Informazione
Piotr Bein: PsyOp and Depleted Uranium
http://news.suc.org/bydate/2001/Jan_03/8.html
Piotr Bein,
piotr.bein@...,
Vancouver, Canada
January 2, 2001
New cases of victims of depleted uranium (DU) weapons
come to light from countries that sent soldiers for NATO
peacekeeping in Bosnia and Kosovo. Yet, NATO continues
to deny any danger to either soldiers or civilians in areas
where DU was used. Continued denial and distortions of
truth, particularly from Pentagon and the British Ministry of
Defence, raise suspicions of a systematic cover-up. As in
the demonization of Serbs over the past decade, special
services of NATO working in collusion with mainstream
media exert an effective control of public opinion.
Military information about DU has the characteristics of
information warfare. Information to the public about DU
weapon use and effects on life in the Balkans are one of the
subjects of information operations in NATO campaign in the
region. NATO used propaganda [1] to:
- demonize the Serbs in order to justify intervention in former
Yugoslavia;
- exaggerate Serb atrocities before the International Criminal
Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia;
- cover-up own military blunders in Yugoslavia; and
- induce overthrow of "unfriendly" government in Yugoslavia
and press for economic "reforms".
Information Operations
Information warfare is one of four instruments of power -
diplomatic, informational, military, and economic - that
nations wield to influence events and actions during peace
and conflict. Behavioural science and the use of mass
media and high technology are contemporary devices now
used in war. The military employs them through Information
Operations, as laid out, for example, in the US Field Manual
100-6. [2]
Information warfare and operations of US Department of
Defense (DoD) targets foreign nations and groups,
including foreign governments. DoD actions, "convey
and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign
audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and
objective reasoning; and to intelligence systems and leaders
at all levels." [3]
DoD management of the foreign perceptions, "combines
truth projection, operation security, cover and
deception, and psychological operations."
In NATO, Psychological Operations (PsyOp) mean,
"planned psychological activities in peace and war directed
to enemy, friendly and neutral audiences in order to
influence attitudes and behavior affecting the achievement of
political and military objectives."
A companion of PsyOp is Public Affairs (PA), which
"provides objective reporting without intent to propagandize"
and disseminates information internationally. [4] Information
warfare uses propaganda - white (telling the truth), gray
(ambiguous) or black (lying) - often through Public Relations
(PR). In Selling a conflict - the ultimate PR challenge NATO
spokesman during Kosovo conflict Jamie Shea told a
Switzerland forum that "he won the war" by carrying out
daily briefings in a PR style. By doing so, Shea and his
employers lost all credibility, [5] but it was not the first use
of PR at a high level in the Balkan conflict.
American PR firm Rudder Finn arranged a protest of the
Jewry against alleged "Serb" death camps in Bosnia. Once
the Jewry protested, the rest of the world believed the
atrocity was authentic. [6] The PR stunt was highly
successful, regardless of whether the originators were the
warring factions of former Yugoslavia unfriendly to Serbia,
NATO, some other group or a combination. The most
convincing proof that Serb "death" camps were a hoax is in
a video [7] filmed in one of the camps by a crew from Radio
and Television of Serbia next to reporters of the ITN press
giant. ITN publicized around the world images of the camp
presented like a WW2 Nazi concentration camp.
The journalist profession in the West compromised the
ethical code for NATO campaigns, failed to verify information
and seldom reported the other side of each story.12 It
means a deep control of the media by military-government
Information Operations. Pop-culture is also exploited.
American movies contain subtle messages that influence
our perceptions. One famous author of historical fiction
compared atrociuos barbarians from Roman times to
contemporary Serbs.
The Supreme US Commander General Dwight Eisenhower
was responsible for drafting a plan for integrating most every
aspect of civic life with the military. His last presidential
speech in 1946 warned against growth of the
military-industrial complex. Today, half of American federal
taxes during peacetime go into military spending, including
information operations. The military-government-industry
complex battles for our minds, using mass media as the
vehicle for delivery of doctored information.
How it Works
Information operations prepared the world for NATO
engagements in Iraq and the Balkans by demonizing the
leaders and their people. These campaigns subordinated
mass media through Public Affairs of Psychological
Operations, which,
"are based on projection of truths and credible message
[that serve to discredit] adversary propaganda
or misinformation against the operations of US/coalition
forces [which] is critical to maintaining favorable
public opinion." [2]
To understand how PsyOp work in conjuction with other
special services and mass media, it is instructive to
consider the case of Racak "massacre" of January 15th,
1999. US ambassador William Walker and Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) staged the event. Walker was the
head of Kosovo Verification Mission of the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) who
supposedly monitored compliance of both sides to
ceasefire. While the Yugoslav forces complied, KLA
operated unchecked.
In June 2000, Dr. Helena Ranta, the head of the Finnish
forensic team investigating Racak incident for NATO, told
me that the bodies had no signs of execution, were brought
from other locations and that NATO made her final report
secret. Had it proved Serb crime, the report would receive
prompt publicity. Instead, it was made secret to hide lack of
proofs, just like the "evidence" brought before the NATO
"court" in Hague by "witnesses" of a "massacre" of
thousands of Bosnian Moslems in Srebrenica.
KLA leader Hashim Thaci admitted in a March 24th, 2000,
BBC interview that a KLA unit operated at Racak and many
soldiers lost their life in battles with Yugoslav forces. KLA
intentionally killed 4 Serb policemen in order to enliven the
conflict and covertly killed Albanian peasants to win
sympathy for the separatist cause from the West.
Madeleine Albright admitted in the same BBC programme
that Racak incident needed preparation and was vivified in
order to keep pressure on European allies to intervene
militarily.
The Racak case indicates the following information warfare
elements:
- Mission: exert pressure on European allies to intervene
militarily against "Milosevic".
- Target audience: foreign governments and public opinion.
- Psychological objectives: i) cohesion of European allies, ii)
reinforce atrocious stereotype of Serbs.
- Timing: before Ramboulliet "negotiations".
- Theme: another "Serb" atrocity in Kosovo.
- Partners: US department of state, KLA, OSCE.
- Development: covert action, mass media.
- Filtering: select "friendly" media, ban Serb media from the
site of the "massacre".
- Blunders: i) mistakes in staging an execution; ii)
admissions by Albright and Thaci to BBC; iii) secret final
report.
- Damage control: deny the final scientific report by making
it secret.
The media supported NATO's Racak propaganda against
facts, logic and ethics. On the 1st anniversary of the Racak
"massacre" BBC News began a story with an usual
statement that Serb forces are guilty of the atrocity. The
truth was hidden at the end: Dr. Ranta's team was very
close to determining what happened. A reader must have
wondered at this point, given the beginning of the story.
Most people read only headlines and bylines. Between lie
and truth, BBC placed Thaci's opinion that Racak was a
turning point that misled the West's military intervention.
The story is typical for thousands of others dispatches on
the Balkan conflict in Western media since early 1990s.
The story contained no voice from Yugoslav and
Byelorussian investigators, who examined evidence at
Racak before the Finns. After experiencing a few messages
of this type, the reader or TV viewer begins to perceive them
as obviously biased against the Serbs. Reflecting on
September 2000 "democratic" elections in Yugoslavia,
University of Berkeley professor emeritus in history
Raymond Kent wrote, "the Serbs are suddenly transformed
from a nation of neo-Nazi 'subhumans' into a 'brave and
valiant people,' a decade of carefully nurtured Serbophobia
lurks in the background. A host of people in government,
politics, intellectual journals, scribal and audio-visual media
have gained in careers and prominence through hate-
mongering against the Serbs. This will not be given up
easily." [8] Kent alluded to the infiltration of media by the
power complex, "As an outgrowth of deceit and
disinformation needed to justify military interventions abroad,
an unusually intimate relationship of the major scribal and
audio visual media and the administration has emerged in
the shaping of foreign policy. While a 'patriotic mutuality' of
government and media was commonplace in major wars, it
never loomed as large in peacetime as in the last decade
while focusing on the Balkans and the Yugoslav tragedy."
Dutch paper Trouw reported that PsyOp officers worked at
two leading US news channels during the Kosovo war. A
liberal US commentator Alexander Cockburn remarked, "In
the Kosovo conflict [...] CNN's screen was filled with an
unending procession of bellicose advocates of bombing,
many of them retired US generals." However, the few interns
seen at CNN and NPR don't explain the systematic,
decade-long bias across the mass media in NATO
countries. The infiltration must be subtler. In fact, the story
in Trouw may have been a PsyOp trick designed to divert
public attention from permanent ties of the media with the
power complex.
PA involves press releases, media briefings and statements
by the military. In 1998 Dynamic Response exercises of
NATO peacekeeping SFOR, several military agencies and
commanders were involved in preparation and delivery of a
message, which "must be clearly communicated and
correctly interpreted by potential adversaries." After-action
reviews showed that former warring faction "leaders in
attendance and those watching the event through the media
received the intended message loud and clear." [9]
Integrated efforts of several types of special services, for
example, at the Racak "massacre" or at the October 2000
election coup in Belgrade, are possible with structures like
US Special Operations. It is a joint command that can
assemble teams of experts in different fields from the
different services as the mission requires. The commanders
decide who are the right people for a mission and what
units, including "friendly" terrorist organizations, British
Special Air Services or US Delta Commandos, should be
used in addition to PA and PsyOp. Attacks on anti-DU
activist, Dr. Doug Rokke, former Pentagon expert on DU,
may be steered by Special Operations in a broader
campaign of "fighting" the
truth about DU
Countering PsyOp on DU
Six months before Desert Storm, a report from Science
Applications International Corporation wrote about DU
weapons, "Short-term effects of high doses can result in
death, while long-term effects of low doses have been
implicated in cancer." US General Accounting Office report
GAO/NSIAD-93-90 of 1993 stated, "Inhaled insoluble [DU]
oxides stay in the lungs longer and pose a potential cancer
risk due to radiation. Ingested DU dust can also pose both a
radioactive and toxicity risk." A 1995 report of the US Army
Environmental Policy Institute warned, "If DU enters the
body, it has the potential to generate significant medical
consequences."
If DU was benign, why did not Pentagon disclose locations
of DU use in the Balkans? Public verification could end the
suspicions, and allow NATO to retain an effective
armour-piercer. Information Operations (with help from
Special Operations) chose a different approach for obvious
reasons. The Balkan DU case has the following information
warfare features.
- Mission: i) maintain tactical advantage over enemy's
armour; ii) suppress government-industry-military liability,
including storage of DU waste and past uses of DU
weapons in the Gulf, Bosnia and on testing ranges; iii)
maintain a
terrorist weapon against enemies.
- Target audience: domestic and foreign public opinion.
- Psychological objectives: alienate, dilute and delay global
public opposition to DU.
- Timing: i) until US and international laws ban the military
use of DU; or, ii) until a world tribunal sentences persons
responsible, whichever comes first.
- Theme: "As harmless as a handful of dirt from your
backyard." - Pentagon; "Radiaiton level no higher than a
household
smoke alarm." - British MoD.
- Partners: US and British departments of defense, DU
industry.
- Development: i) communication through spokesmen,
"scientific" reports and mass media; ii) intimidation of key
anti-DU
activists with "special" methods.
- Filtering: emphasize "friendly" reports, suppress
independent research results.
- Blunders: i) contradictory own reports; ii) delays in
divulging location of DU use over Yugoslavia; and, iii) failure
to warn
and protect NATO and UN forces, foreign workers and local
civilians.
- Damage control: i) suppress scientific evidence; ii) deceive
by emphasis on toxic effects if DU was ingested, but
harmless radioactivity of DU in solid form; iii) change
emphasis to possible other causes of Gulf and Balkan
syndromes.
How effective is the propaganda? A director of a respectable
US institute wrote me recently that DU risk is not high
because DU, a heavy metal, cannot disperse far. In fact,
upon oxidation of a DU bullet after impact, or through
corrosion of unexploded DU shell or shrapnel, the heavy
metal turns into microscopic particles that disperse easily
with any movement of air or water. One needs only one
particle to get sick.
The primary goal of anti-DU campaigns during US, British
and NATO military operations should be to warn local
population that might be affected. Long before international
and Yugoslav NGOs managed to prepare an anti-DU
warning brochure in Serbian language, Robert Fisk, Scott
Peterson and others have already described how Kosovo
children played with the DU shells while DU targets were
salvaged. To my knowledge, no organization prepared any
material in Albanian.
Present US and NATO means more "humanitarian
interventions" wherever and whenever globalisation interests
call for use of force to subdue states and destabilize
regions. Prohibited weapons such as DU are
indiscriminately used against civilians by NATO. Western
NGOs and concerned citizens should stand-by with money
and organizational resources necessary to issue and
disseminate DU brochures and posters, ads for local
newspapers, radio and TV and other "products" (to use
PsyOp jargon) to any region of the world in any language on
a short notice.
Long-term, nuclear misinformation de-bunking campaigns
raise public awareness with socially just meaning of "truth
projection", "objective reporting," "national," and "strategic"
objectives.
Conclusion
Public information about the effects of DU weapons used in
the Balkans fall within information warfare of NATO
campaign in the region. Information operations target foreign
and domestic groups, including foreign governments and
intelligence, in an attempt to influence their perceptions and
actions towards support of own national and strategic goals.
Distortions and half-truths about the post-combat hazards of
DU weapons flow from the objectives of "military advantage"
over enemy's armour and military installations, which stem
from objectives of "national" and "strategic" interests
disguised under "globalization" rhetoric of "human rights"
and "freeing the economies".
DU ammunition did not secure any military advantage in the
Kosovo crisis, but DU contaminated the environment. The
necessity to use slow-moving and low-altitude A-10 and
Apache against Serb tanks and mobile missile launches
spelled disaster to US equipment. Thousands of DU rounds
went into mock-ups of Serb armour and butchered refugees
when "Serb" armour was suspected in convoys. Yugoslav
army left the battlefields practically intact. Unexploded DU
shells, shrapnel and invisible DU dust greeted hundreds of
thousands of returning refugees, KLA and illegal newcomers
from Albania, as well as tens of thousands of NATO and UN
peacekeepers, humanitarian workers and Western
"re-builders" of former Yugoslavia. Only the Western groups
were informed about potential risk, albeit with delay.
The efects of DU on Balkan battlefields are similar to the
Gulf War syndrome from the 1991 war in Iraq, where DU
was used on a massive scale for the first time. Evidence is
also mounting about the risk of DU poisoning of aircraft
mechanics who never went to the Persian Gulf or the
Balkans, but became contaminated and sick from DU
counterweights they handled.
Potential for multi-billion dollar litigation by veterans and by
civilian authorities in the Persian Gulf hamper publication of
the truth. Cleanups of DU contamination on battlefields,
shooting ranges and at DU storage sites throughout the
world would also be extremely costly. It is in self-interests of
the military, the government and the defence industry to
continue attempts at "changing emphasis", deception,
half-truths, and straight lying about DU.
US and NATO strategy proves counterproductive. Moral
credit of the United States was tarnished in Western
Europe. The same regards majority of former Soviet block
people who invested great hopes in a better world
spearheaded by the US and NATO. USA is harming its own
national long-term interests and is letting down millions of
needy people in the process. Opposition to joining NATO
and European Union rose dramatically in Slav countries after
NATO attacked Yugoslavia. In Poland it is expressed by
about 60 to 70% of the population.
The US and NATO would not give up DU "military
advantage" voluntarily, though an alternative exists in
expensive tungsten. The military does not calculate full
social costs and has no incentive to switch to a more
benign material. Cheap DU was incorporated into the
sandwich armour of the newest American tank to make it
"harder". The problem concerns both DU ammunition and
DU used in flying bombs and aircraft, including civilian
applications.
Public must take a vigorous stand to protect present and
future generations of all life endangered by DU. Propaganda
is a weak point of the military-government-industry complex
who lost credibility through repeated blunders and lies.
However, the public does not question mainstream media
messages and does not have capacity to seek, analyse and
understand information about DU. Alternative information is
generally rejected. Government-military-industry information
warriors exploit this in their operations. Bonaparte's
assertion that "the sword is always beaten by the mind" is
challenging if one considers how the mind can be influenced
by black and grey propaganda. The public's self-preservation
instinct that came to fruition during successful protests
against nuclear mania gives hope for countering DU
propaganda.
Domination of biased messages undermines freedom of
opinion and the right to know the truth. The public is
manipulated with fabricated truth. Demonizing a nation to
justify aggression and covering up information regarding
crimes against humanity are crimes themselves. There are
indications of distorting recent medical reports from NATO
member countries about the cause of illness in soldiers from
Balkan campaigns. This effort will likely be growing, as
medical DU experts expect the incidence of the Balkan
syndrome to rise sharply in the next few months.
The degree of protection received by unconventional
information on DU will be a major working test of freedom
and democracy. Continuing exposure of truth to the public
should hopefully begin a desirable change, both in public
perceptions and in the participatory processes.
Sources Cited
1 http://www.most.org.pl/zb/internet/nato/index.html
2 Headquarters, Department of the Army, Field Manual
100-6: Information Operations, USGPO, Washington DC, 27
August 1996
3 Joint Chiefs of Staff, Department of Defense, JCS
Publication 1, Glossary Department of Defense Military and
Associated Terms, 1987,
http://www.pipeline.com/~psywarrior/glossary.html
4 Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint
Publication 3-53, Joint Doctrine for Psychological
Operations, USGPO, Washington DC, 10 July 1996
5 Neue Zurcher Zeitung, March 30, 2000
6 Jacques Merlino, It Is Not Good To Tell The Truth About
Yugoslavia, A. Michel, Paris, 1993
7 Judgement can be ordered through http://www.tenc.net
8 R. K. Kent, Nationalisms and the absolute corruptibility of
imagined absolute power, October 7, 2000
9 Arthur N. Tulak, Information Operations in Support of
Demonstrations and Shows of Force,
http://www.abolishnato.com/abolishnato/natobriefs/intim.nonsence.htm
10
http://www.vorstadtzentrum.net/cgi-bin/joesb/news/viewnews.cgi?category=all&id=969989108
11 George Coryell, General spreads his wings, says farewell
to arms, The Tampa Tribune, October 27, 2000,
http://tampatrib.com/FloridaMetro/MGAXZCLATEC.html
12 Philip Hammond and Edward S. Herman (editors),
Degraded Capability: The Media and the Kosovo Crisis,
Pluto Press, London, 2000
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http://news.suc.org/bydate/2001/Jan_03/8.html
Piotr Bein,
piotr.bein@...,
Vancouver, Canada
January 2, 2001
New cases of victims of depleted uranium (DU) weapons
come to light from countries that sent soldiers for NATO
peacekeeping in Bosnia and Kosovo. Yet, NATO continues
to deny any danger to either soldiers or civilians in areas
where DU was used. Continued denial and distortions of
truth, particularly from Pentagon and the British Ministry of
Defence, raise suspicions of a systematic cover-up. As in
the demonization of Serbs over the past decade, special
services of NATO working in collusion with mainstream
media exert an effective control of public opinion.
Military information about DU has the characteristics of
information warfare. Information to the public about DU
weapon use and effects on life in the Balkans are one of the
subjects of information operations in NATO campaign in the
region. NATO used propaganda [1] to:
- demonize the Serbs in order to justify intervention in former
Yugoslavia;
- exaggerate Serb atrocities before the International Criminal
Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia;
- cover-up own military blunders in Yugoslavia; and
- induce overthrow of "unfriendly" government in Yugoslavia
and press for economic "reforms".
Information Operations
Information warfare is one of four instruments of power -
diplomatic, informational, military, and economic - that
nations wield to influence events and actions during peace
and conflict. Behavioural science and the use of mass
media and high technology are contemporary devices now
used in war. The military employs them through Information
Operations, as laid out, for example, in the US Field Manual
100-6. [2]
Information warfare and operations of US Department of
Defense (DoD) targets foreign nations and groups,
including foreign governments. DoD actions, "convey
and/or deny selected information and indicators to foreign
audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and
objective reasoning; and to intelligence systems and leaders
at all levels." [3]
DoD management of the foreign perceptions, "combines
truth projection, operation security, cover and
deception, and psychological operations."
In NATO, Psychological Operations (PsyOp) mean,
"planned psychological activities in peace and war directed
to enemy, friendly and neutral audiences in order to
influence attitudes and behavior affecting the achievement of
political and military objectives."
A companion of PsyOp is Public Affairs (PA), which
"provides objective reporting without intent to propagandize"
and disseminates information internationally. [4] Information
warfare uses propaganda - white (telling the truth), gray
(ambiguous) or black (lying) - often through Public Relations
(PR). In Selling a conflict - the ultimate PR challenge NATO
spokesman during Kosovo conflict Jamie Shea told a
Switzerland forum that "he won the war" by carrying out
daily briefings in a PR style. By doing so, Shea and his
employers lost all credibility, [5] but it was not the first use
of PR at a high level in the Balkan conflict.
American PR firm Rudder Finn arranged a protest of the
Jewry against alleged "Serb" death camps in Bosnia. Once
the Jewry protested, the rest of the world believed the
atrocity was authentic. [6] The PR stunt was highly
successful, regardless of whether the originators were the
warring factions of former Yugoslavia unfriendly to Serbia,
NATO, some other group or a combination. The most
convincing proof that Serb "death" camps were a hoax is in
a video [7] filmed in one of the camps by a crew from Radio
and Television of Serbia next to reporters of the ITN press
giant. ITN publicized around the world images of the camp
presented like a WW2 Nazi concentration camp.
The journalist profession in the West compromised the
ethical code for NATO campaigns, failed to verify information
and seldom reported the other side of each story.12 It
means a deep control of the media by military-government
Information Operations. Pop-culture is also exploited.
American movies contain subtle messages that influence
our perceptions. One famous author of historical fiction
compared atrociuos barbarians from Roman times to
contemporary Serbs.
The Supreme US Commander General Dwight Eisenhower
was responsible for drafting a plan for integrating most every
aspect of civic life with the military. His last presidential
speech in 1946 warned against growth of the
military-industrial complex. Today, half of American federal
taxes during peacetime go into military spending, including
information operations. The military-government-industry
complex battles for our minds, using mass media as the
vehicle for delivery of doctored information.
How it Works
Information operations prepared the world for NATO
engagements in Iraq and the Balkans by demonizing the
leaders and their people. These campaigns subordinated
mass media through Public Affairs of Psychological
Operations, which,
"are based on projection of truths and credible message
[that serve to discredit] adversary propaganda
or misinformation against the operations of US/coalition
forces [which] is critical to maintaining favorable
public opinion." [2]
To understand how PsyOp work in conjuction with other
special services and mass media, it is instructive to
consider the case of Racak "massacre" of January 15th,
1999. US ambassador William Walker and Kosovo
Liberation Army (KLA) staged the event. Walker was the
head of Kosovo Verification Mission of the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) who
supposedly monitored compliance of both sides to
ceasefire. While the Yugoslav forces complied, KLA
operated unchecked.
In June 2000, Dr. Helena Ranta, the head of the Finnish
forensic team investigating Racak incident for NATO, told
me that the bodies had no signs of execution, were brought
from other locations and that NATO made her final report
secret. Had it proved Serb crime, the report would receive
prompt publicity. Instead, it was made secret to hide lack of
proofs, just like the "evidence" brought before the NATO
"court" in Hague by "witnesses" of a "massacre" of
thousands of Bosnian Moslems in Srebrenica.
KLA leader Hashim Thaci admitted in a March 24th, 2000,
BBC interview that a KLA unit operated at Racak and many
soldiers lost their life in battles with Yugoslav forces. KLA
intentionally killed 4 Serb policemen in order to enliven the
conflict and covertly killed Albanian peasants to win
sympathy for the separatist cause from the West.
Madeleine Albright admitted in the same BBC programme
that Racak incident needed preparation and was vivified in
order to keep pressure on European allies to intervene
militarily.
The Racak case indicates the following information warfare
elements:
- Mission: exert pressure on European allies to intervene
militarily against "Milosevic".
- Target audience: foreign governments and public opinion.
- Psychological objectives: i) cohesion of European allies, ii)
reinforce atrocious stereotype of Serbs.
- Timing: before Ramboulliet "negotiations".
- Theme: another "Serb" atrocity in Kosovo.
- Partners: US department of state, KLA, OSCE.
- Development: covert action, mass media.
- Filtering: select "friendly" media, ban Serb media from the
site of the "massacre".
- Blunders: i) mistakes in staging an execution; ii)
admissions by Albright and Thaci to BBC; iii) secret final
report.
- Damage control: deny the final scientific report by making
it secret.
The media supported NATO's Racak propaganda against
facts, logic and ethics. On the 1st anniversary of the Racak
"massacre" BBC News began a story with an usual
statement that Serb forces are guilty of the atrocity. The
truth was hidden at the end: Dr. Ranta's team was very
close to determining what happened. A reader must have
wondered at this point, given the beginning of the story.
Most people read only headlines and bylines. Between lie
and truth, BBC placed Thaci's opinion that Racak was a
turning point that misled the West's military intervention.
The story is typical for thousands of others dispatches on
the Balkan conflict in Western media since early 1990s.
The story contained no voice from Yugoslav and
Byelorussian investigators, who examined evidence at
Racak before the Finns. After experiencing a few messages
of this type, the reader or TV viewer begins to perceive them
as obviously biased against the Serbs. Reflecting on
September 2000 "democratic" elections in Yugoslavia,
University of Berkeley professor emeritus in history
Raymond Kent wrote, "the Serbs are suddenly transformed
from a nation of neo-Nazi 'subhumans' into a 'brave and
valiant people,' a decade of carefully nurtured Serbophobia
lurks in the background. A host of people in government,
politics, intellectual journals, scribal and audio-visual media
have gained in careers and prominence through hate-
mongering against the Serbs. This will not be given up
easily." [8] Kent alluded to the infiltration of media by the
power complex, "As an outgrowth of deceit and
disinformation needed to justify military interventions abroad,
an unusually intimate relationship of the major scribal and
audio visual media and the administration has emerged in
the shaping of foreign policy. While a 'patriotic mutuality' of
government and media was commonplace in major wars, it
never loomed as large in peacetime as in the last decade
while focusing on the Balkans and the Yugoslav tragedy."
Dutch paper Trouw reported that PsyOp officers worked at
two leading US news channels during the Kosovo war. A
liberal US commentator Alexander Cockburn remarked, "In
the Kosovo conflict [...] CNN's screen was filled with an
unending procession of bellicose advocates of bombing,
many of them retired US generals." However, the few interns
seen at CNN and NPR don't explain the systematic,
decade-long bias across the mass media in NATO
countries. The infiltration must be subtler. In fact, the story
in Trouw may have been a PsyOp trick designed to divert
public attention from permanent ties of the media with the
power complex.
PA involves press releases, media briefings and statements
by the military. In 1998 Dynamic Response exercises of
NATO peacekeeping SFOR, several military agencies and
commanders were involved in preparation and delivery of a
message, which "must be clearly communicated and
correctly interpreted by potential adversaries." After-action
reviews showed that former warring faction "leaders in
attendance and those watching the event through the media
received the intended message loud and clear." [9]
Integrated efforts of several types of special services, for
example, at the Racak "massacre" or at the October 2000
election coup in Belgrade, are possible with structures like
US Special Operations. It is a joint command that can
assemble teams of experts in different fields from the
different services as the mission requires. The commanders
decide who are the right people for a mission and what
units, including "friendly" terrorist organizations, British
Special Air Services or US Delta Commandos, should be
used in addition to PA and PsyOp. Attacks on anti-DU
activist, Dr. Doug Rokke, former Pentagon expert on DU,
may be steered by Special Operations in a broader
campaign of "fighting" the
truth about DU
Countering PsyOp on DU
Six months before Desert Storm, a report from Science
Applications International Corporation wrote about DU
weapons, "Short-term effects of high doses can result in
death, while long-term effects of low doses have been
implicated in cancer." US General Accounting Office report
GAO/NSIAD-93-90 of 1993 stated, "Inhaled insoluble [DU]
oxides stay in the lungs longer and pose a potential cancer
risk due to radiation. Ingested DU dust can also pose both a
radioactive and toxicity risk." A 1995 report of the US Army
Environmental Policy Institute warned, "If DU enters the
body, it has the potential to generate significant medical
consequences."
If DU was benign, why did not Pentagon disclose locations
of DU use in the Balkans? Public verification could end the
suspicions, and allow NATO to retain an effective
armour-piercer. Information Operations (with help from
Special Operations) chose a different approach for obvious
reasons. The Balkan DU case has the following information
warfare features.
- Mission: i) maintain tactical advantage over enemy's
armour; ii) suppress government-industry-military liability,
including storage of DU waste and past uses of DU
weapons in the Gulf, Bosnia and on testing ranges; iii)
maintain a
terrorist weapon against enemies.
- Target audience: domestic and foreign public opinion.
- Psychological objectives: alienate, dilute and delay global
public opposition to DU.
- Timing: i) until US and international laws ban the military
use of DU; or, ii) until a world tribunal sentences persons
responsible, whichever comes first.
- Theme: "As harmless as a handful of dirt from your
backyard." - Pentagon; "Radiaiton level no higher than a
household
smoke alarm." - British MoD.
- Partners: US and British departments of defense, DU
industry.
- Development: i) communication through spokesmen,
"scientific" reports and mass media; ii) intimidation of key
anti-DU
activists with "special" methods.
- Filtering: emphasize "friendly" reports, suppress
independent research results.
- Blunders: i) contradictory own reports; ii) delays in
divulging location of DU use over Yugoslavia; and, iii) failure
to warn
and protect NATO and UN forces, foreign workers and local
civilians.
- Damage control: i) suppress scientific evidence; ii) deceive
by emphasis on toxic effects if DU was ingested, but
harmless radioactivity of DU in solid form; iii) change
emphasis to possible other causes of Gulf and Balkan
syndromes.
How effective is the propaganda? A director of a respectable
US institute wrote me recently that DU risk is not high
because DU, a heavy metal, cannot disperse far. In fact,
upon oxidation of a DU bullet after impact, or through
corrosion of unexploded DU shell or shrapnel, the heavy
metal turns into microscopic particles that disperse easily
with any movement of air or water. One needs only one
particle to get sick.
The primary goal of anti-DU campaigns during US, British
and NATO military operations should be to warn local
population that might be affected. Long before international
and Yugoslav NGOs managed to prepare an anti-DU
warning brochure in Serbian language, Robert Fisk, Scott
Peterson and others have already described how Kosovo
children played with the DU shells while DU targets were
salvaged. To my knowledge, no organization prepared any
material in Albanian.
Present US and NATO means more "humanitarian
interventions" wherever and whenever globalisation interests
call for use of force to subdue states and destabilize
regions. Prohibited weapons such as DU are
indiscriminately used against civilians by NATO. Western
NGOs and concerned citizens should stand-by with money
and organizational resources necessary to issue and
disseminate DU brochures and posters, ads for local
newspapers, radio and TV and other "products" (to use
PsyOp jargon) to any region of the world in any language on
a short notice.
Long-term, nuclear misinformation de-bunking campaigns
raise public awareness with socially just meaning of "truth
projection", "objective reporting," "national," and "strategic"
objectives.
Conclusion
Public information about the effects of DU weapons used in
the Balkans fall within information warfare of NATO
campaign in the region. Information operations target foreign
and domestic groups, including foreign governments and
intelligence, in an attempt to influence their perceptions and
actions towards support of own national and strategic goals.
Distortions and half-truths about the post-combat hazards of
DU weapons flow from the objectives of "military advantage"
over enemy's armour and military installations, which stem
from objectives of "national" and "strategic" interests
disguised under "globalization" rhetoric of "human rights"
and "freeing the economies".
DU ammunition did not secure any military advantage in the
Kosovo crisis, but DU contaminated the environment. The
necessity to use slow-moving and low-altitude A-10 and
Apache against Serb tanks and mobile missile launches
spelled disaster to US equipment. Thousands of DU rounds
went into mock-ups of Serb armour and butchered refugees
when "Serb" armour was suspected in convoys. Yugoslav
army left the battlefields practically intact. Unexploded DU
shells, shrapnel and invisible DU dust greeted hundreds of
thousands of returning refugees, KLA and illegal newcomers
from Albania, as well as tens of thousands of NATO and UN
peacekeepers, humanitarian workers and Western
"re-builders" of former Yugoslavia. Only the Western groups
were informed about potential risk, albeit with delay.
The efects of DU on Balkan battlefields are similar to the
Gulf War syndrome from the 1991 war in Iraq, where DU
was used on a massive scale for the first time. Evidence is
also mounting about the risk of DU poisoning of aircraft
mechanics who never went to the Persian Gulf or the
Balkans, but became contaminated and sick from DU
counterweights they handled.
Potential for multi-billion dollar litigation by veterans and by
civilian authorities in the Persian Gulf hamper publication of
the truth. Cleanups of DU contamination on battlefields,
shooting ranges and at DU storage sites throughout the
world would also be extremely costly. It is in self-interests of
the military, the government and the defence industry to
continue attempts at "changing emphasis", deception,
half-truths, and straight lying about DU.
US and NATO strategy proves counterproductive. Moral
credit of the United States was tarnished in Western
Europe. The same regards majority of former Soviet block
people who invested great hopes in a better world
spearheaded by the US and NATO. USA is harming its own
national long-term interests and is letting down millions of
needy people in the process. Opposition to joining NATO
and European Union rose dramatically in Slav countries after
NATO attacked Yugoslavia. In Poland it is expressed by
about 60 to 70% of the population.
The US and NATO would not give up DU "military
advantage" voluntarily, though an alternative exists in
expensive tungsten. The military does not calculate full
social costs and has no incentive to switch to a more
benign material. Cheap DU was incorporated into the
sandwich armour of the newest American tank to make it
"harder". The problem concerns both DU ammunition and
DU used in flying bombs and aircraft, including civilian
applications.
Public must take a vigorous stand to protect present and
future generations of all life endangered by DU. Propaganda
is a weak point of the military-government-industry complex
who lost credibility through repeated blunders and lies.
However, the public does not question mainstream media
messages and does not have capacity to seek, analyse and
understand information about DU. Alternative information is
generally rejected. Government-military-industry information
warriors exploit this in their operations. Bonaparte's
assertion that "the sword is always beaten by the mind" is
challenging if one considers how the mind can be influenced
by black and grey propaganda. The public's self-preservation
instinct that came to fruition during successful protests
against nuclear mania gives hope for countering DU
propaganda.
Domination of biased messages undermines freedom of
opinion and the right to know the truth. The public is
manipulated with fabricated truth. Demonizing a nation to
justify aggression and covering up information regarding
crimes against humanity are crimes themselves. There are
indications of distorting recent medical reports from NATO
member countries about the cause of illness in soldiers from
Balkan campaigns. This effort will likely be growing, as
medical DU experts expect the incidence of the Balkan
syndrome to rise sharply in the next few months.
The degree of protection received by unconventional
information on DU will be a major working test of freedom
and democracy. Continuing exposure of truth to the public
should hopefully begin a desirable change, both in public
perceptions and in the participatory processes.
Sources Cited
1 http://www.most.org.pl/zb/internet/nato/index.html
2 Headquarters, Department of the Army, Field Manual
100-6: Information Operations, USGPO, Washington DC, 27
August 1996
3 Joint Chiefs of Staff, Department of Defense, JCS
Publication 1, Glossary Department of Defense Military and
Associated Terms, 1987,
http://www.pipeline.com/~psywarrior/glossary.html
4 Office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint
Publication 3-53, Joint Doctrine for Psychological
Operations, USGPO, Washington DC, 10 July 1996
5 Neue Zurcher Zeitung, March 30, 2000
6 Jacques Merlino, It Is Not Good To Tell The Truth About
Yugoslavia, A. Michel, Paris, 1993
7 Judgement can be ordered through http://www.tenc.net
8 R. K. Kent, Nationalisms and the absolute corruptibility of
imagined absolute power, October 7, 2000
9 Arthur N. Tulak, Information Operations in Support of
Demonstrations and Shows of Force,
http://www.abolishnato.com/abolishnato/natobriefs/intim.nonsence.htm
10
http://www.vorstadtzentrum.net/cgi-bin/joesb/news/viewnews.cgi?category=all&id=969989108
11 George Coryell, General spreads his wings, says farewell
to arms, The Tampa Tribune, October 27, 2000,
http://tampatrib.com/FloridaMetro/MGAXZCLATEC.html
12 Philip Hammond and Edward S. Herman (editors),
Degraded Capability: The Media and the Kosovo Crisis,
Pluto Press, London, 2000
---
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L'imbattibile Kostunica ormai è diventato più famoso di Gesù Cristo
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---
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Lo dice anche l'oroscopo!
L'imbattibile Kostunica ormai è diventato più famoso di Gesù Cristo
(come nella omonima battuta di John Lennon), tanto che anche mensili
patinati quali Astra lo considerano meritevole di interesse, leggete
a proposito cosa predicono le stelle al Nostro per il nuovo anno:
Vojislav Kostunica (Ariete Asc. Leone) potrà dire grazie al buon
Giove che, transitando in sestile alla stretta congiunzione Sole-Luna
nella cosmopolita nona Casa e in congiunzione a Urano in undicesima
(amicizie e alleanze), promette appoggi internazionali vantaggiosi
(anche se qualcuno di questi non sarà duraturo, come segnala il
transito di opposizione di Marte a Saturno).
Hai capito?!?! non ci resta che sperare in Saturno...
E con questa ennesima boiata vi saluto e vi auguro uno strepitoso
2001.
(Serena)
---
Questo e' il bollettino di controinformazione del
Coordinamento Nazionale "La Jugoslavia Vivra'". I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente le opinioni delle realta' che compongono il Coordinamento, ma vengono fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al solo scopo di segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only").
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Cari amici,
Aqui la versione italiana di un recente articolo.
Copyright free for fair use only. Please mention to the author.
-- Michel Collon
Don't hate the media, be the media.
Ed ora, cari elettori, vi licenzieremo
Inchiesta sulle elezioni in Serbia
Come spiegare la sconfitta di Milosevic? Il nuovo primo ministro Djindjic chiuderà molte fabbriche? E Bush cambierà la politica USA? Abbiamo controllato la temperatura a Belgrado e Washington?
MICHEL COLLON
Ex-opposizione DOS: 64%. SPS di Milosevic: 13%. E 13% per due partiti anti-NATO di destra. Washington, il FMI e la NATO hanno nuovamente brindato alla vittoria. Spiegazioni sul posto?
Per Andrej, le elezioni sono state falsate, da settembre, a causa delle nuove minacce di nuovi bombardamenti o di una invasione del Montenegro da parte della NATO. E a causa dei cento milioni di dollari degli Stati Uniti per finanziare una campagna di propaganda molto efficace per criminalizzare Milosevic agli occhi dei Serbi. Inoltre, i principali media sono stati strettamente controllati.
Gordana afferma: ?le persone sapevano che il SPS era più ?sociale? che il DOS, ma anche che l?Ovest avrebbe continuato a tener loro l?acqua alla gola fin tanto che Milosevic sarebbe rimasto al potere. Quattro guerre, l?isolamento, la demonizzazione, l?embargo: la politica serba non è fatta né per strada, né in parlamento, ma all?estero.? ?Tuttavia, aggiunge Tanja, il SPS limita i danni viste le circostanze e due scissioni che l?hanno indebolito.?.
Bata oppositore della NATO, si rassegna: ?La Serbia fa parte dell?Europa e deve riconoscere il modo di vita della maggioranza.? Secondo Natasa, favorevole al DOS, ?la cattiva situazione economica spiega perché la maggioranza dei suoi sostenitori hanno voltato le spalle a Milosevic. Le persone hanno visto troppa corruzione e i ?nuovi ricchi? dirigere il paese. Sono stati disgustati.? Che Milosevic non abbia espresso nessuna autocritica sulla rapida fortuna del proprio figlio o di altri dignitari, non ha aumentato la sua credibilità.
Domani, barba e capelli gratis?
Ma la cosa più importante è che si crede sempre alle promesse annuncianti grandi investimenti e aiuti dall?Ovest. Come nell?Europa dell?Est nel 1990, la quale, tra l?altro, aspetta ancora questi aiuti?
Anche in Yugoslavia il risveglio sarà doloroso. Gli ?aiuti? previsti dal Patto di stabilità tedesco per i Balcani sono in realtà dei? prestiti rimborsabili. Che permetteranno soprattutto alle multinazionali di intascare i benefici della ricostruzione e di arraffare a poco prezzo le fette migliori dell?economia.
Il programma dell?ex-opposizione prevedeva una ?terapia d?urto?: fin dai primi giorni, privatizzazioni di massa ed aumento dei prezzi. Ad esempio, il 90% degli operai della fabbrica d?automobili Zastava saranno sicuramente ?ringraziati?, per la più grande gioia del compratore Peugeot. Quanto all?attuale carenza di elettricità, il loro scopo sarà quello di mandare nel panico la popolazione prima di imporre una politica di privatizzazione e di enormi aumenti.
Ma, attualmente, il futuro primo ministro Djindjic annuncia la privatizzazione potrebbe durare due anni. Lui sa che incontra l?opposizione della maggioranza della popolazione. E alcune manifestazioni hanno già avuto luogo contro i tagli di elettricità.
In breve, l?affare è solo agli inizi. Tutti sanno che la coalizione al potere collasserà e che Djindjic si sforzerà di ridurre il suo ?alleato? Kostunica a un ?presidente-fantasma?, se non a un Gorbatchev riposto nell?armadio.
Dato che l?UCK separatista continuerà le sue provocazioni in Kosovo e in Serbia ?quando Kostunica è anche stato scelto da degli elettori che rimproveravano a Milosevic di aver ceduto di fronte alla NATO- Kostunica avrà un problema nei confronti della sua immagine.
Bush cambiato?
Il popolo serbo ha talmente detestato il suo boia Madeleine Albright (ministro USA degli esteri) che alcuni credono, o vogliono credere, che con Bush, gli Stati Uniti saranno meno aggressivi. D?altronde, ha promesso di ritirare le sue truppe dai Balcani.
La politica USA cambierà? No. 1. Bush e Gore erano due candidati ?gemelli? delle multinazionali. 2. I repubblicani hanno sempre avuto un?etichetta più ?isolazionista?, questo non ha però impedito a Nixon di aggredire il Vietnam, a Reagan Granada e Panama, a Bush padre l?Irak. 3. Ridurre il numero dei soldati USA e far pagare agli europei gli permetteranno di attaccare altri paesi, ma mai lascerà l?enorme base Camp Bondsteel costruita in Kosovo. E? strategica.
---
Questo e' il bollettino di controinformazione del Coordinamento Nazionale "La Jugoslavia Vivra'". I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente le opinioni delle realta' che compongono il Coordinamento, ma vengono fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al solo scopo di segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only").
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Aqui la versione italiana di un recente articolo.
Copyright free for fair use only. Please mention to the author.
-- Michel Collon
Don't hate the media, be the media.
Ed ora, cari elettori, vi licenzieremo
Inchiesta sulle elezioni in Serbia
Come spiegare la sconfitta di Milosevic? Il nuovo primo ministro Djindjic chiuderà molte fabbriche? E Bush cambierà la politica USA? Abbiamo controllato la temperatura a Belgrado e Washington?
MICHEL COLLON
Ex-opposizione DOS: 64%. SPS di Milosevic: 13%. E 13% per due partiti anti-NATO di destra. Washington, il FMI e la NATO hanno nuovamente brindato alla vittoria. Spiegazioni sul posto?
Per Andrej, le elezioni sono state falsate, da settembre, a causa delle nuove minacce di nuovi bombardamenti o di una invasione del Montenegro da parte della NATO. E a causa dei cento milioni di dollari degli Stati Uniti per finanziare una campagna di propaganda molto efficace per criminalizzare Milosevic agli occhi dei Serbi. Inoltre, i principali media sono stati strettamente controllati.
Gordana afferma: ?le persone sapevano che il SPS era più ?sociale? che il DOS, ma anche che l?Ovest avrebbe continuato a tener loro l?acqua alla gola fin tanto che Milosevic sarebbe rimasto al potere. Quattro guerre, l?isolamento, la demonizzazione, l?embargo: la politica serba non è fatta né per strada, né in parlamento, ma all?estero.? ?Tuttavia, aggiunge Tanja, il SPS limita i danni viste le circostanze e due scissioni che l?hanno indebolito.?.
Bata oppositore della NATO, si rassegna: ?La Serbia fa parte dell?Europa e deve riconoscere il modo di vita della maggioranza.? Secondo Natasa, favorevole al DOS, ?la cattiva situazione economica spiega perché la maggioranza dei suoi sostenitori hanno voltato le spalle a Milosevic. Le persone hanno visto troppa corruzione e i ?nuovi ricchi? dirigere il paese. Sono stati disgustati.? Che Milosevic non abbia espresso nessuna autocritica sulla rapida fortuna del proprio figlio o di altri dignitari, non ha aumentato la sua credibilità.
Domani, barba e capelli gratis?
Ma la cosa più importante è che si crede sempre alle promesse annuncianti grandi investimenti e aiuti dall?Ovest. Come nell?Europa dell?Est nel 1990, la quale, tra l?altro, aspetta ancora questi aiuti?
Anche in Yugoslavia il risveglio sarà doloroso. Gli ?aiuti? previsti dal Patto di stabilità tedesco per i Balcani sono in realtà dei? prestiti rimborsabili. Che permetteranno soprattutto alle multinazionali di intascare i benefici della ricostruzione e di arraffare a poco prezzo le fette migliori dell?economia.
Il programma dell?ex-opposizione prevedeva una ?terapia d?urto?: fin dai primi giorni, privatizzazioni di massa ed aumento dei prezzi. Ad esempio, il 90% degli operai della fabbrica d?automobili Zastava saranno sicuramente ?ringraziati?, per la più grande gioia del compratore Peugeot. Quanto all?attuale carenza di elettricità, il loro scopo sarà quello di mandare nel panico la popolazione prima di imporre una politica di privatizzazione e di enormi aumenti.
Ma, attualmente, il futuro primo ministro Djindjic annuncia la privatizzazione potrebbe durare due anni. Lui sa che incontra l?opposizione della maggioranza della popolazione. E alcune manifestazioni hanno già avuto luogo contro i tagli di elettricità.
In breve, l?affare è solo agli inizi. Tutti sanno che la coalizione al potere collasserà e che Djindjic si sforzerà di ridurre il suo ?alleato? Kostunica a un ?presidente-fantasma?, se non a un Gorbatchev riposto nell?armadio.
Dato che l?UCK separatista continuerà le sue provocazioni in Kosovo e in Serbia ?quando Kostunica è anche stato scelto da degli elettori che rimproveravano a Milosevic di aver ceduto di fronte alla NATO- Kostunica avrà un problema nei confronti della sua immagine.
Bush cambiato?
Il popolo serbo ha talmente detestato il suo boia Madeleine Albright (ministro USA degli esteri) che alcuni credono, o vogliono credere, che con Bush, gli Stati Uniti saranno meno aggressivi. D?altronde, ha promesso di ritirare le sue truppe dai Balcani.
La politica USA cambierà? No. 1. Bush e Gore erano due candidati ?gemelli? delle multinazionali. 2. I repubblicani hanno sempre avuto un?etichetta più ?isolazionista?, questo non ha però impedito a Nixon di aggredire il Vietnam, a Reagan Granada e Panama, a Bush padre l?Irak. 3. Ridurre il numero dei soldati USA e far pagare agli europei gli permetteranno di attaccare altri paesi, ma mai lascerà l?enorme base Camp Bondsteel costruita in Kosovo. E? strategica.
---
Questo e' il bollettino di controinformazione del Coordinamento Nazionale "La Jugoslavia Vivra'". I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente le opinioni delle realta' che compongono il Coordinamento, ma vengono fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al solo scopo di segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only").
Per iscriversi al bollettino: jugoinfo-subscribe@e...
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(Emperor's new clothes) Elections in Serbia: Orwel 2000
By Aleksandar Djaja The parliamentary elections in Serbia gave forth the
convincing victory of DOS, which won 176 out of 250 seats in the
National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia. However, after 'coming to
the streets', one realizes that the DOS victory is, actually, far from
convincing - only 58% of the voters cast their votes, which means that
DOS will be ruling Serbia after winning the mere 1/3 of the total number
of eligible votes. As for the voting process itself, it should be said
that none of the political parties, nor any of the many foreign
observers, had any serious objections, and one might draw an off-hand
conclusion, that the elections were both regular and peaceful. The truth
is quite different, though. The events in the past three months, and
during the "election silence" in particular, were anything but regular!
Namely, never in the past ten-odd years since the renewal of the
parliamentary life in Serbia, the media have played such a perfidious
and shameful role, favoring one side (this time, the DOS), and
satanizing their political opponents. Never during the past ten years'
(and, possibly, during even a much longer) period, has appeared in this
region a political organization, based on the abuse of minors for
political purposes, and wrapped in a seemingly benign,
teenage-intellectual wrapping foil, such as the one named OTPOR.
Accidentally or not, by their own will, and/or by the will of the
experts for the subversive- and propaganda war from the western centers
of political power, the OTPOR through its pre-election, Orwellian, media
presentation, played possibly the crucial role in the intimidation of
the followers of SPS (the Socialist Party of Serbia) and of the other
political groups outside DOS, preventing them to freely express their
political notions in the 23rd October voting. The role of the so-called
"independent media", actually the strictly controlled printed and
electronic propaganda machine of DOS, in the election campaign was
three-fold. Firstly, to defame the former authorities, using all the
moral and (predominantly) immoral means, and half-truths (or,
half-lies). Secondly, to obscure, or rather to push into oblivion, the
last year's NATO aggression, while the NATO leaders, the war criminals
and the chief political and financial sponsors of the DOS campaign,
should not be just absolved for their war crimes, but even, if possible,
projected as the "victims" of the former "non-democratic regime", while
the aggression should be represented as the "necessary evil" which,
simply, was inevitable under "such a regime". And thirdly, the victory
of DOS at the parliamentary elections in Serbia should be trumpeted
daily as a "self-explanatory" fact, since otherwise even the Sun would
stop shining, while all the Serbs would be turned by the "civilized and
democratic West" into grasshoppers, or some other pests, and
pedantically sprayed by DDT every day, from airplanes... After all that
has come to us from the West in the past ten-odd years, indeed, our
average informed- and educated, but above-average tormented, fellow
countrymen were not hard to convince that even such a DDT option is
realistic. I wonder, how one might not believe our media, when even the
recent DOS co-minister (the term "co-minister" has not yet been
deciphered!) Ms. Biserka Matic, has coolly said that all the media in
Serbia are free, "except several of them, that have recently been
launched by the Socialists"(!??). Such demagoguery surpasses even the
old "Brozian" one, which the actual holders of the federal and republic
authority ostensibly disdain, while it conspiciously sticks out from
their, de-moth-balled "communist overcoat"? As for the technology of
vote casting, this time it was enriched by two novelties: the control
lamps, and the invisible dye sprays. O. K. We may disregard the fact
that voting like this one has not been seen anywhere, at least not in
the Western Europe and in the United States, only in the Republic of
Srpska; we may disregard also the fact that by such "marking", the
voters actually were branded, if not like cattle than for sure as
"suspicious individuals" with a tendency towards thefts and other kinds
of criminal behaviors; finally, we may also disregard the fact that
nobody bothered to ask the citizens of Serbia whether they really wish
to be lighted by violet-colored lamps, like monkeys in the cage in a
zoo, and sprayed by the "invisible dye" like scabby dogs and cats? Yet,
we must ask those who, on our behalf, agreed to such a "circus", whether
such mockery was really introduced just to prevent any individuals to
vote twice (which nobody in Serbia has ever intended to, anyway)? Or,
more likely, the well-known international company that produces
flashlights, torches etc., has been encountering financial difficulties
lately, and wanted to earn some extra cash in Yugoslavia. Likewise, the
sprays with "invisible dye" might have contained the hair spray instead,
whose time has expired, and as such was perfect for the development of
democracy in Serbia. In such a way, we come also to the OTPOR. "From
birth to death, the member of the Party lives under the surveillance of
the Mind Police. Even if he is alone, he cannot know for sure whether he
indeed is alone. Wherever he is, in his dreams on in reality, at work
and at leisure, in the bathroom or in the bed, he can be watched without
knowing it, without any warning. Nothing that he does is irrelevant. His
friends, the way he takes his rest, his attitude towards his spouse and
children, the expression on his face when he is alone, the words he
murmurs in his sleep, even his characteristic body motions, are
painstakingly observed... He has no freedom of choice in any direction."
("1984", by George Orwel) Did the citizens of Serbia have a choice,
after October 5th, the setting on fire of the federal parliament
building, seizing the power by the revolutionary committees (the "crisis
staffs"), the fascinating single-mindedness of the media in the service
of a single political group (the "DOS-mindedness", as George Orwell
might say) unprecedented in this area since the communist-partisan
takeover in 1945, and the enormous media, political, economical and
military pressure by the western power centers, as the supreme
transmission of the DOS election campaign? Here I mean, the essential
choice between different political options, which results from a
conscientious assessment of both the analytically reexamined past, and
the anticipated future? Or, possibly, like anywhere in the West, in the
countries with the multi-decade old model of parliamentary democracy
(obviously, decrepit by now), the choice was only formally offered as
the "grand finale" of the pre-election multi-media spectacle, which is
related to the reality as closely as Disneyland is to the hungry
children in the less fortunate parts of the world. The OTPOR, placarding
during the election campaign its symbol, the black-and-white clinched
fist (!), using billboards located at the busiest intersections in the
city, posters and TV spots, newspaper advertisements, even the floor of
a basketball arena (!), not only annulled the democratic election
procedure, but also lead to a paroxysm the, otherwise natural,
aspirations of the young people for changes in the everyday life. By its
three main slogans, "We are just watching you", "Stamp it!", and "Use it
(your brain)", this organization which had trumpeted the decisive role
of the young generation in the decisions regarding both their, and
other people's lives - actually established the role of the Dogma, as
the (dark) driving force, which is above life and above the destiny of
any individual. Who was the OTPOR "just watching", and at whom was the
bulldozed (from the billboards) aimed at, all set to crush any passer-by
that has different political views? What (and who) was to be "stamped"
at the December 23rd republic elections in Serbia? Why was, for this
purpose, used the notorious gangsters' idiom, with a well-known
connotation? As for those 2/3 (two thirds!) Serbian citizens, who either
have not voted, or voted for the "others", the OTPOR's message is that,
since they do not know how to "use their brains", they will their brains
"reconditioned" at OTPOR's expense. And at who's expense was organized
and directed the obvious "abuse of minors for political purposes",
unprecedented in the modern democratic world? And how long is its
lifetime? Or such question is already outdated. It is not sufficient to
say that the parliamentary elections for the National Assembly of the
Republic of Serbia of 23rd of December have a shadow of doubt over
them. They are a shadow. ---
Bollettino di controinformazione del
Coordinamento Nazionale "La Jugoslavia Vivra'"
Sito WEB : http://digilander.iol.it/lajugoslaviavivra
I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente le
opinioni delle realta' che compongono il Coordinamento, ma
vengono fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al
solo scopo di segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only")
Archivio di JUGOINFO:
> http://www.ecircle.it/an_ecircle/articles?ecircleid%c2%91979 oppure
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OBIETTIVO COMUNITA'
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(Emperor's new clothes) Elections in Serbia: Orwel 2000
By Aleksandar Djaja The parliamentary elections in Serbia gave forth the
convincing victory of DOS, which won 176 out of 250 seats in the
National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia. However, after 'coming to
the streets', one realizes that the DOS victory is, actually, far from
convincing - only 58% of the voters cast their votes, which means that
DOS will be ruling Serbia after winning the mere 1/3 of the total number
of eligible votes. As for the voting process itself, it should be said
that none of the political parties, nor any of the many foreign
observers, had any serious objections, and one might draw an off-hand
conclusion, that the elections were both regular and peaceful. The truth
is quite different, though. The events in the past three months, and
during the "election silence" in particular, were anything but regular!
Namely, never in the past ten-odd years since the renewal of the
parliamentary life in Serbia, the media have played such a perfidious
and shameful role, favoring one side (this time, the DOS), and
satanizing their political opponents. Never during the past ten years'
(and, possibly, during even a much longer) period, has appeared in this
region a political organization, based on the abuse of minors for
political purposes, and wrapped in a seemingly benign,
teenage-intellectual wrapping foil, such as the one named OTPOR.
Accidentally or not, by their own will, and/or by the will of the
experts for the subversive- and propaganda war from the western centers
of political power, the OTPOR through its pre-election, Orwellian, media
presentation, played possibly the crucial role in the intimidation of
the followers of SPS (the Socialist Party of Serbia) and of the other
political groups outside DOS, preventing them to freely express their
political notions in the 23rd October voting. The role of the so-called
"independent media", actually the strictly controlled printed and
electronic propaganda machine of DOS, in the election campaign was
three-fold. Firstly, to defame the former authorities, using all the
moral and (predominantly) immoral means, and half-truths (or,
half-lies). Secondly, to obscure, or rather to push into oblivion, the
last year's NATO aggression, while the NATO leaders, the war criminals
and the chief political and financial sponsors of the DOS campaign,
should not be just absolved for their war crimes, but even, if possible,
projected as the "victims" of the former "non-democratic regime", while
the aggression should be represented as the "necessary evil" which,
simply, was inevitable under "such a regime". And thirdly, the victory
of DOS at the parliamentary elections in Serbia should be trumpeted
daily as a "self-explanatory" fact, since otherwise even the Sun would
stop shining, while all the Serbs would be turned by the "civilized and
democratic West" into grasshoppers, or some other pests, and
pedantically sprayed by DDT every day, from airplanes... After all that
has come to us from the West in the past ten-odd years, indeed, our
average informed- and educated, but above-average tormented, fellow
countrymen were not hard to convince that even such a DDT option is
realistic. I wonder, how one might not believe our media, when even the
recent DOS co-minister (the term "co-minister" has not yet been
deciphered!) Ms. Biserka Matic, has coolly said that all the media in
Serbia are free, "except several of them, that have recently been
launched by the Socialists"(!??). Such demagoguery surpasses even the
old "Brozian" one, which the actual holders of the federal and republic
authority ostensibly disdain, while it conspiciously sticks out from
their, de-moth-balled "communist overcoat"? As for the technology of
vote casting, this time it was enriched by two novelties: the control
lamps, and the invisible dye sprays. O. K. We may disregard the fact
that voting like this one has not been seen anywhere, at least not in
the Western Europe and in the United States, only in the Republic of
Srpska; we may disregard also the fact that by such "marking", the
voters actually were branded, if not like cattle than for sure as
"suspicious individuals" with a tendency towards thefts and other kinds
of criminal behaviors; finally, we may also disregard the fact that
nobody bothered to ask the citizens of Serbia whether they really wish
to be lighted by violet-colored lamps, like monkeys in the cage in a
zoo, and sprayed by the "invisible dye" like scabby dogs and cats? Yet,
we must ask those who, on our behalf, agreed to such a "circus", whether
such mockery was really introduced just to prevent any individuals to
vote twice (which nobody in Serbia has ever intended to, anyway)? Or,
more likely, the well-known international company that produces
flashlights, torches etc., has been encountering financial difficulties
lately, and wanted to earn some extra cash in Yugoslavia. Likewise, the
sprays with "invisible dye" might have contained the hair spray instead,
whose time has expired, and as such was perfect for the development of
democracy in Serbia. In such a way, we come also to the OTPOR. "From
birth to death, the member of the Party lives under the surveillance of
the Mind Police. Even if he is alone, he cannot know for sure whether he
indeed is alone. Wherever he is, in his dreams on in reality, at work
and at leisure, in the bathroom or in the bed, he can be watched without
knowing it, without any warning. Nothing that he does is irrelevant. His
friends, the way he takes his rest, his attitude towards his spouse and
children, the expression on his face when he is alone, the words he
murmurs in his sleep, even his characteristic body motions, are
painstakingly observed... He has no freedom of choice in any direction."
("1984", by George Orwel) Did the citizens of Serbia have a choice,
after October 5th, the setting on fire of the federal parliament
building, seizing the power by the revolutionary committees (the "crisis
staffs"), the fascinating single-mindedness of the media in the service
of a single political group (the "DOS-mindedness", as George Orwell
might say) unprecedented in this area since the communist-partisan
takeover in 1945, and the enormous media, political, economical and
military pressure by the western power centers, as the supreme
transmission of the DOS election campaign? Here I mean, the essential
choice between different political options, which results from a
conscientious assessment of both the analytically reexamined past, and
the anticipated future? Or, possibly, like anywhere in the West, in the
countries with the multi-decade old model of parliamentary democracy
(obviously, decrepit by now), the choice was only formally offered as
the "grand finale" of the pre-election multi-media spectacle, which is
related to the reality as closely as Disneyland is to the hungry
children in the less fortunate parts of the world. The OTPOR, placarding
during the election campaign its symbol, the black-and-white clinched
fist (!), using billboards located at the busiest intersections in the
city, posters and TV spots, newspaper advertisements, even the floor of
a basketball arena (!), not only annulled the democratic election
procedure, but also lead to a paroxysm the, otherwise natural,
aspirations of the young people for changes in the everyday life. By its
three main slogans, "We are just watching you", "Stamp it!", and "Use it
(your brain)", this organization which had trumpeted the decisive role
of the young generation in the decisions regarding both their, and
other people's lives - actually established the role of the Dogma, as
the (dark) driving force, which is above life and above the destiny of
any individual. Who was the OTPOR "just watching", and at whom was the
bulldozed (from the billboards) aimed at, all set to crush any passer-by
that has different political views? What (and who) was to be "stamped"
at the December 23rd republic elections in Serbia? Why was, for this
purpose, used the notorious gangsters' idiom, with a well-known
connotation? As for those 2/3 (two thirds!) Serbian citizens, who either
have not voted, or voted for the "others", the OTPOR's message is that,
since they do not know how to "use their brains", they will their brains
"reconditioned" at OTPOR's expense. And at who's expense was organized
and directed the obvious "abuse of minors for political purposes",
unprecedented in the modern democratic world? And how long is its
lifetime? Or such question is already outdated. It is not sufficient to
say that the parliamentary elections for the National Assembly of the
Republic of Serbia of 23rd of December have a shadow of doubt over
them. They are a shadow. ---
Bollettino di controinformazione del
Coordinamento Nazionale "La Jugoslavia Vivra'"
Sito WEB : http://digilander.iol.it/lajugoslaviavivra
I documenti distribuiti non rispecchiano necessariamente le
opinioni delle realta' che compongono il Coordinamento, ma
vengono fatti circolare per il loro contenuto informativo al
solo scopo di segnalazione e commento ("for fair use only")
Archivio di JUGOINFO:
> http://www.ecircle.it/an_ecircle/articles?ecircleid%c2%91979 oppure
> http://www.egroups.com/group/crj-mailinglist/
Per iscriversi al bollettino: <jugoinfo-subscribe@...>
Per cancellarsi: <jugoinfo-unsubscribe@...>
Contributi e segnalazioni: <jugocoord@...>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
OBIETTIVO COMUNITA'
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