Still in Denial

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Monday, June 6 2011
Pope Bendict XVI just wrapped up a visit to Croatia today. While Catholic reporters emphasized the pontiff's message about the importance of family, a few reporters here and there noted the controversial praising of Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac.

Roman Catholics may believe their pontiff is incapable of error on matters religious. He definitely can - and does - err on matters historical. Far from being "manipulated by Hitler for his own ends," the so-called Independent State of Croatia (1941-45) was considered at the time the crowning achievement of Croatians' legitimate aspirations to statehood. That very opinion has been shared by all the governments of modern Croatia, from its independence in 1991 onward.....more....
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http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2011/06/still-in-denial.html

Lawrence Eagleburger and the Murder of Yugoslavia

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Lawrence Eagleburger passed away today at his estate in Virginia, at age 80.

He had been Washington's envoy to Yugoslavia twice, spending seven years in Belgrade altogether. After retiring in 1984, he returned to the State Department in 1989, as James Baker's right hand. Eagleburger was acting Secretary for a while, and actually held the post for just over a month, from December 1992 to January 1993.

Today's NY Times obituary claims Eagleburger "was unable to keep Yugoslavia from dissolving" in the early 1990s. Well, here's an interesting question: did he even try?....more....
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http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2011/06/lawrence-eagleburger-and-murder-of.html

Mladic

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It just occurred to me this morning that I haven't written anything here about last week's arrest of Gen. Ratko Mladic. I've been busy commenting elsewhere - appearing on RT twice so far, writing three articles for the audiences in Serbia, and putting together a column on Mladic for Antiwar.com - and between all that, this particular venue got neglected.

I don't think I've seen this kind of venom and hatred, in such amounts, in the media since the Karadzic arrest in 2008. What happened in Bosnia was tragic and horrible enough, it doesn't need embellishment. I understand perfectly why the Muslims, Croats or Albanians would exaggerate or invent Serb atrocities - it's all part of the war effort, and these days, the camera is mightier than the cannon. But what drives American, and especially British reporters to simply make stuff up? Could it be that, without a villain, they - and the governments they shill for - can't posture as heroes?...more....
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http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2011/06/mladic.html

Empire's Favorite "Serb"

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One of the most polarizing politicians in Serbia today is the leader of the "Liberal Democratic Party" (which is neither liberal nor democratic) Cedomir Jovanovic (Chedomyr Yovanovich). He's never done a day of honest work, leaping from the ranks of student protesters in 1996 to spearhead the October 2000 coup, and then to serve Serbian PM Zoran Djindjic as liaison with mob bosses and warlords. Djindjic eventually threw him under the metaphorical bus, but Jovanovic resurfaced after Djindjic was shot, claiming to be the truest heir to his legacy. Other members of the Democratic Party thought otherwise, and Jovanovic left in a huff to form his own party....more...

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http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2011/03/empires-favorite-serb.html

TANJUG or TANK?

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Starting off the new year is this interesting news item:
"The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kosovo on Tuesday passed a regulation which prohibits the movement in the province of vehicles with new Serbian Interior Ministry (MUP) license plates inscribed with the first letters of the Kosovo cities on them.The license plates are being issued by MUP since the beginning of 2011, and the regulation was issued by outgoing Interior Minister of Kosovo Bajram Redzepi."

If you thought this originated somewhere in the self-proclaimed "Republic of Kosovo," you would be wrong, however. The source of this story is the Serbian state news agency, Tanjug.

That, by the way, should be written TANJUG, as it stands for "Telegraphic Agency of the New JUGoslavia." With Yugoslavia gone the way of the telegraph, some may question the reason for Tanjug's continued existence. But how then, I ask you, would the Serbian public be brainwashed into accepting the "Republic of Kosovo" as an actual state?

Over the past 15 years or so, I've become intimately acquainted with the Western news media. There is nothing inherently evil about the inverted-pyramid structure of the news story; it does precisely what it was designed to do, leading with the important information and providing the details later. The real trick is choosing the words and phrases to plug into the template. Search engines are a wonderful thing. They can show us how many ostensibly independent and separate news outlets have used the exact same, or sufficiently similar, phrases to describe an event or persons involved, often indicating that the original phrasing came from the same source.

Words have power. Compare the effects of calling someone a "war criminal" or "war crimes indictee" with a more accurate (but oh-so-not-demonizing) "defendant" or "suspect." Designated victims are never "breakaways" or "rebels" - those terms are reserved for the designated enemies. By calling the Muslims of Bosnia "Bosnians" and the Albanians "Kosovars," the Anglophone media have deliberately endorsed these groups' claim to the territories in question. One famous example of how deep this deception went was the 1990s argument that the US should have bombed the Serbs "as soon as they crossed the border" of Bosnia. Given that the Serb presence in Bosnia dates back to the first mention of the word "Bosnia" in recorded history, the US would have needed a time machine for the task...

Long story short, by using the terms such as "Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kosovo" and recognizing Rexhepi as a government official, Tanjug is implicitly recognizing the legitimacy of the state declared by the Albanians in the occupied Serbian province. As is the Serbian Secretary for Kosovo-Metohija Oliver Ivanovic, whom the article quotes describing Rexhepi as an "outgoing minister who now holds his mandate only in technical terms.”...more...

http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2011/01/tanjug-or-tank.html

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http://grayfalcon.blogspot.com/2011/01/tanjug-or-tank.html