I found the following posting by Charles S Young extremely convincing
> Paul Phillips suggests that the media has essentially fabricated the
> portrait of Serbian aggression against muslims, and that this gives
> advantage to some American plot in Yugoslavia.
>
> I've spent my adult life opposed to much of U.S. foreign policy, but I
> don't see the evidence here for manufactured serbian aggression, as
> opposed to real aggression.
>
> What exactly is this American plan for exYugoslavia? I've read nothing
> but vague, fanciful suggestions that there must be a plot in there
> somewhere. What's the plan, and what's the EVIDENCE of the plan?
>
> Phillips quotes Amnesty International as saying rapes and atrocities are
> being committed by both sides. We would expect nothing else. Paul --
> what does your Amnesty source say about the *proportion* of atrocities
> committed by both sides?
>
> Phillips states some atrocity reports were inaccurate. We would not
> expect all reports to be accurate. The bulk of reports say Serbs have
> the upper hand militarily and are pressing it, and that the Muslims are
> the losers, so we would expect more crimes to be committed against
> Muslims. To suggest otherwise requires either a great body of evidence
> no one else has seen, or great conspiratorial imagination.
>
> The U.S. media does not naturally side with Muslims over Christians.
> What is this overarching hegemonic imperative that compells the media to
> support the muslims? In the Vietnam war, the civil religion of freedom
> and the hysteria of anticommunism had a systematic mind-bending effect on
> the media and many peoples perceptions of the nobility of the cause. I
> see none of this mythology greatly apparent in Bosnia. It is seen as
> distasteful anarchy in some forgotten corner of Europe. Sketch for us
> this great ideological blinder that creates such wrong reporting.
> Something a little more concrete than that catch-all incantation, service
> to U.S. capital.
>
> Until I see evidence, not rhetoric, to the contrary, I think these
> defenses of the Serb war represent the crudist caricature of progressive
> thought: if Washington is doing it, it must be wrong. Let's proceed from
> the situation there, not from what Washington is doing. Last I heard, it
> wasn't just the U.S. press that was reporting Serbs beseiging Sarajevo.
>
> Another of Paul's verbal acrobatics just came to mind -- he stated the
> media was ignoring examples of Muslim ethnic cleansing. This is a misuse
> of terminology. Ethnic cleansing is a specific term used by Serb
> chauvanists to gain support. Muslims I'm sure have killed civilians.
> But the specific term "ethnic cleansing" should not be applied to Muslims
> unless you present EVIDENCE that this terminology is being introduced
> into Bosnian nationalist discourse. There's a great difference between
> fighting a war and occassionally committing civilian atrocities, and
> having a developed ideology of racial superiority. I think Paul's post
> displays more serbian agenda than evidence.
>
> The U.S. involvement in the region seems more marked by hesitation than
> anything else. I think Washington would prefer the issue went away.
> They want an orderly new order and no doubt wish the serbs and muslims
> acted more like Poles and East Germans.
>
> I'm happy to find evil motives on the part of Washington. Just give me
> an explanation why the West would give a *shit* who won. I'll consider
> it, but give me a reason. I think the West's actions are best explained
> by the preference for order, not some vague plot to favor one side.
>
Neri Salvadori
Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche TEL. (39)(50)549215
Universita' di Pisa FAX: (39)(50)598040
Via Ridolfi 10, i56100 PISA (Italy) e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
