So how did unreported facts on the ground refute the official myth? The Balkan wars destroyed a country to keep predatory capitalism on a roll for new markets, valued resources and cheap exploitable labor. Slobadon Milosevic was the fall guy and ended up in the Hague where he was hung out to dry by the ICTY US-run court. There he was effectively silenced, denied proper medical care and forced in the end to take his secrets to the grave with him.
Earlier, however, war raged in his country for 78 mercilessly days as a sort of earlier version of "shock and awe." NATO bombing killed 500 civilians, caused an estimated $100 billion in damage, and according to Amnesty International (AI), was responsible for "serious violations of the laws of war leading in a number of cases to the unlawful killing of civilians." Translated in language AI rarely uses - NATO committed war crimes, but only its victims were punished. They were carried out on the pretext of averting a humanitarian crisis that didn't exist so NATO invented one.
Here are facts unreported in the mainstream. One month before the bombing, the German Foreign Office stated that a "feared humanitarian catastrophe threatening the Albanian civil population had been averted (and) public life (in larger cities) returned to relative normality." Instead of genocide, NATO reported after the war that 2000 people were killed in Kosovo on all sides in the year prior to the bombing, and the US-backed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) did most of it.
NATO's attack was the culprit. It caused a humanitarian crisis, and the flood of refugees occurred when the bombing began. So did lootings, killings, rape, kidnappings and pillage according to an OSCE study. The media response was breathtaking. It "exactly reverse(d) cause and effect suggesting that bombing was justified (to halt) the flood of refugees it had in fact created." Once again, the lies were breathtaking.
The authors note that like for the Iraq conflict, this war "was made possible by audacious government manipulation of a public denied access to the truth by an incompetent and structurally corrupt media. Every British paper (and American ones, of course) except one took a pro-war line" editorially, and journalists "proudly proclaimed their role in supporting the 'humanitarian intervention' " when there was none.
The authors also note that "Editors and journalists do not drop bombs or pull triggers, but without their servility to power the public would not be fooled and the slaughter would have to end" or would never have begun. No nominally democratic government can stand up against the majority will of its people - provided they know about "the complicity of the corporate mass media in mass murder." Another alternative also works against which they're defenseless - ignore them, denounce them and seek reliable independent news and information sources like Media Lens, this web site and many other reliable ones.
East Timor - The Practical Limits of Crusading Humanitarianism
Give credit where it's due. Tiny impoverished East Timor is hardly a match for Indonesia with its 200 million population backed by Washington for what both countries gain from each other. Nonetheless and after "months of murderous intimidation" by Indonesian-backed militias, the East Timorese overwhelmingly voted for independence by a near four to one margin. It was courageous but costly, and it came in the form of "a horrendous bloodbath" against pro-independence backers.
The US held off responding for 10 days intentionally and only did so under great public pressure. The delay allowed 70% of all public buildings and private residences to be destroyed and three-fourths of the population to be "herded across the border to West Timor, where hostage taking, killings and sexual assault were a daily occurrence." BBC's Matt Frei was indifferent like his fellow correspondents generally are. He described it as a "moral crusade," but UN commissioner for human rights, Mary Robinson, had different view with "thousands pay(ing) with their lives for the world's slow response."
BBC practically choked before casually admitting our Indonesian allies were behind the massacres. Never admitted on-air was that its military-run country is a major Western ally and business partner. For BBC and others in the dominant media, "news ceases to be news when it seriously damages establishment interests."
East Timor gained independence on May 20, 2002. At the time, reports mentioned that around 200,000 East Timorese (or one-third of the population) were massacred or starved to death in 1975 after the Ford administration condoned Indonesia's takeover of the territory and supplied the Surharto government with lists of communist sympathizers to round up and eliminate. Back then, it got little attention in the mainstream and quickly faded from view after independence.
Why so? Indonesia is mineral-rich while East Timor hardly matters. The authors cited the "Golden Rule of media reporting - the tendency to overlook horrors committed by the West and its allies." They also call this "The calculations of realpolitik." Mineral wealth trumps concern for an impoverished people whose only worth is the sweat they supply at the lowest possible cost - everywhere.
Haiti - The Hidden Logic of Exploitation
Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas and one of its most exploited. That's saying a lot in a region dismissively called America's "backyard" and ruthlessly exploited by Washington for decades. The country is small (around three times the size of Los Angeles) and has a population of around eight million. Since European settlers arrived 500 years ago, it experienced an almost unparalleled legacy of colonial violence and exploitation. Even when it gained independence from France on January 1, 1804, it lay in ruins. It was short-lived as France regained control and kept it until America took over later and solidified its hold when Woodrow Wilson sent in Marines in 1915 to protect US investments.
Washington remains in control, and the authors explain its logic to keep Haitians and other developing world people in line. Their "dreams of a better life must be crushed by violence and grinding poverty so extreme that local people will accept any work at any rate, and abandon all notions of improving their lot." It's the reason why western elites use "death squads, tyrants and economic oppression" as their methods of choice and why ordinary people are no match against them.
Hope for Haitians arose in 1990 when a Catholic priest named Jean-Bertrand Aristide gained prominence. He ran for President and shocked Washington by getting two-thirds of the vote to become Haiti's first ever democratically elected leader. A September, 1991 US-backed military coup cut short his tenure, however. It removed him, reestablished harsh rule, and "stamp(ed) out (the beginnings of a) vibrant civil society" that began to take root. A bloodbath followed with CIA paramilitaries behind it.
I am a 72 year old, retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
Thank you for pointing the way to a UK site I had not heard about.
For some time I have written articles about the American situation and in the back of my mind was feeling guilty at not doing much on the UK situation, except for looking at George Galloway and the like.
Thanks for giving me a new 'renewal' for taking on, with others, the global corporations stranglehold on the the media, the breathtaking hypocracy of government, government lackeys et al.
P.S. I have read your work for some time and you are one of the ones I 'follow' whenever I see your name on an article. This one is long, comprehensive, informative and devestating. More power to your elbow!
by
ibrahim turner (25 articles, 31 quicklinks, 5 diaries, 177 comments)
on Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 1:11:42 PM
All your articles are in my "don't miss" category, but I suspect you know that!!
This issue of getting media complicity on the WAR CRIMES agenda is a tough one to crack. I found this year, I couldn't put the Robert Parry video on my blog, which was the finest statement about the media I could find . it just took too long to load and I had to take it off, sigh.
I live in this kind of mind boggling world ... we sometimes see the war photos up here on the news in Canada (and at least we do see the Afghan war casualties, MOSTLY, we do) while the US is so smothered in patriotic claptrap on a regular basis.
As the war bs (I don't know what else to call it) grinds on from -- give them sanctions, to Gulf War I, to get Al Qaeda, to get Saddam, to create democracy, to the "surge" is working and the media just continues to whitewash and sanitize real human suffering .. it's simply amazing how much the corporate media gets away with, with hardly a peep coming from those who digest huge amounts of the "plug in drug" ..
Contrasting that with the amount you hear or see about impeachment which is virtually nil during the whole bloody fiasco.
As V. Lenin would say "what is to be done ..??"
Fox News interfering in the elections debate is the just the latest outrage. They're not even a US-owned entity and Kucinich is RIGHT.
I've TRIED to "work" with The Real News TV people and I don't see much help from them really either. It's basically a one man with control operation.
The mediums themselves create a lot the problem as the equipment to be "on the airwaves" is very expensive, not something that can be created very quickly.
I think your timing of this review, in light of what is happening, is impeccable.
So many thanks!!
ps - did you notice that ICH is FINALLY running the Michael Hudson podcast this week? about time .. I've left them links about it since August. Maybe Mike is finally "catching" on??
by
ladybroadoak (38 articles, 20 quicklinks, 12 diaries, 390 comments)
on Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 1:56:38 PM
2 comments
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