As I see it, there could be four reasons why NATO bombed Serbia:
1. Humanitarian Reasons
2. Regional Stability
3. Oil
4. Opportunistic Capitalist Expansion
1. Humanitarian Reasons
-----------------------
This is the reason offered by NATO, but it is patently a lie. This can be
deduced because other nations are oppressing their citizens and NATO
did/does nothing. If NATO were really interested in preventing humanitarian
disaster, then it would intervene in all places where humanitarian disaster
occurs. Also it is being revealed that the much cited attempted genocide of
Kosovars never happened.
2. Regional Stability
---------------------
Madeleine Albright said that the USA must bomb Serbia to preserve Regional
Stability.
While this actually accords very well with the publicly enunciated foreign
policy position of the USA, the effect of the bombing was to greatly
decrease regional stability, therefore this explanation is rejected as
illogical.
3. Oil
------
Some say that the USA wants to:
i) Protect recent oil discoveries in Bosnia;
ii) Guarantee pipe-line routes from Kazakhstan to Western Europe
I don't think that oil alone is the reason. The West could have licensed
the pipe-line route from Milosevic, paying him some royalties and so had
admittedly less secure access, but without starting a war.
4. Opportunistic Capitalist Expansion
-------------------------------------
My last option. It seems to me the West wants to dismantle the former
Yugoslavia into compliant bite-sized chunks and incorporate them piece-meal
into the global capitalist system for the benefit of multi-national
corporations and banks.
i) German Policy In The Balkans
ii) Recent US and Western Policy In The Balkans
iii) US Financial and IMF Policy In The Balkans And Its Effects
i) Germany In The Balkans
-------------------------
Germany has historically wanted the Balkans disunited and weak and has
attempted to foster tiny nationalisms whererver it found them in order to
promote this policy.
ii) Recent US and Western Policy In The Balkans
----------------------------------
It appears to me that the USA and the West has decided to copy Germany's
policy of "divide and integrate" in the Balkans. In Bosnia, following the
Dayton Accords, the European Union installed a full-fledged colonial
administration in Bosnia. At its head is their appointed High
Representative(HR). The HR has full executive powers in all civilian
matters, with the right to overrule the governments of both the Bosnian
Federation and the Bosnian-Serb Republika Srpska.
The tasks of managing the Bosnian economy have been carefully divided among
Western institutions. The Central Bank is under IMF custody, the European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) heads the Commission on
Public Corporations which supervises operations of all public sector
enterprises including energy, water, postal services, roads, railways, etc.
The HR can summarily dismiss Bosnian and Serb presidents in the former
Bosnia-Hercegovina
iii) US Financial and IMF Policy In The Balkans And Its Effects
---------------------------------------------------------------
US Financial and IMF policy in the Balkans has acted to disintegrate the
former Yugoslav federation.
Summary:
-------
NATO is succesfully re-balkanising the Balkans in order to advance the
interests of its multi-national firms and banks.
"US-led NATO imperialism wants to secure pipeline routes and
access to Caspian oil and gas in former Soviet republics. It
wants to expand profitable exploitation of cheap labor
[and natural resources] by global corporations." [Chussodovsky]
Also, the Balkans provides the US with military bases in Albania, Bosnia,
Macedonia and Montenegro which strategically enable them to extend its reach
into the former USSR and Middle East.
Craig Siviour,
Sydney, Australia
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