Michael Parenti: US War on Yugoslavia

Simple and clear introduction into marxian critique of imperialism by Michael Parenti on "The U.S. War on Yugoslavia" given May 16, 1999 in Seattle. The rising confidence of the left in America at the time can be felt throughout this great talk, and much of the issues Parenti raises have a relevance now he could not have foreseen at the time.

The war on Yugoslavia and the subsequent war crime trials in the Hague have been universally distorted and quickly forgotten. During the war, Michael Parenti exposed the elaborate plan started in 1989 to split up Yugoslavia into right wing ethnically divided separate states; a country that was built on the pan-Slaves coming together into a viable socialist nation. This is not to say that politics in Yugoslavia was perfect, but the progress all the Slavic nations have lost is without a doubt astounding. The plan Parenti described seems to work out very well today. Funny how, unlike the plan for Iraq becoming a blossoming flower of democracy in the Middle East, this one worked out quite well.

Interestingly enough, the US still have large bases in Kosovo. One strategic reason is the competition with Russia over control of the energy infrastructure network in Europe and central Asia. Several thousands of US soldiers protect the pipelines through the Balkans that are necessary to link pipeline networks connecting the oil and gas from central Asia to the export ports and the European pipeline networks. Pipelines in the Balkans Pipelines in the Kaukasus

Michael Parenti is author of many books, including:

Contrary Notions, City Lights, 2007
The Culture Struggle, Seven Stories Press, 2006
Superpatriotism, City Lights, 2004
The Assassination of Julius Caesar, The New Press, 2003 (A great talk about Rome, Ceasar, history as a science and class bias of historians can be viewed here.)
To Kill a Nation: The Attack on Yugoslavia, Verso, 2000
History as Mystery, City Lights, 1999