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Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, Nato, and Western Delusions

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As an intelligence officer from a NATO country who spent three long, and two short tours in Bosnia, I must say the information provided in this book is disturbingly accurate. While the first US and NATO troops on the ground (IFOR) at least made an attempt to present a neutral front, all semblance of neutrality went out the window with SFOR. SFOR was a blatant pro-Muslim, pro-Croatian force.
Several observations for other readers who disagree--what would be the reaction in the world press if Germany re-adopted the Nazi flag? Yet the Ustasa Nazi Croation flag is completely accepted and Serbs who were living in Croatia certainly remembered that flag. How is it that the world bastion of democracy-the United States-can directly intervene in a free and open election in the Republika Serpska and remove an elected president, Dr. Poplassen, and forceably install a corrupt US puppet. (this was witnessed first hand.) Enough venting; for people interested in purchasing this book, be prepared. The story told is not what you will remember from the press and is not US State Department approved.

Much has been said in times recent about the need for Serbs to come to terms with their collective guilt over the extreme violence surrounding the breakup of the former Yugoslavia. This book makes it abundantly clear that, as far as collective guilt is concerned, it's not the Serbs that should be in the dock.

The litany of lies and misinformation that was used to convince the clueless masses of the righteousness of the case against 'the Serbs' is quite astounding. The big lie technique to justify war is well known, and has been documented extensively elsewhere. However, this wasn't the case with the Balkans, where instead many many small lies were used effectively to create a smoke screen around the reality of the situation. These lies were, and still are, constantly and persistently perpetuated by a subservient media and presscorp, hungry for the gratuities earned from deceptions as gratuitous as the carnage they portray. Reports every bit as bad as that last sentence.

The small lie that convinced the world that the Serbs were the new Nazis, the so-called 'concentration camp' picture from Trnopolje.

The small lie, the Srebrenica massacre, that diverted the worlds attention from a massive piece of cognitive dissonance, the ethnic cleansing of Serbs from the Croatian krajina. It's over 8 years now since the alleged genocide occured, and still the media persists in stating as fact, every time Srebrenica is mentioned, that 7000 Muslim men and boys were slaughtered by Serbs, despite the evidence which is at best inconclusive, and at worst indicative of a grand deception. On the other hand, the media never seems to mention the krajina at all.

The small lie about the Croatian and Bosnian leaderships. Would the anti-Serb rhetoric have been so easily swallowed if we had known the truth about Tudjman and Izetbegovic?

All of these small lies worked so well because the vast majority of us corn sucking westerners have been so thoroughly depoliticized that we can only see conflicts in terms of human rights violations. Any political context goes straight out the window. This is a bizarre situation, because the first thing defenders of Empire say when confronted with western power atrocities is 'you've got to consider the political context.'

And when you only see, and are only told about one sides human rights violations, what else are you going to think.

Another irony to come from the Balkans conflicts is the ICTY, and it's relationship to the ICC. The US rejects the ICC because it believes that it will be used for political purposes. Well, duh! That's exactly the precedent set by the ICTY. The whole Milosevic situation, from indictment right through to the trial has been a string of political manipulations. My favourite one is the externally driven kidnapping of Milosevic, and extradition to the Hague, to undermine Kostunicas' credibility, and allow Djinjic (who never was concerned with credibility) to take the power.

This book, as the author states, is not the whole story, but it is a good primer. From this and several other books, and numerous essays on the subject (some of the most damning being from Bosnian Muslims and Croats), I'd say that interventionist westerners need to come to terms with their collective guilt.

It is not common to see 500 references in a book of 280 pages, and most of them are easy to check through major libraries or even the internet. Johnstone builds her case with undisputable documentation of the available evindence of massive propaganda that was much more successful than in the case of Iraq, since there was tacit approval among all Western countries and nobody was willing to rock the boat. Those who dispute her evidence should check the references, one by one. Perhaps they will learn something new.

Nash, Canada

Diana Johnstone's text is extraordinary. One of the main difficulties when dealing with social reality is that no one is neutral. When a particular point of view regarding any issue is supported by those who have the power to influence the flow of information, then the general understanding of that particular issue is biased. This is true for the bombing of Yugoslavia in particular, and for the general understanding of the whole conflict. The reason is that those with power to influence the flow of information had a strong motivation to do it -- putting it into context, US-led NATO needed a justification for their intervention, which in reality had more to do with building oil-pipelines, installing US military bases in Kosovo and control-reconstruct the area, and NATO credibility, than with anything regarding the conflict in Yugoslavia (for anyone who knows anything about politics this should be no surprise, a state act solely out of concern for its national interest). However, the bombing was rather catastrophic for people in Yugoslavia, even for Kosovo Albanians.
In any case, as Johnstone's book demonstrates with strong evidence and the use of reason (the hardest weapon against state propaganda), the US and NATO largely succeeded in their aims, demonizing Milosevic and the Serbs, and reducing the Yugoslav conflict to slogans -- such as the so-called "ethnic cleansing" of the Albanians in Kosovo, or the comparison of Serbs to Nazis and of Milosevic to Hitler. For anyone interested in understanding the conflict, those claims, although widely supported by the mass media in the West, are not only false but rather absurd, and its most immediate consequence is a generally biased understanding of the conflict. What Diana Johnstone does is to demonstrate this bias, widely supported by state propaganda and, surprinsingly, most of the mass media, and compare it with what, as far as evidence can take us, the reality of the Yugoslav conflict from as early as the XIVth century (in the case of Kosovo) through 2000. So, for anyome willing to reason about the conflict instead of following slogans, this is a great book to challenge mainstream accounts.

This is an incisive and perceptive book. It provides a perspective that was shut out by Muslim and especially Croatian propaganda with images of concentration camps, rapes and genocide. Horrofic numbers were plucked out of the air in round numbers of tens and hundreds of thousands in orded to justify the bombing of the Serbs. Holbrooke claimed 300,000 Muslims killed. Nothing of the sort happened. It is routine now to claim that NATO bombed Serbia because it drove out 800,000 Albanians out of Kosovo. The Albananians fled because of the chaos generated by the bombing, because the KLA was forcing them to flee to justify the bombing. Diana Johnston has brought honesty into the debate on the Yugoslavia tragedy. A must read for those who wish to know the reality among the propaganda.

A thoroughly researched book on how Europe allowed itself to be dragged by a deceitful Clinton Administration with UK/Nato support into approving/participating in the destruction of Yugoslavia once a european socialist model of a peaceful and happy multicultural/multireligious society.

The consequences of this aggressive and criminal war which devastated the civilian infrastructure of the country and caused the death of hundreds of thousands of people are ethnic tensions that hardly existed before and the continued dislocation and misery of millions of Serbs, Croats and Moslems who have lost their homes, their belongings and any hope for a better future.

Many brainwashed and angry Bosnian Muslims are trying to discredit this book through reviews on this site. However, their poor knowledge of their own radical leadership (Alija Izetbegovic)and real causes and roots of Bosnian war will always cause a problem for them when they encounter such a serious and factual book as this one. Most of the facts that Johnstone writes about are INDISPUTABLE and they can be easily checked. Further more, real intellectuals, historian and political activists know who Diana Johnston is and most of them consider her work to be completely independent, factual and objective. For example, Noam Chosmky always (latest in his Guardian interview)states that Johnston's book (Fools Crusade) is probably the best one ever written on wars in Yugoslavia. He often points out how she was prevented from publishing it at first, but when outcry from academical community became too loud, the book was finally published. And why is this?
Well Dianas' book is really something and after reading it you will clearly know this:
*Bosnia and Croatia had nationalistic leaders in power during the Wars in Ex_yugoslavia and THEY WANTED the war at any cost, because only like that they could get (illegal) recognition and state independence.They were supported by Germany, Austria,Vatican and USA and later whole WEST (as we know it, but also in case of Bosnia -whole World Muslim community and in the case of Croatia- Croatian Nazi emigration and Fascistic groups from all over Europe).
* Serbia had a non-nationalistic leader, Milosevic, who was a communist and who wanted to preserve Yugoslavia (Communists in Yugoslavia did not go hand in hand with nationalists,they were always opposed to NATIONALISM, they propagated " BROTHERHOOD and UNITY" between all Yugoslav nationalities and Milosevic was no exception- check testimony of Lord Owen in Hague). Serbia was supported by Russia, Greece and later China and therefore, of course, bound to loose Western media battle and War.
* Franjo Tudjman (president of Croatia) and Alija Iztebegovic(president of Bosnia) were both convicted nationalist, who both spent time in prison for their nationalism, during Old Yugoslavia and Tito regime. Milosevic was never accused of nationalism, on the contrary, he was a member of communist party when he took power in Serbia.
* Tudjman was sponsored and supported by Croatian Nazi emigration and his plan and goal was Great Croatia, which would include large part of Bosnia and parts of Serbia as well- check writings and testimonies of both EU and UN envoys in Yugoslavia, Lord Carrington and Lord Owen.However, his ultimate goal was expulsion of Serbs from Croatia proper. This plan originated from Croatian Nazi State during II World War, when Serbs were treated equal to Jews in Croatia and were massively exterminated (close to a million just in Concentration Camp JASENOVAC).Then it was Croatian Fuehrer (Croatia was a most faithful ally of Hitler) Pavelic who instructed that "one third of Serbs in Croatia has to be expelled, one third forcibly converted to Catholicism and one third has to be exterminated". They couldn't finish this monstrous plan then, but Tudjman and New Croatia did, especially in 1995s' operation "STORM" when 350.000 Serbs were ethnically cleansed in several days from Krajina, territory within Croatia which was overwhelmingly populated by Croatian Serbs for 5 centuries. Before the 1990 Wars in Yugoslavia, Croatia had around 20% Serbs living on its territory . Now, after the war there is less than 2% of Serbs in Croatia. Tudjman has many times shown his nationalistic and often Fascistic side to the World, but being Western ally, that was forgiven to him ( His most infamous quote is " Thank God that my wife is neither Jewish and neither Serb"; he has also written a book in early 1990s in which he denies holocaust, especially the one against Serbs, reducing the number of victims in Concentration Camp Jasenovac from close to a million to just around 50.000!)
* Alija Izetbegovic was not supported by Nazis, but he was rather Nazi himself and a radical muslim, once considered to be "The right hand man of AYATOLLAH KHOMEYNI" . During II World War he has served as nazi soldier in Bosnian Handzar division. Bosnian muslims, like Croats were Hitlers' ally. Izetbegovic formed strong links with Iran and radical muslim groups in Middle East in 1970s. That is when he was sentenced to prison by Tito (just like Tudjman several years later) for his radical nationalistic views. In his book, 'Islamic Declaration', which earned him a jail sentence he demands a truly fundamentalist "muslim" state in Bosnia, without scope for non-muslim institutions or existence of other religions.The book scathingly attacks Attaturk's reforms and holds up Pakistan as a model to be followed. Izetbegovic says on page 22 : " There can be no peace or coexistence between the "Islamic faith" and non- Islamic societies and political institutions.". What to say more.... Lord Owen openly blames Izetbegovic for War in Bosnia, and in his book,'Balkan Odyssey', which is available from AMAZON, he states that it was Izetbegovic who wanted the war at any cost, that it was him who broke most of the peace treaties and that he was probably supported by USA in this. Owen claims that that was the only way for Izetbegovic to get independence for Bosnia, since Muslims in Bosnia make up only around 37% of population, against 24% of Croats who wanted their parts of Bosnia to join Croatia and 33% of Serbs who wanted to stay within Yugoslavia and NOW probably want to be joined with Serbia. So, in peace, there was no legal foundation for recognition of Bosnia as independent state-that is why Izetebegovic wanted war.In his book Owen, and here Diana Johnstone, state that Muslim leadership used "all available means" to get "International community"(West) behind them. That includes shelling their own people, staging false massacres (like the one in Sarajevo market) and intentionally sacrificing Srebrenica, knowing that there will be terrible reprisal from Serbs, since Muslim divisions in Srebrenica were terrorizing Serbian population in villages around for several years. All of these dirty and inhumane tricks brought USA to stage in Balkans, which used these cowardly acts (particularly Srebrenica) to wage a war against Serbs on "humanitarian grounds" in support of "defenseless" and "moderate". In fact, neither they were defenseless (They were sponsored by ALL muslim countries with money,weapons and voluntary holy fighters "Mujahedeens") and neither they were moderate (as you can see Muslim leadership was very radical, although most of the simple and ordinary people were moderate-and this is why is so hard for them to see their leader Izetbegovic and his actions for what they really are....But to be sure what kind of person Izetbegovic is, you should read Johnston's book or even check following links: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/759885/posts and http://www.srpska-mreza.com/library/facts/alija.html)

* Slobodan Milosevic was not a true nationalist and neither a radical guy. He has been demonized in the West, often compared to Hitler or Saddam Hussein, but truth is quite opposite.He was not an angel either but of all the leaders that were one way or the other engaged in war (Tudjman, Izetbegovic and later leaders of KLA) Milosevic is by far the least of a nationalist. That is why communists from all over ex-Yugoslavia did support him and many of them still live in Belgrade.Milosevic was obsessed with Yugoslavia much more than Serbia or "Great serbia".He stood for BROTHERHOOD AND UNITY and equality between all nationalities and his Serbia remained the MOST MULTIETHNIC society in Balkans. And under him Serbia and Montenegro were still called YUGOSLAVIA. Furthermore, Milosevic has allowed Croatian and Muslim minorities in Serbia to scientifically ENLARGE during the wars in Croatia and Bosnia- over 70.000 muslims escaped Bosnia to Serbia and were given same rights and treatment as Serbian refugees and maybe even more Croats came as refugees from Croatia,mostly mixed together with their partly Serbian families.And that is to the opposite of ethnic cleansing against Serbs that was committed in Croatia, Kosovo and parts of Bosnia. This is what Lord Owen stated in Hague, as witness in trial against Milosevic. This is what also Diana Johnston factually documents in her brilliant book...And this is what i can tell you from my personal experience. I came with my family as a refugee from Bosnia, we were small part of these 70.000 muslims that escaped "modernism" of Alija Izetbegovic and came to Serbia. We were accepted well and treated equally with all other Serbian refugees. Today my family lives in Serbia and has no intention of going back to this "New Bosnia". And as far as for Milosevic, his greatest sin seems to be that he was communist and (last) russian friend in Balkans. And this is unforgivable in our "democratic" and "free" west (where i live now). So it didn't matter who Western allies were in Balkans (or anywhere else)- Nazis or radical Muslims, as long as they were fighting russian friends and communists....

* For me the best point in Johnstons book is the story of Fikret Abdic, my leader and a leader of true moderate muslims. He was widely known as "Babo", a truly moderate muslim which wanted Bosnia to stay within Yugoslavia. As Diana states, his story has been never told in West since it doesn't fit in to "official" version of truth: How could Alija Iztebegovic and his followers be moderate when compared to Abdic and his followers? First one was a radical Muslim connected with most radical Muslim countries and organizations and the other one was a moderate Muslim who believed in mutual coexistence of Muslim and other cultures.That is precisely why Iztebegovic saw Abdic as the greatest danger and war actions against him were the most severe. This is why around 70 000 of us, who supported Abdic had to escape as refugees- to Serbia!

Well many more things to mention and talk about from this book, but these were some main points that i think would be very interesting for potential readers. Again, this book is simply untouchable when it comes to Wars in Ex-Yugoslavia and the best way to check it is to read it! Here is a link to Diana Johnston's latest article on Srebrenica, which is the key point of argument for those who are trying to discredit this whole book- most of them being my brainwashed compatriots:http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone10122005.html and a link to an truly independent international expert research group on Srebrenica:http://www.srebrenica-report.com/

Go and get this book, you will be telling everybody about it.

I can't know for sure which side is right, but this book tells me an awful lot I didn't know, that I didn't get from the contemporary media coverage. At the very least, it lends a third dimension to the otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative of the "dossier" used by Blair, Clinton and the gung-ho mass media to defend their "humanitarian intervention".
In the light of subsequent events, I think this account shifts the picture in the direction of the truth, and should be read by anyone genuinely interested in and disturbed by these nasty little wars.

Diana Johnstone has produced easily the most comprehensive and readable book on the decade long conflict in the Balkans. She examines thoroughly both local and international players and provides a variety of angles and backgrounds to the driving forces behind them. What fascinated me most though is the elegant style and lucidity with which she is able to deal with such a variety of apparently complex issues. An American who has spent much of her life in Europe she is clearly fluent in several languages. Her sources are thus not only from the (often over simplistic) English-speaking world, but also German (she is particularly good here), French, Serbo-Croat and even Italian ones. With that remarkable range of sources and angles the author examines the Western intervention and the dismantling of a sovereign state as well as the Western media reporting to justify it. And she links and references her writings extremely well. It felt as though one had been through two or three comprehensive volumes instead of her highly readable paperback.

There appears to be everything in the book. From the history of the region, seen from the vantage point of both the locals as well as the many intervening and occupying foreign powers, to the present day power balances and New World Order agendas. She takes on the Western governments and the corporate media and points out how they, often deliberately, misrepresented the conflict. And how the liberal left was taken in by it all and effectively ended up dancing to the tune of the only remaining superpower. She makes it clear early on where she stands with regard to the officially proclaimed devil of the piece i.e. the Serbs. "I am pro-Serb," she writes, "only if that means that I consider Serbs to be human beings like everybody else, neither better nor worse."

Since the whole story propagated by Western reporting relies on the assumption that Serbs are highly abnormal, Johnstone has no problem in taking the overtly racist accusations against them apart. And, of course, once you succeed in taking away the devil away from moralising Western governments, their many NGOs and the mainstream media, the real agendas soon become exposed. Is one to really believe that US-NATO intervened against Serbia on behalf of "peace" and "human rights" or even to "stop genocide" or to build the largest US military base outside the USA, Camp Bondsteel in the Nato occupied Serbian province of Kosovo? Much of that has meanwhile also become clearer to many on the left, except that many still shy away from Yugoslavia, subconsciously embarrassed at having bought the storyline on Bosnia years earlier.
Johnstone deals with the West's most profiled case, Srebrenica, and the universally repeated accusations of "genocide" by focussing on the Western media's own emphasis that Bosnian Serbs had separated the allegedly executed men from their womenfolk. "One thing should be obvious" comments Johnstone, "one does not commit genocide by sparing women and children". She might have gone further and concentrated on the most frequently used figure of 7.000 men estimated by the US to have been executed at Srebrenica. This is routinely referred to as the "biggest war crime since WW2" or even "since the Holocaust" as a BBC Panorama program on Srebrenica would have it. One might of course have taken somewhat lower comparison figures than six million as a WW2 reference. For example the execution of 200.000 at Hiroshima or 130.000 at Dresden, which rate neither as war crimes nor genocides among those accusing the Bosnian Serbs of both. Nor, of course, was there any distinction made between men, women and children in the aforementioned places. Also remarkably, the artillery fire, which the two warring factions at Sarajevo were using against each other, was attributed to one side only and then not compared to bombed cities in WW2, but in several instances no more no less than Auschwitz (!).

The author however does not make the mistake of concentrating merely on local sides but looks at the agendas of the major international players, grouped together in their so-called International Community. Their aims are now much more clearly visible over a decade then during their own media blitzes. The bottom line of the superpower agenda Johnstone concludes is "globalisation, and it signifies world economic domination enforced by military means"

A highly commendable book to all those who want to understand the techniques and methods which had duped many in the antiwar and antiglobalisation movements as they failed to see the wood for the trees. The fools in the "Fool's Crusade" are certainly not NATO and the Western governments.

This book is masterpiece! Breaking the silence on the greatest lie ever sold.....Deals with real reasons for war,explains that Izetbegovic and Tudjman were MOST RADICAL NATIONALISTS strongly supported by the West, and presents them in their real light....Uncovering all that you didn't and couldn't know about all sides. The only book that comes close to this one is Kurt Koepruner's book, which is unfortunately only available in German. But, if you have a real interest in break up of Yugoslavia, look for a documentary "Yugoslavia-An avoidable war", an award winning film, featuring Lord Carrington, Lord Owen.....and many others who saw the whole situation through very different eyes. Many of the stated things from Johnston's book are featured in the documentary.As i said, this book is great, but it is "isolated" on this site.By "isolated" i mean that Amazon did not provide any links to any truly similar items.... I have noticed, together with some friends of mine, that listmania links that follow this book (and some other important works on Balkan affairs) do not even FEATURE this book. That means that if you do want to find similar material you will not be able to, because links and lists that follow have almost nothing in common with the book you are seeing on the page.Why was this done to this particular book and some othet books on Yugo affairs, that offer different side of story, i do not know. But here, i will try to provide interested customers of Amazon with some list that DO FEATURE this book and all those that are truly similar to it:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/14ROEM03KMOB2/ref=cm_lm_byauthor_title_full/103-2676158-7514207
http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/3FXPR115WM5AM/ref=cm_lm_byauthor_title_full/103-2676158-7514207
http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/35DMDNEK4NSDN/103-2676158-7514207?%5Fencoding=UTF8
http://www.amazon.com/gp/richpub/listmania/fullview/2X4EP24726YTT/103-2676158-7514207?%5Fencoding=UTF8
The only book similar to this, that is available on this page is Parenti's " To kill a nation" which is indeed the most similar work to Johnston's. However, no other books or lists offered on this page through different "criteria" have anything in common with "Fool's Crusade".