Having a good laugh with a KLA arms smuggler who used US gun laws against us to start a war.
Hanging out with the results of his work.
Holbrooke belongs behind bars for getting us involved in sponsoring terrorists that came back to bite us!
The Serbs are always absorbed with self-victimization. Richard Holbrooke spoke tonight on this and the barbarity of the Bosnian Serbs as they massacred thousands at Srebrenica (TV newscast tonight even had video of this crime occurring — horrible to watch).
Anyone who apologizes for this monster is truly insane.
Well said.
Having a good laugh with a KLA arms smuggler who used US gun laws against us to start a war.
Hanging out with the results of his work.
Holbrooke belongs behind bars for getting us involved in sponsoring terrorists that came back to bite us!
And who taught you that little ditty? CNN?
James Harff was Director of the Washington-based PR firm Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs. He directed the company's efforts in representing the Yugoslavian republics seeking to secede: Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo (Albanians).
Memorable Quotes:
Harrf: For 18 months, we have been working for the Republics of Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as for the opposition in Kosovo. Throughout this period, we had many successes, giving us a formidable international image. We intend to make advantage of this and develop commercial agreements with these countries. Speed is vital, because items favourable to us must be settled in public opinion. The first statement counts. The retractions have no effect.
Merlino: How often do you intervene?
Harff: Quantity is not important. You have to intervene at the right time with the right person. From June to September, we organized 30 meetings with the main press agencies, as well as meetings between Bosnian officials and Al Gore, Lawrence Eagleburger and 10 influential senators, among them George Mitchell and Robert Dole. We also sent out 13 exclusive news items, 37 last-minute faxes, 17 official letters and eight official reports. We placed 20 telephone calls to White House staff, 20 senators, and close to 100 to journalists, editors, newscaters and other influenctial people in the media.
Question: What achievement were you most proud of?
Harff: To have managed to put Jewish opinion on our side. This was a sensitive matter, as the dossier was dangerous looked from this angle. President Tudjman [of Croatia] was very careless in his book "Wastelands of Historical Reality". Reading this writtings, one could accuse him of of antisemitism. In Bosnia, the situation was no better: President Izetbegovic strongly supported the creation of a fundamentalist Islamic state [there] in his book "The Islamic Declaration". Besides, the Croatian and Bosnian past was marked by a real and cruel anti-semitism. Tens of thousands of Jews perished in Croatian camps. So there was every reason for intellectuals and Jewish organizations to be hostile towards the Croats and Bosnians. Our challenge was to reverse this attitude. And we succeded masterfully.
At the beginning of August 1992, New York Newsday came out with the affair of [Serb] concentration camps. We jumped at the opportunity immediately. We outwitted three big Jewish organizations - B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee, and the American Jewish Congress. We suggested to them to publish an advertisement in the "New York Times" and to organize demonstrations outside the United Nations.
That was a tremendous coup. When the Jewish organizations entered the game on the side of the [Muslim] Bosnians, we could promptly equate the Serbs with the Nazis in the public mind. Nobody understood what was happening in Yugoslavia. The great majority of Americans were probably asking themselves in which African country Bosnia was situated. But by a single move we were able to present a simple story of good guys and bad guys, which would hereafter play itself. We won by targeting Jewish audience. Almost immediately there was a clear change of language in the press, with the use of words with high emotional content, such as "ethnic cleansing", "concentration camps", etc., which evoked images of Nazi Germany and the gas chambers of Auschwitz. The emotional charge was so powerful that nobody could go against it.
Merlino: But when you did all of this, you had no proof that what you said was true. You only had the article in "Newsday"!
Harff: Our work is not to verify information. We are not equipped for that. Our work is to accelerate the circulation of information favorable to us, to aim at judiciously chosen targets. We did not confirm the existence of death camps in Bosnia, we just made it known that "Newsday" affirmed it.
Merlino: Are you aware that you took on a grave responsibility?
Harff: We are professionals. We had a job to do and we did it. We are not paid to be moral.
— James Harff, Director of Ruder Finn, Global Public affairs section, in the Jacques Merlino interview, April 1993. (reprinted in a book in Oct. 1993)
Holbrooke is an extremely biased source and the videotape that was shown was most probably the tape of a group of militia fighters conducting executions many miles away from Srebrenica (at least that is the only video tape that I am aware of which shows actual executions that are alleged to be linked to Srebrenica). However, the link between the tape and Srebrenica is very weak since the executions on the tape took place many miles from Srebrenica and some of the roads between were in enemy hands.
Holbrooke called Serbs "murderous assholes". The fact that this racist claim something does not make it true. Especially having in mind his role in creating Balkan Slaughterhouse. Under Neremberg criteria, Holbrooke is guilty of crime against peace, the same as like Nazis on trial.
His assessment of Serbs as a people is known as projection in psychology.
The fact that you enjoy to quote a racist and unindicted war criminal does not make his claims more factual either.
I do not know what your personal demons are, but I pray for you.
Don’t you know how this works... Every Balkan thread follows the same pattern. One of them pings all of the other Serbs, and they attack any and all dissent, like pirahnnas... Deny every single thing the Serbs are ever accused of... And ride the wave of anti-Mus wave, in their favor, to suit their political purposes... Look how they treat this obvious sKum war criminal... The monster that beat up the guy in the bar... Same old pattern... They convince many FReepers who ride the Islami hate, but many other Freepers see them for what they are... Serb apologists, who exist here for that sole reason, apologize for them no matter what... Do yourself a favor, see where else the great majority of these folks add value on FR... By and large they don’t... They just lurk here... Flame away..