Why Dems Supported War In Bosnia But Not Iraq? - (easy answer: Clinton was in Oval Office!)

When the left was trying to undermine America’s will to liberate the Iraqi people and remove Saddam Hussein – the genocidal, terrorist linchpin in the world of Arab/Islamic atrocities – the obstructionists offered an ever-changing line of “reasoning.”

First they argued that it was “morally wrong” to remove the leader of a sovereign nation. When that argument failed to gain traction, the line became that the President could not act without Congressional approval. When the President gained the overwhelming approval of the Congress, the tack changed to a demand for United Nations’ authority. When the Security Council came back with a unanimous decision in favor of the coalition, the strategy changed once again, with the left suddenly screaming that America cannot go to war unless it faced an “imminent threat of attack.”

All of these efforts, of course, were disingenuous. Clearly, if the Democrats truly believed it was “wrong” to remove the leader of a sovereign nation they would have been marching in the streets screaming “No Blood For Sex” when the previous president launched wars against Bosnia and Kosovo to remove from power the sovereign leader, Slobodan Milosevic.

And if their protestations were based on their true “values,” the left would have been chanting “Clinton is Hitler” when he went to war without Congressional approval or UN sanction in order to defeat nations that were not only not an “imminent” threat to America but were no threat to America at all.

Milosevic had never had – much less ever used – weapons of mass destruction, he was not aiding or abetting global terrorist organizations, nor did he have rape and torture chambers throughout his nation as did Saddam Hussein. In fact, even the “ethnic cleansing” he was accused of – ginned up and exaggerated in the way that Newsweek, CNN and the New York Times routinely do – was minor in comparison to the then-ongoing genocide of the Marsh Arabs and the massacre of the Kurds, the murder of Shiites, and even the horrific execution of his fellow Sunnis by the Iraqi dictator.

Given, then, that none of the left’s protestations were based on any true conviction, why did the Democrats support Clinton’s multiple wars in the Balkans where so little was at stake and nothing to be gained, and why do they continue to employ every conceivable lie they can muster to obstruct the liberation of the Iraqi people and the spread of democracy throughout the Middle East?

The answer can be found in the Democratic Party itself – dominated, as it has been for the last several decades by “multiculturalists” who believe that democracy is in no way superior to any other form of government, including fascist dictatorships. Multiculturalists believe that all people, cultures, religions and forms of government are equally good and equally right.

This is why Democrats so adore the United Nations, where genocidal dictatorships and free-and-open democracies are offered equal prestige and equal power, and why we are admonished to “celebrate diversity” as if all differences – genocide and tolerance for example – are equally worthy of celebration.

While most Americans considered the end of the Cold War and the spread of democracy throughout much of the world a great advancement for civilization, liberals saw it as nothing short of evil. Their perverse reasoning is as follows: since no culture or form of government is superior to any other, the only possible reason for the global embrace of democracy must be some malevolent manipulation on the part of the West. For this reason the Democrat sees the spread of Western values such as freedom and democracy as tantamount to ”cultural genocide.”

Arguments such as “one cannot impose freedom” and the laughable “one-two-three-four, we don’t want your racist war” reflect the notions of leftists that freedom is an “imposition,” the quest for liberty a cultural value unique to the Western world, and that those who work to spread freedom are undermining the cherished “values” of other peoples, even if those ”values” happen to be fascism, communism, and terrorism or rape, torture and genocide.

It is easy to understand where the sympathies of Democrats lie and why they supported the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo but not those that liberated 50 million people in Afghanistan and Iraq and have offered the hope of freedom throughout the Middle East and beyond. In the former, victory meant protecting and strengthening a non-Western culture – the Islamists -- while victory in the latter meant the further spread of such “Western” values as freedom and democracy at the expense of such “diverse cultural practices” as oppression, mass murder, and terrorism.

About the Writer: Evan Sayet is a writer, speaker and pundit in Los Angeles and former communications director for LA for President Bush. He has been a TV and movie writer with credits ranging from "Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher" to the cult classic "Win Ben Stein's Money" and the Discovery Channel documentary "The 70's: When Decades Attack." He is currently working on a book: "Regurgitating the Apple: How Modern Liberals `Think.” Evan’s blog is http://www.SayetRight.Blogspot.com.

Expert on psychology of ethnic conflict changes his mind about Yugoslavia -
How Politicians, the Media and Scholars Lied about Milosevic's 1989 Kosovo Speech

A Review of the Evidence

by Professor Francisco Gil-White
(Psychology, University of Pennsylvania)
[posted 9 February 2002; last revised 9 February 2004]

*About this Article *

The following text was sent to Emperor's Clothes by Francisco Gil-White. He is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and a Fellow at the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict.

Professor Gil-White informs us that:

"I study and write about the psychology that makes racism and ethnic hatred possible, and which exacerbates ethnic conflicts when compared to other sorts of conflicts."

The following views are those of Professor Gil-White and not necessarily the University of Pennsylvania or the Solomon Asch Center.

Jared Israel
Editor
Emperor's Clothes

[PS - I wrote the above in February 2002. Now, in February 2004, Francisco Gil-White is Deputy Editor of Emperors Clothes. Following the publication of the remarkable document below, the directors of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict launched an effort to silence Francisco which has now culminated in an effort to prevent his reappointment. For a documented chronology of the attempt to force Francisco to change the conclusions of his research, go to
http://www.psych.upenn.edu/~fjgil/open.htm

-- Jared Israel]

[ www.tenc.net ]

A couple of months ago I chanced upon the Emperor's Clothes Website because of their coverage of 9-11.

I noticed their startling claim that we have been systematically lied to about Yugoslavia, including Slobodan Milosevic. As they told it, he was not guilty of racist incitement and genocide; rather he advocated multiethnic peace. Since their views sharply contradicted my own, I started systematically checking their references by obtaining the relevant original documents. I have yet to find a single claim in error.

This was particularly surprising regarding the famous speech that Slobodan Milosevic delivered at Kosovo Field in 1989 at the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo. According to what I had read, this was an ultranationalist diatribe in which Milosevic manipulated memories of a famous defeat to stir mob hatred of Muslims, especially Albanians.

Emperor's Clothes posted what they claimed was the official U.S. government translation of that speech,
http://emperors-clothes.com/milo/milosaid.html
which they attributed to the National Technical Information Service, a dependency of the Commerce Department.

The posted speech was certainly not hateful.

But was this the real speech? The text contradicted everything I had been led to expect from Slobodan Milosevic and everything I had read about this speech.

Through my university library, I obtained a copy of the microfilm of the BBC's translation (which is a translation of the live relay of the speech). I compared this text to the one posted at Emperor's Clothes.

Except for a few words that the BBC translator was not able to hear, they match almost exactly.

The speech is not devoid of a certain poetry and, given what I had been led to believe about Milosevic, I was amazed to find that it was *explicitly tolerant*. In other words, the entire point, structure, message, and moral of the speech -- in all its details -- was to promote understanding and tolerance between peoples, and to affirm the unity of all those who live in Serbia, regardless of their national origin or religious affiliation.

But if a speech such as this had been falsely reported as a viciously hateful speech, then what about the rest of my information about Yugoslavia? After all, it came from the same sources which had misrepresented this speech...

I began to read voraciously, to see how academics, politicians and the media had reported what happened in Yugoslavia. I have found an enormous amount of misinformation, and it is hard to dispel the impression that much of this is *deliberate*. This is quite important for my field because students of ethnic conflict, like myself, need to know what it is that we are supposed to explain. Our case data often comes from historians and journalists who describe ethnic conflicts for us. Until recently, I was assuming that those who wrote about Yugoslavia could at least be trusted to try to report things accurately.

I have changed my mind. What I now know suggests that the problem is not merely that reporters and academics are misinformed. I have observed that a source may report the facts accurately and then, in another place, usually later, *the same source* will report them completely inaccurately. How can one explain this as a result of ignorance? It suggests a conscious effort to misinform.

That obviously raises the question: why?

Many articles on Emperor's Clothes explore that question. Here I am primarily concerned with showing that Slobodan Milosevic was, in fact, systematically and willfully misrepresented. As an example of what has been done, I have assembled excerpts from various sources regarding Milosevic’s famous 1989 speech at Gazimestan (the location is often referred to as Kosovo Polje or Kosovo Field). I compare these excerpts to Milosevic’s words so that you can see what was done.

I have provided Emperor's Clothes with a pdf version of the microfilm of the BBC translation so my readers can compare the US government and the BBC versions for themselves.

To see the pdfs of the BBC microfilm visit these links:

http://www.icdsm.com/milosevic/milosevic1.pdf http://www.icdsm.com/milosevic/milosevic2.pdf
and
http://www.icdsm.com/milosevic/milosevic3.pdf

For an easy-to-read text version of the BBC translation, go here:
http://emperors-clothes.com/milo/milosaid2.htm

To compare this to the US government translation, go here:
http://emperors-clothes.com/milo/milosaid.html

Finally, you may look at further instructions I provide in the footnote for those who may wish to track down this text on their own.[1]

As you read the compilation (certainly not complete) of misquotations, misrepresentations, misattributions, and mischaracterizations of Milosevic’s speech in the media and by academics, it is important to keep something in mind.

If Milosevic really *was* a hate-monger, the evidence would not be hard to find. As Jared Israel wrote in his introduction to the speech:

"It is impossible for a society to engage in genocide unless the population is won to hate the target group. This has to be done in a systematic way. That is, political leaders must support hate in deeds but also in words."
http://emperors-clothes.com/milo/milosaid.html

*******
From: Politicians, the Media and Scholars Lied about Milosevic's 1989 Kosovo Speech:
http://emperoros-clothes.com/milo/gw.htm (snip, read more)

OK, don't get cranky with me, I'm in Australia, are you trying to tell me that Gil White is sucker-bait also? More info here - please fill me in -

This item is available on the Campus Watch website, at http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1049

More Attempted Intimidation Charged in Prof. Gil-White Firing Case
Arutz 7
March 5, 2004

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=58988

As reported last month by Arutz-7, Professor Francisco Gil-White of the University of Pennsylvania charged his department heads with attempting to have him fired because of his pro-Israel and pro-Serbian views. This week saw a new type of intimidation at U. Penn.

In an interview with Jared Israel of Emperor's New Clothes website, Prof. Gil-White reports he received a call from his department chairman, Psychology Prof. Robert J. DeRubeis, on March 3.

Gil-White: Prof. DeRubeis said he believed I'd seen the confidential files with student comments on my reappointment. He said he was going to call the students from whom letters of evaluation concerning my teaching record had been solicited and - these are his words - warn them that, and I quote, I might ‘take retaliatory action against them,' unquote. He actually said he was going to make such phone calls!

Now first of all, this is a kind of slander because I'd never punish students, give them bad grades or anything, for speaking their mind. Students have made this very point in supporting me against the University's attempt to silence me. Just read the comments at the bottom of the story about the attempted firing at the Daily Pennsylvanian.

But in addition, this totally unprofessional threat to make slanderous phone calls is an escalation of the attempted intimidation that's been going on for two years."

Israel: Have you seen the reappointment files?

Gil-White: I don't know why he thinks that, but even if I had, the point is, I've got no problem with students. I've charged, and this was picked up by Israel National News, that Prof. Ian Lustick, who's a US intelligence strategist, has pressed to get me out because he doesn't want my views on Israel and Serbia expressed at the Solomon Asch Center. Whatever I have seen, Prof. DeRubeis has certainly seen everything that's in those files. Is he scared I might see it because there's stuff in there that confirms what I've said about Lustick?

Jared Israel then called Prof. Robert DeRubeis the evening of March 3:

Jared Israel: Good evening, this is Jared Israel reporting for Emperor's Clothes and possibly Israel National News. I just got off the phone with Prof. Gil-White. He told me you called today and told him you thought that he had seen some confidential personnel files.

DeRubeis: I don't have anything, I don't have anything to say to you.

Israel: Did you have that conversation about the per-

DeRubeis: I don't, I don't know who you are, I don't know why I [need to?] talk to you.

Israel: OK. Emperor's Clothes –

DeRubeis: Yeah.

Israel: That's the website that-

DeRubeis: I don't have any comment about this - I don't know why –

Israel: You haven't told him that you were going to tell students who'd written letters for files that he was going to quote "take some retaliatory action" unquote - ?

DeRubeis: I have no comment on this - this is absurd –

At which point Prof. DeRubeis hung up on Israel.

This item is available on the Campus Watch website, at http://www.campus-watch.org/article/id/1049

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