Fools' Crusade

Military interventions on supposedly humanitarian grounds have become an established feature of the post-Cold War global order. Diana Johnstone's well-documented study demonstrates that a crucial moment in establishing in the public mind--and above all, within the political context of liberalism and the left--the legitimacy of such interventions was the "humanitarian" bombing of the former Yugoslavia in 1999. In the course of the civil wars that led to the break-up of Yugoslavia, a complex history came to be presented as a morality play in which the parts were scripted to meet the moral needs of the capitalist West. The identification of Muslims as defenseless victims and Serbs as genocidal monsters inflamed fears and hatreds within Yugoslavia, and prepared the way for power to be shifted from the people of the region to such international agencies as NATO. Deceptions and Self-Deceptions tests the popular myths against the reality of Yugoslav history. Johnstone shows how the "Kosovo war" provided the model for the destruction of countries that stand up to U.S. hegemony--a model re-enacted in Afghanistan. A concluding chapter shows how the script prepared for Yugoslavia is being re-enacted in Afghanistan. Whether Milosevic's trial before the International Court at the Hague or the capture of bin Laden will provide an adequate conclusion to this ideological play-making, remains an open question.