My bad. I interview John Feffer about his book on North Korea. Philip B Heymann
was the expert in global terrorism.
Sorry about the error.
K
----- Original Message ----
From: Kevin White <cuitlacoche1@xxxxxxxxx>
To: NewPacifica@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 5:58:56 PM
Subject: Re: [NewPacifica] Herman to Feffer re Yugoslavia
I interviewed John Feffer on KPFT a few years ago. He was pretty cool up until
I asked him if corporate behavior abroad might be a motivator for international
terrorism.
He said no.
Strange opinion from an "International Expert of Global Terrorism."
K
----- Original Message ----
From: Joseph Wanzala <wanzala@gmail. com>
To: NewPacifica@ yahoogroups. com
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 5:37:30 PM
Subject: Re: [NewPacifica] Herman to Feffer re Yugoslavia
Ed Herman to John
show details 12:31 PM (3 hours ago) Reply
John Feffer
Foreign Policy in Focus
May 27, 2008
Dear John:
I was shocked once again to see your latest dealing with Yugoslavia,
in "Books Not Bombs" (World Beat, May 5,. 2008), which is published
without any "balance," and in my judgment is not only "conventional"
rather than "unconventional wisdom," but is larded with pro-NATO and
pro-US bias and errors. Let me review some points here.
In my recent letter to you expressing the view that you never depart
from the establishment narrative on Yugoslavia, I asked whether you
had read my long attack on that narrative in the October Monthly
Review (Edward S. Herman and David Peterson, "The Dismantling of
Yugoslavia") , and asked where you found errors or contestable points
in that document, which was based on extensive research. I find it
interesting that your reply says that you "received" the article but
fails to state that you actually read it. I would wager that you
haven't read it up to this very moment . I asked whether you had read
five other books that I consider very important in criticizing that
establishment narrative, and you failed to answer—and your current
piece, as I will explain below, strongly suggests that you never
touched Mandel's fine book How America Gets Away With Murder, that has
an excellent discussion of the difference between "deliberate"
killing and "collateral damage," the latter overlapping a bit with
your notion that the US inaction in Iraq on the library destruction
was only "stupid." And your treatment of Bosnia and the Yugoslav
Tribunal indicates that you have almost surely never read Laughland's
Travesty, Diana Johnstone's Fools' Crusade, or John Schindler's
Unholy Terror (or my book reviews of these, which I sent to you), and
reconfirms the likelihood that you never looked at the Herman-Peterson
analysis. Bias thrives on eye aversion from materials that throw that
bias into question. But this procedure is terrific for sustaining
conventional wisdom.
Also interesting: you invited me to contribute, along with somebody
who would debate my points—but why do you feel no obligation to
present an opposing viewpoint when you present your own views on
Yugoslavia, which in my opinion are deeply biased and uninformed?
Getting to substantive matters:
1. You say the Sarajevo library was destroyed by the Serbs
"deliberately, " in contrast with the destruction of the Iraqi
National Library destroyed because of U.S. "stupidity." How do you
know that the Sarajevo library was destroyed deliberately? A man I
know, who I trust and is very well informed on Bosnia, who was a
native of Sarajevo and present there during the war, tells me that
"The library in question was located inside the Town Hall, a building
erected by Austria-Hungary in the late 19th century. It was similar in
construction to most homes in the older part of Sarajevo - brick and
mortar exterior, wooden beams and packed earth as floors. The library
was hit by artillery in May 1992. It was probably Serb - the Bosnian
Serbs never denied shell ing the city, but claimed they were only
attacking known positions of Bosnian Muslim troops (which had a habit
of locating their firing positions inside hospitals, hotels, civilian
homes, monuments, etc.). The pattern in which the Town Hall burned
suggests a fire breaking out as a result of the shelling, and the
books and the wooden beams providing the fuel. Yes, the Muslims claim
the Serbs used incendiary rounds to deliberately set it on fire - but
given that dozens of Austrian-era buildings burned in the same exact
way as a result of ordinary high explosive (HE) artillery hits
suggests otherwise. Speaking of which, the fact that the Town Hall has
not been rebuilt yet is due to the Muslim authorities being unable to
decide what to do with the building - the Austrian government has
already offered funds for its reconstruction. " In short, the only
"evidence" that the Serbs specifically aimed at the library wer e
assertions to that effect by Bosnian Muslim officials. These you
accept as true, despite the massive record of lying by Bosnian Muslim
authorities attested to by U.S. Lieutenant-Colonel John Sray, John
Schindler, and a whole slew of UN and UNPROFOR officials who were in
Bosnia at the time. Quite a few of these are cited in Peter Brock's
book Media Cleansing and in Sray's writings (see his "Selling the
Bosnian Myth to America: Buyer Beware," October, 1995).
2. You contrast Serb deliberateness with U.S. stupidity in Iraq. This
is a form of apologetics for this country's policies in Iraq. For one
thing, the failure to protect the cultural facilities of Iraq was a
policy choice and decision made on high, paralleling the clear action
to protect the oil fields, oil ministry and interior ministry. There
had been extensive pre-invasion efforts of culturally interested
persons in the US to get U.S. officials to protect museums and other
sites, and promises were extracted, that were not fulfilled. This is
not stupidity, anymore than a policeman watching a rape and doing
nothing is merely being stupid. Furthermore, you seem unaware of the
fact that not only did looting continue throughout Iraq, U.S. forces
did serious damage to important sites like Babylon by locating bases
adjacent to the sites, using materials from those sites, and allowing
personnel to mess them up, as described in a telling chapter in
Chalmers Johnson's book Nemesis. This is not stupidity.
3. While you mention the general costs of the U.S.
invasion-occupation , your adjectives in describing our policies never
go beyond "stupid." The Serbs allegedly "deliberately" destroyed a
library, but where is your adjectival description of the U.S.
"supreme international crime," its prisons, its weaponry and weaponry
use in civilian-packed areas, or its beyond-Guernica destruction of
Falluja, and its current destruction of Sadr city?
4. Have you ever said anything harshly critical of the Bosnian
Muslims, Croatians, or Kosovo Albanians? Are they just victims of a
genocidal Serb force? Have you ever mentioned Izetbegovic' s Islamic
Declaration, republished in Bosnia in 1990, where he states very
clearly that his Islam cannot tolerate other political tendencies? Are
you aware that he rejected a series of Bosnian Serb efforts to come
to some kind of accord before any serious fighting took place, and
with the encouragement of the US withdrew from the Lisbon Accord in
1992, which many experts believe was a crucial moment in assuring war
and ethnic cleansing? Have you ever remarked on his links to
Khomeini's Iran and Saudi Arabia, his acceptance and welcoming of
thousands of mujahadeen as fighters, his solid relationship with Osama
bin Laden, the granting of Bosnian passports to many hundreds or more
of Islamic jihad fighters, and the fact that the chief planner and
two participants in 9/11 had training in Bosnia? John Schindler's
book's main theme is that Izetbegovic' s Bosnia served to introduce
Al-Qaeda to Europe in quite analogous fashion with the U.S.-Pakistani
buildup of these forces in Afghanistan. Have you ever addressed this?
Schindler's book also devotes several compelling pages to the Bosnian
Muslim (Izetbegovic) ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Sarajevo both
during the conflict and after Dayton, a brutal and pretty
comprehensive cleansing that can compete with Bosnian Serb efforts
across the board. Were you aware of this? It of course flies in the
face of idiotic claims of people like Rieff and Vulliamy that
Izetbegovic' s Bosnia was a tolerant multi-cultural haven, which was
contradicted even in writing by the Islamic Declaration.
Pre-Izetbegovic Bosnia under Yugoslav authority was in that category,
but that was precisely what Izetbegovic and his clique didn't want and
succeeded in destroying. Did you know that Serbia proper was the only
area among Croatia, Kosovo, Serbia and Bosnia where no ethnic
cleansing whatsoever took place during the Balkan wars? Peterson and I
discuss these matters at length in our article, and they are addressed
in Schindler and in other books I mentioned.
5. Have you ever featured the fact that the largest ethnic cleansing
in the Balkan wars was that of Serbs from Krajina in August 1995,
carried out with U.S. assistance, killing several thousand and pushing
out some 250,000? Almost none of these have been allowed to return.
Have you ever mentioned and decried the fact that although Bill
Clinton said that we went to war in Kosovo to create a "multi-ethnic
and tolerant" Kosovo, Kosovo was subject to the greatest proportionate
ethnic cleansing of the Balkan wars, that included Roma as well as
Serbs and others? Here again, as in Croatia, and in contrast with
Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo Albanians in Kosovo, there has been no
right of return and of course no attempt to enforce any such right by
the "international community." Why do the Roma deserve such
treatment? Ian Williams suggested that the Serbs--and he never
distinguishes ordinary civilians from anybody else--deserved this and
should be reconciled to a permanent exit from both Croatia and Kosovo
(see his "Waging Diplomatic War," Salon.com, June 9, 1999).
6. It is clear from your writing that you consider the Yugoslav
Tribunal an instrument of justice, so that forcing the Serbs to cough
up two "indicted criminals" before being admitted to the EU community
is appropriate. I've written a lot on this and consider this
outrageous nonsense. Again, obviously you never read Laughland's
Travesty, or Mandel's superb account, which I think an intelligent
person like you would find hard to dismiss, if you looked at them.
Peterson and I also deal with this issue at some length. Were you
aware of the fact that the May 27, 1999 indictment of Milosevic was
based on information supplied by the US and UK intelligence services,
unverified by the ICTY, and that it was timed to coincide with NATO's
turn to bombing Serb civilian facilities, so that the ICTY was not
only servicing NATO's violation of the UN Charter but helping cover up
specific war crimes? Were you aware of the fact that Milosevic was
indicted on a charge of responsibility for 344 civilian deaths in
Kosovo, but that a detailed petition that NATO be charged was
dismissed in part on the ground with only 495 "documented" deaths and
895 wounded "there is simply no crime base for charges of genocide or
crimes against humanity…" There is lots of similar comedy in the ICTY
performance that Mandel shows clearly was the actions of a political
arm of NATO and a war facilitator.
7. Have you ever read and cited Jan Oberg's work on international
affairs? He is a veteran Swedish analyst of the Balkans and has a
peace perspective and associated writers that an unconventional web
site should surely be taking into account. A recent relevant piece by
Oberg is: "Kosovo - what the international 'community' never
understood," TFF, May 16, 2008.
8. The fact of the matter is that as far as I can see FPIF has a
tradition of completely bypassing "unconventional" authors and
opinion on Yugoslavia and sticking with those who follow the
mainstream narrative and de facto party line. Your predecessor, John
Gershman, located Institute for War & Peace Reporting veterans Stacy
Sullivan ("Has the Prosecution Made the Case?" February 19, 2004) and
Chris Stephen (e.g., "Belgrade Faces Indictee Dilemma," October 29,
2003), as well as Human Rights Watch's Fred Abrahams (e.g., "Kosovo,"
Jan. 1, 2002; "Kosovo's Tricky Waltz," February 7, 2007), to write on
this subject. These are truly conventional sources: IWPR is funded by
nine Western governments, the NED, the International Republican
Institute, and Soros's Open Society Institute, among others, and
follows closely the party lines of NATO governments. Human Rights
Watch, while it does some good things, has strong links to the U.S.
government, and has done exceptionally badly in dealing with
Yugoslavia, as shown in detail in Edward S. Herman, David Peterson,
and George Szamuely, "Human Rights Watch in Service to the War Party,"
Electric Politics, February 26, 2007. In any case, Gershman saw no
need to seek any "balance;" the mainstream narrative has been truly
hegemonic, even for liberals and much of the left, as Peterson and I
detail in our piece on "The Dismantling of Yugoslavia" (although
Gershman did allow me and George Szamuely to reply to Sullivan's
piece.)
In "Dismantling Yugoslavia" Peterson and I had an entire paragraph
devoted to the sorry performance of Ian Williams, who continues to
write on this subject for FPIF, again without any "unconventional"
responses. He was your uncontested commentator on the declaration of
independence in Kosovo ("A New Kosovo," February 20, 2008). I don't
believe bringing on Stephen Zunes, who is hardly a specialist in
Yugoslavia, for a "strategic dialogue" with Williams, added any touch
of unconventionality or enlightenment to your treatment of the
issues (Ian Williams and Stephen Zunes, "Strategic Dialogue: Kosovo,"
February 29, 2008). Diana Johnstone and George Szamuely had
enlightening articles on this subject, but they are too unconventional
for FPIF. (Here are three by Johnstone, which I would urge you to
read and compare in quality and insight with those you published:
"Great Power Meddling in Kosovo," CounterPunch, June 2/3, 2007; "The
Next Kosovo War," CounterPunch, December 12, 2007; "NATO's Kosovo
Colony," CounterPunch, February 18, 2008.)
9. In short, a whole panoply of legitimate, critical alternative
voices exists that FPIF almost never invites to share their
observations on the former Yugoslavia. The ones I have named
specifically here tower above Williams, Zunes, Sullivan and Abraham in
knowledgeability and coherence on the subject, as well as conveying
lines of thought that are both unconventional, persuasive and much
needed to counter a very contestable mainstream narrative. I think
that you and your colleagues at FPIF need to rethink your handling
of this area. It has no element of unconventionality associated with
it, and frankly it fails your readers both intellectually and morally.
Best,
Ed Herman
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