Bulletin 647
Subject: Invitation to the Grenoble showing of George
Bogdanich’s award-winning documentary film, “Yugolavia: The Avoidable War” on
Thursday, April 23, at 17h30 on the Stendhal University – Grenoble campus in
Amphi. 9.
17 April 2015
Grenoble, France
Dear Colleagues and Friends
of CEIMSA,
We are pleased to invite you
to the Grenoble showing of George Bogdanich’s important documentary film, Yugoslavia:
The Avoidable War. For more information, please see the announcement below + a recent interview with Noam Chomsky discussing the
emergence of “a new Cold War.”
Sincerely,
Francis Feeley
Professor
of American Studies
University
of Grenoble-3
Director
of Research
University
of Paris-Nanterre
Center
for the Advanced Study of American Institutions and Social Movements
The
University of California-San Diego
http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/
LE CENTRE DE RECHERCHE
CEIMSA-IN-EXILE
(Center for the
Advanced Study of American Institutions and Social Movements)
VOUS PRESENTE :
Le film documentaire
”Yugoslavia: The Avoidable
War”
Film de George
Bogdanich et Martin Lettmayer
(en anglais)
LE JEUDI 23 AVRIL
à
17h30
Amphithéâtre 9
___________________________
The
documentary which took four years to produce, and which was updated following
NATO intervention in Kosovo, investigates how serious errors and misjudgments
made by Western powers, particularly Germany and the United States helped spark
the violent break-up of the former Yugoslavia in 1991 and continue to
destabilize the region in the new millennium. Produced by Frontier Theatre and
Film Inc., Yugoslavia the Avoidable War documents the role of Western
intelligence agencies in providing aid to armed separatists and reveals how
Western governments supported different sides in an ethnic conflict while
portraying themselves as peacemakers. Most compelling are the candid statements
of the decision-makers themselves, including former EC Mediator Lord Peter
Carrington, former US Secretaries of State James Baker and Lawrence
Eagleburger, as well as Germany's former foreign minister, Hans Dietrich
Genscher. "What the international community -- the Europeans, the
Americans the UN -- did, made it sure there was going to be conflict,"
states Lord Peter Carrington, the EC mediator, who along with UN envoy Cyrus
Vance warned against diplomatic recognition of separatists states such as
Croatia and Bosnia, before a political settlement could be achieved. "US
intelligence agencies were unanimous in saying that if we recognize Bosnia it
will blow up," says former State Department official George Kenney. Yet,
according to former acting US Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, domestic
political considerations -- the 1992 election campaign between William Clinton
and George Bush ? led to the tragic decision to recognize Bosnia without a
political settlement between the Muslims, Serbs and Croats. The film makes a
powerful argument that the US drew the wrong lesson of from the Bosnian
conflict to justify intervention in the civil war that simmered in Kosovo. The
manipulation of news coverage by the warring sides is explored in compelling
footage and in interviews with veteran journalists such as David Binder of the
New York Times and John MacArthur, columnist and publisher of Harper's
Magazine, as well as authors Susan Woodward and Ted Galen Carpenter. The
documentary offers powerful evidence of US involvement in "Operation
Storm" the Croatian army's violent expulsion of the ethnic Serbian
minority in 1995, an action which offered an eerie parallel with the expulsion
of Albanian refugees in Kosovo by Serbian forces following NATO intervention on
the side of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). Compelling, candid interviews
from military officers including UN Commanders Sir Michael Rose, Lewis
MacKenzie and former Pentagon Chief of Staff General Colin Powell elucidate how
Western policymakers blundered by taking sides and by relying on military means
to settle political problems. Co-producers of "Yugoslavia: The Avoidable War"
are New York based documentary film maker George Bogdanich and Martin Lettmayer
a German television producer based in Munich, who is currently working on a
documentary in Central America. -- (C)
--2001 Frontier
Theatre and Film Inc.
Top
of FormBottom of Form
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Noam Chomsky:
We’re facing a new Cold War
http://www.salon.com/2015/04/15/noam_chomsky_were_facing_a_new_cold_war_partner/
by Noam Chomsky
[On the warped coverage of Putin's
Russia and the ways we whitewash our war crimes.]
Earlier this month,
Dan Falcone and Saul Isaacson, both high school educators, sat down
with Noam Chomsky in his Cambridge, MA office. In a brief conversation,
edited and condensed here for clarity, they covered a wide range of topics —
the projection of US power abroad and the stories told to justify it;
COINTELPRO and domestic repression; the failures of the mainstream media; the
West’s posture toward Putin; and much more. As always,
we’re happy to publish Professor Chomsky’s invaluable insights.
Dan Falcone
I was recently in
correspondence with a good friend of yours, Richard
Falk, and we were discussing Juan
Cole’s idea of “essentialism” as it pertains to the Muslim world.
And this led me to think about how essentialism is present in liberal
education.
For instance, take a good and
appropriate cause like education for Muslim girls and how they face Taliban
oppression. This is important to fight, obviously, but often the struggle is
taught without the mentioning of American foreign policy or our own
international crimes isolated from the entirety of the phenomenon. This
type of lesson planning in secondary education gets laudatory reviews. Could
you help me in contextualizing this?
Noam Chomsky
Well take, say, the Taliban
education that comes out of madrassas in Pakistan, and is funded by our main
ally, Saudi Arabia, and was supported by the Reagan administration — because it
was part of the support of Pakistan, primarily as a war against the Russians.
Well, the United States tried
to keep the Russians in Afghanistan, and the goal was very explicitly stated by
the CIA station chief in Islamabad, which got around the insurgency. What he
said was, we don’t care about the liberation of Afghanistan. We want to kill
Russians. A large part of that was to also support the worst dictatorship in
Pakistan, the General
Zia-ul-Haq dictatorship, who was allowed to develop nuclear
weapons.
The Reaganites pretended they
didn’t know, but of course they did, so that they could keep pouring funds in.
The other thing that they were doing was radically “Islamizing” Pakistani
society. So, the Saudis are not only the most extreme radical fundamentalists
in the Islamic world and our main allies, but also a kind of missionary, and
they have plenty of money. They have other wealthy sectors too, but they pour
money into building mosques, Quranic schools, and so on. That’s where a lot of
the Taliban came from.
So yes, we had a big role in
it — plus, it’s worse than that. I mean if you take a look at the serious
history after the Russians withdrew,
they left behind the Najibullah
government, which was
pretty reasonable in many ways. In fact, for women, at least in Kabul and
places like that, they’re way better off than they’ve been any time since the
Russians.
And
the Najibullah government, which was pretty popular, maintained
itself until two events took place. 1) The Russians withdrew, pulled out, ended
support, and 2) The US maintained support for the mujahideen, who are mostly
religious extremists and fundamentalists — guys who throw acid at women if they
aren’t wearing the right clothes and so on. And they devastated Kabul, they
practically destroyed it. They took over. Their rule was so awful that when the
Taliban came in, they were actually welcomed.
Well, that’s part of history
too, you know? Plus a lot that’s happened since isn’t very pretty. So yeah, if
you want to study the education of the Taliban, these are things to do. And
it’s not that we can’t read things, like you can read the story of Malala
Yousafzai, which is very evocative.
She talks about the warlord
society and so on, which the US instituted. There are other things one could
read. I mean, there’s a very good book by Anand Gopal which came out
recently. Although he’s pretty sympathetic to the US position, so it’s mostly
about what he calls “mistakes” — how the United States essentially
reconstructed the Taliban by misunderstanding the society.
But what he describes is very
persuasive. He goes through, and he knows the country very well. And he
describes in great detail how the gangsters and warlords and criminals
manipulated the US forces. Some group would say, you’ve got to attack these
guys over there, they happen to be a personal enemy claiming that they’re
Taliban supporters. So the US would send in Special Forces and bombers and beat
the shit out of everyone — and upgraded Taliban supporters.
Gopal says the Taliban basically
withdrew when the US invaded. But then we helped them come back by means like
these; through reconstructing the insurgency, which the government now can’t
control.
DF
So, there’s a simultaneous
support for the bandits . . .
NC
Part of it was purposeful by the
Reagan administration. Part of it is maybe just kind of arrogant ignorance.
Assuming we understand how to do things when you know actually nothing about
the society and just hit it with a sledgehammer and you end up supporting,
maybe inadvertently, the most criminal elements who then are using the
sledgehammer for their own purposes. You know, to smash up their personal
enemies.
DF
I remember some of your talks
after September 11, 2001, you were mentioning how there was a lot of praise for
works in the social sciences where authors were reviewing books that would say
America’s really only flaw is not doing enough in reaction to other people’s
crimes.
NC
It goes on right now. Take a
look at the current issue of Middle East Journal. It is one of
the more free, open, most critical of professional journals. It’s been pretty
good in the past, but there’s a symposium. It’s a large part of the issue, and
it includes ambassadors, generals, and all kinds of big shots. They’re
discussing the problems in the Middle East, the total chaos and what can we do
better than in the past to stabilize the Middle East?
I mean, where did the chaos come
from in Iraq and Libya? We did it. But the only question you can ask is how can
we perform better in stabilizing the Middle East? Then of course there are
these destabilizing elements like Iran, a rogue state, and the greatest threat
to world peace. How are they to be stabilized in the Middle East?
If you take a look after the
nuclear agreement, immediately there’s a lot of commentary. The New
York Times had a front page, a think piece, from one of their big
thinkers, Peter Baker. It says basically in agreement, you can’t trust Iran.
You know, they destabilize the Middle East, and then he gives a list of reasons
— each of them very interesting. But the most interesting is that one of the
main crimes of Iran is that they were supporting militias that killed American
soldiers.
In other words when we invade and destroy another
country, that’s stabilizing, and if someone defends themselves that is
destabilizing. That shows up in popular culture like this horrible film American
Sniper. Take a look at it. The memoir is worse than the film, but it
comes out that the first kill, the one he’s really proud of, is a woman and a
child who are holding a grenade when their town is being attacked by American
marines.
And they are savages, monsters, we hate them, they
have to be murdered, and everybody’s applauding. I mean, even the New
York Times arts pages was talking about what a wonderful film it was.
It’s just mind-boggling.
DF
Speaking of mind-boggling, and international terror, I
wanted to ask about domestic terror. I wanted to ask you about COINTELPRO.
It does not get a lot of mentioning in the social science or historical
educational curriculum. Can you tell me about COINTELPRO and the importance of
teaching and learning about it in the democratic society?
NC
It’s an understatement to say it receives little
attention. COINTELPRO was a program by the national political police, the FBI,
which is basically what they are. It ran through four administrations, and it
was conscious. It began by going after the Communist Party in the 1950s. It
then extended into the Puerto Rican independence movement and the American
Indian movements, the women’s movement, and the whole New Left. But the main
target was the black movement.
It was a major program of disruption and went all the way to direct
political assassination. The worst case was Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, who
were simply murdered in a gestapo-style attack set up by the FBI. They were
very effective black organizers. The FBI didn’t care much about the criminals,
but they wanted to go after the effective organizers. It happened to have been
exposed in the courts at about the same time as Watergate. I mean, in
comparison to this program, Watergate is a tea party, nothing.
I was asked by the New York Review to write a
brief article and a symposium when Watergate was exposed. But I had just read
about this. I said look, Watergate is showing how famous people receive bad
names in private and that shakes the foundation of the republic? And at the
very same time you get the exposure of this incredible program, which went all
the way to political assassination so it’s far more significant.
DF
The following of the stories that are the petty crimes insulate the
powerful from the major crimes.
NC
If you look at yesterday’s New York Times, there’s a
very interesting comparison between two stories. One of them is
a front-page story, big continuation page. It’s about the journalistic
malfeasance found in the Rolling Stone article. It’s a huge
statement about terrible reporting. You know, they said the crime was a lack of
skepticism, a terrible journalistic crime.
They have another article on Laos, which is quite
interesting. It’s about an important woman, a Lao-American woman who’s working
on trying to do something about the unexploded bombs that are killing people
over in Northern Laos. And it cites a source, the right source, Fred Branfman,
and his book, Voices from the Plain of Jars. And that’s where they
get their information from.
Then it says, for the United States, the target of the US bombing
was the Ho Chi Minh Trail where North Vietnamese were coming to South Vietnam
and the Lao collaborators with the North Vietnamese. What are the facts in Fred
Branfman’s book? The US was attacking Northern Laos. In fact, it’s shown on the
map they were attacking, and it had nothing to do with the Ho Chi Minh Trail,
no North Vietnamese.
Why were they doing it? Fred
documented it. He quotes Monteagle Stearns, who was asked in the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee, why are we bombing this remote area of Northern
Laos and wiping it out? And he gives the answer. He says there was a bombing
halt over North Vietnam. And we had all these planes around and we didn’t have
anything to do with them. So we destroyed Northern Laos.
That’s transmuted in the New York Times into
straight government propaganda. And that’s an absolutely colossal lie. Is that
going to beinvestigated by the Columbia Journalism Review?
We’re going to have front-page stories? No. It’s an amazing comparison, and
it’s every day.
Saul Isaacson
Stephen Cohen has argued that we’re closer
to war with Russia than we have been since the Cuban missile crisis. Do you
think he’s overstating the crisis in Ukraine?
NC
I don’t think so. I mean the
government of Ukraine that came in after the coup, the
parliament, voted almost unanimously to pursue membership in
NATO. As Cohen and many others have pointed out, that is something utterly
intolerable to any Russian leader. It’s kind of as if the Warsaw Pact had
taken over South America and was now going to include Mexico and Canada. So,
yeah, that’s serious.
It’s interesting the way Putin
is treated. I think it is maybe in the same Middle East Journal I
read recently, talking about supporting the US position on the Ukraine, and
some serious person saying this will be opposed by North Korea, the Islamic
state, and Stephen Cohen. [To question the US position on Ukraine means you
will receive threats from] Stalinist apologists and get a bitter pronunciation
of dismissal and ridicule.
SI
He also suggests that we’re on the verge of a new Cold
War.
NC
It’s serious. I mean, look, Gorbachev agreed to the
unification of Germany — and even its incorporation with NATO, which is an
amazing concession if you look at history. But there was a quid pro quo: that
NATO would “not expand one inch to the east,” that was the phrase, meaning to
East Germany.
Once NATO had expanded to East Germany, Gorbachev was
infuriated. He was informed by the Bush 41 administration that it was only a verbal
promise. It wasn’t on paper, and the implication is if you’re dumb enough to
accept a gentleman’s agreement with us, that’s your problem. Then Clinton came
in, expanded NATO to the borders of Russia. And now it’s gone further, even to
Ukraine which is right at the heart of, apart from historical connections, of
Russian geo-strategic concerns. That’s very serious.
SI
And it’s getting so little press, so little coverage
in the US.
NC
Not only little coverage but what there is, is insane.
I mean it’s all about what a lunatic Putin is. There’s an article in one of the
psychology journals about how he must have Asperger’s or some other articles
about how he has brain damage. I mean, you can like him or not, but his position
is perfectly understandable.
DF
Finally, can you comment on the Holocaust Memorial and
how the museum connects itself to the doctrine of the “Responsibility to
Protect?” (R2P) What is America’s interest with R2P or the “Responsibility
to Protect?”
NC
The Holocaust Memorial Museum was established in the
1970s, part of a huge expansion of Holocaust studies, memorials,
etc. The date is of some significance. The right time would have been
decades earlier, but that was before US relations with Israel were established
in their current form (after the 1967 war), and inconvenient
questions might have been raised about the US’s attitudes towards the Holocaust
and particularly towards survivors.
Also striking is the absence of
any remotely comparable reaction to enormous US crimes, such as virtual
elimination of the indigenous population and the vicious slave labor camps that
had an enormous role in the prosperity of the country. The lesson seems to be
clear: we can lament the hideous crimes of others, when it is convenient to do
so, but only the crimes of others.
As for R2P, there are two
versions of the doctrine. One was adopted by the UN General
Assembly. Changes from earlier UN resolutions are slight, and crucially,
it maintains the essential provisions of the UN Charter barring the use of
force without Security Council authorization (or in response to armed attack,
irrelevant here).
The second version, in a report by a commission headed
by Gareth Evans, is almost the same, but with one crucial difference: it
authorizes regional groups to intervene with force within what they take to be
their domains without Security Council authorization. There is only one
regional group that can act this way: NATO.
So the Evans version essentially allows NATO (meaning
the US) to resort to force when it chooses to do so. That is the operative
version. Appeal is made to the innocuous UN version to justify the resort to
force.
The case that was in everyone’s mind was the NATO
attack on Serbia in the Kosovo conflict, bitterly condemned by most of the
world but applauded by the NATO countries as a wonderful tribute to their
magnificence.
Noam Chomsky is Institute Professor (retired) at MIT.
He is the author of many books and articles on international affairs and
social-political issues, and a long-time participant in activist movements.