Posted on 03/02/2003 6:55:45 PM PST by smokegenerator
MORE ON CNN'S DECEIT
by George Jatras
This message is addressed primarily to those, especially in the Special Forces network, who responded quickly and decisively to the CNN "Tailwind" show. You have set the example for all Americans.
Please pass this on in your networks.
Now that CNN has been exposed, (the Emperor has no clothes, if you will), it is time to look at some of their past reporting in a different light. Virtually all of the mainstream news media, not just CNN, have manipulated public opinion in a way that has allowed the Clinton administration to grossly misuse America's dwindling military capability with little or no public outcry, or resistance from congress. Having armored units hunkered down in Bosnian villages, Special Forces GIs directing traffic in Haiti, F-15 drivers boring holes in the skies of Iraq, or U.S. military people wearing "blue berets" and commanded by foreign officers is as much a danger to the future of this country and the U.S. Armed Forces as CNN's disgraceful "Tailwind" show. Hopefully, "Tailwind" has opened our eyes, not only to what is happening, but what we can do about it.
Because of extreme pressure brought on by veterans organizations and the bravery and integrity of Major General Perry Smith, Tom Marzullo, and others, CNN was forced to face up to the fact that they were caught in an attempt to market a sensational story, with complete disregard for truth and objectivity, at the expense of the U.S. military. Then, when they were caught, they came up with a half apology. Floyd Abrams, who made the "impartial investigation," did not say the story was false; he only said that CNN didn't have the proof. Abrams even said that he might be back some day to say that the story was really true. Some apology!
Unfortunately, the real culprit, Peter Arnett, the one who tried to sell a "poison gas" story back in 1965 using Radio Hanoi as his source, is still the golden-haired boy of CNN; therefore, we can only look at CNN's weak apology by Tom Johnson, as "we really didn't mean it." What has prompted this message is to alert you to another deceit, one perhaps even more sinister than the sarin story because it involves our GIs in Bosnia and the inaccurate information, deliberate disinformation and distortions by CNN and the rest of the media that brought about America's involvement in that civil war. The main culprits this time are Christiane Amanpour and Peter Jennings of ABC.
Bosnia-Herzegovina, Srebrenica, Gorazde, Tuzla, Brcko, Vojvodina, and now Kosovo are as foreign-sounding names as were Vietnam, DaNang, NaTrang, Saigon and Hanoi in 1965. However, the Balkans may become even more disasterous and costly in lives and money because of our misguided foreign policies. In a Washington Times commentary (4 Feb 96) Congressman Duncan Hunter, Republican congressman from California wrote, "This is a much broader and deeper commitment than what the American people realize. It runs far beyond mere 'peacekeeping.'. . . Bosnia is their new laboratory, providing a larger scope for experimentation than either Somalia or Haiti." And in "Bosnia and the Global American Foreign Policy Agenda," Dr. Ron Hatchett wrote, "General George Joulwan the American Commander in Chief of NATO told the Washington Post last month that NATO's actions in Bosnia are not about the future of Bosnia but the future of Europe. I think this is true. Bosnia is a test case for the new American designed security architecture for Europe. If it achieves all American goals here at little or no cost, then it will be applied elsewhere and it doesn't take much imagination to predict where." But more of the New World Order agenda later. If Americans, particularly veterans, are outraged with the CNN story on sarin gas, they should also be as outraged by the con job that was and is still being pulled on the American people. It got us into Bosnia and it will get us into Kosovo, and God knows what other places where we have no national interests. Bismarck was quoted as saying that the Balkans were not "worth the bones of one Pomeranian grenadier." They certainly aren't worth the blood of an American GI, not to mention American treasure and honor.
To put things in perspective, I should tell you a little about myself. I'm a former Air Force fighter pilot, who retired as an 0-6 after 30 years. I flew 230 combat missions in the F-4 out of DaNang (65 missions over the North until Johnson stopped the bombing). For some of you who may have been there at the time, my last mission was close air support, with 500lb hi-drags and 20mm, on Hamburger Hill. One of my final assignments in the Air Force was as Air Attache in Moscow from 1979 to 1981. Politically, I am a conversative i.e. pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, against big government, against NATO expansion, etc. I guess my "15 minutes of fame" was my appearance on the Larry King Show in 1993 where I protested President Clinton's going to the Vietnam Wall. Also, I am not a Serb. Nor do I absolve the Serbs of all the nastiness that has gone on in that civil war. In fact, both my wife and I were outraged at the beginning of the Bosnian conflict by the reports of Serbian atrocities. However, we began to question what the American people were being told because things just weren't adding up.
Most of what you will read did not make it into the American media. For that we can thank CNN as well as the other networks, along with the print media. I can't judge which ones did it by design, malice, eagerness to get a scoop or just plain "follow the pack" mentality that has characterized the media lately. Also, although I apologize in advance for the length of this message, there is a lot to cover if the truth is to be known. Unfortunately, it only scratches the surface. The background of what led up to the conflict, the history of the region, and U.S. meddling in the matter are all topics that should be understood before making a judgment.
First let me begin with the following quotes:
"This organized anti-Serb and pro-Muslim propaganda should cause anyone believing in democracy and free speech serious concerns. It recalls Hitler's propaganda against the allies in World War II. Facts are twisted and,when convenient, disregarded." - Yohanan Ramati, Director of the Jerusalem Institute for Western Defence.
"The gigantic campaign to brainwash America by our media against the Serbian people is just incredible, with its daily dose of one-sided information and outright lies....What is today's reality? The murderers of Jews, Serbs and Gypsies are back [in Croatia] from the U.S., Canada, and Argentina, where they fled after World War II. The Serbs fought the Nazis, they paid a terrible price for standing at the side of the allies against Hitler. Humanity owes them a debt of gratitude." - John Ranz, Chairman of Survivors of Buchenwald Concentration Camp, USA.
"Pictures of dead or wounded (or raped) Serbs often fill the screens of the world's television and print media, only to be re-labelled as dead or wounded or raped Croats or Muslims. Many Serbian victims-- and the bulk of the victims of the conflict, contrary to popular reports have been Serbs either from Bosnia and Herzegovina or from Croatia--not only suffer the indignity of defeat in death; they also are used in death as models in the macabre image manipulation operations of the Croatian and Muslim Bosnians. If the Vietnam War was lost to the United States by the negative television images of its own reporters, then the Balkan war against the Serbs is being won by Ustashi [Croatian Nazi Party of WWII] Croatia and the Muslim Bosnians by an active, planned manipulation of international television." - Gregory R. Copley, Editor, Defence & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, [London], December 1992.
"The Serbs are not fighting to conquer new territory, but to hold on to what was already theirs," - General Charles G. Boyd, USAF (Ret), Former Deputy Commander in Chief, European Command, from his article in Foreign Policy, September- October 1995.
"Richard Holbrooke, architect of Bill Clinton's Bosnian policy, was one of the architects of Lyndon Johnson's Vietnam war policies. 'Round and 'round the quagmires we go, and up pops one of the same weasels." - Charlie Reese, Syndicated Columnist.
"Here you clearly see a case of the media and its images driving government policy. It was more evident in Bosnia. We're now seeing it again in Kosovo, where so much of the press coverage doesn't even make a pretense of objectivity." - Ted Galen Carpenter, author of "The Captive Press."
Yossef Bodansky in his book, "Offensive in the Balkans," writes, "As early as 1992, Izetbegovic [Bosnian Muslim president] outlined a very precise and uncompromising strategic political objective for the Sarajevo regime: to get the West to defeat the Serbs and establish a Muslim-dominated state for him." (page 52). Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic wrote in his "Islamic Declaration," "There can be no peace or coexistence between Islamic faith and non-Islamic faith political institutions....The Islamic movement must and can take place as soon as it is morally and numerically strong enough not only to destroy the non-Islamic one, but to build up a new Islamic one." Not very comforting words for those non-Muslims whom we are now forcing to live under his Islamic government. "The UN concluded that a special group of Bosnian Muslim forces, many of whom had served with Islamic terrorist organizations, committed a series of atrocities, including 'some of the worst recent killings,' against Bosnian Muslim civilians in Sarajevo as a propaganda ploy to win world sympathy and military intervention. These attacks escalated into premeditated attacks and atrocities committed against Bosnian Serb civilians trying to flee contested areas." (Page 55). Yossef Bodansky is with the House Republican Task Force on Terrorism & Unconventional Warfare and the office of Representative Saxton, (R-NJ). He is also the author of "Iran's European Springboard?" in which he writes, "Thus, Tehran and its allies are using the violence in Bosnia-Herzegovina as a springboard for the launching of a jihad in Europe .... Bosnia-Herzegovina's Muslims have long been considered by the Islamic leadership in the Middle East to be ripe as a vehicle for the expansion of Islamic militancy into Europe." (September 1, 1992).
So, how does all of this tie into the CNN sarin gas story? The sarin gas story blew up in CNN's face because a large group of people who really cared recognized it as a lie right off the bat and decided that they would not sit still for it. The Bosnia story started off with hardly anyone paying attention. As with Somolia, where television images of starving women and children stirred public opinion to demand action, pictures out of Bosnia formed initial impressions, some of which were deliberately distorted for propaganda purposes to demonize the Serbs. Once the Serbs were painted as the "bad guys," it was easier to attribute all atrocities to "Serbs" rather than educate viewers about the history of the region and the facts of what was happening there.
Consider these examples:
1. THE EMACIATED MAN BEHIND THE BARBED WIRE. I'm sure many of you remember seeing the tall, gaunt-looking man behind a barbed wire fence who was identified by CNN as a Bosnian Muslim who was being starved in a Serbian "death camp." That picture, which provoked an international outcry, ran nearly every hour on CNN for weeks and was the picture that came to symbolize the brutality of Serbs in the Bosnian war. The photo has now been condemned by an expert witness to the UN War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague, German journalist Thomas Deichmann who says that the image of the emaciated Bosnian Muslim was created by camera angles and editing and insists that the image is misleading and has fooled the world. According to Deichmann, who has visited the Trnopolje camp numerous times, said that the man was actually in a refugee camp from which he was free to leave at any time. Deichmann further stated that: (1) there was no barbed wire fence surrounding the Trnopolje camp, (2) the camp was a collection center for refugees, not a prison, and (3) the refugees in the picture were not inside a barbed wire enclosure. The barbed wire surrounded the news team who were filming from inside a small enclosure next to the camp. Journalist Deichmann says: "I am shocked that over the past four and a half years, none of the journalists involved has told the full story about that barbed wire fence which made such an impact on world opinion. The photograph has been taken as proof that Trnopolje was a Nazi-style concentration camp, but the journalists knew that it was no such thing." British newspapers carried the whole story about a law suit involving the ITN news service challenged by Thomas Deichmann, but not a word from CNN. Instead, you will often still see that image on the screen when CNN begins a segment about Bosnia. Now, however, there's no commentary; they leave it to people's memories of the poor Muslim being starved by Serbs, another example of yellow journalism.
2. ROMEO AND JULIET BRIDGE. CNN and the other major networks carried the tragic story of the Serb boy and Muslim girl who were shot by Serb snipers as they tried to cross from a Muslim held area of Sarajevo to the Serb side. And to make it worse, CNN made it a point to say that the Serbs had given them permission to cross, then shot them. Japanese TV (Tokyo, Oct. 8, 1994): "Bosnian Muslims Murdered 'Sarajevo's Romeo and Juliet'. The Japanese State Television NHK said on Friday that a Muslim-Serb fiance couple was murdered by Bosnian Muslims rather than Serbs on Sarajevo's Vrbanja Bridge in May 1993. A 50-minute documentary containing both Bosnian Serb and Muslim testimonies collected by Japanese reporters, said Muslims were responsible for the murder of Serb Bosko Brckic, 25, and his Muslim fiance Admira Ismic, 25, whom western media have nick-named 'Sarajevo's Romeo and Juliet'. The documentary contained testimonies by the couple's parents, Bosko's best friend Misa who has found refuge in Belgrade, and notorious Sarajevo paramilitary leader called 'Celo' who said Bosko and Admira had left Sarajevo's Muslim-held section aiming to cross the Vrbanja Bridge on to the Serb-held section. They said the couple was prompted to do so because the Muslims had beaten and tortured Bosko and threatened to kill him."
3. SNIPER ALLEY. "French peacekeeping troops in the United Nations unit trying to curtail Bosnian Serb snipers at civilians in Sarajevo have concluded that until mid-June some gunfire also came from Government soldiers deliberately shooting at their own civilians. After what it called a 'definitive' investigation, a French marine unit that patrols against snipers said it traced sniper fire to a building normally occupied by Bosnian [i.e., Muslim] soldiers and other security forces. A senior French officer said, 'We find it almost impossible to believe, but we are sure it is true." ("Investigation Concludes Bosnian Government Snipers Shot at Civilians," New York Times, August 1, 1995).
Spiegel TV (German). "An interesting view of 'superficial journalism' is also given by Martin Lettmayer from the Spiegel TV. One of the most embarrassing stories that casts a far from amicable light on the work of certain Western journalists is the story by Zeljko Vukovic about a boy from Sarajevo. A certain Western television crew gave the boy a 10-mark bill to run across an intersection controlled by snipers. While running across for the eighth time, the boy was shot, clutching the corresponding number of bills." What the story doesn't say was that "sniper alley" was a shooting gallery for both sides. Snipers shot at civilians and at each other. Both French and Italian military sources documented that Muslim snipers shot at their own people, again for propaganda purposes.
August 13, 1992. "The [sniper] killing of US broadcaster ABC's producer David Kaplan and the shooting down of an Italian Air Force G.222 transport aircraft on approach to Sarajevo. In both these cases Serbian forces were out of range, and the weapons actually used against the victims were not those claimed by the Bosnian Muslim authorities and the parroting Western media." (Offensive in the Balkans, by Yossef Bodansky). In the case of David Kaplan, who was inside a vehicle in Bosnian Muslim territory, the shot had to have come from ground level. However, CNN's Christiane Amanpour, in interviews such as the Charlie Rose Show, blamed the Serbs for the death of David Kaplan. Christiane Amanpour is CNN's female version of Peter Arnett.
4. MUSLIM BABIES SHOT BY SERB SNIPERS. While U.S. television networks were carrying reports of "Muslim" babies that were shot on a bus by "alleged" Serb snipers, an act that horrified the world, French TV covered the funeral which showed that the babies, in reality, were Serbian babies shot by snipers in an area that was under the control of Bosnian Muslims, The funeral services were conducted by a Serbian Orthodox Christian priest. However, for American TV consumption by CNN, the Serbian Orthodox Christian priest was conveniently cropped out of the picture so that the American audience would continue to believe that the babies were Muslim killed by Serbs rather than the other way around. Furthermore the American people were led to believe that the women at the cemetery against whom there was sniping and a grenade attack were Muslim women even though the graves were marked with Serbian Orthodox crosses.
Although atrocities "alleged" to have been committed by Serbs were shown repeatedly by ABC and the rest of the mainstream media, CNN's Christian Amanpour, who literally controlled what Americans saw or did not see, never showed Americans photos of atrocities committed against the Serbians, such as the photo of a Saudi Arabian mujahedin, in full camouflage gear, holding his "trophy" head of a Serb from the village of Jasenova as far back as 1991. Nor did Ms. Amanpour show you the photos of the Bosnian Serbs who had been roasted live on the spit by the holy warriors of Islam. The video photos were taken by Japanese photo journalist Yasunari Mizuguchi at Milici, Eastern Bosnia. (John Peter Maher, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Northeastern Illinois University, Chicago). Neither did the American media, which doesn't hesitate to show American GIs bleeding in the jungles of Vietnam or being dragged through the streets of Mogadishu, see fit to report on the mutilation and torture of Serbian babies with the bullet holes in their foreheads or an axe taken to crush the skull to some unfortunate victims. Please click on to the following links to see some of the photos described above.
http://home1.gte.net/pribich/cccc/blagoje1.htm http://home1.gte.net/pribich/cccc/roast480.htm http://home1.gte.net/pribich/cccc/predan.htm http://home1.gte.net/pribich/cccc/axekill1.htm
5. BREADLINE/MARKETPLACE MASSACRES. Almost since the beginning of the Bosnian war in the spring of 1992, there have been persistent reports--readily found in the European media but little reported in the United States--that civilian deaths in Muslim-held Sarajevo attributed to the Bosnian Serb Army were in some cases actually inflicted by operatives of the Izetbegovic regime in an (ultimately successful) effort to secure American intervention on Sarajevo's behalf. These allegations include instances of sniping at civilians as well as three major explosions, attributed to Serbian mortar fire, that claimed the lives of dozens of people and, in each case, resulted in the international community's taking measures against the Muslim's Serb enemies. (United States Senate Republican Policy Committee Report, "Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfer Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base," 16 January 1997).
- May 27, 1992. The Sarajevo Breadline Massacre. "MUSLIMS 'SLAUGHTER THEIR OWN PEOPLE,' Bosnia breadline queue massacre was propaganda ploy, UN told," (The Independent [London] 22 August 1992). This was also reported in the Toronto Star on 23 August 1992. Canadian Major General Lewis MacKenzie, first UNPROFOR Commander writes in his book, "Peacekeeper, the Road to Sarajevo" (unavailable in the United States; we had to send to Canada to get it), "Our people tell us there were a number of things that didn't fit. The street had been blocked off just before the incident. Once the crowd was let in and lined up, the media appeared but kept their distance. The attack took place, and the media were immediately on the scene. The majority of the victims were alleged to be 'tame Serbs.' " For his evenhandedness in criticizing all sides ("There's enough blame to go around"), Major General MacKenzie was accused by the Bosnian Muslim government of having raped and murdered four Muslim women and of having a Serbian wife. Further efforts were made to destroy General MacKenzie's bid for a political career.
- February 5, 1994 - The Sarajevo Marketplace Massacre. "Threat of NATO bombing, stronger U.S. efforts to help the Muslims when this act was committed by the Muslims against their own people." Source: Gregory Copely, Editor of Defence & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy (London), and The Times (London) February 19, 1994. Deutsch Press-Agentur reports that "for the first time, a senior UN official has admitted the existance of a secret UN report that blames the Bosnian Moslems for the February 1994 massacre of Moslems at the Sarajevo market." In his article, "Where there's war there's Amanpour," Stephen Kinzer of the NY Times Magazine (9 Oct 1994) wrote,: " 'She pushed CNN to cover the Bosnia story when there really wasn't much interest in it,' said one network insider who requested anonymity. 'She just insisted on going there, and the impact of her coverage forced the other networks to follow. It was another example of her great news instincts.' But this same insider has doubts about Amanpour's commitment to objective journalism. 'I have winced at some of what she's done, at what used to be called advocacy journalism,' he said. 'She was sitting in Belgrade when that marketplace massacre happened, and she went on the air to say that the Serbs had probably done it. There was no way she could have known that.' " A BBC documentary titled, "Yugoslavia: The Death Of A Nation," which was widely acclaimed in its original UK version, was aired in the U.S. with the original UK soundtrack removed and a commentary with an anti-Serb spin by CNN's Christiane Amanpour was substituted. "I saw the original, which was reasonably balanced, and can't compare the two versions. . . To my knowledge, no major UK documentary on a non-American subject, has EVER been mangled in this way. Everyone concerned by the all pervasive manipulation of the media for political ends should flood the Discovery Channel demanding to know why this fine documentary has been manipulated by the media--if not US government--spin-doctors. And, not least, who ordered it done in the first place." (Johnny Byrne, British author and journalist).
- August 28 1995. The Sarajevo Marketplace Massacre No. 2 (Markale). "SERBS 'NOT GUILTY' OF MASSACRE, Experts warned US that mortar was Bosnian," (The Sunday Times [London] 1 October 1995). Wasn't it strange that the attack gave the Clinton administation just the excuse it needed to demand that NATO bomb the Serbs? And it wasn't a coincidence that Peter Jennings and Christiane Amanpour had arrived in Sarajevo just in time to witness the mortar attack. Yet based on this deceit, NATO planes, led primarily by American pilots, dropped over 6,000 tons of bombs on the Serbs. To its shame, the U.S. used a target list provided by the Chief of Staff of the Bosnian Muslim Army, Gen. Rashim Delic. How many of you believe claims that there was little or no collateral damage and no civilians were killed? Then U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright, could barely contain her joy in announcing to the American people that American pilots were bombing the Serbs.
- April 1996. "Le Monde," Paris: "French Journalist, Bernard Volker, who claimed two years ago that Muslims were responsible for the incident at Markale market in Sarajevo has won his case in Paris and thus proved the truthfulness of his report."
Further proof that Muslims committed the Markale Massacre: Jean Daniel, Editor of the magazine 'Le Nouvel Observateur,' in the August 31, 1995 issue under the revealing title, 'No more lies about Bosnia,' made an unprecedented confession: that the Prime Minister of France at the time of the market massacre, as well as many other ministers and two French generals, had confirmed to him that Muslims were the true authors of that carnage. The following statement is self explanatory:
" 'They (the Muslims) have committed this carnage on their own people?' I exclaimed in consternation. 'Yes,' confirmed the Prime Minister [Eduard Balledur] without hesitation, 'but at least they forced NATO to intervene.' "
In his book, "The Sharp End, a Canadian Soldier's Story," Cpl. James R. Davis writes: "...That evening there were some kids hanging around on a patio at the base of the building. The guys had thrown them some candy until I told them to stop....Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, one of the troops saw something race past...a mortar bomb. In the moment before it detonated, he realized it was heading right for the kids. Before he could shout a warning, the bomb exploded....What he found shocked him to the core. there were little pieces of children everywhere. Arms, legs, and blood covered the patio. The teenage girl had died instantly. The other kids were badly wounded. Brit medics showed up and tried to sort out the mess...They got the kids on stretchers and tried to match the arms and legs with the proper child. It was horrible.
"The next morning, a report came in from the observers that no Serb mortars had fired that they were aware of. The trajectory was calculated and it was determined that the Bosnians had mortared their own children. For public relatioins purposes. Sure enough, the morning news in the city reported that the UN and their Serb allies had killed these children. We could not believe it. I can't speak for the others, but that morning I would have happily killed any TDF (Muslim) troops I saw. I was growing tired of the whole mess. These people did not care. They were animals....It wasn't the last time the Bosnians murdered their own people in well-staged attacks for PR reasons."
6. THE SEIGE OF SARAJEVO. "There are many misconceptions surrounding the 'seige' of Sarajevo. First of all, it is not really a seige in the accepted sense of the word. The Serbs do not want to take the city or to have it surrender -- they would not know what to do with it...The word 'seige' sounds dramatic, but it hardly conveys the reality of a situation where the Bosnian Serb army, with no pressure being applied to it, wave through convoys of aid into a city which they are supposed to be demolishing. Once, in the street outside our barracks, I met one of the [Bosnian Muslim] government soldiers and asked him rather pointedly why his side was breaking the ceasefires. They had orders, he said. Sarajevo was too quiet: to stay in the centre of the world's attention; it needed to be its 'normal' self - it needed to be shelled." (Interview of British Army soldier, Rod Thornton, by British journalist Johnny Byrne). The fact of the matter was that rather than being a city under seige, Sarajevo was a divided city, much like Nicosia with its "green line" between the Turks and Greeks, or Beruit. The fact only became clear to most outsiders when, after Dayton, the Serbs turned over control of the whole city to the Muslim government and over 90,000 Serbs fled the city. Less than 2,000 of these refugees have been allowed to return. The Serbs had offered to let the women and children leave Sarajevo before the all-out conflict, but Bosnian President Izetbegovic refused, preferring to keep them there for propaganda purposes. Additionally, those who had enough money could pay their way out. The Serbians were talked into turning Mt. Igman over to the UN as a demilitarized zone. However, the U.N. immediately turned Mt. Igman over to the Muslim forces, which moved in artillery to shell Serb positions.
From "Dagblated," (Oslo) by Morten Strand, 4 November 1995, "Islamic Terrorists get a Stronghold in Bosnia." Strand writes, "Bosnia is becoming an Islamic State and a stronghold for Muslim terrorism in Europe." This is an unintended consequence of what happens when we interfere in the affairs of another's sovereign nation.
7. VIOLATIONS OF SAFE-HAVENS. Yasushi Akashi, former UN Reprsentative in Bosnia, admitted in The Washington Times (1 November 95) that, "It is a fact that Bosnian government forces have used the 'safe areas' of not only Srebrenica, but Sarajevo, Tuzla, Bihac, Gorazde for training, recuperation and refurbishing their troops." In other words, the so-called safe-havens, which were supposed to be demilitarized, were being used as training camps and staging areas for Mujahedin fighers from Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, Turkey and the whole Islamic world, for attacking Serbian villages and returning like thieves in the night back to the safety of their UN protectors, who conveniently looked the other way to these violation. However, when Serb forces reacted to Bosnian Muslim provocations, it was the Serbs who were demonized by one congressman from Viriginia, who stood on the floor of the house and accused the Serbs of having fired upon a hospital in Gorazde. What the congressman failed to mention was that the Bosnian Muslims were using the hospital as their headquarters, had placed gun emplacements on the roof and were firing into nearby Serbia proper and upon surrounding Serbian villages. In "The Truth About Gorazde," (4 May 1994), Yossef Bodansky writes, "At the same time, Sarajevo resumed its propaganda accounts of intense Bosnian Serb shelling and mounting civilian casualties. It was at this point that the saga of the Gorazde hospital began. This incident was depicted by the Western media in Sarajevo as an example of Bosnian Serb aggression against innocent civilians in Gorazde. Indeed, special attention was paid to the frequent fire aimed at the hospital -- which was also the main Muslim observation and battle management post-to drum up support for Western action against the Serbs. Subsequently, the UN and NATO were asked to launch airstrikes in order to protect the UN troops that had been inserted into Gorazde. It is also noteworthy that on 9 April. the Bosnian Serbs agreed to a UNPROFOR initiative to begin ceasefire negotiations in the Sarajevo airport. The Bosnian Muslims refused to attend this meeting." Furthermore, "Indeed, in an interview with French TV (TF-1) on April 12, Gen. Rose [UN ground commander] acknowledged that the Muslims "Shoot on the Serbs to step up the pressure to obtain a fresh intervention from NATO."
8. RAPE CAMPS. In his letter to President Clinton on 14 April 1994, Herb Brin, reporter for the Heritage Southwest Jewish Press, wrote, "Now a year ago, I went to Bosnia to see for myself what was meant by ethnic cleansing and the rape stories attributed to the Serb armies in the field....When I visited the Serbian front, I learned to my dismay that the rape story was a total concoction. In wars, rapes occur--but in the hundreds of thousands and as a means of so-called 'ethnic cleanisng?" This was incredible and false."
For France's "Envoye Special," Jerome Bony went to investigate the rape stories on the spot by going to Tuzla, the city mentioned in all the reports. He confided his astonishment in a February 4 broadcast: " When I was 50 kilometers from Tuzla, I heard, 'Go to the Tuzla gynmasium, there are 4,000 raped women.' At 20 kilometers the figure went down to 400. At 10 kilometers there were no more than 40. And on the spot I found 4 women who agreed to testify." In investigating the reports by the Bosnian Commission on War Crimes and Ministry of the Interior of Bosnia-Herzegovina (EEC), of between 40,000 to 60,000 raped women, Envoye Special further reports: "First of all it observed that the mandate of the commission is restricted to Muslim victims. The Serbian women were excluded right away from the inquiry." When Serbian medical examiner, Dr. Stankovic, tried to present over 10,000 files, which include reported rape of Serbian women, to The Hague, the War Crimes Tribunal and Judge Goldstone would not receive them. Also completely ignored were cases of male homosexual rape against Serbian men. Serbian men had broom handles and the fists of their perpetrators shoved into their anus which did enormous damge to internal organs. Thousands of Serbian men have been so brutally circumcised (an anathema to the Serbian religion), that they will be sexually dysfunctional for the remainder of their lives. These sexual crimes have been substantiated and documented by Dr. Toholj, Professor of Gynecology at Belgrade Unversity, the Director of the Yugoslav War Crimes Commission.
9. SREBRENICA. The anti-Serb disinformation by the media undoubtedly reached its climax at Srebrenica. To this day we hear that as many as 8,000 Muslim men, "who went missing," were slaughtered at Srebrenica and their bodies buried in mass graves. Yet excavations and investigations have turned up 700 to 1,000 bodies - in an area where there was fighting for more than two years. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), document number 37, dated September 13, 1995, reveals that "between 5,000 to 8,000" Srebrenica Muslims left the enclave prior to the fall of the city and that the Muslim government had admitted that these men were reassigned to other units of its armed forces, and their families were not notified for reasons of "military security." The ICRC further reported that there are "indications that sporadic clashes broke out between the Muslim soldiers and civilians who wanted to flee and those who wanted to fight on. Charles Lane, a prominent supporter of Bosnian Muslims, said in the New Republic in August 1995 that there were at least two such clashes. Other journalists reported to have seen bodies of soldiers and civilians lying in the streets as they entered Srebrenica." (Missing Evidence, by Linda Ryan, "Nova" Frankfurt, March-April 1996). For his part in investigating reporting, David Rohde, of the Christian Science Monitor, received a Pulitzer Prize. His great discovery was that of a leg sticking out of the the ground, surrounded by spent cartridge cases. Furthermore, twenty-five journalists, including CBS's Mike Wallace, went to Srebrenica to investigate the "alleged," "thought-to-be," and "possible," mass grave "seen" by U.S. photo satellites. They returned empty-handed. However, Mr. Wallace neglected to inform the American people that there was no "mass grave," preferring instead to allow the American people to believe that there was. This is yellow journalism, pure and simple, as omission from a report is just as bad as lying - just as April Oliver, Jack Smith and Peter Arnett did in the "Tailwind" story. While the Bosnian Serb government which provided buses for Muslim women and children refugees caught up in the civil war in Srebrenica, was condemned for "ethnically cleansing" the region, there was no condemnation from politicians or the media when Croatian jets bombed and strafed Serbian refugees being driven from their ancestral homes in the Krajina. This exodus of over 200,000 of the Serbian population was the largest since World War II.
10. THE MYTH OF 250,000 MUSLIM DEATHS CONTINUES - A MATTER OF SIMPLE ARITHMETIC.
In January of 1993, UPI claimed 17,000 deaths on all sides in Bosnia. Also in January of 1993, Haris Siladjzic, Prime Minister of the Bosnian Islamic government claimed 18,000 Muslim deaths. On June 15th 1993, at the Human Rights convention in Vienna, Mr. Siladjzic claimed 200,000 Muslim deaths, an increase of 182,000 in five months! And this figure was accepted by the journalist community without question. In the more than three years since then, the figure has increased to 250,000 [Even the figure of 500,000 has been recently expounded - all Muslims, of course; however, that figure didn't fly.] If the figure 18,000 was correct in January 1993, then five months later the 200,000 figure would represent 180,000 additional Muslims killed or 36,000 per month or, 1,200 victims per day.
Haris Siladjzic also said on CNN that when Tuzla was shelled, the 71 victims represented the single largest killing of Muslims in one day in the entire war. Therefore, if we take 42 months or 1,260 days of war and use the Tuzla figure of 71 as the maximum deaths per day, we come up with the total of 89,460, a far cry from 200,000 to 250,000.
George Kenney, a former State Department officer well versed in events in Bosnia, put the casualty figure at that time between 20,000 to 60,000 and David Binder, a highly respected foreign correspondent with 30 years experience in the Balkans claimed in a World Affairs Council speech in Orange County, California, that the combined totals of all humanitarian organizations can't even come up with 70,000 victims. As an example, where are the lists of names of the 7,000 Srebrenica victims as claimed by the Bosnian government?
We should also remember that the figures quoted above refer to casualties on all sides. Our media not only tend to inflate the numbers, but imply that all the casualties are on the Bosnian Muslim side. The extent to which many journalists are willing to accept one-sided propaganda in order to vilify the Serbs in this civil war is appalling. The numbers just don't add up. This distortion of reality should raise questions in the minds of any ethical [there's the magic word!] journalist; instead, it is indicative of the media's yellow journalism throughout this conflict.
11. THE NEW WORLD ORDER. In his article, "Bosnia and the Global American Foreign Policy Agenda," Dr. Ron Hatchett wrote, "Many Serbs I have met during the course of the conflict in former Yugoslavia have been puzzled by American policy toward this region. They ask:
- Why does your government say it stands for self determinatin and political freedom but would deny this to the Serbs?
- Why does your government depict the Serbs as invaders when we are only fighting to hold on to lands that have belonged to our ancestors for centuries?
- Why does your government depict the Serbs as Nazis when it was the Croats and Muslims that actually sided with the Nazis during World War II?
- Why does your government blame every civilian death or relocation of non-Serbs on Serbian genocide but ignore the deaths and dislocations of hundreds of thousands of Serb civilians in the Krajina and Bosnia?
- How can we make your government understand the fundamental injustice of its policy toward the Yugoslav crisis?
"It always seems to shock my Serb questioners when I tell them that the Clinton administration knows full well the truth about the situation in the former Yugoslavia -- who has done what to whom over the past four years and, indeed, over the past millennium and who owned what land before the fighting began.
"It is you Serbs, I tell them, who are working under a misconception because you do not understand that the declared justifications for American policy towards the Yugoslav conflict are not the actual basis of American policy. American policy toward the situation in the former Yugoslavia is based on considerations much broader than the events in the Balkans. It is concern for its global foreign policy objectives that drives American policy towards former Yugoslavia, not a search for justice for the peoples of this area." Dr. Hatchett also wrote, "In a recent opinion piece in The New Times, Jacob Heilbrunn and Michael Lind of the New Republic editorial staff argue that the American commitment to the Islamic connection is so strong that the U.S. design is to make the Islamic world part of a new American empire and that the American support of the Bosnian Muslims is part of the implementation of this plan. . . .
"The determination to lead explains why agreement in Bosnia had to be on American terms, but it does not explain why the American terms favored the Muslims. The explanation for this is money.
"About two years ago I was making the rounds in Washington trying to talk some sense into some of my former colleagues who were still in the government and working policy issues affecting the former Yugoslavia. One of my friends in the Pentagon stopped me in the middle of my harangue about the injustice of American policy towards the Serbs, in particular the depiction of the Serbs as invaders of Bosnia and Croatia, and as the only perpetrators of war crimes. 'Ron,' he said, 'don't you think we know what you are saying? The simple facts are these: we are getting incredible presssure from the Saudis and others to help the Muslim cause in Bosnia. They remind us that the Islamic world provides us with all the oil we want at relatively low prices, that Islamic states have billions of petrodollars to invest in 'friendly states' and offer a potential market of over one billion people for the goods and services of 'friendly countries'; and finally, that the peace process between Israel and the Islamic world would go better if Israel's main friend was also a friend to Islamic countries. When you weigh these facts against what 8 million Serbs can do for American interests, its clear what direction our policy is going to take."
Yohanan Ramati, Chairman of the Jerusalem Institute for Western Defence, wrote in his "The Cold War is Back!" (6 June 1996), "The strategic goal is to turn Bosnia-Herzegovina into the main American military base in Europe and transfer the U.S. forces now stationed in Germany there. The confirmed contract (value $1.3 billions!) to build military barracks and latrines at Tuzla in the Moslem part of Bosnia is far too big to relate to the 20,000 American troops present in Bosnia and supposed to be evacuated from there in early 1997. Nor is it likely that so much American money is being invested to build barracks for German or other European forces. So the transfer of U.S. ground forces now stationed in Germany to Bosnia is by far the most reasonable assumption--especially since Germany has been pressing for their evacuation, regarding them as an unwelcome reminder of its defeat and occupation in World War II."
12. KOSOVO. Kovoso is now reaching a boiling point and our politicians and the media are beating the war drums. Much of the impetus for us to "do something" has been based on reports that the autonomy enjoyed by the Albanian majority in Kosovo has been unfairly recinded by the Serbian central government, and the idea that the Albanian majority should have the right to succeed from Serbia proper if they so chose. Consider the following:
First, the supposed abolition of autonomy. In 1963, Tito granted Kosovo the status of an "autonomous province" within the Serbian federal republic; in 1974, that autonomous status was elevated to virtually equal status with a federal republic, with Kosovo given veto power even over republic legislation having nothing to do with Kosovo. During autonomy as it existed after 1974, despite Kosovo's nominal status as part of Serbia, Albanians exercised complete control over the provincial administration and ruthlessly drove tens of thousands Serbs from the province. At the same time, Albanian demands mounted that the province be detached from Serbia and given republic status within the Yugoslav federation; republic status, if granted, would then allow Kosovo to declare its independence from Yugoslavia. After solidifying his power as president of Serbia (by pretending to be a nationalist), in 1989 Milosevic presided over the downgrading of Kosovo's post-1974 autonomy status (as well as that of Serbia's other autonomous province, Vojvodina) to what it had been from 1963 to 1974. It was in response to that downgrading -- not any mythical abolition of autonomy -- that the Albanians declared a boycott of Serbian institutions and created their own schools and health care system. In 1990, they proclaimed their own independent Republic of Kosova.
Perhaps it begs the question to ask where was the media outcry when under 15 years of Albanian autonomy, from 1974 to 1989, Serbian nuns were being raped and murdered, Serbian churches and monasteries were being destroyed, when the Cyrillic alphabet was banned, when positions in higher learning institutions and industry were take away from Serbs and given to Albanian Muslims, when their water supply was being poisoned and when the 80-year old bishop of Kosovo was beaten severely by Albanian thugs on the streets of Pristina? Why was the same outrage from the same politicians and media not shown for the Serbians as they are for the Albanian Muslims? Many articles state that Albanian autonomy was taken away in 1989 but the reasons as I have specified above, are never given.
As for the Albanian majority. If the Serbian population in Kosovo is now 10%, and the Albanian Muslim population is 90% and the Serbians were the majority until the onslaught of the Ottoman Turks, the later ravages by Hitler's Nazis, followed by Tito, who in his hatred of the Serbians people encouraged Albanian Muslims to cross over into Christian Kosovo as easily as illegal Mexicans cross over into the United States, then who, in reality, is being ethnically cleansed? One of the demands being made of the Serbs is that their security forces should be pulled back. If this occurrs, the Albanian Muslims will be guaranteed a population of 100%, for it will mean the eradication of the Serbian minority living in Kosovo. Oddly enough, Americans have always thought of themselves as supporting the rights of the minority, except for the Serbs in Kosovo.
Furthermore, Albanians have a country. It is called Albania. Now they want to usurp land that does not belong to them and make it part of a "Greater Albania." The latest round of fighting was initiated by KLA (Albanian separatist) forces attacking Serb security forces, and also killing both Serb and Albanian civilians who were working to solve the crisis. There is no European nation in the world that would tolerate its security forces being attacked by rebels and terrorists, yet we expect the Serbs to withdraw from the area which, in essence, will leave unprotected the 10% Serbian population, thus guaranteeing the 90% Albanian population will become 100%. If Hispanics living in East Los Angeles, who now outnumber non-Hispanics at nearly the same ratio as Muslim Albanians outnumber Christian Serbs in Serbia's Kosovo, decide to have a referendum to break away from the United States, will U.S. citizens stand back and allow it to happen or will the government send in the National Guard, or perhaps the UN or NATO to put things back in order? If this senario sounds far-fetched, consider the article ("Anti-US outburst in L.A.," The Washington Times, 9 Mar 98) in which columnist Pat Buchanan documents the hate-filled attack by the predominately Hispanic crowd in the L.A. Coliseum on the the U.S. soccer team in their match against the Mexican national team.
http://home1.gte.net/pribich/kosovo/holb&kla.htm http://home1.gte.net/pribich/kosovo/headhunt.htm
In one of the worst examples of yellow journalism was perpetrated by the very respected Paul Harvey. The day of the World Trade Center bombing, Paul Harvey announced to the world that his CIA sources had told him that the Serbs were responsible for that atrocity. Mr. Harvey repeated his accusations against the Serbs for the following three days. However, upon learning the truth, that Islamic fundamentalists were responsible for this act of violence, Mr. Harvey did not have the decency to apologize to Americans of Serbian descent, leaving the demonization process to continue.
CNN's power can be summed up in an excellent commentary by Gary Dempsey of the Cato Institute in The Washington Times (9 July) which reveals, "In fact, one senior adviser to moderate Kosovar Albanian leader Ibrahim Rugova says "NATO is the only force that can bring democracy and independence to Kosovo," but getting the alliance to intervene "depends on how we look on CNN."
In his book, "The Politics of Diplomacy: Revolution, War and Peace, 1989-1992," former Secretary of State James Baker, III reveals the duplicity of our foreign policy and the complicity of the media and admits that our agenda in the Balkans was never meant to be impartial as our government has proclaimed thoughout the Bosnian crisis. Baker writes: "....After the meeting, I had Larry Eagleburger take Silajdzic [Bosnian foreign minister] to see the EC troika political directors (who happened to be visiting the Department) and asked Margaret Tutwiler to talk to the Foreign Minister about the importance of using Western mass media [i.e., propaganda] to build support in Europe and North America for the Bosnian cause. I also had her talk to her contacts at the four television networks, the 'Washington Post,' and the 'New York Times' to try to get more attention focused on the story," (pages 643-644). With these words, the demonization and humiliation of the Serbian people began. The United States, in an undeclared war and in violation of U.S. principles of neutrality, covertly sought the destruction of the Serbian people, and ultimately, the dismatling of their once sovereign nation. In World War I, Serbia fought along side the Allies, and in World War II, fought against Hitler. The price they paid was over one million Serbs, Jews and Gypsies exterminated in Croatia's death camps so brutally that even Hitler's Gestapo were disgusted, yet today, Croatians, who last year welcomed German troops with the stiff- armed "Sieg-Heil" salute, along with their Bosnian Muslim ally enjoy the fruits of U.S. military aid and financial support in the billions of dollars at the expense of American taxpayers.
Finally, I have attached an open letter to our GIs in Bosnia written by Major Richard Felman, an American pilot who was shot down over Yugoslavia during World War II. Major Felman was one of over 500 downed American pilots who was rescued by Serbian national forces. "Operation Halyard," as it was known, remains the largest behind-the-lines rescue in American History. In an ad placed in The Washington Times on 9 June 1994, Major Felman and his "National Committee of American Airmen Rescued by General Mihalovich, Inc." wrote, "It would be the cruelest of ironies and break our hearts to see our fellow Americans go charging into Bosnia with their guns blazing to kill the very Serbian people who saved our lives while at the same time helping some of the people who were shooting at us and turning us over to the Germans. Over the years our deep desire to express our gratitude has been supported by the 8 million members of the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars and the Air Force Association but denied because of State Department opposition. We respectfully ask, Mr. President: Where is America's sense of honor, decency and gratitude to those on foreign soil who saved American lives? Do we return their sacrifice and kindness by killing them?" Obviously the answer is "yes," since the United States is waging an undeclared war against the eight million Serbian people whom we now seek to destroy in order to fulfill a political agenda.
If you have read this far, I congratulate you on your perseverance. I hope that I have convinced you that the mainstream media have failed miserably in what their role should be - the watchdogs of a free society. Thank God for talk radio, Internet, access to foreign papers and e-mail. What you all did to CNN is an example of what we must continue to do - hold their feet to the fire, question everything they put out and look for alternate news sources. But the deciding factor seems to be that we need more people like Perry Smith, people at the top in the media, government and the military who are willing to lay it on the line and say, "Enough is enough!" We must not allow slanted news reports and outright lies to drag us into conflicts all over the world, on one side or another. I think it is clear where my sympathies lie regarding this Balkan conflict, but let me be clear: The role of the U.S. military is to defend U.S. interests, not to right all the perceived wrongs of the world and the U.S. Government should not be taking sides in a civil war. Above all we should resist the kind of thinking expressed by our Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, whom Gen. Colin Powell quoted as saying to him when she was still our U.N. ambassador and he was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "What's the point in having this superb military you're always talking about if we can't use it?"
If you are interested in more details of how our government has sided with the the Bosnian Muslims while claiming neutrality, I will gladly send you a copy of a U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee report, "Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base," 16 Jan 97. Just remember, without deliberate anti-Serb disinformation, and CNN has led the way, there would have been much more public opposition to sending troops to Bosnia. Perhaps enough to give Congress enough backbone to stop it. But now that Clinton has done it, and reneged twice on withdrawl, the precident is set. Presently, our troops are in over 99 nations throughout the world. And, when NATO expansion becomes a reality, our GIs will be little more than world globocops serving at the pleasure of their New World Order masters. The politicians and the media need to hear from you.
"The great masses of people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one." - Adolph Hitler, 1939.
Regards,
George Jatras"
war on terror bump
Courtesy of Pedal in Peace 2003- Cycling Challenge for the Children of Serbia
Courtesy of Pedal in Peace 2003- Cycling Challenge for the Children of Serbia
All this article about how US was wrong in the Balkans and it was all Clinton doing it and how it should not have been like that and it was a misguided policy ....
All the talk but the Americans are still not withdrawing from the Balkans and are reinforcing their bases.
I don't buy this stuff.
Clinton or Bush it is all the same to me.
Red Two Out, am oscah mike
First I've heard of this. Evidence that the CIA was embarrassed by the misdeeds of its Islamist buddies?
It's the tip of the iceberg.
U.S. Army, USMC are contaminated and cleanup is long due.
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