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All brasscheck.com dispatches on the US-led
attack on Yugoslavia are available, complete
with index, at http://www.brasscheck.com/yugoslavia
Please inform your friends, colleagues, and
others who you think might care.
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June 8, 1999

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"The targets in the assault on Yugoslavia appear
to be similar to those singled out during the
assaults on Iraq in the 1990s and Nicaragua in
the 1980s (not to mention the mini-assault on Sudan
last year): basic economic and social service
infrastructure." Brasscheck - March 30, 1999
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The US media in the war's service

Is it news or propaganda? - Episode 273

FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting)
did an online search of the major US news
outlets including the New York Times, the 
Washington Post, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, and PBS's 
NewsHour to look for reporting on last
Saturday's peace marches in Washington DC,
San Francisco, and elsewhere.

The results? Zero. No reports, not even a 
passing mention.  

How many readers remember the multi-day
coverage of a very minor protest in
Belgrade that took place a few weeks ago?
A few hundred people there protested conscription.
If I recall correctly, that story made the AP.

I guess in the case of the New York Times,
its editors were too busy Saturday crafting 
headlines like: "Now, onward to the next 
Kosovo." (See "Week in Review" June 6, 1999)

Anyone surprised by this should review the
record of the major US news media during the
1930s. They lionized Mussolini and news 
services like Hearst's were actually in
the employ of the Nazi government. This
episode was best documented by George Seldes
in "Even the Gods Can't Change History" 
Seldes was publisher of "In fact" authored 
numerous books on the US news media. The 
mention of his name was officially banned 
from the New York Times for several decades 
as the result of his pointed, and accurate, 
criticizm of that paper. 
http://www.brasscheck.com/seldes/

For more information on the blackout of
the US war protest story see: 
http://www.fair.org/activism/march.html

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Fortunately, not all US media outlets
are dispensing propaganda...

More valuable contributions from CounterPunch:

1. The complete text of Regis Debray's
letter to French President Chirac on his
seven day tour of Kosovo in early May.

The existence of this letter and reference
to its contents was mentioned briefly by Reuters
(by its entertainment bureau!) about a month 
ago. That story was followed up by news
wire accounts documenting attacks on Debray,
declaring that his act of bearing witness 
to the events in Kosovo was the equivalent of 
"intellectual suicide."

Now English readers can read the letter for 
themselves and make up their own minds:

http://www.counterpunch.org/debray.html

2. "The Twilight of the European Project:
by Peter Gowan currently in the CounterPunch
home page.

This essay is among the best accounts of
how the war came about and why.

Excerpts:

How the shooting started

"...the signal for the Serbian government to launch its 
counter-insurgency (in Kosovo) came...from Albright's own 
State Department. This signal was given by the United 
States special envoy to the region, Ambassador Gelbard. 
The BBC correspondent in Belgrade reported that Gelbard 
flew into Belgrade to brand the KLA as a terrorist group.

"I know a terrorist when I see one and these men are 
terrorists," he said...At the time, the KLA was believed 
to number just a several hundred armed men. Mr. Gelbard's 
words were interpreted in the Yugoslav capital, Belgrade, 
as a green light for a security forces operation against 
the KLA..."

(Students of the Iraq War will remember the Bush Administration
used a similar tactic virtually inviting Saddam Hussein to invade
Kuwait.)

Refugee camps by design 

"... when the bombing started, it was organised so 
that the Serbian authorities could continue to have a
free hand in Kosovo for more than a week. The air war's
first phase was directed largely at targets outside the
Kosovo theatre itself for a full week...

It is simply impossible to argue that the US military 
campaign was designed to stop the brutalities against 
the Kosovo Albanians. It would be far easier to demonstrate
that this thoroughly planned and prepared war was designed 
to increase the chances of such brutalities being escalated
to qualitatively higher levels. The way that the war was
launched was designed to increase the sufferings of the 
Kosovar Albanians in order to justify an open-ended US 
bombing campaign against the Serbian state."

The bottom line

"The moral and political consequences of this war for 
Europe are terrible to contemplate. The hopes of a better
future for the continent 10 years ago are over."

http://www.counterpunch.org

And, lest we forget what this is all about,
a current accounting of the number of civilians - 
men, women, boys and girls - killed and injured 
by the daily NATO bombings. Includes the cities, 
towns, and villages targeted and the weapons used.

http://www.counterpunch.org/dead.html

More important information: 

http://www.counterpunch.org/serbia.html