Balkans Blowback
by Nebojsa Malic
There are plenty of good reasons to be suspicious when the Empire announces something, be that the “mission accomplished” in Iraq or a revelation the FBI had stopped a terrorist plot. Over the past several years, the American public has been fed a diet of lies, which though barely edible provided the illusion of nourishment: Iraqi WMDs, Niger yellowcake, Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman…
So when news came that the FBI had arrested six men allegedly plotting an attack on Fort Dix in New Jersey, it was reasonable to suspect this was yet another propaganda stunt. Except for one thing – the amount of effort by the media and the government to obfuscate the identity of the alleged terrorists.
It is now known that of the six suspects, three were in the US illegally. One was Jordanian, another Turkish, and four were Albanians. But not just any Albanians – ethnic Albanians from Kosovo, commonly referred to as “Kosovars” when the mainstream media spins a tale of their suffering at the hands of evil, genocidal Serbs, or makes a case for secession of that Serbian province, occupied by NATO since 1999.They were not “Kosovars” this week, though; instead, the four Fort Dix suspects were “Yugoslavs” or “from former Yugoslavia,” and even now are described as “Albanians,” as if someone, somewhere decided that under no circumstances would their connection to Kosovo be allowed to emerge.
Perception Management
Rewind for a moment to Valentine’s Day 2007, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Shots are fired in a busy shopping center. Five people die and four are wounded before the assailant is killed by an off-duty police officer who happened to carry his weapon. The moment the shooter was identified as Sulejman Talovic, a Bosnian immigrant, coverage of the rampage changed dramatically. Instead of the victims’ names and features about lives cut short, the public was treated to an onslaught of tear-jerking drivel about Talovic, painting him as a victim of the Bosnian war. Within a day, the Trolley Square massacre was being blamed on Serbs, because Talovic was from an area affected by the 1995 “genocide.” Of course, he was long gone from Bosnia by then – but facts can never be allowed to interfere with a good sob story. When it comes to the Balkans, lies will get you awards, and truth will get you fired.
http://antiwar.com/malic/?articleid=10941