Posted by Julia Gorin
★ ★ ★ UPDATE ★ ★ ★
The letter by Mr. Edward Spalton (included further down in this blog) was sent out to local British papers and Euro-skeptic political journals, he informs me. Mr. Spalton is Vice Chairman of the Campaign for an Independent Britain, “a cross-party group trying to extricate our country from the European Union,” and he frequently writes on matters relating to Serbia, “as they are part and parcel of the European ‘empire’,” he explains, adding, “I have taken an interest in the Balkans since the early Nineties when I got the feeling that reporting in the mainstream media was very badly skewed – and, boy, was I right!”
The tantrum-prone Charles Johnson, proprietor of the Little Green Footballs blog which was briefly conservative in the immediate post-9/11 era but whose love for Muslims has grown in direct proportion to the pro-Muslim propaganda we’ve been enduring since that day, has a sort of “Geller Watch” in which he tries to paint anti-jihad activist Pamela Geller as a vile nut job. The pitch reaches new levels when she touches on — guess what — the Balkans. Here is what Pamela posted this weekend (original emphasis included), followed by the usual sort of response that LGF does on the topic (look for the ubiquitous buzz phrase to stifle debate — you know what it is — “genocide denier”):
By Pam Geller
Why aren’t the Bosnian Muslims held to the same standard as the Serb Christians? Why is this fabricated narrative protected so fiercely? The left is spitting bullets every time I post on Bosnia. They are so vested in establishing a militant Islamic state in the heart of Europe. Why?
The American people were fed an endless supply of distortions and deceptions in order to grease Clinton’s war. It began with a lie. How long will these human rights activists and international law clowns ignore the Serbian people and their stories? Refuting the Bosnian Lies.
The international community jumped to manufacture a “genocide” of a couple of hundred people, when real genocides like the millions of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians by the Muslims are systematically ignored, demied [sic]. Enough. When does the truth get a hearing? Scroll here.
This letter in the [Edmonton] Journal speaks truth to lie:
Mladic’s record distorted
Edmonton Journal May 31, 2011
Re: “Mladic trial a time for Balkan truth,” Opinion, May 28.
Thanks for the ambitious headline: “Mladic trial a time for Balkan truth.”
We can only wish that truth were the goal of The Hague.
The Journal says that “Unquestionably, justice is the prime imperative behind the arrest and coming trial of the Balkans’ dreadful Ratko Mladic.”
Using the preface “unquestionably” doesn’t make it unquestionable.
The Journal says that “It is true that in the most passionate of conflicts, nothing will shake some people from false or distorted versions of past events.”
Serbians and the many reputable critics who have witnessed the reporting and trials that came out of these civil wars will firmly support that statement. What is a false version of past events? Could it be that changing the definition of genocide to fit the crime Mladic is accused of is a falsehood?
Thousands of Serbs around Srebrenica were slaughtered, tortured and beheaded by Muslims based in the Srebrenica “safe haven.” There was no question about who did it: Naser Oric, the leader of the killers, photographed his victims and bragged to Western journalists. This man got a light sentence – a slap on the wrist.
Who would believe that Mladic will get a fair trial?
There was never a Serbian plan, much less a Mladic plan, for a greater Serbia, but sloppy reporters, including The Journal, in using those words.
Anybody can pick up a package of past articles written about the conflicts and spit it out again. The Journal coyly states that if Mladic is convicted it will be for specific, verifiable crimes, but he has been convicted again and again in the press until he is finally being sent to this kangaroo court to tie things up.
The Serbian people are a dignified, justice-loving people whose story is ignored.
N. Jakovac, Toronto, Ont.
What the media refuses to report on are the facts.
Deutsche Presse-Agentur June 6, 1996
Senior official admits to secret U.N. report on Sarajevo massacre
For the first time, a senior U.N. official has admitted the existence of a secret U.N. report that blames the Bosnian Moslems for the February 1994 massacre of Moslems at a Sarajevo market.
Yasushi Akashi, the Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and the former head of the U.N. mission in Bosnia, told the German Press Agency dpa that the secret report is “no secret.”
An international outcry over the massacre, in which 68 civilians perished at Markale marketplace, led directly to a toughening of Western policy towards the Serbs, who were widely blamed for the incident.
But there have been persistent rumours at the United Nations ever since that a U.N. report clearly blamed the Moslems for firing on their own people in order to create international sympathy and get the West to fight on their side against the Serbs.
Until Thursday, U.N. officials strongly denied the report existed, even after it was quoted in press reports.
Akashi told dpa that not only did the first report exist, but that some journalists already had a copy. He said the details were in a 1995 story by U.S. journalist David Binder, who quoted from the confidential report.
According to Binder, the report said U.N. peacekeepers were prevented by Moslem police from entering the site in the aftermath of the explosion. No doctors were allowed on the scene and the 197 victims were carried away to hospital within 25 minutes.
After studying the crater left by the mortar shell and the distribution of the shrapnel, the report concluded that the shell was fired from behind Moslem lines. U.N. monitors reported no Serbian shelling that day from points near the marketplace.
The official U.N. report that was subsequently released said the evidence as to who fired the shell was inconclusive, since it originated from an area where Moslem and Serb lines were very close. The two reports represented divergent views, but the United Nations chose to publish the neutral report and keep the other secret.
The incident led to a NATO ultimatum to Bosnian Serbs to withdraw their heavy weapons from around Sarajevo.
At the time, Madeleine Albright, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said: “It’s very hard to believe any country would do this to their own people, and therefore, although we do not exactly know what the facts are, it would seem to us that the Serbs are the ones that probably have a great deal of responsibility.”
CORROBORATED IN THESE 3 CLOSING PARAGRAPHS OF THIS AKI REPORT from Dec. 2007:
Bosnian Serb leaders have claimed that the attack was engineered by Bosnian Muslim forces to lay blame on the Serbs and some UN officials in Bosnia have speculated that it may have been the case.
[Dragomir] Milosevic has argued that Muslim forces were entrenched in Sarajevo from where they shelled Serb positions, thus making the city a “legitimate target”.
Since its founding in 1993, the ICTY has indicted 161 individuals, mostly Serbs….
A source and reader of Pamela’s (Armaros), whom I’ve fought with in her comments section because he’s still a bit brainwashed on the Balkans (but more fair-minded than most), sent her the following email containing Johnson’s post yesterday:
When you call out “genocide denier” no wonder the hate follows. Funny this is what he is claiming to be fighting:
Pamela Geller, Genocide Denier
“…Today, Pamela Geller crossed the line into outright genocide denial, claiming that only a “couple of hundred people” were killed in Srebrenica by Serbian commander Ratko Mladic. The truth, of course, is that Mladic oversaw the massacre of thousands of innocent Muslims — including many children — who had sought safety from the genocide being perpetrated by Serbian forces in other parts of Yugoslavia. And that’s just one of his many documented war crimes.
“And it gets even worse. Geller also claims that Muslim forces fired on their own people to create international sympathy, and that the well-documented attempted genocide by Serbians was completely fabricated.
“Her despicable post supporting the mass murder of Muslims: DISTORTING HISTORY – Atlas Shrugs…”
How can the separating of the men of fighting age and allowing the women and children to join the UN camp [be] genocide? Even if they killed 8000 that would be a serious war crime but not genocide.
Armaros gets it.
And we should thank Pamela for putting herself out there on this, the untouchable subject.
OH, these were two of the comments to the LGF post:
By ‘albusteve’: “Geller has become a demented freak that should be chained to a wall…her reckless fabrications ought to be criminal”
By ‘Summer’: “You know……you’d think that the b—h would learn some day…”
Notice that, like the Muslim world, LGF readers and bloggers don’t seem to believe in free speech. I mean, if Geller should be chained to a wall and all.
Notice something else, a consistent pattern when it comes to the Balkans. It doesn’t matter if the Serb-exculpatory information is coming from a report by an otherwise Serb-hostile UN, or from an AFP dispatch (as in Pamela’s post), or from Amnesty International, HRW, any number of UN generals or officials — or even from more honest members of the designated victim sides. The charge is always the same: “Geller says…” or “Gorin says…” and stuff like ‘These blinded-by-anti-Muslim-hate bitches have lost their marbles.’ I don’t think that Generals Satish Nambiar, Lewis MacKenzie, Philippe Morillon and Mauro Del Vecchio are crazy bitches — as aren’t the Dutch UN battalion or Canadian former ambassador James Bissett, nor the score of non-Gorin, non-Geller columnists who have been trying to call attention to the fallacy of the official Bosnia and Kosovo narratives (on which policy continues to hinge and certain state-building projects are based). What reminded me of the phenomenon in which the people and reports that Pamela or I quote are completely ignored as sources (and instead Pamela and I magically become the only sources of what we’re saying) was the following letter posted at the 1389 blog. I’m in the process of finding out which publication it was intended for and whether it was ultimately published there or not:
Sir,
The capture of General Ratko Mladic has brought the Balkan situation to the fore again. Very successful EU and NATO propaganda has created an impression in the public mind which is at considerable variance from the facts.
Readers might like to guess which Balkan leaders said or wrote the following:
A. “Genocide is a natural phenomenon in keeping with the human-social and mythological divine nature. It is not only commended but commanded by the Almighty…”
B. “Protect brotherhood and unity…nationalism always means isolation from others, being locked in a closed circle and stopping growth…”
C. “There can be no peace or coexistence between the Islamic faith and non Islamic institutions. The Islamic movement can and must take power as soon as it is morally strong enough, not only to destroy the non Islamic power but to build a new one….”
The answers may surprise.
They are:
A. Franjo Tudjman – leader of Croatia, backed by EU/NATO
B. Slobodan Milosevic – Serbian leader branded as “the butcher of the Balkans” by EU/NATO
C. Alija Izetbegovic – Muslim leader of Bosnia, backed by EU/NATO
So it is no surprise that things are not quite as portrayed with General Mladic. Atrocities there certainly were at Srebrenica but on both sides, as testified by the Canadian UN Commander, General Lewis Mackenzie. He states that the Muslim forces used the UN “safe haven” at Srebrenica as a base for murderous attacks against surrounding Serb villages in which thousands of civilians were killed.
So when the Bosnian Serb forces arrived in the town, they were not in a forgiving mood and many murders undoubtedly took place but, as for the claim of 8,000 killed, “the math just doesn’t add up”. Neither does anyone committing genocide allow women and children safe passage -as Mladic’s forces did.
Whilst saying that two wrongs don’t make a right, General MacKenzie believes that the Serbs were fooled into their attack to provide a
pretext for NATO air strikes, rather like those in Libya today.
I received corroboration of General Mackenzie’s view in discussion with James Bissett who was Canadian Ambassador in Yugoslavia at the time.
The Muslim Commander, General Nasir Oric, got off at the Hague tribunal but I doubt whether General Mladic will.
Yours faithfully,
Edward Spalton
All the facts aside, I’ll ask an obvious question that I’ve asked before: Are we really still supposed to mourn Muslim soldiers? Really?
In closing, to Mr. Spalton’s “Guess Who Said” list, at least three other statements off the top of my head could be added:
D. “One can’t be bothered with prisoners.”
E. “A breach must be made. Kill all that stands in front of you. I am permitting and ordering that the enemies be killed using all necessary means, knives, bombs, hunting knives, teeth.” “Can we rape?” [You have the right to do anything you want.]
F. Serbian women should be used to satisfy potential Albanian rapists.
Answers:
D. Bosnian-Muslim commander Naser Oric, as paraphrased by UN General Philippe Morillon.
E. Quote and paraphrase of Hamdija Delalić, commander of the V corps’s 502 brigades of the Muslim military, talking to his soldiers in a video, in which he calls for an attack on Serb-aligned Muslim moderate Fikret Abdić’s area.
F. Paraphrase of leading ethnic Albanian politician in Kosovo, Fadil Hoxha, at an official dinner in 1986.
