Realpolitik in the Balkans

An enormous number of scholastic and journalistic accounts have appeared in the American print and TV media on the recent US-led NATO attack on Yugoslavia. The media reports present features of military activities and their effects and various statements by different leaders on the issue. But, generally speaking, very rarely is a single question tackled in simple, clear terms – why did the US-guided NATO forces decide to attack Yugoslavia?

If the answer often offered by supporters of the attack is prevention of ‘ethnic cleansing’ and promotion of democracy and human rights, one can question the selective way this kind of rhetoric is used in support of certain militant actions by the US and US-supported allies but ignored in similar or worse cases of ethnic cleansing and violation of democracy and human rights. A simple case of this kind of manipulative use of selective perception in the context of the bombing of Yugoslavia is the use of airbases in Turkey which is engaged in ethnic cleansing of Kurds.