Mobs Killing Serbs is "Understandable" in the New Morality

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A Perfect Propaganda Model Explains an Out of Control Mob

The facts are clear: a group of ethnic Albanians launched a completely unprovoked attack on a convoy of Serbian civilians, including women and children. When it was finally halted "at least one Serbian" was dead and a number of French and Russian "peacekeepers" were wounded, some seriously. Below is a commentary that illustrates how the simple facts of the story were doctored to make it "OK" in the minds of the reader.

From: E. R.-U.M.

(Original AP report follows)

The following is a textbook-if also a dimestore-example of what Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman call a "propaganda model"; that is, putting proper "spin" on an inconvenient story.

The actual story is clear: Ethnic Albanians launched a completely unprovoked attack on a convoy of Serbian civilians, killing at least one Serbian and wounding any number of Russian and French KFOR troops.

But as the events themselves wouldn't be palatable to the Jamie Goebbles's of the world, a "treatment" has to be given to the story. So an appropriate "narrative" has to be constructed to "explain (away)" the actual incidents by "contextualizing" them in a way to turn their true meaning into its opposite.

It works like this: "At least one Serb was killed." Translated, this almost certainly means more than one Serb was murdered and the victim(s) were either women or children. If the identified victim was a man, this would have been highlighted so as to feed into the "revenge" motif, about which more later.

"The confrontation underscored the depth of the hatred between Serbs and ethnic Albanians that can still boil over into violence..."

Albanians in Kosovo are "ethnic Albanian" "Kosovars"; Serbian Kosovars are Serbs, so foreigners, intruders, former conquerors, invaders, etc., even though many of the "ethnic Albanians" may not be native to Kosovo.

The cause of the murder of innocent Serbs and the attacks on French and Russian troops is not aggression by Albanians, but the "hatred between Serbs and ethnic Albanians." Note who's mentioned first.

No Serb is ever quoted or paraphrased in the article, but several Albanians are-one by name-even though Serbs were the victims and Albanians the perpetrators in the attack. This is the equivalent of reporting on a drive-by shooting in the United States and only quoting members of the gang that perpetrated it while ignoring the accounts of the victims and their families.

The on-the-ground KFOR comments are attributed to two "anonymous" sources, both allegedly French. One can understand why and Serbs who may have been quoted, although none were, might have insisted on anonymity: fear for their lives. One might also understand why an Albanian might prefer not to be identified: Fear of retaliation by other Albanians, and fear of interrogation or prosecution in the unlikely event KFOR would decide to do its job.

But why KFOR officers wouldn't acknowledge their names-or be asked to do so by reporters-is puzzling. This gives rise to the suspicion that they're fictional sources to whom quotes can be conveniently attributed.

The immediate precipitant of the assault by 5,000 Albanians, whom, the report intimates, would never have done such a thing under any other circumstance (though in fact hundreds, if not thousands, of attacks against non-Albanians have occurred in the past three months)?

Then there is the old ace in the hole: alleged mass graves. The latter retroactively excuses any criminal, violent action by the KLA, its "civilian" successor, or gangs and individuals affiliated with them.

Moreover, who "rides to the rescue," like the Ku Klux Klan in D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation," to prove how thoroughly rehabilitated and peaceably-inclined they've become? None other than the longtime defenders of the "ethnic" Albanian people, the KLA itself.

If there's any truth to this part of the report-and it's almost impossible to credit-one would suspect that KFOR summoned their new "police force" for a great photo opportunity, after their plainclothes allies had murdered and assaulted civilians and soldiers alike, thereby making their point.

Lastly, the completely gratuitous but inevitable allusion to Slobadan Milosevic, and his depredations against innocent Albanians. (Put as much of the preceding sentence in ironic quotes as you like.) This sets the stage for the total exoneration of any Albanian committing any crime against any persons: Children, infants, women young or old, doctors and professors, priests and nuns, Roma and Serb, Muslim or Christian or Jew, European soldier or fellow Albanian.

Attacks by KLA-linked pogromists, violent and murderous as they are, are an "inevitable" and "understandable" (favorite words of U.S. and British government officials and spokesmen) response to alleged mistreatment by Serbs and all other ethnic and religious minorities in Kosovo, presumably. Which brings us to the biggest of Big Lies: "...local Serbs say that ethnic Albanians have launched revenge attacks against them..." The operative word is revenge. It has been used constantly and invariably, almost like a mantra, since KFOR escorted the KLA back into Kosovo in early June of this year.

Notice that the attribution of the revenge motive (read: justifiable purpose) is even ascribed to "local Serbs," as though they, too, of course realized the legitimacy of attacks against innocent civilians of all ethnic backgrounds, the murder of several hundred people, the desecration of churches and cemeteries, the mass persecution and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Gorans, Turks, Roma, Jews, Montenegrins and even Albanians, etc., because they were actuated by a valid reason. Revenge.

To follow the Western press propaganda line on so-called revenge attacks and killings, one would have to assume that every single victim had been the perpetrator of violent crimes against ethnic Albanians and that every single perpetrator of violence since had been a victim (or family member thereof) previously. That is, if revenge is interpreted as most people do interpret it, the retaliation by one person against another.

The NATO nations' spin doctors can't acknowledge collective retaliation, which raises too many undeniable parallels to Nazi German practices during World War II, so they try to fob off their fabrications about individual, unrelated "revenge" assaults and killings.

Against whom? Eighty-year old widows. Russian peacekeepers. Six-month-old infants. The entire population of communities like the Roma and Jews of Kosovo.

To design, spread and reiterate this lie is to be an accomplice to a crime. Or crimes: Theft, bodily harm, murder, persecution, expulsion, ethnicide. The official Western press corps is, with only a few noble exceptions, guilty as sin.

What follows is the version by the "Media-Complex" designed to sway your thinking:

The Guardian

Ethnic Albanians Attack Serb Convoy

Wednesday October 6, 1999 12:50 am

KOSOVSKA MITROVICA, Yugoslavia (AP)- Ethnic Albanian mourners stoned a Russian-escorted Serb convoy in northern Kosovo on Tuesday, injuring some Russian troops and 13 French police trying to stop the clash.

At least one Serb was killed, a French military spokesman said on condition of anonymity.

Seventeen Serbs were also injured, and two Serb cars and a truck were burned, the Beta news agency reported. At least 13 French police were injured, including the commander of the Gendarme force in Kosovo, Col. Claude Vicaire, he said.

French military officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the trouble started when 5,000 ethnic Albanians gathered near the northwestern town of Kosovska Mitrovica for the funeral of 18 of 28 Albanians found last week in a mass grave. Four Serbs have been arrested in the case.

The confrontation underscored the depth of ethnic hatred between Serbs and ethnic Albanians that can still boil over into violence more than three months after NATO-led peacekeepers arrived in Kosovo.

Discovery of the bodies has raised tensions in the city, where Serbs control the north of the town, ethnic Albanians control the south, and French troops separate the two along the central Ibar River.

The funeral crowd created a three-mile traffic jam on a main road. Upon leaving the burial site, located just off the highway, the mourners noticed Serb and Russian vehicles stalled in the tie-up, said an ethnic Albanian witness, Isa Ibrahimi.

The mourners then began stoning the Serbs, some of whom fled their cars and sought protection with the Russians. Others were dragged from their vehicles and beaten, Ibrahimi said.

Other Albanian sources said the melee started when Serbs in the convoy provoked the crowd by giving it the three-fingered Serb salute.

Ibrahimi said French police arrived and tried to form a human barricade between the groups, but were pummeled themselves with stones. One Russian armored personnel carrier overturned, apparently while trying to get away from firebombs. (Bob's note: Firebombs at a funeral?)

The rowdy crowd finally dispersed after officials from the former Kosovo Liberation Army-the ethnic Albanian rebel force that opposed Serb troops during an 18-month crackdown-rushed to the scene to calm the Albanians.

The clash occurred hours after NATO peacekeepers drove Serbs away from a roadblock along a major Kosovo highway, warning that they would not allow ethnic groups to interfere with vital routes in the province.

But NATO has tolerated an Albanian roadblock at another town, Orahovac, for more than a month-an example of what local Serbs see as a double standard by NATO and the United Nations in dealing with Serb and ethnic Albanian communities.

"The situation there s rather different than in Kosovo Polje," peacekeeper commander Lt. Gen. Mike Jackson said of the Orahovac blockade. "We are determined to bring the situation to a peaceful conclusion...We will look at every situation on a case-by-case basis."

Nevertheless, the raid reinforced the Serbs' belief that NATO and the United Nations discriminate against them in favor of the ethnic Albanians, who comprise more than 90 percent of the province's 1.4 million people.

Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's Serbian troops killed thousands of ethnic Albanians during an 18-month crackdown, but local Serbs say ethnic Albanians have launched revenge attacks against them since NATO bombing ended the crackdown.

This article was published on Reagan.com and is copyrighted by them on 10/12/99.