> http://antiwar.com/orig/jatras6.html
> ANTIWAR, Monday, January 15, 2001
>
>
> The Media's War Against the Serbs
>
> by Stella L. Jatras *
>
>
> The media's biased war against the Serbs has been a major factor in the
> dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia and the demonizing of an entire
> nation. One of the best examples of such bias can be found in the
> Washington Times, both in its reporting of events in the Balkans and its
> editorial policy. I single out the Washington Times because it is
> supposedly the "conservative" newspaper, the counter to the liberal news
> that is published in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the
> rest of the liberal media. Unfortunately, the Washington Times has
> become part of the liberal propaganda machine that helped to bring death
> and suffering to tens of thousands of innocent people.
>
> One explanation for the Times' slanted reporting which agrees with the
> liberal media may be the fact that it depends on "stringers,"
> (reporters) to cover much of its foreign news, specifically in the
> Balkans. This may also explain why its editorial staff has been
> consistently anti-Serb.
>
> In his "World Review" section on 5 March, 2000, the Washington Times'
> Foreign Desk Editor David Jones wrote, "But the stringers quickly lose
> interest in filing to us if we are not buying their stories and putting
> them in the paper." What this tells me is that the bottom line in
> formulating stories has little to do with the truth, or even accuracy,
> but has everything to do with what makes the biggest headlines and
> brings in the most financial rewards for both the "stringer" and the
> Washington Times. How often are these goals achieved by embellishing the
> "facts" to add a little sensationalism?
>
> Case in point. On 6 August 1998, the Washington Times featured
> "stringer" Philip Smucker's exclusive front page headline read: "Kosovar
> bodies bulldozed to dump; Serbs deny massacre, but evidence [not
> "alleged," or "thought-to-be], but "evidence impossible to avoid of mass
> graves containing the bodies of 567." He also claimed that at least half
> of the bodies were those of women and children although, to that point,
> the alleged bodies had not been exhumed. To further embellish his story,
> Smucker went on to say, "Stark evidence in the form of freshly turned
> earth and the overwhelming stench of death has exposed the presence of
> scores of bodies that were bulldozed into a garbage dump after a Serbian
> attack against ethnic Albanian rebels who tried to seize this town."
> Even a photograph accompanied Smucker's article with the caption, "A
> news photographer shoots a picture of fresh graves - some identified
> with ethnic Albanian names - in the Kosovar town of Orahovac," (Kosova
> is the Albanian name given to Kosovo).
>
> However, on the very same day, the Guardian [UK] of 6 August 1998,
> reported, "European Union (EU) observers found no evidence of mass
> graves reported in the town of Orahovac, the teams' Austrian leader,
> Walter Ebenberger, said." In contrast to the front page coverage given
> to Mr. Smucker's intended shock-attention report on Serb atrocities, the
> following day the Washington Times carried a small, barely noticeable
> item hidden on page A15 (World Scene, 7 August 1998), which stated,
> "NATO Chief [Secretary-General Javier Solana] dismissed mass graves in
> Kosovo."
>
> In all honesty, does it not bother the editors at the Washington Times
> that "stringer" Smucker's report of 6 August was a vicious lie? There
> were no mass graves containing the bodies of 567 ethnic Albanian
> victims; but there it was, on the front page. I stand in awe of the fact
> that truth in journalism is what they want it to be, what sells, and
> that articles by Mr. Smucker required, in the Times' judgment, no
> documentation, no verification, no responsibility, and apparently were
> accepted without question. Smucker's was the kind of reporting that
> played right into Clinton's New World Order scheme and at the same time,
> helped to prepare the minds of Americans to accept whatever punishment
> we dished out against the Serbian people, including NATO's 78 days of
> bombing in an unmerciful, unjust and immoral air war led by the United
> States. It was this kind of vile reporting that caused so many people to
> say, "After all, they [the Serbs] deserve it!"
>
> Mr. Jones now informs us that the new "stringer" for the Washington
> Times to replace Philip Smucker, for whom Mr. Jones has only high
> praise, is Joshua Kucera. Of Mr. Kucera, Jones writes: "The interest [in
> the elections throughout Serbia held on 24 December 2000] is so light,
> in fact that our freelance correspondent in the Balkans, Joshua Kucera,
> did not even file on the vote. He left that to the wire services and
> instead spent the day driving through a region held by ethnic-Albanian
> rebels in southern Serbia where he interviewed a rebel commander."
>
> Does anyone seriously believe that, unless Mr. Kucera was sympathetic to
> the Albanian "rebels," he would have been given an interview? No way.
> The "rebels" demand complete loyalty to their cause. In his 31 December
> article in the Times titled "A guerrilla seeks to coexist," Mr. Kucera
> leaves no doubt where his pro-Albanian biases lie when he interviewed
> the Albanian guerrilla leader, Cmdr. Lleshi, "a Fidel Castro
> look-alike," in the southern border of Serbia. "Coexist" my foot! What's
> an Albanian doing in Serbia anyway, other than to wage war against the
> Serbs? Mr. Kucera's article was accompanied by a photo of an Albanian
> house that had been sacked by Serbs, another ploy by the Washington
> Times to gain sympathy for the Albanian rebels' cause, rather than show
> photos of dead Serbian police officers who were murdered by Lleshi's
> thugs or any photos of the destruction of Serbian homes.
>
> Where is the coverage of the continued violence in Kosovo where recently
> two elderly Serbs were dragged from their homes and their throats
> slashed, killing the husband while the wife remained in critical
> condition in a hospital? (AFP, 29 Dec 2000). Why were there no photos of
> this Serbian woman's suffering? Probably because she was not an
> Albanian. But again, the Washington Times lives up to its own anti-Serb
> bias by giving Mr. Kucera extensive coverage of what the Albanians want;
> yet in his article, he did not interview one Serb.
>
> It seems that the Times reporters have learned that it doesn't pay to be
> impartial in the Balkans. Remember Canadian Major General Lewis
> MacKenzie? General MacKenzie was the first UNPROFOR commander in Bosnia
> who made the mistake of saying that all sides were doing terrible
> things. For this, the Bosnian Muslim government demanded that General
> MacKenzie be removed as UNPROFOR commander. Furthermore, he was falsely
> accused of having raped and murdered four Muslim women (from his book,
> Peacekeeper, the Road to Sarajevo, page 327). The point is, Mr. Kucera
> would never have gotten his exclusive interview with the Albanian
> guerrilla commander unless they were sure they would get favorable
> coverage for their Albanian jihad.
>
> Virtually nothing is being reported today of the barbarity being
> committed against the Serbs, Romanies and non-Albanians by the former
> Kosovo Liberation Army, who are engaged in sex slavery (Albanian Daily
> News, October 5, 2000), prostitution, kidnaping, murder, and rape,
> "Kosovo Rebels Raped Serb Nun, Say French Officials," New York Post, 19
> June 1999. "When they saw us they stopped a while, shouted 'NATO, NATO,'
> and then beat a hasty retreat, the officer said." Over 40% of heroin
> going into Europe comes from Kosovo (the Guardian [UK]). Over
> one-hundred Serbian Orthodox Churches were destroyed during the first
> two months after KFOR entered Kosovo, more than under 500 years of
> Ottoman rule.
>
> Scant attention is being paid to what is happening across the southern
> border in Serbia from Kosovo which threatens to become another Balkan
> war. Where is the coverage by CNN and the other networks that gave us a
> blow-by-blow description that never failed to support their slanted
> anti-Serb view of the war in Kosovo? Where's the outcry from all those
> politicians who were so quick to denounce the Serbs for protecting what
> belonged to them? The Albanian guerrillas known as the Liberation Army
> of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja (UCPMB) and who have fashioned
> themselves after the KLA cutthroats, invited "stringer" Kucera into
> their camp after having invaded Serbia and murdered Serbian police
> officers, something that no sovereign nation can be expected to
> tolerate. In one of the few reports to emerge, an AFP report of 6
> January stated that Albanians now "enjoy new lease of life in border
> zone as an endless column of battered taxis streams along the recently
> repaired dirt road winding through the rebel-held hills of southern
> Serbia, linking ethnic Albanian communities on both sides of the Kosovo
> boundary," as Serb neighbors incredulously watch them "exploiting a
> NATO-enforced demilitarized zone to thumb their noses at government
> forces." "This is unbelievable! The terrorists are at our doorstep,
> getting further with no reaction at all. What is the international
> community doing?" raged a Serb in Bujanovac, just over a mile (two
> kilometers) away from the first rebel road block."
>
> The Serbs have two choices. Unless NATO takes steps to crush the
> Albanian guerrilla insurgents which thus far appears unlikely, the Serb
> paramilitary will be forced to stop Albanian provocations by all means
> necessary for which they will undoubtedly be condemned by the West, just
> as they were condemned in Kosovo for protecting what was theirs. Or they
> will have to resign themselves to the possibility that the West will
> never give them permission to defend themselves by denying them the
> heavy weapons they need to clean house, in which case, the southern
> region of Serbia will go the way of Kosovo. The Albanian guerrillas are
> using the same tactics used by the KLA that won them their successes in
> Kosovo, aided by papers such as the Washington Times whose anti-Serb
> reports routinely include photos of suffering ethnic Albanian women
> and/or children, often on the front page, but almost never a photo of
> even one suffering Serbian woman or child.
>
> With the new democratic president in Serbia, the former Kosovo
> Liberation Army see their chances for an independent Islamic state and a
> Greater Albania slipping through their fingers. Where once KFOR was seen
> as liberators by ethnic Albanians, they are now seen by the KLA as their
> oppressors and are poised to turn their guns on them. "Albanians
> threaten to kill UK peacekeepers" reports the Guardian on 24 December.
> The Daily Telegraph [UK] reported on 22 December, "We'll fight NATO
> troops, warn Albanian rebels," (Is this anyway to treat a friend?).
> "Kosovo Attacks Stir US Concern; Official Says NATO May have to Fight
> Ethnic Albanians," writes the Washington Post on 15 March. Tod Lindberg
> formerly of the Washington Times wrote in his column of 23 May, 2000,
> "Keep peace in Kosovo - Don't bring the boys home yet." He stated in his
> opinion piece, "I explained in this space last week why I thought
> Byrd-Warner was a bad idea." The defeated Byrd-Warner amendment would
> have simply required the president to go before Congress last July to
> justify why our troops should remain in Kosovo. Considering our kids are
> today's target of ethnic Albanians and the KLA, whom they were sent
> there to protect, I ask Mr. Lindberg, "Is NOW the right time to bring
> our "boys" home?" Since his statement only refers to our "boys" coming
> home, does that mean our "girls" get to stay in Kosovo?
>
> The outrage is that we have handed over Serbia's Jerusalem, the seat of
> the Serbian Orthodox Church, to a bunch of KLA narco-terrorists who have
> been turned into heroes by commentators such as Helle Bering, editorial
> page editor of the Washington Times, who, on 18 August 1999, glowingly
> wrote of "My dinner with the KLA, somewhere outside Budapest." Perhaps
> Ms. Bering should be judged by the company she keeps. But the blame game
> continues. In the Times of 2 January, 2001, an editorial once again lays
> all the blame for the tragic events in the Balkans solely on one man,
> "Put Milosevic on trial," without laying any of the blame on Franjo
> Tudjman, former president of Croatia, who would have been indicted by
> the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague if he were still alive,
> according to an AFP report of 8 November, 2000. Nor does it mention the
> role of Bosnian Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic, about whom a
> Deutsche Presse Agentur dispatch of June 6, 1996 wrote, "For the first
> time, a senior UN official has admitted the existence of a secret UN
> report that blames the Bosnian Moslems for the February 1994 massacre of
> Moslems at a Sarajevo [Markale] market, the excuse the US used to bomb
> the Bosnian Serbs." The report continues that the Moslems fired on their
> own people "in order to create international sympathy and get the West
> to fight on their side against the Serbs." Sounds like a war crime to
> me.
>
> The Washington Times does not stand alone guilty in the dismembering of
> a sovereign nation. We can go back as far as 1992 when James Baker,
> former Secretary of State wrote in his book, The Politics of Diplomacy:
> Revolution, war and peace, 1889-1992, "....After the meeting, I had
> Larry Eagleburger take Silajdzic [Bosnian Foreign Minister] to see the
> EC troika political directors (who happened to be visiting the
> Department) and asked Margaret Tutwiler to talk to the Foreign Minister
> about the importance of using Western mass media to build support in
> Europe and North America for the Bosnian cause. I also had her talk to
> her contacts at the four television networks, the Washington Post, and
> the New York Times to try to get more attention focused on the story
> (pg. 643-644)." In other words, we had already taken sides and the Serbs
> never had a chance.
>
> In many ways I regret the extensive criticisms I have of the Washington
> Times regarding its Balkan policy. On many other issues, the Washington
> Times is the only major newspaper that counters the liberal slant of the
> major print and broadcast media. However, I cannot remain silent to the
> fact that this misrepresentation has done a disservice not only to
> innocent victims, but a disservice to its readers. But even more curious
> is the question of what motivates so many journalists to side with such
> gangsters? If I know the truth, surely, they must know it also. However,
> as Adolf Hitler said in 1939, "The great masses of people will more
> easily fall victims to a big lie than to a smaller one." <end>
>
> ..30
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> As a career military officer's wife, Stella Jatras has traveled widely
> and has lived in many foreign countries where she not only learned about
> other cultures but became very knowledgeable regarding world affairs and
> world politics. Stella Jatras lived in Moscow for two years where her
husband,
> George, was the Senior Air Attaché), and while there, worked in the
> Political Section of the US Embassy.
> Stella has also lived in Germany, Greece and Saudi Arabia.
> Her travels took her to over twenty countries.
>
> ----------------
> Further reading:
>
> Norma von Ragenfeld-Feldman:
> THE WAR IN FORMER YUGOSLAVIA AND THE AMERICAN NEWS MEDIA
> http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/LIE/HK/SATAN.html
>
> Peter Brock: The Partisan Press
> http://www.4cbiz.net/kosta/autori/brock.peter/partizan.press.html
> ANTIWAR, Monday, January 15, 2001
>
>
> The Media's War Against the Serbs
>
> by Stella L. Jatras *
>
>
> The media's biased war against the Serbs has been a major factor in the
> dismemberment of the former Yugoslavia and the demonizing of an entire
> nation. One of the best examples of such bias can be found in the
> Washington Times, both in its reporting of events in the Balkans and its
> editorial policy. I single out the Washington Times because it is
> supposedly the "conservative" newspaper, the counter to the liberal news
> that is published in the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the
> rest of the liberal media. Unfortunately, the Washington Times has
> become part of the liberal propaganda machine that helped to bring death
> and suffering to tens of thousands of innocent people.
>
> One explanation for the Times' slanted reporting which agrees with the
> liberal media may be the fact that it depends on "stringers,"
> (reporters) to cover much of its foreign news, specifically in the
> Balkans. This may also explain why its editorial staff has been
> consistently anti-Serb.
>
> In his "World Review" section on 5 March, 2000, the Washington Times'
> Foreign Desk Editor David Jones wrote, "But the stringers quickly lose
> interest in filing to us if we are not buying their stories and putting
> them in the paper." What this tells me is that the bottom line in
> formulating stories has little to do with the truth, or even accuracy,
> but has everything to do with what makes the biggest headlines and
> brings in the most financial rewards for both the "stringer" and the
> Washington Times. How often are these goals achieved by embellishing the
> "facts" to add a little sensationalism?
>
> Case in point. On 6 August 1998, the Washington Times featured
> "stringer" Philip Smucker's exclusive front page headline read: "Kosovar
> bodies bulldozed to dump; Serbs deny massacre, but evidence [not
> "alleged," or "thought-to-be], but "evidence impossible to avoid of mass
> graves containing the bodies of 567." He also claimed that at least half
> of the bodies were those of women and children although, to that point,
> the alleged bodies had not been exhumed. To further embellish his story,
> Smucker went on to say, "Stark evidence in the form of freshly turned
> earth and the overwhelming stench of death has exposed the presence of
> scores of bodies that were bulldozed into a garbage dump after a Serbian
> attack against ethnic Albanian rebels who tried to seize this town."
> Even a photograph accompanied Smucker's article with the caption, "A
> news photographer shoots a picture of fresh graves - some identified
> with ethnic Albanian names - in the Kosovar town of Orahovac," (Kosova
> is the Albanian name given to Kosovo).
>
> However, on the very same day, the Guardian [UK] of 6 August 1998,
> reported, "European Union (EU) observers found no evidence of mass
> graves reported in the town of Orahovac, the teams' Austrian leader,
> Walter Ebenberger, said." In contrast to the front page coverage given
> to Mr. Smucker's intended shock-attention report on Serb atrocities, the
> following day the Washington Times carried a small, barely noticeable
> item hidden on page A15 (World Scene, 7 August 1998), which stated,
> "NATO Chief [Secretary-General Javier Solana] dismissed mass graves in
> Kosovo."
>
> In all honesty, does it not bother the editors at the Washington Times
> that "stringer" Smucker's report of 6 August was a vicious lie? There
> were no mass graves containing the bodies of 567 ethnic Albanian
> victims; but there it was, on the front page. I stand in awe of the fact
> that truth in journalism is what they want it to be, what sells, and
> that articles by Mr. Smucker required, in the Times' judgment, no
> documentation, no verification, no responsibility, and apparently were
> accepted without question. Smucker's was the kind of reporting that
> played right into Clinton's New World Order scheme and at the same time,
> helped to prepare the minds of Americans to accept whatever punishment
> we dished out against the Serbian people, including NATO's 78 days of
> bombing in an unmerciful, unjust and immoral air war led by the United
> States. It was this kind of vile reporting that caused so many people to
> say, "After all, they [the Serbs] deserve it!"
>
> Mr. Jones now informs us that the new "stringer" for the Washington
> Times to replace Philip Smucker, for whom Mr. Jones has only high
> praise, is Joshua Kucera. Of Mr. Kucera, Jones writes: "The interest [in
> the elections throughout Serbia held on 24 December 2000] is so light,
> in fact that our freelance correspondent in the Balkans, Joshua Kucera,
> did not even file on the vote. He left that to the wire services and
> instead spent the day driving through a region held by ethnic-Albanian
> rebels in southern Serbia where he interviewed a rebel commander."
>
> Does anyone seriously believe that, unless Mr. Kucera was sympathetic to
> the Albanian "rebels," he would have been given an interview? No way.
> The "rebels" demand complete loyalty to their cause. In his 31 December
> article in the Times titled "A guerrilla seeks to coexist," Mr. Kucera
> leaves no doubt where his pro-Albanian biases lie when he interviewed
> the Albanian guerrilla leader, Cmdr. Lleshi, "a Fidel Castro
> look-alike," in the southern border of Serbia. "Coexist" my foot! What's
> an Albanian doing in Serbia anyway, other than to wage war against the
> Serbs? Mr. Kucera's article was accompanied by a photo of an Albanian
> house that had been sacked by Serbs, another ploy by the Washington
> Times to gain sympathy for the Albanian rebels' cause, rather than show
> photos of dead Serbian police officers who were murdered by Lleshi's
> thugs or any photos of the destruction of Serbian homes.
>
> Where is the coverage of the continued violence in Kosovo where recently
> two elderly Serbs were dragged from their homes and their throats
> slashed, killing the husband while the wife remained in critical
> condition in a hospital? (AFP, 29 Dec 2000). Why were there no photos of
> this Serbian woman's suffering? Probably because she was not an
> Albanian. But again, the Washington Times lives up to its own anti-Serb
> bias by giving Mr. Kucera extensive coverage of what the Albanians want;
> yet in his article, he did not interview one Serb.
>
> It seems that the Times reporters have learned that it doesn't pay to be
> impartial in the Balkans. Remember Canadian Major General Lewis
> MacKenzie? General MacKenzie was the first UNPROFOR commander in Bosnia
> who made the mistake of saying that all sides were doing terrible
> things. For this, the Bosnian Muslim government demanded that General
> MacKenzie be removed as UNPROFOR commander. Furthermore, he was falsely
> accused of having raped and murdered four Muslim women (from his book,
> Peacekeeper, the Road to Sarajevo, page 327). The point is, Mr. Kucera
> would never have gotten his exclusive interview with the Albanian
> guerrilla commander unless they were sure they would get favorable
> coverage for their Albanian jihad.
>
> Virtually nothing is being reported today of the barbarity being
> committed against the Serbs, Romanies and non-Albanians by the former
> Kosovo Liberation Army, who are engaged in sex slavery (Albanian Daily
> News, October 5, 2000), prostitution, kidnaping, murder, and rape,
> "Kosovo Rebels Raped Serb Nun, Say French Officials," New York Post, 19
> June 1999. "When they saw us they stopped a while, shouted 'NATO, NATO,'
> and then beat a hasty retreat, the officer said." Over 40% of heroin
> going into Europe comes from Kosovo (the Guardian [UK]). Over
> one-hundred Serbian Orthodox Churches were destroyed during the first
> two months after KFOR entered Kosovo, more than under 500 years of
> Ottoman rule.
>
> Scant attention is being paid to what is happening across the southern
> border in Serbia from Kosovo which threatens to become another Balkan
> war. Where is the coverage by CNN and the other networks that gave us a
> blow-by-blow description that never failed to support their slanted
> anti-Serb view of the war in Kosovo? Where's the outcry from all those
> politicians who were so quick to denounce the Serbs for protecting what
> belonged to them? The Albanian guerrillas known as the Liberation Army
> of Presevo, Bujanovac and Medvedja (UCPMB) and who have fashioned
> themselves after the KLA cutthroats, invited "stringer" Kucera into
> their camp after having invaded Serbia and murdered Serbian police
> officers, something that no sovereign nation can be expected to
> tolerate. In one of the few reports to emerge, an AFP report of 6
> January stated that Albanians now "enjoy new lease of life in border
> zone as an endless column of battered taxis streams along the recently
> repaired dirt road winding through the rebel-held hills of southern
> Serbia, linking ethnic Albanian communities on both sides of the Kosovo
> boundary," as Serb neighbors incredulously watch them "exploiting a
> NATO-enforced demilitarized zone to thumb their noses at government
> forces." "This is unbelievable! The terrorists are at our doorstep,
> getting further with no reaction at all. What is the international
> community doing?" raged a Serb in Bujanovac, just over a mile (two
> kilometers) away from the first rebel road block."
>
> The Serbs have two choices. Unless NATO takes steps to crush the
> Albanian guerrilla insurgents which thus far appears unlikely, the Serb
> paramilitary will be forced to stop Albanian provocations by all means
> necessary for which they will undoubtedly be condemned by the West, just
> as they were condemned in Kosovo for protecting what was theirs. Or they
> will have to resign themselves to the possibility that the West will
> never give them permission to defend themselves by denying them the
> heavy weapons they need to clean house, in which case, the southern
> region of Serbia will go the way of Kosovo. The Albanian guerrillas are
> using the same tactics used by the KLA that won them their successes in
> Kosovo, aided by papers such as the Washington Times whose anti-Serb
> reports routinely include photos of suffering ethnic Albanian women
> and/or children, often on the front page, but almost never a photo of
> even one suffering Serbian woman or child.
>
> With the new democratic president in Serbia, the former Kosovo
> Liberation Army see their chances for an independent Islamic state and a
> Greater Albania slipping through their fingers. Where once KFOR was seen
> as liberators by ethnic Albanians, they are now seen by the KLA as their
> oppressors and are poised to turn their guns on them. "Albanians
> threaten to kill UK peacekeepers" reports the Guardian on 24 December.
> The Daily Telegraph [UK] reported on 22 December, "We'll fight NATO
> troops, warn Albanian rebels," (Is this anyway to treat a friend?).
> "Kosovo Attacks Stir US Concern; Official Says NATO May have to Fight
> Ethnic Albanians," writes the Washington Post on 15 March. Tod Lindberg
> formerly of the Washington Times wrote in his column of 23 May, 2000,
> "Keep peace in Kosovo - Don't bring the boys home yet." He stated in his
> opinion piece, "I explained in this space last week why I thought
> Byrd-Warner was a bad idea." The defeated Byrd-Warner amendment would
> have simply required the president to go before Congress last July to
> justify why our troops should remain in Kosovo. Considering our kids are
> today's target of ethnic Albanians and the KLA, whom they were sent
> there to protect, I ask Mr. Lindberg, "Is NOW the right time to bring
> our "boys" home?" Since his statement only refers to our "boys" coming
> home, does that mean our "girls" get to stay in Kosovo?
>
> The outrage is that we have handed over Serbia's Jerusalem, the seat of
> the Serbian Orthodox Church, to a bunch of KLA narco-terrorists who have
> been turned into heroes by commentators such as Helle Bering, editorial
> page editor of the Washington Times, who, on 18 August 1999, glowingly
> wrote of "My dinner with the KLA, somewhere outside Budapest." Perhaps
> Ms. Bering should be judged by the company she keeps. But the blame game
> continues. In the Times of 2 January, 2001, an editorial once again lays
> all the blame for the tragic events in the Balkans solely on one man,
> "Put Milosevic on trial," without laying any of the blame on Franjo
> Tudjman, former president of Croatia, who would have been indicted by
> the UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague if he were still alive,
> according to an AFP report of 8 November, 2000. Nor does it mention the
> role of Bosnian Muslim president, Alija Izetbegovic, about whom a
> Deutsche Presse Agentur dispatch of June 6, 1996 wrote, "For the first
> time, a senior UN official has admitted the existence of a secret UN
> report that blames the Bosnian Moslems for the February 1994 massacre of
> Moslems at a Sarajevo [Markale] market, the excuse the US used to bomb
> the Bosnian Serbs." The report continues that the Moslems fired on their
> own people "in order to create international sympathy and get the West
> to fight on their side against the Serbs." Sounds like a war crime to
> me.
>
> The Washington Times does not stand alone guilty in the dismembering of
> a sovereign nation. We can go back as far as 1992 when James Baker,
> former Secretary of State wrote in his book, The Politics of Diplomacy:
> Revolution, war and peace, 1889-1992, "....After the meeting, I had
> Larry Eagleburger take Silajdzic [Bosnian Foreign Minister] to see the
> EC troika political directors (who happened to be visiting the
> Department) and asked Margaret Tutwiler to talk to the Foreign Minister
> about the importance of using Western mass media to build support in
> Europe and North America for the Bosnian cause. I also had her talk to
> her contacts at the four television networks, the Washington Post, and
> the New York Times to try to get more attention focused on the story
> (pg. 643-644)." In other words, we had already taken sides and the Serbs
> never had a chance.
>
> In many ways I regret the extensive criticisms I have of the Washington
> Times regarding its Balkan policy. On many other issues, the Washington
> Times is the only major newspaper that counters the liberal slant of the
> major print and broadcast media. However, I cannot remain silent to the
> fact that this misrepresentation has done a disservice not only to
> innocent victims, but a disservice to its readers. But even more curious
> is the question of what motivates so many journalists to side with such
> gangsters? If I know the truth, surely, they must know it also. However,
> as Adolf Hitler said in 1939, "The great masses of people will more
> easily fall victims to a big lie than to a smaller one." <end>
>
> ..30
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> As a career military officer's wife, Stella Jatras has traveled widely
> and has lived in many foreign countries where she not only learned about
> other cultures but became very knowledgeable regarding world affairs and
> world politics. Stella Jatras lived in Moscow for two years where her
husband,
> George, was the Senior Air Attaché), and while there, worked in the
> Political Section of the US Embassy.
> Stella has also lived in Germany, Greece and Saudi Arabia.
> Her travels took her to over twenty countries.
>
> ----------------
> Further reading:
>
> Norma von Ragenfeld-Feldman:
> THE WAR IN FORMER YUGOSLAVIA AND THE AMERICAN NEWS MEDIA
> http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/LIE/HK/SATAN.html
>
> Peter Brock: The Partisan Press
> http://www.4cbiz.net/kosta/autori/brock.peter/partizan.press.html