Subject: SIT 2-8-2001: Kosovo: Liberals Are Recycling Atrocity Propaganda Date: 2/8/01 6:30 PM Received: 2/8/01 7:42 PM From: ben works, BenWorks@aol.com To: ben works, BenWorks@aol.com SIRIUS: The Strategic Issues Research Institute Benjamin C. Works, Director 703 415-1191; www.siri-us.com; E-mail: Benworks@AOL.Com --Speak the Truth and Shame the Devil-- STRATEGIC ISSUES TODAY SIT 2-8-2001: Kosovo: Liberals Are Recycling Atrocity Propaganda With the Bush Administration just moving into office, on Jan.25th, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) and National Public Radio (NPR) ran an investigative report on alleged atrocities in Kosovo, reviving the long-disproved allegation that Serbian security forces had incinerated as many as 1500 dead Albanian massacre victims' bodies at the lead refinery in the Trepca Mine complex, near Kosovska Mitrovica. The idea of the original propaganda, was to portray the Serbs acting like the Nazi death squads of World War 2; Trepca was the latest "Auschwitz." Five days into the Bush Administration, the liberal establishment aligned with the Clinton war party, revived this propaganda, as Bush quietly goes about "adjusting" our Balkan policy more in line with the factual realities in the Balkans. The MPR/NPR report was based on work by an affiliated contractor, "American Radioworks (ARW)," which maintains these internet addresses and displays their detailed report, based mostly on a couple of Serbs who bragged about being special "paramilitaries" for Slobodan Milosevic: www.americanradioworks.org http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/kosovo/burning_ evidence/index.html To further substantiate their storyline, ARW http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/kosovo/burning_ evidence/ap_story_01 .html The story was immediately and contradicted by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, which provides monitors and other support staff to the UN and NATO operations running the curious Viceroyalty in Kosovo (news report appended). But then the fun began of playing with a recycled story. The Pseudo Event: Let me say first that I have long understood and have tried to make clear to my readers that virtually nothing undertaken by governments or businesses is random, or "news." It is all managed by press release and the many tools of public relations and nothing is left to "chance" if it can be managed. Natural disasters, crimes and the outcomes of battles are random news events, but nothing in our civil life is left to pure chance. I have just uncovered a classic study of this phenomenon, that perfectly documents what I have been assembling --reinventing the wheel-- for several years. And it is by a man whom I respect greatly and who stands above reproach. In 1962, Daniel J Boorstin, then a professor of history at Yale, subsequently the Librarian of Congress, wrote a study entitled, "The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America." The volume was reissued in 1987 and remains in print to this day in German, as well as English (a trade paper edition costs $15.68-shipped by Amazon.com). I received my copy this morning and have not yet finished it, but it is a thorough documentation that corroborates and extend what I have learned in ten years with CBS Radio and FoxNews. I will write more on this in future issues, but the nub is that Boorstin already identified that the science of public relations and pseudo events progresses rapidly. It has progressed further since his original work and re-issue. He distinguishes the pseudo event from propaganda, by the one "simplifying" an event and, the other "complicating" and obfuscating an initiative. In the Kosovo Air War, the Swiss Bank Extortion and other Clintonian operations, foreign and domestic (and there are many others I can enumerate), the two antitheses, at last, are combined in the ultimate extension of the artful science of news management. --Oddly, Boorstin never refers to George Orwell's earlier exploration of this subject, and Orwell knew this, too. I recommend his essays "Politics and the English Language," and "The Prevention of Literature," in particular. MPR/NPR and Trepca: The story is interesting in several regards, as even NATO's propaganda mill, at the height of the 1999 war, only estimated 700-750 bodies disposed this way. So off the bat, the investigative report doubled the previous "official" estimate. Further, the story has long-since been debunked by the OSCE, the French investigators and other public and inside sources. Curiously, in October 1998, a few months before the war, Yugoslavia demonstrated that the KLA had, itself, incinerated Serb corpses at a kiln near Klecka, and had disposed of other Serb bodies in a nearby lime pit. The KLA was imitating their SS grandfathers and the "einsatzgruppen" operations of World War II, when evidence of early massacres of Jews were dug up and cremated, to destroy evidence. When the NATO Air War began in late March 1999, NATO (the US, really) had "perfect" surveillance of Kosovo through our US military satellites, radar, infra-red and other sensors. The infra-red data provide a record of the heat signitures in Kosovo from March through June, when NATO ground forces entered the dysfunctional province and began the UN occupation. Infra-Red imagery proves conclusively, whether a heating operation has worked, or not, within a discrete period of time --steel takes many hours to cool back down to "background" temperature levels, as any child who has touched a hot stove, would know. MPR/NPR alleges, from its "credible" Serb sources, that some 1500 Albanian "victim" corpses were exhumed and incinerated --Auschwitz style-- at the Trepca Lead smelter. US satellites and other sources say otherwise. One of the peculiar benefits of toiling away at SIRIUS is that we get the truth from US military officers, Yugoslav diplomats and other knowledgeable sources. SIRIUS works very hard to be honest, objective and dispassionate. It works out. Serbs and Serbian Americans would be tickled to know what I have learned from officers at NATO who knew how President Clinton's gang of buccaneers led this lethal confrontation so badly awry. SIRIUS learns important things from Russian paratroopers, American tank officers, and other factual sources. In the case of this latest revival and regurgitation of the Trepca Mine pseudo-atrocity, I got in touch with a US military source who is also involved with the use of depleted Uranium ammunition in Iraq and Kosovo, with the "Bomb Damage Survey" of Kosovo, conducted in June 1999, and with how the entire NATO bombing campaign was conducted. I also heard from a second US officer who worked the NATO air war and from a third officer still inside the NATO-SHAPE headquarters (SHAPE is the military Headquarters and stands for Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers --Europe). These men know how few Serb tanks were destroyed and also know how NATO screwed up so much that it destroyed the Chinese Embassy during that Air War. Serbs should know, these men are not proud about that war; rather, they are also trying to restore honor and "control" to the application of raw military power so that it may not be applied in contrived pseudo events that only serve to raise campaign contribution money for their political perpetrators. The Allegation: Stimulus and Response: MPR/NPR/ARW alleged that 1500 Albanians absolutely had been incinerated in the Trepca Lead refinery. I sent a copy of the allegation to one of my sources and he passed it on to the source still assigned to NATO and its intelligence operations (Note: these men still hope to maintain their careers, so their identities are disguised; read future issues carefully for clues!). NATO-SHAPE monitored the site with infrared throughout the war and it never "warmed up." The Clinton team bet heavily that they could prove a major atrocity had been perpetrated at Trepca; they were wrong. This from an intelligence officer in NATO: <> This from another officer who conducted bomb damage assessment after helping to run the air campaign: <> I provided this information to MPR/NPR/ARW and to several friends in the Serbian American internet groups. Here is the response from MPR/ARW: Thank you for your comments about our American Radio Works story from Kosovo on "Burning the Evidence." Because of the volume of messages, we are unable to provide individual replies, but we believe the following is responsive to the issues being raised: American RadioWorks stands by its story. Our report was based an extensive first-person interviews in Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. We strongly believe that what we reported is accurate and true, and this has been bolstered by statements issued since our report by various official sources. In particular, The US State Department and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia have issued statements in response to our report. You can read these statements at: http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/kosovo/burning_ evidence/ap_story_02 .html In addition, the statement by the Organization forCooperation and Security in Europe did not say that ARW's findings were untrue or false. The OSCE only said that it's investigation -- which was conducted more than a year ago and was limited in scope -- did not find evidence. In fact, it is not clear that the OSCE or French investigators inspected the same area of Trepca which was featured in our report. Inany case, you can read the OSCE statement on our web site, along with our entire report. http://www.americanradioworks.org/features/kosovo/burning_ evidence/ap_story_01 .html www.americanradioworks.org Thank you again for your comments. William E. Buzenberg Vice President, News and Information Minnesota Public Radio I cannot reasonably determine if the Serb sources for MPR/ARW's story were real or fabricated. I cannot determine whether MPR/ARW is ingenuously reviving a story or disingenuously regurgitating a propagandistic pseudo event. All I can confirm is that my military sources, infra-red sensors, the OSCE, the French and others know that there was no incineration of corpses at Trepca's Lead smelter. But still, you see that principals and protagonists in the "conspiracy" against Yugoslavia, will leave a opening. Read this qualified statement from a UN criminal tribunal official (charged with prosecuting alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity) who wants to sustain the illusion: At The Hague, Graham Blewitt, the U.N. tribunal's deputy prosecutor, said tribunal investigations at the Trepca mine also "couldn't confirm" bodies had been disposed of by burning but suggested it was extremely difficult using traditional methods to arrive at a definite conclusion. Baloney! The UN and NATO have had occupancy of Trepca since mid-June 1999, and never found so much as a DNA trace, much less a bicuspid. Sound familiar? It should. All of my readers who are still entranced by the illusive DU hysteria will recognized this technique for turning the remotely hypothetical into the highly possible. More on sustaining illusions in future letters. Want to see another hysteria-in-the-making? Keyword search on "Mad Cow Disease" this week. © Copyright 2001 by Benjamin Works -- SIRIUS www.siri-us.com Recipients of this report may repost it, in whole or in part, to internet websites and addresses, so long as the copyright notice is included, and "for fair use only."