I was thinking about this today. I was actually involved in organizing people to call the White House and get them to intervene in Yugoslavia. Boy, was I naive. Everything I’ve read since them tells me the war had much more to do with neoliberal economic interests, and not humanitarian intervention. In fact, there’s reason to believe the “ethnic cleansing” was a manufactured rational for the bombings and subsequent NATO control.
The older I get, the more I see there really is no such thing as a “good war.”
The Milton Friedman neo-cons also brought us the neoliberal economic war in Iraq. Just install free markets and Jeffersonian democracy will break out in the center of the Islamic world the Zionists assured us. Nah, not so much. Then there’s Ukraine. Yesterday the Taliban attacked a NATO military base located on the Afghan-Pakistan border east of Kabul. Why does NATO have any military bases in Afghanistan or in Pakistan? How many NATO bases will be located along the Ukraine-Russia border? The U.S. is its own worst enemy.
I had an epiphany back in the 90s when I looked at a map of Europe from the Second World War and compared it to a map with the currently dissected Yugoslavia. Divide and conquer. If Yugoslavia were a united country it could offer competition to Germany’s (and US, Britain, IMF’s) tentacles. Little countries are easier for corporations to control. Likewise, Iraq will also be much easier to manipulate when its divided and worrying about the people over the hill who arrange their prayer rugs differently. It’s pretty clear that the US’ goal in Ukraine involves some kind of division along ethnic lines. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have promoted the Nazis who weren’t all that popular among the people.
If the US had been able to get Crimea they would have had a great base from which to operate the war for the oil up around Baku.
I heard somewhere that prior to WWI Herbert Hoover’s family had gotten the oil rights to that area of Russia from the Czar, and one can look at the Cold War as America’s attempt at regaining those oil fields. Of course, a lot of other things happened too. It does seem that where’ve the US sticks its nose there is generally oil nearby.
I’ve also wondered how the 1965 coup in Indonesia was connected to Vietnam. Oil there too.
it is ALWAYS about money – which comes from control of natural (and unnatural) resources. Always.
We need to repeatedly remind ourselves that US foreign policy is all about protecting/preserving capitalism by keeping markets open for US corporations [that includes resource extraction and labor besides the selling of goods/services]. It is for this reason that we are strangling tiny Cuba for 50+years much after the Cold War was over – because they dared to come up with an alternative to capitalism [however imperfect]. I began to realise this first when I read John Perkins’ “Confessions of an economic hitman”. It is for the same reason that Dems typically retain Republican foreign policy establishment types. And policy is driven by groups like Trilateral Commission etc which are made of corporate bosses.
Michael Parenti’s “Contrary Notion” briefly talks about the facade that is the “humanitarian” intervention in Yugoslavia. he has a whole book on the topic which I havent’ read. Also Diana Johnstone’s book is supposed to be good [“To kill a nation” is the title I think].