Posted on 05/27/2003 6:34:29 PM PDT by getoffmylawn
The US "fabricated evidence" against former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic during clashes between Serbia and Bosnia in the mid-1990s, according to a prominent and experienced international peacekeeping official who served there.
Retired Swedish Brigadier General Bo Pellnas, who was head of UN Military Observers (UNMOs) in Croatia, now says that the US should not be trusted. Pellnas says that he learned to distrust US-provided evidence during peacekeeping service in the former Yugoslavia.
Pellnas's misgivings are described in an article from the Swedish daily newspaper Aftonbladet. Here is an English-language translation of this article:
In an interview with Sweden's leading news-wire TT, retired Brigadier Bo Pellnas claims that the US "faked evidence to suit their own interests."
"If the US were to present evidence of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, the countries of the Western world would have no way to substantiate these reports due to the technical superiority of the US."
These are the words of retired Brigadier Bo Pellnas, who says he witnessed the US "fabricating fact to suit their own needs." Pellnas says he witnessed this first-hand when he led an international force which safeguarded the borders between Serbia and Bosnia in the mid-1990s, where he gained a very good insight and understanding of US operations. "The technical superiority of the US gives their politicians the option of bringing forth fake evidence, in this case in front of the United Nations Security Council."
Pellnas served in Yugoslavia during a time when US efforts, led by then Secretary of State Madeline Albright, presented evidence to the UN Security Council that Milosevic's Belgrade government ran unmonitored arms shipments. Pellnas claims that Albright's staff presented manipulated satellite photos to document false allegations, leading the Security Council to act in accordance with the US hard line against Milosevic.
"There might be a possibility that Albright thought the pictures to be true," says Pellnas, "but several incidents pointed towards the fact that the US lied." The US stood firm by their claims, refusing to show supporting evidence to Pellnas and other members of the peacekeeping crew.
"If the US were to come forth with evidence against Iraq which were "difficult to confirm," the permanent members of the Council will be put in a difficult situation, since they lack the sufficient tools to research and verify such claims."
Pellnas said he hopes that nations of the European Union make it their responsibility to build their own intelligence agency which has the capability to act as a counterbalance to the US. "It would be great indeed if the EU could act as a balance to the world's only true superpower, which acts alone these days."
In addition to his UN duties, Pellnas was also in charge of an international monitoring mission to Yugoslavia in 1994 sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), and worked with the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia (ICFY), a group established in 1991 to find a peaceful solution to the region's conflicts.
May God bless their souls. +Memory Eternal.
Try the transcripts from July 26th, '02 - that would be a good place to start, don't you think?
They did the same to my family when they refused to be forcibly converted to Roman Catholicism. Of course, the man who began that program will soon be named a saint!
Guess you missed that one.
Some of the "pearls" that stand out are so obvious I had to bite my lip, because I was laughing so hard. I think this "evidence" was made public in hopes that FauxNews would carry them, for the public iliteratti who actually believe in Flat Earth.
Imagine a Chief of Staff, and acting commander of a brigade, didn't know the prisoners arrived but found about it from his -- wife! This guy knows the first and last names of each and every little junior officer he called on, yet he (conveniently) cannot remember the name (didn't think it was importamnt enough?) of an "elderly man" who actually told him something pivotal, i.e. that "...Nikolich had personally taken part in the execution..." Hearsay! Pure garbage!
And so is the rest -- he finds out that such as such happened, but wasn't there to see it, and so on. And his commander gives orders to execute prisoners over the radio and, of course, everyone listens.
The "confession" of Dragan Obrenovich was a sudden memory jarring process -- from April 18, 2001 when he was delivered to Carla's Lair, and his "recollection" on May 21, 2001, when he signed the "confession," looking rather shoddy that day. Funny how much one can remember in such a short time on prison food, given that he pleaded innocent and called his charges false four weeks earlier.
The prison stample and life also had an effect on his reasoning as well. He pleabargained so that his sentence (which was a foregone conclusion even without his pleabargaining) could be reduced from life to -- 15 to 20 years. What a deal!
I think he and Bilyana Plavshich must be related. She gave up her life sentence for 15 or so years instead. That would be considerable if she were not in her late 70's. But, prison food and water can have weird efects on people -- who would know, right?
So, where are all those people he names in his "confession?" Why don't they just take the investigators to where those bodies are? And what bout our ever-vigilant and all-seeing Predator, satellite and those Marine Corps RC model planes (weeeeeee) that keep an eye on the theater of operations 24/7/365?
On the matter of Mad Cow forgery... It is a noble thing to try to expose a government that has taken a moral nosedive to fabricate "evidence," to cheat and deceive and, in spite of all that, have to use brutal force to get its way. That's not what democracies are all about. Some of the fascist right wing thugs on drugs who appear on this forum waving the flag and disbelieveing "neutral" and "foreign" generals who acuse us of forgery are now enjoying a McCarhty revival -- for a time being. Historical facts show that the reasons we often went to war over were as bogus as a $3 bill, staring from "the Maine," the sinking of "the Lisutania," te War to End All Wars, the Make World Safe for Democracy, the Pearl harbor "surprise," the Gulf of Tonkin "incident," the Makrale bombings, the Rachak massacre, and now the "would-you-believe-if-I-tell-you" ready-to-shoot thousands of WMDs story for the Dumb and Dumber.
It doesn't matter if the evidence is falsified. There is nothing one can do to undo this. The victors write history -- for a while anyway. Don't waste your time.
If we were so "outraged" about Spanish brutality, why were we willing to tolerate brutal Latin American dictators without any problems when we got rid of the Spanish? Answer: they were scum, but at least they were our scum, to paraphrase a famous American political figure. Your explanation for the Spanish war is simply naive. The US was guided by "providential" self-appointed "destiny" -- to first expand from coast to coast and then to rule sovereign over the hemisphere, and now the world. It's called imperialism, plain and simple. Why sugarcoat it? Let's face it: war was good for America. Wars have in large part contributed to America's power. America sought wars at it does today.
I am not an apologist. I just don't have problems admitting that we are doing what every other Empire did -- go to war on its terms. We waited until 1917 to eneter WWI. In the meantime, we traded and made huge profits with both warring sides. We entered the war when it suited us.
One thing that always came in handy -- to our shame -- was our yellow press. In a democracy, the press has a duty to check on the government (whose job is to serve and not to rule!), to keep it honest, etc. That's why we need a free and independent (critical) press. Unfortunately, our press has often served as the unofficial mouthpiece of the government, using its ability to shape public opinion the way the government wanted it. In the case of "the Maine," the press played a cruicial role in raising the public mood for war, just as FoxNews has done in a fine tradition of "presstitute" reporting.
The yellow press also palyed a part in the raising of the war mood in America in WWI -- helped along with the yellow journalism of our British counterparts. British tabloids were pumping out alleged "massacres" of Belgians, rapes in open squares of Belgian women by Germans, and dead baby stories of Germans impaling little toddlers on Belgian fences. The falcities of such stories became obvious after the fact (always too late), but the important thing is: the war came when we wanted it.
Pearl Harbor did not just happen out of a clear blue. Economic sanctions imposed on Japan were destined to force Japan to either retreat from China or to do something esle to break the sanctions. They chose the latter -- duh! In view of that, one would think that the US would be a little more vigilant about being jumped the way it happend in Pearl Harbor. But, the world was at war, and Hitler was a menace and also a Japanese ally. The US was eager to enter the war to stop the Axis from encroaching on our interests. Until then, we were neutral. But when the time came for a war, we got our war. Mice don't just go to raps, they are coaxed to go to traps. Things do not happen out of a clear blue -- they are usually scripted and choregraphed!
No point in going into the Gulf of Tonkin because there is more than lefty mythology involved. It was a convenient excuse to get Congressional approval.
One must really be naive and believe the rallying calls of politicians who (by definition must) lie. It is totally amazing to me that the words of politicians, the people who rank lowest on the trustworthiness and honesty -- somewhere next to lawyers, are suddenly taken for gospel when it comes to sending American people to die in a far off land with a rallying cry such as a "War to End All Wars."
People don't want to know the truth because they can't handle the truth. We can't just say -- hey, this is what we want because we are the Empire and we set the rules. You don't like it? Sorry, maybe you will call the shots in the next round, but right now this is our show. Why beat around the bush? Because to most a "noble lie" is better than the "naked truth."
If you are looking for lack of credibility, you need to look at the "official truth" and not at those who question it. Critical thinking is always in short supply.
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