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Last modified January 02, 2012

It is no surprise that the regime of Slobodan Milosevic and its propagandists sought to deny or justify its war crimes against the peoples of Kosovo and Bosnia. It is shameful, however, that various Western commentators who claim to be progressives have repeated these lies and justifications - even after most of them have been disproved. In this absurd spectacle they rationalize the destruction of villages and populations thought to harbor “terrorists” – the very actions that the movements against the wars in Vietnam and Iraq have so vigorously opposed.

In this section we examine the misrepresentations of some of these commentators.

If, like truth, the lie had but one face, we would be on better terms. For we would accept as certain the opposite of what the liar would say. But the reverse of truth has a hundred thousand faces and an infinite field.                                                                            --Montaigne

 

Contents
Ali, Tariq Alternative Press Review Blum, William Bodansky, Yossef Bogdanich, George Chomsky, Noam Clark, Neil Clark, Ramsey Cohn, Marjorie	Fairness and Accuracy in Media Gibbs, David Handke, Peter Herman, Edward S. Johnstone, Diana Media Lens Parenti, Michael Pilger, John Project Censored Seymour, Richard "Lenin"	van der Pijl, Kees Woodward, Susan Multiple characters, including David Chandler Michel Chossudovsky Peter Gowan Philip Hammond   Tom Hayden Kate Hudson Arianna Huffington Mick Hume Jared Israel Nebojsa Malic Michael Moore David Peterson Harold Pinter Justin Raimondo
Srebrenica deniers: Antiwar.com     James Bissett     General Lewis MacKenzie As well as some of those above
More on BOSNIA - Trnopolje and Srebrenica - moved - click here

 

Edward S. Herman: Click here

 

Diana Johnstone: Johnstone's article "Srebrenica Revisited," is reviewed by Eric Gordy, October 13, 2005. Raçak - Mutation of a Massacre This review of a Diana Johnstone article shows that she uncritically repeats Serbian government propaganda on Racak, and that her work is characterized by missing evidence, a paucity of sources, the spreading of untruths, and conspiracy theories. By Peter Wuttke, November 18, 1999 (Newly translated from the original German, March 2002.) Diana Johnstone's Fools Crusade is reviewed by Kirk Johnson, 2006. Several installments, linked from the cited page. Fools Crusade is rebutted at Proving Genocide in Bosnia, by Alan Kocevic, July 8, 2005. Josh Mason, a former editor at In These Times, explains in an online PEN forum (April 8, 1999) why Diana Johnstone was sacked from that publication: We felt we couldn't publish her stuff not only because she was insisting that there was no Serb role in the slaughter of Muslims in Bosnia after the facts were long in, but because her friendship with Milosevic's wife Mirjana Markovic, going back to her time as student in Yugoslavia in the '60s, colored her writing to the point of dishonesty. For instance, in a piece on the Serbian opposition, she presented Ms. Markovic's party as Serbia's main democratic opposition. Markovic's Yugoslav Left party was actually allied with Milosevic's ruling Socialist Party of Serbia, and she was held as intellectual mastermind of her husband's "Greater Serbia" ideology.

 

Noam Chomsky: See a listing of various Chomsky statements denying or minimizing Serbian crimes against the peoples of Bosnia and Kosovo.   A Critical Chomsky Reader When Truthdig interviewed Noam Chomsky in April 2010, three activists who had respect for his work were disappointed. The article ignored Chomsky's persistent misrepresentation of Balkan war crimes, even though author Chris Hedges had risked his life to report them. There are broader lessons for radicals here, about humanity, solidarity, and complexity. Western involvement in the wars of Yugoslav dissolution has confused many anti-imperialists, who still distort the facts to fit preconceptions. Though we've valued Chomsky's insights on other subjects, from Israel and Palestine to propaganda, we’ve been forced to reappraise his analysis.   Noam Chomsky and Ian Williams engage in a debate over the UN's Responsibility to Protect (R2P) declaration, and others weigh in. In the course of the discussion, Chomsky still defends his statement that "NATO air raids on Serbia [beginning March 24, 1999] actually precipitated the worst atrocities in Kosovo," and Ian Williams rebuts.   The articles: Ban Ki Moon and R2P, by Ian Williams, August 3, 2009 Kosovo, East Timor, R2P, and Ian Williams, by Noam Chomsky, August 17, 2009 Response to Chomsky, by Ian Williams, August 21, 2009 Response to Williams, by Noam Chomsky, September 1, 2009 Response to Chomsky II, by Ian Williams, September 8, 2009 Noam Chomsky and genocidal causality, by Marko Hoare, August 25, 2009   In a 2006 interview with the New Statesman, Noam Chomsky, if he is quoted accurately, makes an egregiously false statement about the 1999 Kosovo war. Speaking of Serbian actions in Kosovo, Chomsky says that "there were terrible atrocities, but they were after the [NATO] bombings." Chomsky's ethical and political failure is tragic for those of us who agree in substance with many of his positions on US foreign policy, most notably the catastrophe in Iraq. By legitimizing historical deceit and diminishing the sufferings of the Bosnians and Kosovars, he only succeeds in causing moral and political confusion where authentic principle and political clarity are most needed.    Response by Roger Lippman, June 21, 2006    Response by Michael Bérubé, June 22, 2006    Response by David Watson, June 23, 2006    Response by Oliver Kamm, June 2006. Refutes Chomsky's reference to a British parliamentary inquiry.   In writings and interviews, Chomsky misrepresents the statements of a former high Clinton State Department official on the causes of the Kosovo intervention. Click here for several discussions of this issue.   Chomsky has expressed his support for one of the most notorious Serbian ultra-nationalist war criminals facing the Hague Tribunal, Vojislav Seselj, who set up paramilitary groups to accomplish the annihilation of Kosovo Albanians and Bosnian Muslims. (See his party's Program for "Cleansing" Kosovo, 1991 and Program for a Greater Serbia Theocracy, 1996.) Chomsky appears at the top of a list of Seselj's foreign supporters. (Scroll down, to find Chomsky in the company of such genocide apologists as Edward Herman, Sara Flounders, and David Peterson.) Seselj says he expects to pay for the services of famous experts, including the US intellectual Noam Chomsky. When Seselj's Serbian Radical Party held a rally in Belgrade in December 2006 demanding Seselj's release, Noam Chomsky sent a letter of support that was read aloud at the event. See report in Der Tagesspiegel, December 4, 2006, in German.   In April 1999, Chomsky and others signed a manifesto entitled "Academics Against NATO's War in Kosovo." For critical comments on Chomsky's statement, see the response by Igor Korsic of the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.   Chomsky condemned the NATO action in Kosovo on principle without being able to offer plausible alternatives, using theories often based on a world order that no longer exists. Discussion of ill-informed observations by Chomsky and other Left critics, and how their words were appropriated by the Serb lobby. The Serb Lobby in the United Kingdom, By Carole Hodge, 2003   Controversy over the interview with Chomsky in the Guardian (UK) Though flawed, the Guardian article had some interesting observations on Chomsky's attitude toward the Srebrenica massacre. October 31, 2005   Chomsky ignores lessons of wars on Kosovo Review of Noam Chomsky's book The New Military Humanism, criticizing Chomsky for not making enough of Milosevic's crimes. -- Peter Hudis, July 2005   Srebrenica and Honesty The writer criticizes Chomsky for soft-peddling the Serbian massacre of Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica. "I cannot believe you are ignorant of the facts about Srebrenica and the Yugoslavian wars. You've devoted your life to uncovering hypocrisy and dispelling ignorance. So how am I to understand your bias in this matter?"  By Julie Wornan, member of Americans Against the War, France, January 4, 2005   Chomsky bamboozles on the Balkans II In an interview with Radio-TV Serbia, Chomsky endorses the lies of LM Magazine (see below). Oliver Kamm rebuts and rebukes Chomsky. June 2006   Chomsky misrepresents the Dutch investigation of Srebrenica. June 2006

The Left Revisionists An extensive review of a broad array of those on the Left who downplay the violence and suffering involved in the wars in the former Yugoslavia and shift the blame to the Western alliance. Among those discussed are Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, Michael Parenti, Michel Chossudovsky, Diana Johnstone, Mick Hume, John Pilger, Harold Pinter, and Jared Israel. By Marko Hoare, November 2003

Nothing Is Left A review of several books covering the former Yugoslavia, by authors Philip Hammond, Edward Herman, Michael Parenti, Diana Johnstone, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, and Kate Hudson. By Marko Hoare, Bosnia Report, October-December 2003

The Kosovo Verification Mission at Racak A summary of the events surrounding the Racak massacre and its investigation. Concisely refutes some of the inaccurate statements of Diana Johnstone, Philip Hammond, Edward Herman, and David Peterson. By Alex J. Bellamy, 2002

Srebrenica and the London Bombings: The ‘Anti-War’ Link This article examines what unites the left-wing and right-wing deniers of Serbia's war crimes. Includes discussion of Edward Herman, Justin Raimondo, Nebojsa Malic, Neil Clark, Tariq Ali, and others. By Marko Hoare, July 23, 2005

Mediating Denial Martin Shaw reviews Phillip Hammond and Edward S. Herman's anthology Degraded Capability: The Media and the Kosovo Crisis. Shaw analyzes distortions by Diana Johnstone, John Pilger, Mick Hume, David Chandler, Peter Gowan, and others. Degraded Capability is an insult to the victims of the Yugoslav wars and those in the media as well as the International Tribunal who have tried to address the victims' claims for justice. June 2000

You can't negotiate with a war criminal But a circus tent of NATO opponents, from Tom Hayden to Arianna Huffington, won't face reality. By Ian Williams, Salon.com, May 27, 1999

Tariq Ali, editor of the anthology Masters of the Universe? NATO’s Balkan Crusade. Reviewed by Ian Williams, in More Agitprop than reasoned argument. Bosnia Report, July-September 2000.

Alternative Press Review: Counter-Spin as Useful Idiocy The author, borrowing Lenin’s phrase, takes on the “useful idiots” on the Left, including those who deny the existence of Serbian killing camps in Bosnia or even the massacre at Srebrenica. His prime target in this article is the Alternative Press Review's apologetics for Slobodan Milosevic. By David Watson, Fifth Estate, Fall 2002.

William Blum Denies Serbian Atrocities in Kosovo In his book Rogue State,  Blum, a member of the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic, repeats a theme common among uninformed commentators and Serbian apologists: that Serbian atrocities against Kosovo Albanians began only after the NATO intervention. This article offers extensive documentary refutation of Blum's position. By Roger Lippman, July 3, 2002.

Yossef Bodansky The guiding principle for Bodansky seems to be hostility to Islam and Muslims everywhere. Click here for an overview.

George Bogdanich "Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War" This propaganda film paints the '90s genocide as a misunderstanding caused by poor public relations, and bases its key conclusions on interviews with a collection of crackpots and racists. Reviewed by Joshua Tanzer, Offoffoff.com, March 2002.

Neil Clark: Monty Python and the Balkan Islamofascist division A review of Clark's shoddy activities in support of Milosevic. Clark's claim that the late Bosnian President Alija Izetbegovic was a supporter of the SS in Bosnia during World War II is demolished in this article. By Marko Hoare, November 22, 2007

Ramsey Clark: The war criminal's best friend By Ian Williams, Salon, June 21, 1999
Ramsey Clark regards Milosevic favorably, and comparable to Saddam Hussein: "History will prove Milosevic was right." (March 17, 2006)

Marjorie Cohn minimizes the crimes of Milosevic and misrepresents Yugoslav history. Response by Roger Lippman March 17, 2006

Fairness and Accuracy in Media: FAIR Misrepresents the Racak Massacre In claiming that there is “new evidence casting doubt on claims that the bodies were civilian victims of a massacre,” Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting endorses a biased and error-filled article on Racak. FAIR misrepresents the position of Dr. Helena Ranta, the forensic pathologist who investigated the Racak massacre. FAIR's article is at odds with substantial previous (and subsequent) credible documentation on the Racak incident. By Roger Lippman, April 30, 2001

David Gibbs Gibbs seems determined to blame anyone but the Serbian aggressors for the Kosovo Albanian plight. In the conclusion of an excerpt from his book, published in Tikkun, Gibbs claims that the NATO intervention "served mainly to increase the scale of atrocities." But he neglects to notice that it also rescued a population of two million from Serbia's intended expulsion or annihilation.
Response by Roger Lippman, August 28, 2009.
Review by Josip Glaurdic, International Affairs, March 2010: Gibbs supports dubious claims with spurious, distorted, or already discredited evidence -- or with no evidence at all. He repeatedly claims to be setting the historical record straight, but does so only in order to create a smokescreen for his distortions. Surely it is possible to write a book with a leftist critique of the West's policies in the Balkans without such glaring omissions and distortions. Unfortunately, such a book still has to be written.

Gibbs is ably scrutinized by Marko Hoare in a series of essays:
The bizarre world of genocide denial December 6, 2010
First Check Their Sources: On David N. Gibbs and ‘shoddy scholarship’ December 24, 2010
First Check Their Sources 2: The myth that ‘most of Bosnia was owned by the Serbs before the war’ January 5, 2011
First Check Their Sources 3: The myth that ‘Germany encouraged Croatia to secede from Yugoslavia’ January 24, 2011

Peter Handke A prominent defender of Slobodan Milosevic, the Austrian writer spoke at Milosevic's funeral in Belgrade, in March 2006. The Apologist, commentary by Michael McDonald, The American Scholar, Spring 2007.
Handke's transformation from one of the German language's most celebrated writers and an idol of the '68 generation into a full-blown apologist for Serbian war crimes has taken a good 10 years but is now officially complete. Blind to the Truth, By Tobias K. Vogel, Transitions Online, July 20, 2005

Media Lens misuses sources to argue that British media were "filled with hundreds of claims of genocide in Kosovo." The article goes on to give a distorted version of the background of the Kosovo war. Response by Roger Lippman April 3, 2006
On Media Lens, lying and the Balkans by Daniel Simpson, December 23, 2009

Michael Parenti: Parenti's book To Kill a Nation is reviewed by Kirk Johnson, beginning June 2007. Twelve installments, linked from sidebar on the cited page.

John Pilger:
'Random Brutality' and the Denial of Genocide John Pilger erects a smokescreen of abuse and distortion, but fails to defend his contemptible excuse that Serbian atrocities in Kosovo were products of 'random brutality' rather than genocidal planning. By Martin Shaw, November 22, 1999.
John Pilger and the Tasmanian Genocide: Pilger falsely claims that no mass graves of Albanian victims of Milosevic’s regime have ever been found. By Marko Hoare, December 14, 2007

Project Censored: Dubious Sources: How Project Censored Joined the Whitewash of Serb Atrocities Their coverage of Kosovo and Bosnia lacks historical perspective and relies on biased, discredited sources. By David Walls, May 2, 2000 (Revised for publication in New Politics, Summer 2002)
Project Censored Whitewash Debate Walls' article elicited commentary from Bogdan Denitch and critical responses from Peter Phillips, Diana Johnstone, and Edward S. Herman & David Peterson. Each critical response is followed with a reply from Walls. New Politics, Winter 2003

Kees van der Pijl Political economy and political reaction A reply to Kees van der Pijl, who fails to understand that Milosevic's seizure of power revoked the rights of national minorities and made the positions of Croatia and Slovenia untenable, leading to the breakup of the Yugoslav federation. By Martin Shaw, June 2003

Richard "Lenin" Seymour The Liberal Defence of Murder, a defense of the Milosevic regime and Serbian ethnic-cleansing. The book, and its sources, are dissected by Marko Hoare. February 18, 2009

Susan Woodward Woodward’s book Balkan Tragedy shows how easy the passage is from identification with the centralized Yugoslav state and army to support for Serbian nationalism. Her apologies for the Serbian side contrast with her treatment of Croatia and Slovenia. Reviewed by Marko Attila Hoare, April 1996, Bosnia Report.

Frozen in time, like prehistoric insects caught in an amber bubble of cold-war reflexes, the unreconstructed Left remains fixated on NATO and Western imperialist warmongers as the only threat facing humankind that they are prepared to resist. Barely half a century after World War II, the living dead of the Left are no longer capable of recognizing either fascism or genocide as the enemy.           From comments by Andras Riedlmayer, April 1, 1999

 

Sadly, the so-called radical movement is losing its sense of complexity, of history, of ambivalence, and ultimately its own humanity. Most ostensible oppositionist discourse on the Balkans, from the hard Marxist left to the independent socialist left to even many anarchists, has sunk to a duckspeak of conspiracy mongering and holocaust denial, or to the nostrums of diplomatic conflict-resolution, or to crass and aggressive apologetics for mass murderers. Readers who think this characterization an exaggeration will have to judge for themselves. They can only do so by studying the matter in depth, since leftist magazines and internet sites are a cesspool of misinformation, where one can find myriad examples of holocaust denial from leftists and rightists - it is a kind of a red-brown front, in fact - that Serb concentration camps never existed, or that the Bosnians "bombed themselves" in Sarajevo, or that the mass execution of thousands of men after the fall of the Srebenica enclave was a "hoax." And some leftists are even circulating a petition to free poor old Slobodan Milosevic (while demanding the head of Pinochet). One has to find this depressing in part because some of these people have had reasonable things to say about US support for dictatorships abroad, global capitalism, and other important related issues, and so they now function either to recruit the naturally skeptical into a counter-cult with its own authoritarian mystifications, or they simply discredit worthy opposition altogether through a kind of Gresham's law by which healthy ethical reasoning is driven out by paranoia and dogmatism. Any radical movement serious about changing life, whether or not it can do anything in the near future about the social crises it faces, must never allow itself to become a purveyor of lies. As Theodor Adorno put it in Minima Moralia, "The almost insoluble task is to let neither the power of others, nor our own powerlessness, stupefy us." We have no choice but to demystify so-called demystification. David Watson, in the Fifth Estate, winter 2002