Bojana Pejic on Wed, 07 Jul 1999 14:20:26 +0200 |
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Syndicate: MEDIA&WAR 2/2 |
this story, claiming that KLA gathered their military casualties, dressed them in civilian clothes, and, with the help of Walker, launched a media coup.15 6. Conclusion What is frightening in the whole affair is the synchronisation of diplomatic, media and military action in all these cases. This tells us a lot about the connection of governments and corporate media and their joint efforts in manipulating public opinion. Sheer power of propaganda, which is consistently repeated by the US, UK and media from other countries during the Kosovo crisis strongly shows that governments have means to indirectly control the media even though the latter are formally independent. This way thay can convert the public opinion. Pools in UK showed that, even though the Nato intervention in Yugoslavia was grossly failing to meet any of its objectives, support for war was growing. This also indicates vulnerability of the contemporary media and their management to political power and their apparent instrumentalization and misuse in power game. It leaves us with little, if any hope for the ideals of media as "public service" for "objective information". Conclusion is that the media miraculously abandon these ideals during wars in which their countries are involved, and they become real combatants in wars in much more tangible sense than the military is. Western armies do not rely anymore on traditional military skills - tactics, courage, etc. It is heavily dependent on technological advantage; it almost assumes the position of distant, "unreal", video game destruction. Media, on the other hand, make good out of a bad cause and other way round, manage atrocities, demonise and victimise. The sole role of military is to verify what the media has already established: if the Iraqis are shown on TV shattered and fleeing, the only thing left for them is to really do it. Thanks to media, wars such as the one in Persian Gulf, are decided even before they take place. NOTES 1) Herman Edward S. and Chomsky, Noam Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy Of The Mass Media New York: Pantheon Books, 1988. 2) Walsh, Jeffrey (ed.) The Gulf War Did Not Happen, Hunts, 1995: Arena, and Baudrillard, Jean La Guerre du Golfe n'a pas eu lieu, Paris, 1991: Galilée. 3) Virilio, Paul, War and the Cinema, 1989, London, p. 4. 4) A statement of general Dragoljub Ojdanic on Thursday, 29 April to Yugoslav News Agency Tanjug 5) "NATO claimed to have shot down many Yugoslav aircraft (according to NATO, they destroyed 50% of Yugoslavia's MiGs, which would amount to at least 35 aircraft), however, they also failed to provide any proof (except for the one or two MiG-29s of questionable origin shot down over Bosnia). And NATO has very capable photo and video reconnaissance aircraft, including the U-2 and a number of highly advanced UAVs, such as Predator and Hunter, not to mention that all NATO aircraft are equipped with video recording devices. Yugoslav media was lucky to photograph the remains of the downed F-117. There were reports in Russian military publications back from the Persian Gulf War against Iraq: Iraq claimed to have shot down a US F-117, but failed to present any proof because the aircraft's remains were hit by a laser-guided bomb before Iraqi troops found the crash site" (quoted from Internet site: http://www2.cybercities.com/v/vernik/aviation/natodown.htm) 6) Quoted from: Hammond, Philip The War on TV, due to be published in the weekly magazine Broadcast on 14 May 7) "I've seen assertions by western journalists that 'thousands of refugees have all told the same story'. Use common sense, Do you really think that the handful of western journalists over there have questioned thousands of people? And how many of these western journalists speak Albanian or Serbo-Croatian? My guess is none. That means that they have to rely on translators who are probably being furnished by the KLA. The refugee can be saying one thing and the translator another, and the reporter will be none wiser. That happened in Vietnam, where translators sometimes turned out to be Viet Cong intelligence agents." Reese, Charley "Serbs are also victims - of a massive propaganda campaign" Orlando Sentinel, 25 April, 1999. 8 ) "?M: But when you did all of this, you had no proof that what you said was true. You only had the article in Newsday! H: Our work is not to verify information. We are not equipped for that. Our work is to accelerate the circulation of information favourable to us, to aim at judiciously chosen targets. We did not confirm the existence of death camps in Bosnia, we just made it known that Newsday affirmed it. M: Are you aware that you took on a grave responsibility? H: We are professionals. We had a job to do and we did it. We are not paid to be moral." quoted from: Dr. Yohanan Ramati "Stopping the war in Yugoslavia" A Monthly Jewish Review, April 1994, New York: Midstream (also in: "Manipulating the media", Intelligence Digest, Great Britain, February 4, 1994 and Nora Beloff , "The secret weapon? PR" Jewish Chronicle, Great Britain, December 10, 1993). 9) Dunsmore, Barrie, The Next War: Live? Discussion paper D-22, March 1996, Harvard University 10) "27 August 1995 Prior to attending peace talks in Paris, Richard Holbrooke, US negotiator, states that force will be used against the Bosnian Serbs if a settlement is not reached shortly. 28 August 1995 Up to 37 people are killed in a reported mortar attack near Sarajevo's Markale Marketplace; preliminary UN investigations say there is no clear evidence of who is responsible (Cymbeline mortar-locating radar failed to track the fatal shell); the Bosnian government delegation threatens to pull out of the Paris talks unless military action is taken against the Bosnian Serbs; Radovan Karadzic, at about the time of the attack, announces acceptance of the Contact Group plan as a basis for negotiations. 29 August 1995 At 7 a.m. local time, the UN report on the Marketplace shelling is complete; in Paris, the Bosnian government delegation agrees to attend the talks; at 11 a.m. local time the UN announces that Bosnian Serbs are clearly responsible for the attack; the only new evidence cited is that someone heard the shell being fired from a Serb position; later, Russian, British, French, and Canadian investigators cast strong doubt on the certainty of the UN report. 30 August 1995 In the early hours of the morning NATO launches air attacks against Bosnian Serb positions throughout central and eastern Bosnia; around Sarajevo the UN Rapid Reaction Force fires more than 600 shells at Bosnian Serb positions, joined by Bosnian government artillery. 7 September 1995 In Geneva a formal agreement to seek a negotiated settlement is made between the warring parties; NATO attacks continue, as they have throughout the week 9 September 1995 Cruise missiles are launched from U.S. ships in the Adriatic against targets around Banja Luka; Bosnian government, Bosnian Croat, and Croat forces launch offensives in western Bosnia. 19 September 1995 In the 10 days of coincidental NATO air attacks, Bosnian government, Bosnian Croat, and Croatian advances, in western Bosnia, the towns of Jajce, Drvar, ?ipovo and others have fallen. Up to 150,000 Serb civilians have fled to Banja Luka, many forced out of three or four towns successively since the end of July. 26 September 1995 U.S.-sponsored talks open in New York, attended by the foreign ministers of Croatia, Bosnia and the FRY. 1 November 1995 Talks open in Dayton; Presidents Milo?evic, Tudjman, and Izetbegovic are present. 21 November 1995 "Dayton Peace Accord" deems Republika Srpska one "entity" within the internationally recognized Bosnia-Herzegovina (Dayton Agreement). 1 December 1995 NATO Council, meeting in Brussels, agrees on deployment of NATO troops in Bosnia. 6 December 1995 Advanced contingent of U.S. NATO troops arrives in Tuzla; British and French troops start to "change hats" from UN to NATO; German parliament votes to send 4,000 troops to support NATO deployment in Bosnia: they will be stationed in Croatia. 15 December 1995 UN Security Council approves NATO deployment in Bosnia. 20 December 1995 Formal handover of UN command to NATO. Bill 11) "It is extremely easy to demonise by atrocities management. I became steeped in this subject during the Vietnam War era, and even published a small volume in 1970 entitled Atrocities in Vietnam: Myths and Realities. The marvel of that era was how easily and effectively the U.S. establishment and media focused on the cruel acts and killings of the indigenous National Liberation Front (NLF, "Vietcong") and made them into sinister killers ("terrorists"), when in fact the terror of the U.S. and its local and foreign proxies was worse by a very large factor. The violence of the Diem government in the late 1950s was extremely brutal, indiscriminate, and massive; and when the US entered the fray directly in the 1960s a new level of (wholesale terror) was reached with chemical warfare, napalm, fragmentation bombs, "free fire zones," and high level B-52 bombing raids on "suspected Vietcong bases" (i.e., villages). The NLF was always more selective in its killing, for strategic and political reasons--it had a mass base in the countryside that it did not want to harm or alienate. The Diem government, its successors, and the US, were less discriminating for the same reason--they had little or no peasant support, so that indiscriminate terror and mass killing was the understandable strategy of aggression. Similarly, with the US "constructively engaged" with South Africa, Israel, and Turkey over the past several decades, the South African occupation of Namibia, assaults on the front line states, and support of Renamo and Savimbi, Israel's invasions and "iron fist" attacks on Lebanon, and Turkey's scorched earth policies and killings of Kurds, could proceed for many years killing hundreds of thousands unimpeded by any intense focus on atrocities or serious attention from the "international community." Turkey could even offer to lend armed support to the NATO effort in Kosovo, presumably diverting troops from killing Kurds, without eliciting the slightest sense of irony in the West. Only when the Godfather needs atrocities--as with the NLF, PLO, or Serbs--do atrocities come on line, with intense focus and indignation. Herman, Edward S. Atrocities Management, quoted from: http://www.zmag.org/atrocities.htm 12) Herman Edward S. and Chomsky, Noam Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy Of The Mass Media New York: Pantheon Books, 1988, pp 37-86 13) Wilson, Gary Warhawk Behind U.S. Kosovo Policy - Amb. Walker Covered Up real Massacres in El Salvador Quoted from: http://iacenter.org/bosnia/balkans.htm 14) "British ammunition experts serving with the United Nations in Sarajevo have challenged key 'evidence' of the Serbian atrocity that triggered the devastating Nato bombing campaign which turned the tide of the Bosnian war. The experts, who examined the scene of the market massacre in Sarajevo in August, say they found no evidence that Bosnian Serbs had fired the lethal mortar round. They suspected the Bosnian government army might have been responsible. They say French analysts who also examined the scene agreed with them. But they were overruled by a senior American officer, and the UN issued a statement saying it was beyond any doubt that the Bosnian Serbs were responsible for the blast, in which 37 people were killed and 90 wounded. The carnage was used as the pretext for Nato's huge air campaign against the Bosnian Serbs, which was followed by extensive battlefield losses, and forced the Serbs to the negotiating table. They concluded that four of the mortars, which had caused no injuries or loss of life, had been fired from positions on a compass bearing of between 220deg and 240deg, indicating Serbian positions. The fifth shell, which caused the bloodshed, had come from a different position on a bearing of 170deg, which they could not identify. They suspected that the perpetrators might easily have been not the Bosnian Serbs but the Bosnian government army, which has been implicated in other incidents such as a rocket attack on Sarajevo's television station on June 29, in which five people died and 30 others were injured. Their observations and findings were confirmed by the French, and they returned to base to make their report. A senior American officer at the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) headquarters in Sarajevo dismissed their findings. Single mortar rounds can be fired without warning into crowded squares or streets with enough accuracy to ensure casualties. In February last year a mortar fired into the same market complex as the one hit in August killed 68 people. Throughout the siege of Sarajevo, there have been repeated but unproven suspicions among UN officers that the Bosnian army had on occasions mortared its own side for propaganda purposes?" McManners, Hugh, "Serbs Not Guilty of massacre" The Sunday Times, 1 October 1995. 15) Ames, Mark and Taibbi, Matt Meet Mr Massacre Washington Post, May 6, 1996. >From what I saw, I do not hesitate to describe the crime as a massacre, a crime against humanity," he said. "Nor do I hesitate to accuse the government security forces of responsibility." We all know how Washington responded to Walker's verdict; it quickly set its military machine in motion, and started sending out menacing invitations to its NATO friends to join the upcoming war party. In late 1989, when Salvadoran soldiers executed six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper, and her 15 year-old daughter, blowing their heads off with shotguns, Walker scarecely batted an eyelid. When asked at a press conference about evidence linking the killings to the Salvadoran High Command, he went out of his way to apologise for chief of staff Rene Emilio Ponce, dismissing the murders as a sort of forgivable corporate glitch, like running out of Xerox toner. "Management control problems can exist in these kinds of these kinds of situations," he said. "I'm not condoning it, but in times like this of great emotion and great anger, things like this happen," he said, apparently having not yet decided to audition for the OSCE job. Walker questioned the ability of any person or organisation to assign blame in hate crime cases. Shrugging off news of eyewitness reports that the Jesuit murders had been committed by men in Salvadoran army uniforms, Walker told Massachusetts congressman Joe Moakley that "anyone can get uniforms. The fact that they were dressed in military uniforms was not proof that they were military." Later, Walker would recommend to Secretary of State James Baker that the United States "not jeopardise" its relationship with El Salvador by investigating "past deaths, however heinous." This is certainly an ironic comment, coming from a man who would later recommend that the United States go to war over...heinous deaths. As Walker knows, not only can "anybody have uniforms", but anyone can have them taken off, too.[..] Wilson, Gary Warhawk Behind U.S. Kosovo Policy - Amb. Walker Covered Up real Massacres in El Salvador (quoted from: http://iacenter.org/bosnia/balkans.htm) A U.S. State Department veteran who directed the dirty war against El Salvador and Nicaragua in the 1980's and lied about every aspect of it. Walker, now the head of a NATO-imposed inspection team in Kosovo, said he had visited the site of the alleged massacre and declared that he knew all the facts. He was the judge, jury and executioner all in one. Not even a district attorney in any United States city could so boldly make such a declaration. Guilty first. Evidence later. The Yugoslav government ordered Walker's expulsion. The U.S. media all said this was in order to cover up what had really happened. But that's turning reality on its head. It was Walker who spoke out before the facts could be known. He thus guaranteed that Washington's version of what happened became the official version. That 's a real cover-up. Walker heads up a NATO inspection team in Kosovo. Who makes up the team? "Sizeable numbers have military backgrounds; a lesser number, but also a sizeable number, have police backgrounds," Walker said at a State Department news conference Jan. 8 (official transcript, U.S. Information Service). When asked if the Kosovo team was a spy team like the UNSCOM group in Iraq, Walker replied, "I hope everyone on my mission is trying to gather as much intelligence as they possibly can." Questioned again, "Are you reporting it back to Washington?" Walker replied, "A lot of it comes back to Washington, but it goes to all the capitals [of the NATO powers]." Sounds a lot like what's been happening in Iraq. Walker was responsible for setting up a phoney humanitarian operation at an airbase in Ilopango, El Salvador. It was secretly used to run guns, ammunition and supplies to the contra mercenaries attacking Nicaragua. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Having difficulty getting "in synch" with list members? http://www.onelist.com Try ONElist's Shared Calendar to organize events, meetings and more! ----------------------------- Bojana Pejic bo.pejic@snafu.de Merseburrger Str. 7 10823 Berlin Phone/Fax: (+49) 30-787 52 90 NO Attachments PLEASE ------Syndicate mailinglist-------------------- Syndicate network for media culture and media art information and archive: http://www.v2.nl/syndicate to unsubscribe, write to <syndicate-request@aec.at> in the body of the msg: unsubscribe your@email.adress