Exactly 26 years ago, NATO war planes commenced 78 days of terror against Yugoslavia, deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure and population centers. By the end, the “arsenal of democracy” had killed an estimated 3.5 to 4 thousand people.
The largest geopolitical impact of the bombing campaign would not be felt in western circles until more than two decades later; the alleged sanctity of national borders was broken. After NATO itself had used force to redraw a sovereign country’s borders, no honest argument remained for why others could not do this.
Read the daily report on my new substack.
Just to clarify to everyone what’s going on here, I will continue posting my “best” opinion work here on the blog, and the “hard news” daily updates on Russia will be housed on the substack, so there’s little to no overlap in content. A second reason is the data plan for this site is not great and kind of expensive, but on substack I can happily post photo and video heavy articles. I can only do that here if I host somewhere else. I’ve also largely given up on YouTube because it is so trigger-happy on the censorship. Though I do plan to revisit YouTube at some point, I’m just not sure when. Thank you again to my new and longterm readers and supporters!
Thanks for remembering an obnoxious anniversary.
Your plan is a good plan.
Personally, I don’t care about pictures, and hate the trend away from written content and towards talking heads in video. I want intellectual content, the heavier the better, so if you maintain this site and post that here, I will be happy, and I wouldn’t bother with the pictures here.
The substack daily updates will provide a service for those interested in that. For me, I’m going to wait until World War III starts and then I will probably start paying attention to the daily military situation.
As I wrote earlier, I am following you on Quora, but I would like a lot of your Quora content to show up here, since its possible to link to this site on other sites, and pretty much impossible with Quora, since you can link to a question, but not a specific answer. Meaning you have a choice of linking to the question and telling people to do a control search for the answer, or copy and paste the entire essay, which can be obnoxious.
Thanks for the feedback. Most of the readers are quiet so it can be hard to be certain if there’s demand for something or not.
Dear Ian, last year I memorized You for “Why we hate Russia”, and came to read Your news now.
Must say that Jugoslavia was not prime topic then: men became short-seeing during 10 years of turbulence. I began to think about it only when US hit Mid-East countries. Proxy-war in Ukraine put US to decision of passing the war-club to EU. Troubled, I wrote:
I’ll put it in simplе words:
when Winter colds
and you dream of nothing other than warmth,
can you get warm seeng
someone else chilling ?..
When Summer cheers and recreates,
can you get happier
seeng other one fаdes ?..
When Spring dries roads
and you’re drawn
to start a campaign,
could you crane
to see the Autumn’s teardrops
on the sоnlеss ?..
Ask your foe whether he can’t.
Decade by decade,
earth nations go less militant.
Ian, does it sound for the native English-speaker ? Or, my language is so wrong, that the calming idea is unclear ?
Hi VS, I’m glad you came back to my humble blog! Your English is not perfect, but the message and the emotion are loud and clear!
Thank You very much for compassionate reading ! I rеаlly think that majority of peoples on the Earth turn away from military activities, for wider enjoyable hobbies. Even for Moslem extremizm there required tuition, farming of hate. To contrary such the investments, I’d send my verses to Europe; could You please prompt me someone with similar peace-ideas, who would fix languаge mistakes together ?
Yes, I enjoyed Your updates, especially about Shakespear. The school reading is often earlier than schoolchild is able to understand the book. Should we reduct school programme ? – thought I. Thought… and saw that those books MUST be introduced on youth. Just the teacher should plant the interest to reveal its fulness later.
With increased knowledge about the past, I read old books with many pleasant notices. And You combined it with experience about human relations. Thanks ! And have a nice reading further !
Thankfully, V.S.
I like to believe that Russia and China began hyper militarization after bombing of Yugoslavia and because of it , today they are prepared to fight the west. Not to mention hitting Chinese embassy with 5 missiles was a clear message ”you are next.”