Twenty-six years ago in the early hours of March 24, 1999, NATO began the bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. \u201cThe operation was code-named \u201cAllied Force \u201d \u2013 a cold, uninspired and perfectly descriptive moniker\u201d according to Nebosja Malic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
March 15, 2025. I am currently in Belgrade: This was NATO\u2019s first war against a sovereign nation-state. It was a criminal undertaking. It was also a dress rehearsal for all subsequent US-NATO-led wars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This article was first written in early May 1999 at the height of the bombing of Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The causes and consequences of this war have over the years been the object of a vast media disinformation campaign, which has sought to conceal and dismiss NATO and US war crimes against the people of the former Republic of Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is important to note that in the late 1990s, a large segment of the \u201cProgressive Left\u201d in Western Europe and North America were part of this disinformation campaign, presenting NATO military intervention as a necessary humanitarian operation geared towards protecting the rights of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The intervention was in violation of international law. President Milosevic at the 1998 Rambouillet talks had refused the stationing of NATO troops inside Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The demonization of Slobodan Milo\u0161evi\u0107 has served over the years to uphold the legitimacy of the NATO bombings as well as conceal the crimes committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It also provided credibility to \u201ca war crimes tribunal\u201d under the jurisdiction of those who committed extensive war crimes in the name of social justice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Slobodan Milosevic was arrested and deported to The Hague Tribunal ICTY detention Centre. The Just War thesis was also upheld by several prominent intellectuals who viewed the Kosovo war as: \u201ca Just War\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In turn the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was upheld by several \u201cleftists\u201d as a bona fide liberation movement rooted in Marxism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The KLA \u2013whose leader Hachim Thaci until recently was president of Kosovo\u2013 was a paramilitary army supported by Western intelligence, financed and trained by the US and NATO. It had ties to organised crime. It also had links to Al Qaeda, which is supported by US intelligence. Hashim Thaci has been on the Interpol list in the 1990s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In April-May 1999, there was ample evidence that the KLA leader supported by NATO was responsible for war crimes and that he was the Interpol list. On a personal note: I was blacklisted by so-called progressives as well as by the mainstream media for revealing this evidence as well confirming that Hashim Thaci was on the Interpol list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On March 11, 2006, Milo\u0161evi\u0107 was found dead in his prison cell. According to his lawyer who had been in contact with him, Milosevic had been poisoned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Exactly ten years later on March 24, 2016, the Hague ICTY Tribunal exonerated Milosevic stating he was innocent of the crimes he was accused of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a bitter irony, Thaci was rewarded for his crimes, appointed prime minster of Kosovo in 2008, and then president in early April 2016.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, the United States established Camp Bondsteel in 1999, \u201cthe largest and the most expensive foreign military base built in Europe since the Vietnam War.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It took the \u201cinternational community\u201d to acknowledge that Hashim Thaci had committed extensive crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In June 2020, Kosovo President Hashim Thaci was charged with ten counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his role in the country\u2019s conflict in the 1990s by the Kosovo Tribunal in The Hague.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thaci and three other former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) are accused of overseeing illegal detention facilities where the movement\u2019s opponents were kept in inhumane conditions, tortured and sometimes killed. He continues to be described as a wartime hero.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is worth noting that the same \u201cleftists\u201d who supported the KLA in 1999 are now supporting the Syrian \u201crevolutionaries\u201d (affiliated to Al Qaeda and supported by US-NATO).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today our thoughts are with the people of Yugoslavia whose country was fragmented and destroyed by US-NATO.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our thoughts are also with the people of Kosovo who were victims of extensive NATO bombings as documented in this article written 21 years ago at the height of NATO\u2019s war of aggression against Yugoslavia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2014Michel Chossudovsky, March 15, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n