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More Myth than Massacre at Srebrenica - by Stephen Lendman
Headlines explaining former Serbian General Ratko Mladic's May 27 arrest allege his 1995 responsibility for massacring 8,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica. True or false is at issue. More on that below.
Meanwhile, inflammatory accounts already convicted him by accusation, including New York Times writers Dan Bilefsky and Doreen Carvajal headlining, "Serbia Says Jailed Mladic Will Face War Crimes Trial," saying:
Arresting him "signal(ed) Serbia's intention of finally escaping the isolation it brought on itself during the Balkan wars," ones Western media, including The Times, consistently misreported on throughout the 1990s, culminating in NATO's 1999 war of aggression, falsely called humanitarian intervention.
Inflating Srebrenica deaths to "10,000....including 3,500 children," Bilefsky and Carvajal called the alleged massacre "the worst ethnically motivated mass murder on the European continent since World War II," Mladic to stand trial for "war crimes...."
Other accounts were similar, including Reuters headlining, "Instant view: West hails news of Mladic arrest in Serbia," quoting "sources" like UK Defense Secretary Liam Fox saying:
"It's clearly (an arrest) to be welcomed....It's a reminder to all those who fly in the face of international justice that sooner or later they will be brought to book for their crimes."
He's right, hopefully. Sooner or later real war criminals like American, Israeli and UK ones may have to answer for numerous crimes of war and against humanity, slaughtering millions for power and profit.
For example: Years of Western-backed Balkan wars culminated with NATO's 1999 Serbia/Kosovo terror bombing, an atrocity playwright/Nobel laureate Harold Pinter described as follows:
"Little did we think two years ago that we had elected a government which would take a leading role in what is essentially a criminal act, showing total contempt for the United Nations and international law." Saying it made him ashamed to be British, he called cutting children to pieces from 15,000 feet "barbaric" and despicably hypocritical.
"Let us face the truth," he added. "Neither Clinton nor Blair (gave) a damn about the Kosovar Albanians. This action has been yet another blatant and brutal assertion of US power using NATO as its missile. It set out to consolidate one thing - American domination of Europe. This must be recognised and it must be resisted."
This barbarism mustn't be allowed to stand. Yet victims are held accountable for the perpetrators, the way victors' justice always works - including writing the mythology about what allegedly happened in July 1995 at Srebrenica.
A Potocari, Bosnia Genocide Memorial Stone (SrebrenicaStone.jpg) lists "8372...." deaths. Saying it, however, doesn't make it so.
Separating Truths from Mythology
Diana Johnstone wrote the definitive Balkan wars history. Her book, "Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions," is essential reading to understand its causes and long-lasting effects.
For the West, it was about deterring Milosevic's "Greater Serbia" quest, a gross mischaracterization about a war Western powers wanted and initiated, notably America and Germany. They encouraged cessation, provoked conflict, then took credit for ending it, committing real massacres in the process.
