|
of the Belgrade Coup
Editor & Webmaster
Leon Chame - 12/04/99
Yugoslav Associates:
- Zoran Radojicic
- Dejan Vukelic
- George Orwell
Contributing Websites:
- Original Sorces
- Transnational (TFF)
- Fair sources
- WSWS
March 04, 2003
| |
HOW NATO & THE MEDIA MISREPRESENTED THE CHINESE EMBASSY
BOMBING
By Jared Israel
Opponents of the war against Serbia argue that much of what
passes for news these days is really a kind of war propaganda, that NATO puts out misinformation and the media disseminates the stuff
uncritically. A case in point is the coverage of the bombing of the
Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. I download wire service reports from the AOL world news
database (accessible at aol://4344:30.WORLD.338815.464449182 ) if you are an AOL member.
This allows me to see exactly how wire services and newspapers change the news from hour
to hour. Very instructive for studying how
misinformation is disseminated.
Studying misinformation is a special interest of mine. If you'd like to see some of my previous work in this area, send me a note
and I'll email you The Emperor's Clothes, which analyzes how the NY Times misinformed its
readers about the bombing of a Sudanese pill factory in August, 1998.
Before we examine the news coverage of the bombing of the Chinese Embassy, let me recount
a very interesting report from a Chinese intellectual, currently at Harvard's Kennedy
Institute, who spoke on May 8th at the weekly Boston anti-war rally (held at 3:00 every
Sat. in Copley Square). The man had conferred with people overseas and thus had direct
knowledge of the attack on the Chinese Embassy. He
said three missiles had struck the Embassy compound, hitting three apartments where one or
both adult family members was a journalist. The missiles apparently carried a light
explosive charge.
Why NATO Targeted Chinese Journalists? Why, asked the speaker, did all three
missiles strike journalists' apartments?
Clearly, he said, the goal was to punish China for sympathizing with the
Yugoslav people against NATO. More specifically, the
intention was to terrorize Chinese newspeople in Yugoslavia, thus silencing yet another
non-NATO information source.
Does that seem too nightmarish to be true? Keep in mind, NATO has consistently bombed Serbian news outlets
with the stated intention of silencing sources of "lying propaganda." Why would it be so far-fetched for them to do the same to Chinese newspeople? Perhaps NATO wants to silence ALL non-NATO reporting on the war, even at the risk of starting WW III.
Or perhaps NATO, or a part of NATO, such as the U.S. government, wants to
provoke a fight with China before China gets too strong to be crushed?
SORRY, WRONG BUILDING
NATO spokesman Jamie Shea's first response to the Embassy bombing was a) to
apologize and b) to explain that the NATO missiles had gone astray. NATO had intended to
hit a building across the street, a building that houses what SHEA called the
"Federal Directory for the Supply and Procurement."
Said Shea: "'I understand that the two buildings are close
together."' (Reuters, May 8)
(If they ever catch the terrorists who bombed the US Embassy in Kenya and bring
them to trial, could their legal team utilize the Shea Defense which consists of a) first
you say I'm very sorry and b) then you say you meant to blow up the building across the
street?)
But getting back to the "news" -- according to Jamie Shea the Chinese
Embassy is close to the "Federal Directory for the Supply and Procurement." But
the Chinese Embassy is in fact located in the middle of a large lawn or park in a
residential neighborhood and: "The embassy stands alone in its own grounds surrounded
by grassy open space on three sides. Rows of high-rise apartment blocs are located 200
(600 feet) metres away and a line of shops, offices and apartments sits about 150 meters
(450 feet) away on the other side of a wide tree-lined avenue, [called]...Cherry Tree
Street." (Reuters, 5/8)
NEARBY BUILDING? WHAT NEARBY BUILDING?
Apparently realizing that a "Federal Directory for the
Supply and Procurement" would not be placed in an apartment complex -- or on a 1000
foot lawn - NATO spun a new story a few hours later:
"Three NATO guided bombs which slammed into the Chinese embassy in Belgrade overnight
struck precisely at the coordinates programmed into them, but it was not the building NATO
believed it to be. 'They hit bang on the three aim points they were given,' a military
source said.... [NATO military spokesman General Walter]
Jertz declined to say what sort of weapon hit the Chinese embassy, except that it was
'smart' or guided munitions and not free-fall bombs. He denied planners were 'using old
maps, wrong maps.'" (Reuters, May 8)
OK. Three smart missiles or bombs hit the three locations they were supposed to
hit. It was a misidentified target. And the Pilot(s) wasn't misled by old or bad maps. On
the face of it, what is the likelihood of NATO picking target coordinates that just happen
to coincide with three apartments occupied by journalists? I mean, one computer-guided
bomb destroying a journalist's home would not be unlikely. But three hitting three
journalists' homes?
TOO MANY SPOKESMEN
In the same Reuters story, another expert suggests
it would be highly unlikely for NATO to make the kind of mistake Jertz is suggesting: "'Target identification and pilot
preparation would have been extensive in this case, because of the military importance of
the intended target and because Belgrade is heavily defended by Serb forces,' [Air Force Maj. Gen. Charles Wald, a strategic planner for the Joint Chiefs of
Staff] said at a briefing for reporters. '`'The way targeting works ... the higher the threat, the more valued the target, the more time
you would study it. The more time you have to study it, the better,'
Wald said." Based on what Wald is saying here,
isn't it pretty much unlikely that an embassy would be mistaken for a "Federal
Directory for the Supply and Procurement?"
TOO MANY NAMES
Which brings us to yet another problem. Because in the same MAY 8 Reuters Story
the name of the place which NATO intended to bomb mysteriously changes not once but
twice. Read the following quote from General Jertz carefully: "Careful to avoid making excuses,
NATO military spokesman General Walter Jertz said NATO went after the target because it
thought it was the weapons warehouse of the Federal Directorate for Supply and
Procurement. 'The information we had was that in this building was the headquarters of the
Directorate, and we have no evidence that we were misled,' he
said."
So now the thing they thought they were bombing was:
a) the Federal Directory for the Supply and Procurement;
b) Weapons warehouse of the Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement; and
c) the headquarters of the Directorate.
No wonder they couldn't be misled. They couldn't
even name the place.
AND TOO MANY MISSILES
NATO'S next spin-control effort was an attempt
to simplify things. Retelling the story again a bit later on the
8th, AP reported that: "The precision-guided weapon that hit the Chinese embassy in
Belgrade apparently did just what it was told. .." One weapon. That
does make things more believable, unless of course the reader has seen the previous
stories that refer to Three missiles....Since few
people read multiple news stories about the same topic, and even fewer read them
carefully, moving from three to one missile is a pretty safe gambit.
But the problem still remains: how could NATO targeteers, pouring over their maps, not
notice the label CHINESE EMBASSY on a building they were planning to bomb?
THE MAPS! IT WAS THE MAPS!
NATO'S answer: switch positions on the map
question. What was the source of "the erroneous B-2 bomber
attack, which dropped several satellite-guided bombs on the embassy"? Here's the
latest explanation: "In mistakenly targeting
the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade Friday night, U.S. intelligence officials were working
from an outdated map issued before China built its diplomatic compound several years ago,
American and NATO authorities said yesterday. 'The tragic and embarrassing truth is that
our maps simply did not show the Chinese Embassy anywhere in that vicinity,' a senior NATO
official said." (Washington Post, May 10)
Let's consider the implications of what we've just read.
First, the Post accepts without question NATO'S assertion
that the embassy bombing was accidental. Indeed the
Post doesn't mention the highly newsworthy fact that the news accounts are so mutually
contradictory. Doesn't that
tell us something about these news agencies, about their attitude toward NATO and this
war? That they are really part of NATO'S public relations effort, dutifully reporting
whatever they are told without pointing out the implications of NATO'S ever-evolving
explanations. Doesn't that suggest that we should be very skeptical about other media
coverage for example, the stories "proving" the Serbs are committing
genocide?
Second, the claim
that using "old maps" was the problem flatly contradicts an equally confident
assertion made about 36 hours earlier by a NATO spokesman, General Jertz. You remember:
"He [that is, Gen. Jertz] denied planners were 'using old maps, wrong maps.'" (Reuters, May 8)
Third, consider the
phrase "outdated map issued before China built its diplomatic compound several years
ago." This phrase suggests NATO was using map-books or perhaps
fold-up maps, the kind you take on a road trip. Is
it conceivable that NATO would be using such ancient technology? What's the matter, they
can't afford computers? They have no technical staff? We are after all talking about the
combined armed forces of the U.S. and most of Europe. The whole
focus of their attack on Serbia is aerial bombardment. Aerial bombardment depends
primarily on maps and intelligence. Doesn't it fly
in the face of rudimentary common sense -- indeed of sanity -- to believe that this
super-technological military force would have anything but the most sophisticated mapping
facilities, updated with satellite photos and local intelligence reports hourly, all of it
in computerized war rooms with giant screens, scores of technical personnel, etc. And isn't it equally obvious, that that one thing such an armed force would have
at its finger tips would be exact information about sensitive installations -- such as
diplomatic facilities -- precisely to make sure they did not get bombed? Unless of course NATO wanted them to be bombed. And of all the diplomatic facilities in all of Yugoslavia, wouldn't the one to
which NATO would pay the most attention be the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade - both because
of China's immense world-importance and because it is Belgrade's chief ally? Of course NATO had up-to-date maps of the area around the Chinese
Embassy. And of every square inch inside the Embassy and complete dossiers on all the
people working in the Embassy as well.
Fourth, since NATO claims it decided to bomb the Embassy because of what the
targeteers saw on these "old maps" just what did the targeteers see? We are told they didn't see the
Embassy. Did they see something else they wanted to attack and destroy? Just what was this
something else? Was it a building which housed some military facility? In the middle of a 1000 foot lawn in a residential section of the
city? And if there is such a map with such a building, why doesn't NATO produce this
ancient document, and show it to us?
Fifth, the story says the bombs were
delivered by a "B-2 bomber." Don't the B-2's fly out of a U.S. base I believe
it's in Missouri. So let us "be from Missouri" for a moment, and ask a couple of Missouri (that is skeptical) questions:
a) Keeping in mind that NATO has air bases in Italy
right near Yugoslavia as well as aircraft carriers in nearby waters, is it really
believable that the U.S. government would send a super-expensive plane on an eight hour
flight to deliver three smart missiles or bombs to a relatively minor site in Yugoslavia?
(I say relatively minor because it took NATO two days to even get clear on the name of the
institution they meant to bomb...)
b) Having made the unbelievable decision to send this
plane on that mission, is it believable that the U.S. military would do such a thing based
on the information contained in some "outdated maps issued" years before?
And sixth -- did
you notice we are once again talking about multiple bombs or missiles?
LET US NOW REVIEW NATO'S STORIES
According to NATO there were three
NO, there was only one--smart bomb that
hit the Chinese Embassy by mistake because it missed a building across the street that
houses the "Federal Supply and Procurement Office" --
NO, that wasn't the problem. The missiles (because we're back to three
missiles again) didn't miss -- they hit right on target except it turned out the target
was all wrong, wasn't the Federal Supply and Procurement Office at all, it was the Chinese
Embassy and somehow the targeteers got it all confused but one thing is definite: the
mix-up was not the result of using old maps.
But that's not right either because if a target is important a great deal of
care is taken, and given that this was such an important target, even more care would be
taken to make sure it really was the a) Federal Directory for the Supply and Procurement
and -
- NO, that should be the b) Weapons Warehouse of
the Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement,
- NO, that isn't right either it wasn't just a
warehouse, it was the c) HEADQUARTERS of the Directorate and -
- NO! Forget everything we've said so far. It
was the maps. The maps were very old so you couldn't tell that the building on that site
was an Embassy. And there were three missiles, of course. Who ever said anything about there only being one?
And as for sending a B-2 bomber half way around the world to carry out this
mistaken attack on a target whose name nobody can get straight, all I can say is: what damn fool went and admitted it was a B-2 bomber?
A PARK, AND OTHER MILITARY TARGETS
This writer has just spoken to a Serbian
gentlemen whose family lives a few blocks from the Embassy. He says the Embassy was built
4 or 5 years ago and that prior to the building of
the Embassy, the only thing there was: a park.
A letter from an American living in Belgrade says the embassy is in area called
New Belgrade (Novi Beograd), developed from sand marsh land after W.W.II. She confirmed
that the land on which the Embassy sits was unoccupied before it was built. However, she
says "park" is too fancy a term, that it
was just a huge lawn, with very few trees. Therefore the notion that NATO could possess a map drawn before the
Chinese Embassy was built which showed any building occupying the land on which the
Embassy now stands is simply impossible. There was nothing there. Therefore NATO is lying.
Since NATO is lying, what are we are left with? There is
the Chinese gentleman's explanation. There is the
possibility that this bombing is an intentional provocation, perhaps aimed at challenging
China before China gets too big. There is the possibility that NATO and or the U.S.
government was "delivering a message" to China and to other would-be
independent governments that independence will be punished with death.
In any case,
it seems clear that the attack was planned, and that
to make sure it went precisely according to that plan, the most sophisticated plane
available was sent thousands of miles to deliver three small bombs. NATO deliberately blew
up three apartments inhabited by Chinese journalists in the Chinese Embassy. This was a
high-tech execution.
The question is: What will NATO do next?
Note This document has been read by several thousand people by now, and I've
received quite a few responses.
Perry, an American grad student in California writes: "Talking to people
about the Embassy bombing, I've noticed how the lies which you point out actually
*dovetail* in the mind of many people - 1) old maps; 2) nearby target. People naturally
put this misinformation together and "create" meaning! The common interpretation is as follows: There was a military target which
US/NATO was trying to hit, but because of "old maps" they got confused and
bombed the wrong location. Now
I know that this line doesn't make any sense, but I can't tell you how many people have
repeated it to me.. Very effective propaganda; we can almost call it 'art.'"
This recalls a point I made in my analysis of NY Times coverage of the bombing
of the pill factory in Sudan, an analysis I called The Emperor's Clothes. (If you'd like
to see the Emperor, drop me a line and I'll send it to you...). In that analysis, I
pointed out that several days after the bombing of the Sudan factory, the Times "floated" an entirely new explanation for
U.S. actions. A page 1 story claimed that not only had the pill factory secretly
manufactured nerve gas but Iraq was behind the whole thing. This justification
apparently didn't fly because it was repeated in a minor story one more time, then dropped
entirely.
Five days later, the Times printed a letter from a gentleman who commented on
this "Iraqi connection" as if it were an established fact. And the thought
occurred to me that these bits of non-fact stick in our heads, interfering with our
thinking the way graphite flakes interfere with electrical generators, and this nonsense,
multiplied a thousand-fold, forms a kind of smog, preventing
us from seeing the surrounding mountains of evidence: that the US government has murdered people and lied about the
deed.
Jared Israel was an anti-war activitist in the 60's. He slept comfortably from the mid-70s
until August 1998 when the government's bombing of and the media's lies about a Sudanese
pill factory awakened him and he has been sleepless ever since, spending the last seven
months studying and writing about U.S. foreign policy, especially it's attack on Serbia. JaredI@aol.com
|
