites and the American drones and the American support.

RT: How strong ISIS is today?

B.A.: As strong as the support that they get from the West and regional powers. Actually, they’re not strong for… if you talk isolated case, ISIS as isolated case, they’re not strong, because they don’t have the natural social incubator. Without it, terrorists cannot be strong enough. But the real support they have, the money, the oil field investment, the support of the American allies’ aircrafts, that’s why they are strong. So, they are as strong as their supporters, or as their supervisors.

RT: In Aleppo, we heard that you allowed some of these terrorists to leave freely the battleground. Why would you do that? It’s clear that they can go back to, let’s say, Idleb, and get arms and get ready for further attacks, then maybe attack those liberating Aleppo.

B.A.: Exactly, exactly, that’s correct, and that’s been happening for the last few years, but you always have things to lose and things to gain, and when the gain is more than what you lose, you go for that gain. In that case, our priority is to protect the area from being destroyed because of the war, to protect the civilians who live there, to give the chance for those civilians to leave through the open gates, to leave that area to the areas under the control of the government, and to give the chance to those terrorists to change their minds, to join the government, to go back to their normal life, and to get amnesty. When they don’t, they can leave with their armaments, with the disadvantage that you mentioned, but this is not our priority, because if you fight them in any other area outside the city, you’re going to have less destruction and less civilian casualties, that’s why.

#0000ff;">‘Fighting terrorists US-style cannot solve the problem’

RT: I feel that you call them terrorists, but at the same time you treat them as human beings, you tell them “you have a chance to go back to your normal life.”

B.A.: Exactly. They are terrorists because they are holding machineguns, they kill, they destroy, they commit vandalism, and so on, and that’s natural, everywhere in the world that’s called as terrorism. But at the same time, they are humans who committed terrorism. They could be something else. They joined the terrorists for different reasons, either out of fear, for the money, sometimes for the ideology. So, if you can bring them back to their normal life, to be natural citizens, that’s your job as a government. It’s not enough to say “we’re going to fight terrorists.” Fighting terrorists is like a videogame; you can destroy your enemy in the videogame, but the videogame will generate and regenerate thousands of enemies, so you cannot deal with it on the American way: just killing, just killing! This is not our goal; this is the last option you have. If you can change, this is a good option, and it succeeded. It succeeded because many of those terrorists, when you change their position, some of them living normal lives, and some of them joined the Syrian Army, they fought with the Syrian Army against the other terrorists. This is success, from our point of view.

RT: Mr. President, you just said that you gain and you lose. Do you feel you’ve done enough to minimize civilian casualties during this conflict?

B.A.: We do our utmost. What’s enough, this is subjective; each one could look at it in his own way. At the end, what’s enough is what you can do; my ability as a person, the ability of the government, the ability of Syria as a small country to face a war that’s been supported by tens of countries, mainstream media’s hundreds of channels, and other machines working against you. So, it depends on the definition of “enough,” so this is, as I said, very subjective, but I’m sure that we are doing our best. Nothing is enough at the end, and the human practice is always full of correct and flows, or mistakes, let’s say, and that’s the natural thing.

#0000ff;">‘West’s cries for ceasefire meant to save terrorists’

RT: We hear Western powers asking Russia and Iran repeatedly to put pressure on you to, as they put it, “stop the violence,” and just recently, six Western nations, in an unprecedented message, they asked Russia and Iran again to put pressure on you, asking for a ceasefire in Aleppo.

B.A.: Yeah.

RT: Will you go for it? At the time when your army was progressing, they were asking for a ceasefire.

B.A.: Exactly. It’s always important in politics to read between the lines, not to be literal. It doesn’t matter what they ask; the translation of their statement is for Russia: “please stop the advancement of the Syrian Army against the terrorists.” That’s the meaning of that statement, forget about the rest. “You went too far in defeating the terrorists, that shouldn’t happen. You should tell the Syrians to stop this, we have to keep the terrorists and to save them.” This is in brief.

Second, Russia never – these days, I mean, during this war, before that war, during the Soviet Union – never tried to interfere in our decision. Whenever they had opinion or advice, doesn’t matter how we can look at it, they say at the end “this is your country, you know what the best decision you want to take; this is how we see it, but if you see it in a different way, you know, you are the Syrian.” They are realistic, and they respect our sovereignty, and they always defend the sovereignty that’s based on the international law and the Charter of the United Nations. So, it never happened that they made any pressure, and they will never do it. This is not their methodology.

RT: How strong is the Syrian Army today?

B.A.: It’s about the comparison, to two things: first of all, the war itself; second, to the size of Syria. Syria is not a great country, so it cannot have a great army in the numerical sense. The support of our allies was very important; mainly Russia, and Iran. After six years, or nearly six years of the war, which is longer than the first World War and the second World War, it’s definitely and self-evident that the Syrian Army is not to be as strong as it was before that. But what we have is determination to defend our country. This is the most important thing. We lost so many lives in our army, we have so many martyrs, so many disabled soldiers. Numerically, we lost a lot, but we still have this determination, and I can tell you this determination is much stronger than before the war. But of course, we cannot ignore the support from Russia, we cannot ignore the support from Iran, that make this determination more effective and efficient.

#0000ff;">‘Stronger Russia, China make world a safer place’

RT: President Obama has lifted a ban on arming some Syrian rebels just recently. What impact you think could it have on the situation on the ground, and could it directly or indirectly provide a boost to terrorists?

B.A.: We’re not sure that he lifted that embargo when he announced it. Maybe he lifted it before, but announced it later just to give it the political legitimacy, let’s say. This is first. The second point, which is very important: the timing of the announcement and the timing of attacking Palmyra. There’s a direct link between these two, so the question is to whom those armaments are going to? In the hands of who? In the hands of ISIS and al-Nusra, and there’s coordination between ISIS and al-Nusra. So, the announcement of this lifting of that embargo is related directly to the attack on Palmyra and to the support of other terrorists outside Aleppo, because when they are defeated in Aleppo, the United States and the West, they need to support their proxies somewhere else, because they don’t have any interest in solving the conflict in Syria. So, the crux of that announcement is to create more chaos, because the United States creates chaos in order to manage this chaos, and when they manage it, they want to use the different factors in that chaos in order to exploit the different parties of the conflict, whether they are internal parties or external parties.

RT: Mr. President, how do you feel about being a small country in the middle of this tornado of countries not interested in ending the war here?

B.A.: Exactly. It’s something we’ve always felt before this war, but we felt it more of course today, because small countries feel safer when there’s international balance, and we felt the same, what you just mentioned, after the collapse of the Soviet Union when there was only American hegemony, and they wanted to implement whatever they want and to dictate all their policies on everyone. Small countries suffer the most. So, we feel it today, but at the same time, today there’s more balance with the Russian role. That’s why I think we always believe the more Russia is stronger – I’m not only talking about Syria, I’m talking about every small country in the world – whenever the stronger Russia, more rising China, we feel more secure. It’s painful, I would say it’s very painful, this situation that we’ve been living, on every level; humanitarian level, the feeling, the loss, everything. But at the end, it’s not about losing and winning; it’s about either winning or losing your country. It’s existential threat for Syria. It’s not about government losing against other government or army against army; either the country will win, or the country will disappear. That’s how we look at it. That’s why you don’t have time to feel that pain; you only have time to fight and defend and do something on the ground.

#0000ff;">‘Mainstream media lost credibility along with moral compass’

RT: Let’s talk about media’s role in this conflict.

B.A.: Yeah

RT: All sides during this war have been accused of civilian casualties, but the Western media has been almost completely silent about the atrocities committed by the rebels… what role is the media playing here?

B.A.: First of all, the mainstream media with their fellow politicians, they are suffering during the last few decades from moral decay. So, they have no morals. Whatever they talk about, whatever they mention or they use as mask, human rights, civilians, children; they use all these just for their own political agenda in order to provoke the feelings of their public opinion to support them in their intervention in this region, whether militarily or politically. So, they don’t have any credibility regarding this. If you want to look at what’s happening in the United States is rebellion against the mainstream media, because they’ve been lying and they kept lying on their audiences. We can tell that, those, let’s say, the public opinion or the people in the West doesn’t know the real story in our region, but at least they know that the mainstream media and their politicians were laying to them for their own vested interests agenda and vested interests politicians. That’s why I don’t think the mainstream media could sell their stories anymore and that’s why they are fighting for their existence in the West, although they have huge experience and huge support and money and resources, but they don’t have something very important for them to survive, which is the credibility. They don’t have it, they lost it. They don’t have the transparency, that’s why they don’t have credibility. That’s why they are very coward today, they are afraid of your channel, of any statement that could tell the truth because it’s going to debunk their talks. That’s why.

RT: Reuters news agency have been quoting Amaq, ISIL’s mouthpiece, regarding the siege of Palmyra. Do you think they give legitimacy to extremists in such a way? They’re quoting their media.

B.A.: Even if they don’t mention their news agencies, they adopt their narrative anyway. But if you look at the technical side of the way ISIS presented itself from the very beginning through the videos and the news and the media in general and the PR, they use Western technique. Look at it, it’s very sophisticated. How could somebody who’s under siege, who’s despised all over the world, who’s under attack from the airplanes, who the whole world wants to liberate every city from him, could be that sophisticated unless he is not relaxed and has all the support? So, I don’t think it is about Amaq; it’s about the West adopting their stories, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly.

RT: Donald Trump takes over as US President in a few weeks. You mentioned America many times today. What do you expect from America’s new administration?

B.A.: His rhetoric during the campaign was positive regarding the terrorism, which is our priority today. Anything else is not priority, so, I wouldn’t focus on anything else, the rest is American, let’s say, internal matters, I wouldn’t worry about. But the question whether Trump has the will or the ability to implement what he just mentioned. You know that most of the mainstream media and big corporate, the lobbies, the Congress, even some in his party were against him; they want to have more hegemony, more conflict with Russia, more interference in different countries, toppling governments, and so on. He said something in the other direction. Could he sustain against all those after he started next month? That’s the question. If he could, I think the world will be in a different place, because the most important thing is the relation between Russia and the Unites States. If he goes towards that relation, most of the tension around the world will be pacified. That’s very important for us in Syria, but I don’t think anyone has the answer to that. He wasn’t a politician, so, we don’t have any reference to judge him, first. Second, nobody can tell what kind of pattern is it going to be next month and after.

#0000ff;">‘Western countries only sent aid to terrorists’

RT: The humanitarian situation in Syria is a disaster, and we hear from EU foreign policy chief, Madam Mogherini, that EU is the only entity to deliver humanitarian aid to Syria. Is that true?

B.A.: Actually, all the aid that any Western country sent was to the terrorists, to be very clear, blunt and very transparent. They never cared about a single Syrian human life. We have so many cities in Syria till today surrounded by and besieged by the terrorists; they prevented anything to reach them, food, water, anything, all the basic needs of life. Of course, they attack them on daily basis by mortars and try to kill them. What did the EU send to those? If they are worried about the human life, if they talk about the humanitarian aspect, because when you talk about the humanitarian aspect or issue, you don’t discriminate. All the Syrians are humans, all the people are humans. They don’t do that. So, this is the double standard, this is the lie that they keep telling, and it’s becoming a disgusting lie, no-one is selling their stories anymore. That’s not true, what she mentioned, not true.

RT: Some suggestions say that for Syria, the best solution would to split into separate countries governed by Sunni, Shi’a, Kurds. Is it any way possible?

B.A.: This is the Western – with some regional countries’ – hope or dream, and this is not new, not related to this war; that was before the war, and you have maps for this division and disintegration. But actually, if you look at the society today, the Syrian society is more unified than before the war. This is reality. I’m not saying anything to raise the morale of anyone, I’m not talking to Syrian audience anyway now, I’m talking about the reality. Because of the lessons of the war, the society became more realistic and pragmatic and many Syrians knew that being fanatic doesn’t help, being extreme in any idea, I’m not only talking about extremism in the religious meaning; politically, socially, culturally, doesn’t help Syria. Only when we accept each other, when we respect each other, we can live with each other and we can have one country. So, regarding the disintegration of Syria, if you don’t have this real disintegration among the society and different shades and spectrum of the Syrian society, Syrian fabric, you cannot have division. It’s not a map you draw, I mean, even if you have one country while the people are divided, you have disintegration. Look at Iraq, it’s one country, but it is disintegrated in reality. So, no, I’m not worried about this. There’s no way that Syrians will accept that. I’m talking now about the vast majority of the Syrians, because this is not new, this is not the subject of the last few weeks or the last few months. This is the subject of this war. So, after nearly six years, I can tell you the majority of the Syrians wouldn’t accept anything related to disintegration, they are going to live as one Syria.

RT: As a mother, I feel the pain of all Syrian mothers. I’m speaking about children in Syria, what does the future hold for them?

B.A.: This is the most dangerous aspect of our problem, not only in Syria; wherever you talk about this dark Wahhabi ideology, because many of those children who became young during the last decade, or more than one decade, who joined the terrorists on ideological basis, not for the like of money or anything else, or hope, let’s say, they came from open-minded families, educated families, intellectual families. So, you can imagine how strong the terrorism is.

#0000ff;">‘Being secular doesn’t protect a nation from terrorist ideology’

RT: So, that happened because of their propaganda?

B.A.: Exactly, because the ideology is very dangerous; it knows no borders, no political borders, and the network, the worldwide web has helped those terrorists using fast and inexpensive tools in order to promote their ideology, and they could infiltrate any family anywhere in the world, whether in Europe, in your country, in my country, anywhere. You have secular society, I have secular society, but it didn’t protect the society from being infiltrated.

RT: Do you have any counter ideology for this?

B.A.: Exactly, because they built their ideology on the Islam, you have to use the same ideology, using the real Islam, the real moderate Islam, in order to counter their ideology. This is the fast way. If we want to talk about the mid-term and long-term, it’s about how much can you upgrade the society, the way the people analyze and think, because this ideology can only work when you cannot analyze, when you don’t think properly. So, it’s about the algorithm of the mind, if you have natural or healthy operating system, if you want to draw an analogy to the IT, if you have good operating systems in our mind, they cannot infiltrate it like a virus. So, it’s about the education, media and policy because sometimes when you have a cause, a national cause, and people lose hope, you can push those people towards being extremists, and this is one of the influences in our region since the seventies, after the war between the Arabs and the Israelis, and the peace failed in every aspect to recapture the land, to give the land and the rights to its people, you have more desperation, and that played into the hand of the extremists, and this is where the Wahhabi find fertile soil to promote its ideology.

RT: Mr. President, thank you very much for your time, and I wish your country peace and prosperity, and as soon as possible.

B.A.: Thank you very much for coming.

RT: This time has been very tough for you, so I wish it’s going to end soon.

B.A.: Thank you very much for coming to Syria. I’m very glad to receive you.

RT: Thank you.

Sources of this article and transcript were:

Videos by Syrian Presidency and Russia Today, Transcript by Russia Today and SyrianPatriots War Press Info Network at:
https://syrianfreepress.wordpress.com/2016/12/15/al-assad-to-rt/

Re-publications are welcome, but we kindly ask you, to facilitate the correct information's diffusion, to cite all these original links and sources.

If you have lost faith in western explanations of what is going on in Syria, maybe you have begun to question what you believed about the break-up of Yugoslavia which began in the 1990s and was accomplished with NATO's involvement in 1999. NATO waged war against the Serbian and other governments opposed to Yugoslavia's division into several states - its 'balkanisation'. The way these conflicts were reported in the west was terribly confusing. In the first part of this article, Ken stone suggests why outside forces were so keen to disorganise post-Tito Yugoslavia. In the second part, 'Victors' justice', he criticises the way the the victors rewrote history as they dominated the international justice system and notes how they got away with dismembering Yugoslavia.

Author Ken Stone is an executive member at Syria Solidarity Movement and his website is www.hamiltoncoalitiontostopthewar.ca

The West sought to destroy Yugoslavia for several reasons:

1) Germany has always regarded the Balkans as within its natural sphere of influence. For that reason, its policy has always been to keep the Balkan people balkanized, the better to manipulate, dominate, and exploit them. For this reason, Nazi Germany attacked Yugoslavia during WW2, redivided the country along ethnic and confessional lines and punished the Serbs especially because they led the effort to form a federal republic. Germany played a large role in the 1990’s to split up the former Yugoslavia.

2) The USA sought to dismember Yugoslavia because it was outside of its control until the end of the Cold War and did not have sufficiently compliant economic or political system. In short, US multinational corporations could not just walk into Yugoslavia and set up shop. There were rules and regulations against foreign takeovers that had to be removed. There was also a lot of public control and ownership of the Yugoslavian economy.

3) The USSR had always stood as the protector of the South Slavs. The demise of the Soviet Union gave the USA the opportunity to divide up Yugoslavia, pit one nation against another, sell arms to all sides, dominate the region, privatize the many state industries, and seize the fabulous Trepka mines of Kosovo which were under state control.

4) Although there were no important supplies of oil and gas in Yugoslavia, the US had a plan to bring Qatari gas pipelines into South Europe through Kosovo to undercut the Russian pipelines through Ukraine and into Eastern Europe. The Qatari pipeline was to go through a defeated Syria, which didn’t happen. The US built its super-base, Bondsteel, in Kosovo as the anchor of the new Qatari gas line.

Victors' justice

The problem with the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) was that it was victors’ justice, set up by the NATO countries that launched the illegal war of aggression against the former Yugoslavia, and targeted the victims of that aggression, mainly Serbs. The military intervention was NOT authorized by the United Nations Security Council. It was a successful attempt to destroy and dismember a country which described itself as a secular, socialist, federalist, pluralistic, and democratic state. After the war, all the claims made by NATO to justify the attack on Yugoslavia – namely that Yugoslavia was conducting a genocide in Kosovo – proved to be false.

The real criminals, who started the war, were never put on trial. I refer specifically to US President Bill Clinton and his Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, but also to all the leaders of NATO countries at the time, including Canada’s Jean Chretien. The NDP originally supported the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia, which lasted 78 days, but, under pressure from its own members, reversed its position after three weeks.

NATO countries were content to use the help of terrorist mercenaries from the Kosovo Liberation Army, which was supported by Osama Bin Laden’s Al Qaeda, as their foot soldiers, against the Yugoslavian army. (Does this sound familiar in the context of Syria today?) The KLA was a bunch of drug and human smugglers, which until then, had been on the USA’s own terrorist list. After the defeat and dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia, the KLA conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Kosovo and destroyed many historic Serbian orthodox churches and monasteries. The fabulous Trepka mines in Kosovo were privatized. The USA then proceeded to build Bondsteel, its largest military base in the world, nearby.

So Milosevic, the democratically-elected president of the republic, died in custody at the Hague and now Karadzic will spend the rest of his life behind bars while the war-makers/pillagers walk free.

The destruction of the former Yugoslavia was only the first of the post-Cold War western military interventions. After they got away with that crime (because the Soviet Union had collapsed), the US and its allies attacked Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Haiti, Libya, and Syria. (Did I miss any?)

I am not impressed with the miscarriage of justice known as the ICTY.