To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia

by Michael Parenti

Overview

Drawing on a wide range of unpublished material and observations gathered from his visit to Yugoslavia in 1999, Michael Parenti challenges mainstream media coverage of the war, uncovering hidden agendas behind the Western talk of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and democracy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781859843666
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	08/17/2002
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	256
Sales rank:	483,833
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Michael Parenti’s books include History as Mystery, Against Empire, America Besieged and Land of Idols. His work has been translated into ten languages.

Table of Contents

	Acknowledgments	ix
	Introduction: Whom Do We Believe?	1
1	Hypocritical Humanitarianism	9
2	Third Worldization	17
3	Divide and Conquer	23
4	Slovenia: Somewhat Out of Step	36
5	Croatia: New Republic, Old Reactionaries	41
6	Bosnia: New Colonies	50
7	Republika Srpska: Democracy, NATO Style	58
8	The Other Atrocities	68
9	Demonizing the Serbs	81
10	On to Kosovo	95
11	The Rambouillet Ambush	108
12	NATO's War Crimes	115
13	The Genocide Hype Continues	130
14	Where Are All the Bodies Buried?	144
15	Ethnic Cleansing, KLA-NATO Style	155
16	Rational Destruction: Eliminating the Competition	165
17	Multiculturalism in Yugoslavia	176
18	Yugoslavia's Future: Is It Bulgaria?	191
19	Privatization as a Global Goal	199
20	The Aggression Continues	205
	Notes	217
	Index	239

Editorial Reviews

Prominent social critic Parenti pens a fierce, elegantly constructed elegy not just for the lives sacrificed in the Balkan wars, but for concepts of national sovereignty and constitutionality, which appear to be lost to a corporate-sanctioned new world order. Extremely disturbing, but, for the brave, jolting and necessary reading.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Thought-provoking ... Parenti makes compelling points about biased media coverage of Serbia.”—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

For 78 days in 1999, the United States and NATO forces responded to the violence in Kosovo by conducting aerial attacks against Yugoslavia. Parenti gives an unabashedly critical assessment of this intervention, based on a solid and passionate rejection of Western leaders' "lies" about events in the Balkans and Western interests in that part of the world. Readers not familiar with his leftist analysis may find Parenti's dismissal of NATO's justification for its 1999 bombing campaign shocking or silly; others may find it thought-provoking. He argues that Western intervention in Yugoslavia was driven not by a humanitarian desire to stop ethnic cleansing, but rather by a self-interested determination to subjugate formerly Communist countries to the forces of free-market globalization. The government-controlled media in the U.S., he claims, was unfairly prejudiced against Slobodan Milosevic, once he was no longer of use to the West. Parenti makes compelling points about biased media coverage of Serbia, but he seems to misunderstand the huge role that the Serbian government played in creating the conditions for violence in Yugoslavia. While other Balkan political and military leaders may also deserve blame, Milosevic does not deserve a defense. Sometimes Parenti's assessments seem paranoid, as in his claim that an elementary school was bombed because it bore the name of a Socialist leader. And his economic and political arguments, as well as his accounts of U.S. involvements in other parts of the world not covered by mainstream media, though they may give one pause, will appeal mostly to readers who share his leftist perspective. (Jan.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Michael Parenti's To Kill A Nation: The Attack On Yugoslavia exposes a decade of American and NATO disinformation campaigns with respect to Yugoslavia which peaked with 78 days of around-the-clock aerial bombardment of Yugoslavian cities and infrastructure that resulted in killing and maiming approximately six thousand citizens. Parenti draws from a wide range of published and unpublished material, as well as personal observations based on his visit to Yugoslavia in 1999. Highly recommended reading for students of international studies in general, and the Yugoslavian conflict in particular, To Kill A Nation is a valid, informative, iconoclastic challenge to the typical mainstream media presentations of Serbians respecting charges of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and political corruption that have been used to legitimize western policies resulting in the political instability, physical destruction, and economic destabilization of a once prosperous region.