It is Etiquette.
by Jared Israel
When speaking of the Serbs it is considered proper to say something negative. More
than one thing is optional. But one is obligatory.
This is not due to prejudice, as some maintain. Nor, as Jared Israel and others
insist, does it result from an organized effort to demonize the Serbs because they have
been and still are the main force in the Balkans resisting Great Power (German and now US)
Imperial domination.
No sir.
It is Etiquette.
In the West, when invited to a bash (or party) that one wishes not to attend, one
must lie: "I'd love to go; I wish I had known sooner..."
Why must one lie?
Silly question. It's obligatory.
Similarly, with the Serbs. Even if a newspaper, let us say
the Toronto Star, should happen to report that there is overwhelming evidence that there
is no evidence that Serbian troops committed atrocities in Kosovo - even if said
newspaper article should suggest to any functioning mind that the media tales of
widespread Serbian atrocities, now revealed to be false, must therefore have been
fabricated by some living beings - even then said newspaper must add:
"There's no question that atrocities were committed in Kosovo,
overwhelmingly by the Serb forces."
No question? Even though one is
reporting that half the charges are based on misinformation (that is, lies) one
must state, without restriction of evidence, that the other half of the charges is true?
Doesn't this contradict every rule of normal reasoning?
It does. But giving Serbs the benefit of normal reasoning is just not done.
So it should come as no surprise that Richard Gwyn writes in the Toronto Star:
"There's no question that atrocities were committed in Kosovo, overwhelmingly by the
Serb forces."
What is surprising is that earlier in his article, Mr. Gwyn
reports that scores of forensic experts - the FBI, Royal Mounties, Scotland Yard,
Spanish police, French police, German police, Italian police - in fact all the police
except Hercule Poirot - report finding no bodies to report.
Indeed, the Spanish forensic experts left Kosovo early, in disgust. As
Gwyn's Star article points out, this means the whole "genocide" justification
for bombing Serbia was false. And Gwyn raises - as a real
possibility - that the mass murder stories "may have been a grotesque lie concocted
to justify a war."
So far, good for him.
Now you, dear reader, might think Mr. Gwyn would take the
next step. You might expect him to suggest, at least as a possibility, that other media
stories of Serbian atrocities might also "have been a grotesque lie concocted to
justify a war." For instance, you might expect him to suggest that maybe it
was NATO's bombs (and the KLA's orders) and not Serbian atrocities that caused Albanians
to leave Kosovo during the bombing.
After all, the charge that Serbian atrocities drove the Albanians out comes from
the same folks who gave us the mass graves stories, which Mr. Gwyn now says are false, and
possibly "a grotesque lie concocted to justify a war."
If a witness gives testimony; if he offers his testimony to justify terrible acts;
if he trumpets his testimony from every TV station and newspaper, insisting it is
absolutely true; if we then examine half of said testimony and if we find that the half of
his testimony which we have examined is false - shouldn't we doubt
the truthfulness of the half which we have not yet examined?
Gwyn says NATO and the media were honestly or dishonestly
("grotesquely") spreading lies (how do you honestly
spread lies?) about mass graves. Shouldn't he take the
next step and suggest that the rest of the anti-Serb stories may be "grotesque
lies" too?
Mr. Gwyn does not take the next step. Instead, he asserts, as an article of faith,
that the forced-exodus stories are true. Having asserted, on faith, that the ethnic
Albanians were driven out by Serbian forces, he adds, "obviously, these forces,
[were] acting on Milosevic's explicit orders."
"Obviously"? Why "obviously"? Remember all we have to go on here is the word of the mass media which Mr.
Gwyn admits has lied ("honestly or "grotesquely") about Serbian forces.
Not only are we supposed to accept, based on the word of the mass
media, that crimes have occurred - but we are to blame these "crimes" on
Milosevich. This is amazing stuff.
And now comes the coup de grace. Mr. Gwyn adds: "Acts like these are
inexcusable."
One could say: writing like this is inexcusable. Really, why
must Mr. Gwyn mix honest reporting and vicious trash? Why?
Silly question. It's obligatory.
