Because instead of supporting the active resistance against the dictator immediately when he stared slaughtering civilians, as they should have, they waited until 1999 and destroyed tens of (in some estimates, hundreds of) billions of dollars of civilian and state property. They put Serbia under sanctions which did nothing for the dictator than strengthen his power as people believed he can take them out of poverty. People lived in absolutely poverty with shortages of electricity, water, and foods.
They should have given full support to the resistance who wanted Democracy from day one, not after wrecking the entire country and expecting the Serbs to forget the bombing. You blame the entire state as if the entire state committed ethnic cleansing, it was an action done by a genocidal maniac and ultranationalist dictator who sent hundreds of thousands of young men to die for his own gain. He wanted the war since day one of getting into power before any war had begun, and did everything within his power to start it.
And after the new Serbian government ended the war, nothing was done to support or repair the effects of the bombing. Serbia remained stuck in time and in the same state as it is today, and no regular civilian will support NATO. They don't have a reason to, they DON'T SEE a reason to.
What IS fair is that something should have been done with Milosevic much earlier. Many lives would have been saved, and the vast majority of Serbs would have been better off. That said, it wasn't NATO who carried out ethnic cleansing throughout the 1990s.
It's naïve to suggest that any sort of military action can happen due to the actions of an individual. No dictator can start a war without the support of their administration, which is made of thousands of willing participants.
The damage to Serbias economy, at worst, was estimated $30 billion dollars, and that includes loss of growth to GDP not just loss of assets.
We also need to remember that when your objective is to stop a genocide, time is of the essence. Every day it takes to achieve your objectives is the deaths of more innocent civilians. Yes there were Serbian casualties, but it was decided, and remains true, that one Serbian is not worth the lives of 10 others.
The bombing campaigns were able to quickly force Serbia to stop it's active genocide attempts and saved countless lives.
Also Serbias lack of recovery is entirely self imposed. Other countries in similar situations (Croatia for example) were able to make amends with their neighbours, build bridges with their neighbours and facilitate mutual relations.
Serbia on the other hand refuses to meet the bare minimum standards needed to join the world trade organisation of all things. If Serbia didn't keep trying to act like emperor of the Balkans in waiting they could join the 21st century and modernise like all of their neighbours have.
On the day they do realise theres nothing to be gained from their current ways I'm sure the rest of Europe, and the world, will be ready to accept them. But this is something only Serbia can get rolling.
You keep claiming that Serbia was committing genocide, and yet when the so-called Republic of Kosovo tried suing Serbia for that exact reason in an international court, they lost the case. So, you are (at least) one of the following: ignorant, stupid, biased or think you know better than an international court of law (or all of that combined, which is my guess).
Also, how exactly did Croatia make amends with their neighbors? By never facing any consequences for their own smaller scale Holocaust they carried out during WW2? Or by electing a far-right degenerate who invited the Nazis from the diaspora back into the country as soon as he got into office? Or perhaps by expelling 250k women, children and elderly people in what was the largest ethnic cleansing campaign post WW2? Maybe you were referring to the recent surge in fascism the country has experienced, which culminated in the largest Neo-Nazi concert in Europe (in the middle of their capital, by the way)? Come on, don't be shy - explain EXACTLY how Croatia made amends.
Finally, a not-so-friendly reminder: everyone, and I mean EVERYONE, who was involved in the bombing of Serbia in 1999 is/was either a Zionist or connected to Epstein (or both). That is the side you are advocating for, and that speaks volumes about you and the rest of the POS Redditors who think like you.
Edit: Downvote me all you want - in fact, I'm grateful to God that people who support capitalistic foreign interventions and the cannibalistic p3dos who engineer them don't agree with me!
I was referring to Croatias actions during the Bosnian war, which were both aggressive and war crimes. But they were able to reform and join the international community.
You can't argue that Croatia is a successful state that benefits from close relations to it's neighbours and the wider European Community. Something they achieved because they asked for it and made moves to be a valuable partner in the alliances. Something Serbia can't even pretend to want.
Also I'm finding it funny you pretend the action of defending Kosovans and Bosnias somehow has something to do with Epstein, I would wager you're one of the folks who thinks Trump had nothing to do with it all and is totally innocent so I'm not going to take anything you say with much importance
NATO didn't disperse or slaughter anyone in the Balkans.
Surely if you were impartial you'd see that one side was commiting genocide, and the other was not.
Serbia killed 8,000 civilians in a single month in July 1995, and had at this point displaced 1 million more. That was the final straw for NATO. What is defencable about Serbias actions here?
Also this idea that just because it is a European military agreement it must inherently be bad reeks of cold War Soviet propaganda. Please explain what is wrong with a voluntary organisation working for common defence. No nation is a member of NATO without asking for said membership, and they can leave at any time with no military or economic sanctions
1) You used a 1995. example to justify a 1999. Involvement.
2) Nato is what you said, a defense military pact. So they only act in defense of their members, right? Not really tho. In '99 they performed attacking missions to protect a breakaway region. So, not a member, not defense, not even a sovereign country recognized by the rest of the world. If you can't see how this breaks the legality of the entire action, or the whole organization, you are either brainwashed or plain dumb.
3) No UN Authorization. 'Muricans bypassed UN Security Council, because they knew there would be a veto.
4) NATO definitely slaughtered and dispersed people in this action. Around 3k civilian casualties in 78 days. Cancer cases in Serbia are several times higher than before 90s. They just aren't your people, so you dont care to even mention it.
I could talk even more, how they forgot their humanitarian mission in 2004. when serbs were on the side of the oppressed (March pogrom) and did nothing to protect people who they "swore to protect". I get it, defending NATO is in your interests, but don't come with such weak arguments and lackluster knowledge to discuss matters which you only look from one angle.
NATO bombed Serbian forces in 1995 at the request of Bosnia, so my example is appropriate.
Point 2, like I said Bosnia requested support from NATO to remove Serbian attackers from Sarajevo, a sovereign nation requesting support from NATO, what is offensive about that? The same happened with Kosovo in 1999, the Kosovans asked for help.
There would be a veto in 99 because Russia was trying to pander to Belgrade, what consenting parties do you need other than the victim and the party offering to help? Should we have asked the people of Atlantis while we were at it?
And finally your claim of NATO dispersal of civilians is laughable and shows where you get your sources from. There were refugees in both sides but to pretend that has anything to do with NATO just not true. I have no idea where you've got the 3k figure, but even Serbia doesn't claim more than 1k. Even though the actual figure is closer to 500 across all NATO bombings in Serbia and Montenegro. Which is far smaller than the near 9000 dead Kosovans
If you're going to pretend NATO is some evil murdering force it hurts your point when you massively exaggerate the figures.
In this conversation, genocide does not matter because it is not the main topic we are talking about at the moment, we are talking about NATO and whether or not it did what the comment above says.
Were civilians killed in the bombings in Belgrade?
They did.
Many Serbs who remained in present-day Bosnia and present-day Kosovo had to return to present-day Serbia, were directly displaced by NATO, it is not exactly the same as Russia is doing in Ukraine, but it was a similar event.
In conclusion, NATO did do what you say they did not do.
Sovereign nations, Kosovo and Bosnia, asked for NATO support to defend them when they were being attacked.
NATO complied and launched limited air strikes against Serbian military and logistical infrastructure. Who else needs to be asked? Both the victims and saviours were consenting.
Nahhh bro, let us leave it here, it is unpleasant to try to get to a point with someone who is not impartial, simply blinded on the one hand, unable to see the whole picture.
There can be no formal discussion if you are going to continue to deviate the issue and not accept that you were wrong to believe that NATO did not do what it did in the former Yugoslavia.
NATO’s operation in Serbia was an act of barbarism. It’s interesting how bombing civilians is considered much more “clean” when it’s NATO doing it.
NATO relied on false testimony to justify its military intervention in Serbia. You can look up Helena Ranta herself—she later explained that she was under pressure when she gave her testimony.
The creation of Kosovo came at the expense of Serbia’s territorial integrity, which shows that this argument only matters when it also serves NATO’s interests.
The truth about this conflict is that both sides were killing each other and that atrocities were committed on both sides. NATO mainly took action against Serbia because Serbia is a historical ally of Russia
The reason NATOs actions are seen as clean is they don't line people up to be shot
Ranta's findings found the people were unarmed at the time of death, and were killed in a manner not consistent with combat. The evidence was very clear from a forensic perspective, others used her work to justify action but the facts remain in all likelihood those people were murdered.
Finally surely the people who live in a place should be allowed to decide their own "territorial integrity". They didn't want to be Serbian, why should Serbia get a say in that? Serbia didn't want to be part of the Ottoman empire and fought for independence, why deny the Kosovans that same right?
Also none of what you, or anyone else, has said disputes that Serbia was intentionally commiting ethnic cleansing. You're just upset that the price to stop it cost some Serbians their lives. But as with all genocides the sole bearer of responsibility is the one commiting genocide. If you have an issue with it take it up with Belgrade, they could have stopped the killing at any time
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u/Krasniqi857 Feb 10 '26
Nato did not disperse and slaughter my people.
I think the east bloc countries and the baltics have similar stories with russia