www.newdawnmagazine.com
"Will the
Real Nazis please stand up?"
By SUSAN BRYCE
For the last seven months we have been
fed a diet of propaganda — the public relations of modern warfare — about Kosovo,
that distant and foreign land, a province of Yugoslavia but now a
‘protectorate’ of the allied forces. A land where people —
white people, doctors, lawyers and scientists — are being ‘ethnically cleansed’
by a ‘butchering modern day Hitler’. So far, the PR campaign (the spin
as opposed to the facts) goes something like this….
Ethnic cleansing
practiced by Slobodan Milosevic is systematic and brutal, like the
extermination of Jews in Nazi Germany. Representing the people of the free,
democratic world,
In the final conflicts
of the 20th century, public relations has become the politically correct term
for propaganda, and while hundreds of noteworthy conflicts are being fought
around the globe, NATO and US public relations experts have selectively focused
our attention upon the ‘regime’ in Yugoslavia, and its leader, "that
butchering modern day Hitler, Slobodan Milosevic."
The tactic of comparing
the enemies of the
The ghost of Adolf Hitler has been given a thorough airing in the
Yugoslav crisis. The great irony is that those who condemn Milosevic as a
modern day ‘Hitler,’ are themselves using the propaganda techniques that were
refined and employed by the Nazis during World War Two.
"Propaganda is a
weapon, and a frightful one in the right hands", said Adolf
Hitler, in Mein Kampf.
Explaining how this ‘weapon’ could be employed to win the hearts and minds of
the masses, Hitler said propaganda must be limited to a very few points and a
slogan, which must be harped upon until the last member of the public
understands the point being made.
The war in
Humanitarian crisis, on
the other hand, is something that the
Up until the US/NATO
bombing on March 24th, there had been, according to NATO, 2000 people killed on
all sides, and a couple of hundred thousand refugees — indeed, a humanitarian crisis,
but also the type of crisis happening all over the world. It would be an
understatement to say ethnic cleansing is a tragedy, but it is happening, on an
equal to or greater extent, in other parts of the world as well as Kosovo. For
example, the crisis in Kosovo is numerically identical to the US State
Department figures last year which showed
Hitler said that harping
upon "very few points", would call the masses attention to certain
facts, processes and necessities. "The greater the mass that propaganda is
intended to reach, the lower the purely intellectual level of the propaganda
will be." We can see Hitler’s advice is working well: the media absorbed
with over-reporting of the refugee crisis, shuttle diplomacy and the triumphant
movement of NATO ground forces into
During the air war we
were told over and over again, morning to night, with close to 100% unanimity
thundering that US/NATO actions were necessary to "save lives". And
thus, many people tended to believe their absurd claims, even though, with a moments reflection, the absurdity of such claims would be
realised.
Many important facts
have been under reported in the Kosovo crisis. Such facts include Viktor Chernomyrdin’s
dire warning on 27th May that "the world has never in this decade been so
close as now to the brink of nuclear war"; NATO's new interventionist
role; the setback of Russia-US relations; China’s veto of the UN Security
Council resolution on Yugoslavia; and shelving the ratification of the
Russian/US arms limitation agreement START II.
Hitler maintained that
the "power to forget is enormous". Such forgetfulness is an important
propaganda tool in modern warfare. The Balkans, like
In his recent essay
"Kosovo Peace Accord", Noam Chomsky notes
that in the Yugoslav war the marching orders from Washington are the usual
ones: "Focus laser-like on the crimes of today’s official enemy, and do
not allow yourself to be distracted by comparable or worse crimes that could
easily be mitigated or terminated thanks to the crucial role of the enlightened
states in perpetuating them, or escalating them when power interests so
dictate."
The war in
Had political conditions
dictated, the media could have presented the suppression of the Palestinian intifadah from 1987-91 or the massacres that
unfolded in Beirut in 1982, under the auspices of the Israeli state, in no less
inflammatory terms than the events in Kosovo. And what of the savageries
inflicted by the French on
Control of the Press
Propaganda necessarily
involves the capitulation or control of the press. Censorship of the press
during the Yugoslav crisis has been open and blatant, assisting in the
reportage of ‘very few points’. While the Nazis employed the tactic of shutting
any domestic press outlet that did not push the party message, NATO’s goal was
to shut down the press inside
Censorship occurred at
all levels during the Balkans conflict: from the ability of journalists to
report ‘in the field’, to Pentagon briefings and high level diplomatic
meetings. Many reporters have said access to the war zone was severely limited
by the dominant military force on the ground in
The press corps
‘trapped’ at NATO headquarters, and at the Pentagon, rarely tried to pin
officials down on anything questionable or vague, and NATO spokespeople would typically
obfuscate answers to journalists questions. The Web magazine GRIDLOCK and
LOAD reports one such example from NATO spokesperson Jamie Shea, noted
for his sometimes strange and confounding pronouncements, including this one
made in late May:
I am confident of
success because all of those conditions for the defeat of the
In the arena of
diplomatic negotiations, information for the press was tightly controlled.
Following a meeting between Viktor Chernomyrdin, Finnish President Martti Ahtissari and
Cable News Network (CNN)
has played an important role in censorship of information during the Balkans
crisis. CNN has been criticised for anti-Belgrade reporting by its ‘star’
correspondent Christine Amanpour, whose marriage to
State Department spokesman Jamie Rubin is the source of constant speculation
even in
Throughout the Balkans
conflict, CNN (along with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)) has been
the major source of televised footage aired in news broadcasts throughout the
world. Critics have pointed out that with few exceptions, only successful and
bloodless uses of weapons were broadcast on television. This censorship ensured
that public support for the conflict continued. If the public saw real weapons
killing real people, they might get squeamish!
The language
of double speak laced the voice overs that accompanied television
footage: when NATO bombed civilians it was a "mistake", while the
Serbs carried out "atrocities." As NATO ground troops entered
In another blatant
example of media suppresson, comments by Russian
President Boris Yeltsin were censored. Speaking to an audience of Russian
writers, Yeltsin described NATO actions as barbaric. He said that the unleashing
of war on a sovereign state without Security Council approval could only be
"possible in the time of barbarism". But Yeltsin's comments were
quickly stifled. His minders went into full ‘damage control mode’. They
requested that Reuters, who had videotaped his speech under a media pool
agreement, refrain from distributing it. Reuters never aired the footage, but
provided the US NBC News network with raw footage.
NATO’s real character, that of a barbarian force, has also been exposed
in recent revelations by Spanish fighter pilots, who disclosed NATO’s
intentions to level civilian infrastructure.
Speaking to the Spanish
weekly Articulo 20, (No. 30, June 14, 1999) Spanish fighter pilots
admitted that NATO deliberately attacked civilian targets and that the alliance
was destroying Yugoslavia by bombing it with novel weapons, toxic nervous
gases, surface mines dropped with parachutes, bombs containing uranium, black
napalm, sterilisation chemicals, spraying poison on crops and using other
weapons which "even we still do not know anything."
"The North
Americans are committing there one of the biggest barbarities that can be
committed against the humanity. Much and very bad things will be told in the
future about what was happening there, because, by the way, judging by what we
talked about with the British and German officers, it was designed in order to
divide the Europeans and keep us subjected for many decades," one of the
Spanish pilots stated.
The suspicions that
NATO’s repeated bombings of civilian victims and non-military targets are not
the result of war ‘errors’, were confirmed by pilot Captain Martin de la Hoz:
Several times our
Colonel protested to NATO chiefs why they select targets which are not military
targets. They threw him out with curses saying that we should know that the
North Americans will lodge a complaint to the Spanish Army, once through
A
In 1997, the
establishment journal Foreign Affairs published an article by Zbigniew Brzezinski titled
"The Geostrategy for
Brzezinski argued that a wider
NATO's actions in
In the wash up of the
Balkans crisis, the IMF and the World Bank will assist in the ‘reconstruction’
of war torn Yugoslavia, which will repay its debt via abundant mineral
resources, that include substantial deposits of lead, zinc, cadmium, silver and
gold and an estimated 17 billion tons of coal reserves.
The Spin vs the Facts……
The
The air strikes prove
that continual carpet bombing of civilians and vital national infrastructure
will eventually bring the capitulation of the target country, and this
strategy, including the use of depleted uranium weapons, will be employed in
all future conflicts.
Operation Joint Guardian
will bring important rewards to the
On the dawn of the 21st
century, we will work with our partners towards a new humanism, and a new world
order. A world sponsored by our military and corporate interests, and the
selective intervention of NATO and the United Nations.
___________________________________________________________
Susan
Bryce is an investigative journalist and researcher. Her interests include democracy
and freedom, the technologies of political control, environmental health and
global politics. She can be contacted at