How did I get interested in the issue of anti-NATO resistance in Serbia [Yugoslavia]

Couple of days ago, on the 14th anniversary of NATO's bombing of the train on Grdelica gorge, there was an interesting discussion on my friend's Facebook wall revolving around imperialism, NATO, failure of the left, similarities and differences among the cases of Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Libya and Syria, which was triggered by Sukant Chandan's article: "Patrick Cockburn bemoans Libyan disaster, but was very quiet as the disaster was unfolding". 

Nato hit an international train, on regular service from Belgrade to Thessaloniki (Greece), in the vicinity of Leskovac. Dozen[No one knows the precise number]  passengers were killed, including a 10 year-old child. More than 30 passengers were wounded. All casualties were civilians.

There were some interesting comments there, some of them published in Sons of Malcolm subsequent post: "Before nATO attack on Libya, Afghanistan: There was Yugoslavia 1999". 

This time I would like to share with you one comment in particular that was, in fact, an answer to

Sukant's question: 

Chris Natural, how did you get interested in the issue around anti-nato resistance in Serbia/Yugoslavia?

Chris Natural: 

How did I get interested? How do any of us get interests in such matters?

For myself, I guess from a lifetime of questioning our motives everywhere. A strong feeling of right and wrong. Which seemed to be in my blood from birth for reasons unknown.

I remember as a nine year old being one of very few speaking out against Thatcher during my junior school vote on the eve of the '79 election. Not because of any encouragement from my folks (at this time we rarely spoke about politics, though they had an interest). 

It was just a gut feeling. I also remember as a child being disgusted at the sight of "News at Ten" newsreader Sandy Gall riding around on a mujahedin tank in Afghanistan, dressed as a Lawrence of Arabia reject, eulogizing the western backed nut job death squads, as they skinned young Russian conscripts before his eyes. 

We didn't get to see that bit of course. 

I was the only youth in my entire college department who stuck his hand up to vote against the Falklands War, much to the disappointment of the invited speaker. It seems I've always had an innate political distrust of my country of birth. 

So much so that from my earliest days, even though I played and loved football as a kid, I always cheered the opposition during any England match! Still do if I can bear to watch it.

I guess my interest in NATO's attack on Yugoslavia was just an extension of that.

For me NATO's destruction of Yugoslavia incorporating as it did the Kosovo escapade, was one of the war crimes of the century. And a turning point. The blueprint for NATO's 'humanitarian intervention'. Complete with unprecedented media manipulation and collusion. Yugoslavia. On our doorstep. 

The second most popular holiday destination for British holidaymakers at the time. Able to be parodied as a pariah state almost overnight. And brutally destroyed. 

I still can't believe it. Our mass bombing of cities and people that months before Brits were happy to holiday with. 

Our tooling up and glorifying of the most violent savage barbarians imaginable, the KLA. Every day NATO spokesman Jamie Shea (let us never forget) spouting a foul deluge of the most preposterous propaganda, faithfully parroted by press, politicians and Amnesty types alike. It was incessant and all too much. And with no resistance whatsoever in this country. 

It laid bare the total superficiality of 'resistant' groups here and 'progressive' politicians. The only dissent that I could find on this unfolding atrocity was when I discovered "The Morning Star" newspaper. It carried excellent coverage of the facts, quite often quoting European papers and sources who quite obviously had a better handle on things than our slavish propagandists.

 As the war was taking place I attended a Labour party conference fringe meeting in Brighton opposing NATO's war in Kosovo organized by the Morning Star. It was open to the public. There were just six of us there. Six! Everyone turned their back on Yugoslavia.

Despite the facts of what was actually happening there. As they've done in Libya and do so in Syria. For the same reasons. Ignorance (hardly surprising with our lack of real news analysis), political correctness (fawning over barbarians portrayed as helpless ethnic freedom fighters) and religious bigotry.

I have no direct interest in Yugoslavia per-se. I'd never been there and have never met a Serb. But why should that matter? Right and wrong does not have regional, cultural or religious boundary. Or shouldn't. I grieve for the epic crime that took place there, on our doorstep, with all its indescribable suffering and consequence. I grieve for what this period represented. I grieve most for the fact that this disgraceful episode appears airbrushed from history. They won.

But the effects of this crime do not remain in the past. The precedent for NATO's 'humanitarian intervention' was set here and continues to be rolled out worldwide. 

Kosovo itself remains a sectarian, lawless basket case, gifted to the KLA, controllers of the worlds largest and most violent vice racket according to Europol, specializing in sex trafficking and heroin supply. 

Subsequent to these glorious 'freedom fighters' being given their freedom by us, the supply of cheap heroin and enforced prostitution, with the misery and tribulation that this brings, has flooded every major European city and beyond. These gangsters are the source.

There are many reasons to be interested and concerned about the issues surrounding NATO's aggression in this area. Quite apart from honoring those who died and suffer because of it. 

It has so much to tell us about how U.S power colludes with state machinery, the media and criminal groups to shape the planet to it's needs. And how uneducated and consequently impotent opposition to this is.

I hope this long response to your question touches on a bit as to why I am interested Sukant!