Once upon a time there was a small country tucked in the southeast corner of Europe, harboring a colorful mix of ethnicities, yearning for peace and prosperity.

Once upon a time there was a small country tucked in the southeast corner of Europe, harboring a colorful mix of ethnicities, yearning for peace and prosperity. There were horrible demons in its closet, and they were unleashed upon its present. The rest is history. 1940-1945. Ustaše regime massacres in atrocious conditions ~300k of Serbian civilians from a population of less than 10M. “Even (Nazi) German officers and SS men lost their cool when they saw (Ustaše) ways and methods.” 1987-1991. Slobodan Milošević and his Croat counterpart, Franjo Tudjman, use relentless propaganda to bring atrocities of the past to bear on the present. > Long before the conflict in Croatia broke out, both Serbian and Croatian media primed their audiences for violence and armed conflict by airing stories of World War II atrocities perpetrated by the other side. Thus, in the Croatian media, Serbs represented Chetniks (or occasionally Partisans) while in the Serbian media, Croats were portrayed as Ustaše.[3] Once the fighting began, these were the labels routinely used in media war reports from both sides, instilling hatred and fear among the populace.[3] The Serbian and Croatian propaganda campaigns also reinforced one another. [...] 1991-2001. Yugoslav wars. 130k killed, 4M displaced. Infrastructure destroyed, economy in tatters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Serbs_in_the_Independent_State_of_Croatia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Serbs_in_the_Indep... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_during_the_Yugoslav_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_during_the_Yugoslav... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars Love thy Enemy