Re: Bosnia-4
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 EconomicheTEL. (39)(50)549215 Universita' di Pisa FAX: (39)(50)598040 Via Ridolfi 10, i56100 PISA (Italy) e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bosnia-4
Pen-ners, This is about reporting and its effects on perceptions of what is really going on in Bosnia. But first a footnote to yesterdays post on the effect of US intervention in Bosnia. This is a short quote from Paul Koring's article in todays _Globe and Mail_ "The statement by British Lieutenant-Gerneral Sir Michael Rose, the UN's Bosnian commander, that the air strikes were solely to protect peacekeepers seems little more than a fig leaf to hid a vastly changed international posture that can no longer sustain the pretence of UN impartiality The danger is that limited Western intervention will ruin the prospects for a wider peace settlement but allow existing front lines to harden first into ceasefire lines and eventually into new boundaries. (which would) leave Bosnia unworkable as a patchwork of miserable enclaves and surrounded cities. The smouldering inequities of such a settlement would, perha;s in a few years, rekindle the next Balkan war." It should be noted that Koring has generally taken an anti-Serb stance. Now as to the media distortion of what has been going on. This account is taken from Minneapolis Star Tribune (Dec 17, 1993) which was originaly taken from _Foreign Policy_ , a journal publised by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I will paraphase for brevity. Despite the apparent overwhelming evidence of Serb "grave offenses" the Serbs have always claimed that the evidence of grave offenses against Serbs has been covered up in the media and the Serbs have been denied the right to present their side of the case. Peter Brock, the author of the artical goes on to document the flagrant misinformation that was spread by the western media. Including: 1. pictures of the damage in Vukovar being used on western TV to be a picture of damage to Dubrovnik 2. BBC film of an ailing, elderly " Bosnian Muslim porisoner-or-war in a Serb concentration camp" being a Yugoslav Army prisoner-of-war in a Muslim concentration camp. 3. reports of Muslim children killed by Bus shooting turning out to be Serbian children 4. Newsweek photos of "serbian atrocities in Bosnia" being the same photos ov Serb victims of Croatian atrocities in Vukovar a year earlier 5.CNN repots of massacres of Muslims which turned out to be massacres of Serbs (CNN did not correct its stories) 6. NYT picturs of croats being killed by "Serb attacts" were actually Croats who had been killed by Muslim attacks 7. the most famous picture of the amaciated "muslim" prisoner of war in a prison camptwas in fact a Serb who was imprisoned for looting and, according to his sister in Vienna, looked emaciated because he suffered from TB. and so on. What about the reports of widespread rape etc. UN commision on human rights report (Feb 10, 1993) mentioned a figure of 2,400 victims -- including Muslims, Croats and Serbs though the biggest number had been Muslims while "Amnesty International and the International Committee of the Red Cross concurrently declared that all sides were committing atrocities and rape." What has not been reported widely is either the atrocities, ethnic cleansing of Serbs, rapes of Serb women, the number of Serb refugees in Serbia resulting from ethnic cleasing, the accounts of Serbs, including children, who were having operations (including amputations, etc.) in Serbia without anesthetic because of the embargo which, while supposed to allow food and medicine in, has in fact delayed or prevented medicine and anesthic from arriving. Let me conclude this sorry tale with Brock's conclusion: "In the wake of the negligence and pack journalism that have distorted the cover a distored the coverage of the Yugoslav civil war to date, the media would be well-advised to gaze into their own mirrors and consider their dubious records. At some point, historians or an official international investigation will determine the true culpability of all the actors in the Yugoslav tragedy. But one of those actors is the media itself. Let me also add that as academics we also have an obligation to become properly informed and not be stampeded into supporting US capital's goals on the basis of distorted media propaganda not backed by the facts. Tomorrow, I will address the claim that Serbs are the aggressors, have seized all this territory, and peace will only reward aggression. In search of a balanced response, Paul Phillips
Re: Bosnia-4
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.
