mrkurt, Your reply is in essence, a thinly disguised 'official denial' -- thereby proving not only that such denials exist, but also that said denial require virtually no effort, research or intelligence to utter or publish; and further, that any efforts undertaken to 'disprove' them are in vain and are actually part of a much larger tactic of obfuscation and denial.
At the forum like this you should know better then to keep repeating AP's (Agit-Prop) official line (propaganda) about our involvement in the Balkans.... , unless you get pay for doing that. A very high percentage of Americans have already gobbled it all... hook, line and sinker. Even if they lead relatively decent lives they are total fools for the professionally crafted propaganda that saturates the corporate mass media. So, let's be serious.
Since late 70s, as a part of a wider Cold War, Yugoslavia has been the target of a covert policy waged by Germany, the United States, Britain, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, as well as by Iran, to divide Yugoslavia into its ethnic components, dismantle it, and eventually recolonize it. Not that, given hundreds of years of hatred and tension, that is a particularly difficult job.
In September 1982, when the region seemed stable and the Berlin Wall had seven years to stand, the U.S. drew up National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 54, "United States Policy toward Eastern Europe." Labeled SECRET and declassified with light censorship in 1990, it called for greatly expanded efforts to promote a "quiet revolution" to overthrow Communist governments and parties. While naming all the countries of Eastern Europe, it omitted mention of Yugoslavia.
In March 1984, a separate document, NSDD 133, "United States Policy toward Yugoslavia," was adopted and given the even more restricted classification: SECRET SENSITIVE. When finally declassified in 1990, NSDD 133 was still highly censored, with less than two-thirds of the original text remaining. Nonetheless, taken together, the two documents reveal a consistent policy logic.
Everything after that has been "windows dressing" by "the best money can buy" at Foggy Bottom. In the meantime, our objectives widened and included our concerns for security of energy corridor between Caspian Basin and Western Europe. That's where Kosovo came into the picture. I'm going to paraphrase Michael Ignatieff's "The problem with proxies" in order to reveal our strategy in Kosovo.
"Principal agents ("west democracies") rely on proxies (Muslim fundamentalists) to carry out their own plans (control of energy corridor) and hope to control them by means of the Special Forces and "advisors" (MPRI) working on the ground. The legitimacy of the proxies (KLA) to an unsuspecting observer (general population) depends on their appearing to be independent of the principal agent (NATO) and not a stooge. The legitimacy of the principal agent also depends on not looking like an imperialist. That's where demonization of a target (Serbs, Milosevic) and false pretext (genocide) for a war come into a play.
Proxy wars -- and the problems that accompany them -- are hardly new. America fought most of its wars against Communism through proxies. Among others, it also funded Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.
Proxies have a nasty way either of disgracing principal agents or turning against them (9-11-2001).
Proxies may not define victory as the principal agent does: a Kosovo rebuilt on solid political foundations ("friendly" dictator firmly in charge) and free of terror (got rid of all opposition). For the KLA's warlords in American pay, victory looks like secure control of heroin production and distribution, prostitution, tobacco and gasoline smuggling, etc.
The revenge killings of Christian population by Kosovo Albanians that followed NATO's "victory" in June 1999 have revealed the false pretext of the war itself.
Ever since, Kosovo has been the test of this kind of war: w
It should be noticed that today, when pundits discuss wars, they bring up World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Afghan War and now the impending Gulf War II. What's missing? The fact that none of these pundits talks about the war against Yugoslavia, i.e., the Serbs, as though the destruction of that sovereign nation and its people is irrelevant in the annals of modern history.
Or perhaps it is something they conveniently prefer to forget?
At the time of writing this, there is virtually no news of Kosovo, scene of Nato's "humanitarian war" and, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair's "moral crusade". The expulsion and terrorizing of 240,000 Serbs and Roma Gypsies from the province, now ruled by Nato, is of little interest. Who cares about Gypsies, let alone demonized Serbs? Like the Iraqis, they are the media's "unpeople".
What was Nato's justification for killing and maiming several thousand civilians, both Serbs and Albanians, and for devastating the environment and economic life of the region? This epic destruction, according to British Defence Secretary George Robertson, was to stop "a regime which is bent on genocide." President Clinton referred to "deliberate, systematic efforts at... genocide."
The American and British press took its cue and the Nazis, World War Two and the holocaust were invoked. The US Defence Secretary, William Cohen, said: "we've now seen about 100,000 military-aged men missing... They may have been murdered."
But, how can an unsuspecting reader become aware of the hidden agenda of a liar with the straight face? There are telltale signs. He throws "Nazi" at everybody, from brothers Dulles to your truly. He needlessly invokes the Jewish holocaust. And whenever pushed he immediately refers to 'conspiracy theories'.
Since 1999, when Nato took over Kosovo, no place on earth has been as scrutinized by forensic investigators, not to mention 2,700 media people, yet the head of the Spanish forensic team attached to the International Criminal Tribunal, Emilio Perez Pujol, has complained angrily that his colleagues have become part of "a semantic pirouette by the war propaganda machines, because we did not find one - not one - mass grave." Total of less then 3000 bodies altogether (Serbs, Albanians and others) have been found across the province: a gruesome toll, but a far cry from "the second European Holocaust."
To my knowledge, the forbidden question has been asked just once. "Could it turn out to be," wrote Andrew Alexander in the Daily Mail, "that we killed more innocent people than the Serbs did?"
To that I would add: Did Nato's bombs fall on innocent people partly in response to the drum beat of journalists?
The best journalism is the first draft of history. With that in mind, we must throw down a challenge to journalists to examine their role in the promotion of the war, in propaganda and its myths, and the subliminal pressures applied by organisations like the Fox, CNN, NBC, BBC, ABC, etc. whose news is often selected on the basis of a spurious establishment "credibility".
Slashdot Mirror
mrkurt,
... , unless you get pay for doing that. A very high percentage of Americans have already gobbled it all ... hook, line and sinker. Even if they lead relatively decent lives they are total fools for the professionally crafted propaganda that saturates the corporate mass media. So, let's be serious.
Your reply is in essence, a thinly disguised 'official denial' -- thereby proving not only that such denials exist, but also that said denial require virtually no effort, research or intelligence to utter or publish; and further, that any efforts undertaken to 'disprove' them are in vain and are actually part of a much larger tactic of obfuscation and denial.
At the forum like this you should know better then to keep repeating AP's (Agit-Prop) official line (propaganda) about our involvement in the Balkans.
Since late 70s, as a part of a wider Cold War, Yugoslavia has been the target of a covert policy waged by Germany, the United States, Britain, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, as well as by Iran, to divide Yugoslavia into its ethnic components, dismantle it, and eventually recolonize it. Not that, given hundreds of years of hatred and tension, that is a particularly difficult job.
In September 1982, when the region seemed stable and the Berlin Wall had seven years to stand, the U.S. drew up National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 54, "United States Policy toward Eastern Europe." Labeled SECRET and declassified with light censorship in 1990, it called for greatly expanded efforts to promote a "quiet revolution" to overthrow Communist governments and parties. While naming all the countries of Eastern Europe, it omitted mention of Yugoslavia.
In March 1984, a separate document, NSDD 133, "United States Policy toward Yugoslavia," was adopted and given the even more restricted classification: SECRET SENSITIVE. When finally declassified in 1990, NSDD 133 was still highly censored, with less than two-thirds of the original text remaining. Nonetheless, taken together, the two documents reveal a consistent policy logic.
Everything after that has been "windows dressing" by "the best money can buy" at Foggy Bottom. In the meantime, our objectives widened and included our concerns for security of energy corridor between Caspian Basin and Western Europe. That's where Kosovo came into the picture. I'm going to paraphrase Michael Ignatieff's "The problem with proxies" in order to reveal our strategy in Kosovo.
"Principal agents ("west democracies") rely on proxies (Muslim fundamentalists) to carry out their own plans (control of energy corridor) and hope to control them by means of the Special Forces and "advisors" (MPRI) working on the ground. The legitimacy of the proxies (KLA) to an unsuspecting observer (general population) depends on their appearing to be independent of the principal agent (NATO) and not a stooge. The legitimacy of the principal agent also depends on not looking like an imperialist. That's where demonization of a target (Serbs, Milosevic) and false pretext (genocide) for a war come into a play.
Proxy wars -- and the problems that accompany them -- are hardly new. America fought most of its wars against Communism through proxies. Among others, it also funded Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Macedonia.
Proxies have a nasty way either of disgracing principal agents or turning against them (9-11-2001).
Proxies may not define victory as the principal agent does: a Kosovo rebuilt on solid political foundations ("friendly" dictator firmly in charge) and free of terror (got rid of all opposition). For the KLA's warlords in American pay, victory looks like secure control of heroin production and distribution, prostitution, tobacco and gasoline smuggling, etc.
The revenge killings of Christian population by Kosovo Albanians that followed NATO's "victory" in June 1999 have revealed the false pretext of the war itself.
Ever since, Kosovo has been the test of this kind of war: w
Or perhaps it is something they conveniently prefer to forget?
At the time of writing this, there is virtually no news of Kosovo, scene of Nato's "humanitarian war" and, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair's "moral crusade". The expulsion and terrorizing of 240,000 Serbs and Roma Gypsies from the province, now ruled by Nato, is of little interest. Who cares about Gypsies, let alone demonized Serbs? Like the Iraqis, they are the media's "unpeople".
What was Nato's justification for killing and maiming several thousand civilians, both Serbs and Albanians, and for devastating the environment and economic life of the region? This epic destruction, according to British Defence Secretary George Robertson, was to stop "a regime which is bent on genocide." President Clinton referred to "deliberate, systematic efforts at ... genocide."
The American and British press took its cue and the Nazis, World War Two and the holocaust were invoked. The US Defence Secretary, William Cohen, said: "we've now seen about 100,000 military-aged men missing ... They may have been murdered."
But, how can an unsuspecting reader become aware of the hidden agenda of a liar with the straight face? There are telltale signs. He throws "Nazi" at everybody, from brothers Dulles to your truly. He needlessly invokes the Jewish holocaust. And whenever pushed he immediately refers to 'conspiracy theories'.
Since 1999, when Nato took over Kosovo, no place on earth has been as scrutinized by forensic investigators, not to mention 2,700 media people, yet the head of the Spanish forensic team attached to the International Criminal Tribunal, Emilio Perez Pujol, has complained angrily that his colleagues have become part of "a semantic pirouette by the war propaganda machines, because we did not find one - not one - mass grave." Total of less then 3000 bodies altogether (Serbs, Albanians and others) have been found across the province: a gruesome toll, but a far cry from "the second European Holocaust."
To my knowledge, the forbidden question has been asked just once. "Could it turn out to be," wrote Andrew Alexander in the Daily Mail, "that we killed more innocent people than the Serbs did?"
To that I would add: Did Nato's bombs fall on innocent people partly in response to the drum beat of journalists?
The best journalism is the first draft of history. With that in mind, we must throw down a challenge to journalists to examine their role in the promotion of the war, in propaganda and its myths, and the subliminal pressures applied by organisations like the Fox, CNN, NBC, BBC, ABC, etc. whose news is often selected on the basis of a spurious establishment "credibility".