Danilo Mandic: Last month marked the seventh anniversary of the beginning of the bombing of Yugoslavia. Why did NATO wage that war or I should say why did the United States wage that war?
Chomsky: ...the real purpose of the war had nothing to do with concern for Kosovar Albanians. It was because Serbia was not carrying out the required social and economic reforms, meaning it was the last corner of Europe which had not subordinated itself to the US-run neoliberal programs, so therefore it had to be eliminated..
I don't doubt that the US-led NATO bombing was more out of self-interest than humanitarian concern. Afterall, nobody seems quiet so eager to bomb Sudan in order to save Darfur. So I'm thinking, maybe my pal Chomsky has been misunderstood. Maybe accusations levelled at him of "downplaying" the crimes in Bosnia have just been taken out of context?
The topic then swtiches to this famous photograph:
Chomsky goes on to say:
"Well, you know, it was investigated and carefully investigated. In fact it was investigated by the leading Western specialist on the topic, Philip Knightly, who is a highly respected media analyst and his specialty is photo journalism, probably the most famous Western and most respected Western analyst in this. He did a detailed analysis of it. And he determined that it was probably the reporters who were behind the barb-wire, and the place was ugly, but it was a refugee camp, I mean, people could leave if they wanted and, near the thin man was a fat man and so on.."
Um seriously Chomsk, my man what is it..marijuana? LSD? Maybe some magic mushrooms?
I don't know how else to take your claims. Help me out. Everything else I've read of yours I agree with. But that it was a refugee camp and that it was reporters who were behind the barbed wired, and people could leave if they wanted?
I guess I must've missed the memo that the photograph was fraudulent. Here I was thinking that the man in that photograph, is a survivor who travelled to the Hague recently to witness the proceedings against Karadzic. Silly me.
I would love nothing more but for that photographs to be fake, I would rather it be all made up, than real. I would love if the person in that picture was in a refugee camp, and not a concentration camp. I would love if all the horrors of the Balkan wars never took place. Who wouldn't? But unfortunately, it's not reality. (And P.S your "western specialist" friend must be smoking something even harder).
I, like many many others, lament the break-up of the former Yugoslavia. I wish there was a way to re-unite our countries again. But the concentration camps and the genocide that took place during the Bosnian war is not a figmet of western imagination. Trust me, I know.
You can read the full Chomsky interview here.
10 comments:
One of Chomsky's problems is that he tries to play expert in many different, unrelated fields without any real knowledge in any of them. He rarely does any primary source research, I have never seen him cite a FOIA request or archival collection. His grasp on the relevant historiography is usual non-existence. To put it bluntly, he has no idea about what he babbles. However, most of his followers have no idea that his bogus research methods are bogus, are taken in by his status of #1 anti-imperial guru and are repeat his nonsense on auto-pilot.
haha soo i take it someones not a fan of chomsky? :p
Although I agree with alot of his political views and I think he's a very intelligent man, you're right in that he's not doing his research very well. I think part of his fault is also that he succumbs to the "my enemies enemy is my friend" worldview. So in the case of Yugoslavia, due to his suspicion of US foreign policy, he believed anything that opposed the NATO allies. It's a shame cos everythings not always so black and white
History Punk is absolutely right. He doesn't do his own research. He's a magpie, picking up other people's scraps of material and making his own nest of the bits he feels comfortable with. He seems unaware, or couldn't care less, that what he doesn't say speaks as loudly about him as what he does.
Don't just read the interview, listen to it, in the sequence of clips starting at http://www.youtube.com/user/otporash#p/u/7/EEhgwdJldeU
It's only by listening carefully, not letting the flow of words wash over you, that you understand the nature of the man and his work.
When you hear him talk about Philip Knightley's analysis of the "fraudulent photo" bear in mind that Knightley was able to give evidence on the defence's behalf at the libel trial, before the jury heard Dr Merdzanic's evidence - never mentioned by Chomsky.
For a really thorough analysis of the photo claims, go to the links at David Campbell's site http://www.david-campbell.org/photography/atrocity-and-memory/
I see Pilger is also on the blogroll. Can we do him next?
Thanks Owen, I'll make sure to check them out!
The problem with most of the information and articles concerning the former Yugoslavia is that they have a tendency of going one of two ways: either that the seccessionist croatian/muslim nationalists were totally innocent and that the orthodox communists needed to be dismembered OR downplay/deny any genocide in Bosnia based on the thought that the US-NATO intervention was a neo-liberal market conspiracy. Chomsky takes the stance of the latter, while many others fall into the former category. In my opinion neither are correct. I'm thinking of writing a blog on this topic next.
Kellie, yes Pilger is also on the blogroll :) His problem might be similar to Chomsky's! I'll check out the link you provided, thanks for that.
I admire both Chomsky's and Pilger's ability to question the way events are portrayed in mainstream media. Even when they get the facts wrong, I think they still manage to raise some good questions and discussion points. For example, the interview that I highighted with Chomsky, although I disagree with his conclusion as to what happened in Bosnia; he still raises some good questions about the economic results of the NATO intervention.
Being intelligent does not equal being smart. Chomsky is intelligent, but he is not smart. That's all there is to it.
Daniel I think I'd put it the other way round - he's smart but he's not intelligent. Either way, we mean the same thing.
haha yeah I get what you both mean!
chomsky and the Left still defend serbia.
as veleserbs, so does Left [and as the Right did for a few yrs after '91], affirm they were all equally responsible for warfare in the balkans.
the Left also ignores the fact that more than 50% of croats from croatia as partizani fought chetniks, ustashe, germans, and italians.
thus in agreement with ustashe that all croats were ustashe.
ustashe, chetniks, and the Left [not just chomsky] still do not acknowledge the fact that croat'n partizani fought for wholeness of croatia and solely deserve credit for the size and shape of today's croatia.
if pavelic wld have won, croats, caught between serbs, italians, and magyars wld have been left only with zagreb and environ.
28% of all croat'n partizani were serbs. because of that they became a privileged people.
they were at no time endangered prior to panserbs chilling calls for revenge and warfare.
and serb army, by occupying croatia aug '90, did in fact endanger them and especially with their cries: this is serbia.
however, until '93 it had been croats who were endangered by far more than serb. bozhidar
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