SREBRENICA HOAX…WE LIVE IN THE ERA OF “BIG LIE” MASSACRE STORIES

by Felix Quigley

26 July, 2008

(Introduction)

Making a charge that one ethnic group massacres another is a very serious charge. It is serious business! It must be done with great care! it must be done only if clear evidence is produced along with the charge. Evidence is the bottom line!

In this vital article we place what we call the Srebrenica Hoax in the context of many other similar hoaxes in our recent living memory. And this should surely make people pause when they hear this story of Srebrenica.

We never ask people to take OUR word that Srebrenica is a Hoax charge, that Srebrenica Massacre is a hoax. But we do ask people to examine evidence very, very carefully indeed.

THE CONTEXT

(THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT IN WHICH THIS CHARGE HAPPENED)

The Big Lie technique has been used in these cases which are in my own personal recent observation, as opposed to something I have read about, as in the War or Holocaust

 

These come to mind very strongly

 

1. Jenin. That very weekend members of left wing and republican groups (connected with the ISM) and centred around Anthony McIntyre (who had been a republican Provisional IRA prisoner in Long Kesh) stood in the middle of the Falls Road, where it meets up with the Ballymurphy Road coming down, and handed out leaflets saying that there was a massacre by the Israelis of all the Palestinian Refugees in Jenin. They probably handed out thousands of these leaflets to the good working class and mainly catholic people of West Belfast on that afternoon. It was totally false information! At this time also the propaganda was widespread from the BBC, Guardian etc that the Israelis (obvious undercurrent implied Jews) were at that very moment engaged in a gigantic genocide in Jenin. And as in the case of the small McIntyre group the knowledge they were imparting to unsuspecting people was totally and utterly false, every bit of it! But…This is the clincher to this story! McIntyre or any of these giants ever later explained that they had been passing on lies. They did not ever feel the need to apologize to the Jewish people. They simply moved on to something else. (1)
2. The Beach Bombings in Gaza was a big issue. Anything involving children or ordinary Palestinian families gets big coverage. This later was shown to be a Hamas shell which went off, or was set off. The initial propaganda was never got over. (2)
3. Qana. This was an amazing example. Israeli jets were supposed to have hit a building in this town and the building then was supposed to have collapsed. But a wonderful piece of sustained work by a few energetic people on a tiny website, EU Referendum, showed that this was a total scam. What stands out in my mind from this detail is the fact that there was a group of men, one in particular, who was posing for pictures carrying a baby at different points, in front of different backgrounds, including one of the body being pulled from the rubble. The Media had been kept away from the scene for all of that morning and then arranged by Hizbullah at specific points, as the “theatre” commenced
4. The Mohammed El Durra France 2 affair. Our televisions were soaked in this image over a weekend and then extending into months. This image motif became the most widely circulated image ever in Islamist countries, or even Muslim countries. The image showed an Arab man sheltering his son, a young thin Arab boy, then it showed the boy lying dead, but never the boy being killed even though the cameras were focussed on. They sheltered behind a barrel. What was shown was just a couple of minutes of actual film taken, later spliced into the decisive imagery. But the Palestinian stringer cameraman had shot much more, perhaps 28 minutes more, and when eventually after years France 2 was forced to show this there were scenes of Palestinian youth faking being shot, falling in agony, then getting up, all to the applause of many Palestinian onlookers. That is the context in which the supposed El Durra was shot. All a total fake. But not many people even today know it was a fake. The Media does not tell them. The original image lives on.
5. The amazing memory of the Madeleine McCann case. What hits me most about this total human tragedy, and this may seem strange, is the hard hearted reaction of many Media people. These poor parents were looking after their children, inside a holiday compound situation, with their friends were visiting them regularly, even taking turns to do so. That shows that it was a social situation. They had lost their daughter and were distraught. They were told that to survive personally they should get involved. Even this was held against them. Also the whiff of racism as the Mediterranean women began talking about how Kate was “controlled” etc, and dressed well etc. I heard a leading programme presenter opining on a Spanish TV morning programme that there was an accident and the parents created an alibi etc. This lady was presenting the police lies. In no time at all the Media had followed the Portuguese police lies and Gerry and Kate McCann were guilty in the eyes of the great mass of people. Political only indirectly, but essentially same thing as Srebrenica in so far as the Modern Media is a very dangerous animal indeed.

 

SO ON TO SREBRENICA. IF EVER A WORD WAS MEANT TO CONVEY HORROR IT IS THIS WORD. BUT WHY SHOULD WE NOT ALSO QUESTION IT TOO!

 

I found in all of the above examples, and remember these are only 5 that happen to pop into my head in a personal way, that it is quite impossible to ever recover from the initial impact. Although in the case of the McCanns the good sense of the English ordinary people, and their distrust of foreign in general, meant it was never quite the same as the others.

 

What has happened to the Jews and the Serbs in history is of a different qualitative order.

 

For years the gutter press and even the broadsheets had made the Serbs into the new Nazis of the world. Most people reading the tripe had never met a Serb and knew zero about their real culture. It was a Serb form of anti-Semitism, just the name changed from Serb to Jew.

 

That is a fact. It was after that when Srebrenica was launched on the world. Those like myself who distrust the modern mass media were and are careful.

 

So I noticed that it had become rather quickly THE Srebrenica Massacre. Always THE Massacre.

 

In fact a group of people around Harry’s Place in London began to refer to anybody who raised ANY questions about the Srebrenica Massacre as “GENOCIDE DENIERS”.

 

Some of us now are very attuned to language and how it is used in the Mass Media. But one did not need a degree to see that the link was being created to Nazis like Irvine and “Holocaust Deniers”. These are highly intelligent people, why would they use such a term, it had to be done highly consciously.

 

Now THE Srebrenica Massacre is simply not questioned by 99.9 per cent of the ordinary people.

 

I am left wing. I admire and have admired for a long time many things about Leon Trotsky but do not think in that regard dogma. Think perhaps the opposite. I am not a dogmatist in any way.

 

To some extent I am still connected to the small boy who grew up among the small hills and lush green fields in my beloved Ireland, among simple, quite bigoted often, but always lovable people of my homeland. The human spirit does not like lies but is Srebrenica a lie? The very fact that I just use the one word “Srebrenica” and you are immediately attuned is a reason I think to be on guard. Do you see my point!

 

I am also very on guard when I see a “people” being badly denigrated. I am Irish, will always be Irish and I am very proud of Irish nationality.

 

Enough of that!

 

Can I begin with this truism! It is never easy to prove a negative. The guy who plants the lie on you has a head start. As Mark Twain said the lie gets half way round the world before truth gets his boots on.

 

Let us jump in and talk numbers. Differing numbers were given for the number killed by the Serbs. For some time it had settled at 8000. More lately for some reason it has been 7000. Is this not a little strange when considering such a vital issue.

 

Then there is this story and remember that so often friends and colleagues do fall out. This happened with Izetbegovic and staunchest friends in the town area of Srebrenica. THEY were disappointed that Srebrenica was captured. THEY saw themselves as defenders against the Serbs. THEY later felt they were betrayed (and for good reason as you will see as our narrative will continue) And much later THEY repeated a conversation that Izetbegovic had with their delegation to the effect that Clinton had advised him Izetbegovic that for the Americans to intervene on their side they needed a massacre in Srebrenica of 5000. This is fact. We will document this in detail later.

 

Note we are dealing here with Islam and with this extremist branch of Islam called Islamists. Many other names too because this Islam has a definite history which can be learned. The US is a very learned nation, there are very powerful resources financing very powerful studies and study groups. People generally underestimate on this score.

 

But my point is that the US elite understand this Islamist mentality, playing around with dead bodies, especially with dead bodies of children, very well! Place in google “Qana” and “EU Referendum” to see what I mean about the callous use of dead bodies by Islamists, especially dead bodies of children!

 

Got that! Try not to lose sight of that!

 

Please note also in these articles that when we talk about the Islamist leadership that emerged around Izetbegovic we are always talking about a faction, an Islamist faction, which fought for and won power as an extreme Fascist entity.

 

A minority in the population! Currying favour with the outside! That tactic must be as old as Troy. I saw it first hand in the North of Ireland from 1969 onwards.

 

Then there was the Racak massacre. Who can forget William Walker going through that gorge and bodies materializing before him and the Media cameras straight to us over breakfast was it.

 

These were we were told Muslim peasants killed in cold blood. But when the Finnish experts later disclosed that no, it could not have happened like that, the trajectory of bullet wounds through their bodies showed that they were facing the fire, and most often in a prone position, suggesting lying down behind cover. It was a battle and these were killed in battle. To reach that conclusion is like child’s play to such experts. A few glances and they would have a suspicion. But then they examined the bodies scientifically and with great care. They knew. Racak was a hoax!

 

But the initial effect remained.

 

And that skilled Finnish report was shelved or ditched may be more accurate.

 

THE Srebrenica Massacre story comes in the middle of much lies and that should make intelligent people pause a little when they hear this word bandied about as if it were a proven proposition. It is possible, given the power of our Media, to fool a lot of people a lot of the time.

 

1. Described by Wikipedia as The Battle of Jenin it took place between 3-11 April, 2002

[start quote from Wikipedia here]

The Israeli military denied entry to journalists and human rights organizations, leading to a rapid cycle of rumors that a massacre had occurred. Jenin remained sealed for days after the invasion. Stories of civilians being buried alive in their homes as they were demolished, and of smoldering buildings covering crushed bodies, spread throughout the Arab world. Various casualty figures circulated, reaching into the mid-hundreds. Palestinian sources described the events as “the Jenin massacre,” and international media and human-rights organizations expressed concerns that a massacre had taken place.

Subsequent Israeli investigations found no evidence to substantiate these charges; these were later substantiated by international human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch. The Palestinian death toll was estimated at 52 in early May 2002, while 23 Israeli soldiers were killed, and it was determined that a massacre had not occurred. Palestinian officials counted 56 deaths,^[10]

Despite new findings following the battle, including a decrease in the official death toll, most Palestinians and most Arabs continue to call the events of April 2002 a massacre

[end quote here]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Jenin

Note the last point. The initial impact remains and the Arabs can still call it a massacre.

2. The Gaza Beach Bombing happened in 2002. The Wikipedia entry is biassed against Israel. Read this different entry:

[start quote here]

It was Mark Garlasco of Human Rights Watch who was more than anyone else responsible for casting doubt on the official Israeli enquiries findings, that the tragic June 9th deaths of a Palestinian family on the Gaza beach were not caused by shelling they had done earlier.

Garlasco’s account was enthusiastically promoted by the British press, notably by Chris McGreal of The Guardian. He uncritically reported Garlasco’s assertions as recently as Saturday 17th June in an article subheaded Guardian investigation casts doubt on Israeli claim that army was not to blame:

..the army’s account quickly came in for criticism, led by a former Pentagon battlefield analyst, Marc Garlasco, investigating for Human Rights Watch. “You have the crater size, the shrapnel, the types of injuries, their location on the bodies. That all points to a shell dropping from the sky, not explosives under the sand,” he said. “I’ve been to hospital and seen the injuries. The doctors say they are primarily to the head and torso. That is consistent with a shell exploding above the ground, not a mine under it.”

Mr Garlasco also produced shrapnel from the site apparently marked as a 155mm shell used by the army that day.

In my most recent post on the contradictory IDF and Garlasco explanations, I reproduced the Human Rights Watch report of Garlasco’s findings verbatim. It actually relied heavily on Palestinian witness and bomb disposal staff statements about the timing and location of what they claimed was the shelling they witnessed.

Now Human Rights Watch and Garlasco have admitted that the IDF account “cannot be contradicted”. Without directly saying so, they have conceded that despite Garlasco’s previous assertions, the deaths were not directly caused by artillery shelling as they had claimed.

Garlasco has met with the Israeli investigatory authorities, and now states that the deaths “most likely” resulted from unexploded Israeli ordnance on the beach, despite having previously claimed that he saw craters which were only consistent with shells dropping out of the sky. He also praised the professional quality of the IDF investigations:

On Monday, Maj.-Gen. Meir Klifi – head of the IDF inquiry commission that cleared the IDF of responsibility for the blast – met with Marc Garlasco, a military expert from the HRW who had last week claimed that the blast was caused by an IDF artillery shell. Following the three-hour meeting, described by both sides as cordial and pleasant, Garlasco praised the IDF’s professional investigation into the blast, which he said was most likely caused by unexploded Israeli ordnance left laying on the beach, a possibility also raised by Klifi and his team.

“We came to an agreement with General Klifi that the most likely cause [of the blast] was unexploded Israeli ordinance,” Garlasco told The Jerusalem Post following the meeting. While Klifi’s team did a “competent job” to rule out the possibility that the blast was caused by artillery fire, there were still, Garlasco said, a number of pieces of evidence that the IDF commission did not take into consideration. …..

Garlasco told Klifi during the meeting that he was impressed with the IDF’s system of checks and balances concerning its artillery fire in the Gaza Strip and unlike Hamas which specifically targeted civilians in its rocket attacks, the Israelis, he said, invested a great amount of resources and efforts not to harm innocent civilians.

“We do not believe the Israelis were targeting civilians.” Garlasco said. “We just want to know if it was an Israeli shell that killed the Palestinians.”

Lucy Mair – head of the HRW’s Jerusalem office – said Klifi’s team had conducted a thorough and professional investigation of the incident and made “a good assessment” when ruling out the possibility that an errant IDF shell had killed the seven Palestinians on the Gaza beach.

As I commented previously, Mr Garlasco seems to have a remarkable tendency to radically recast his accounts of his actions to match emerging evidence. His entire previous case was about active Israeli shelling dropping out of the sky, which he had said was almost beyond doubt responsible.

And I wonder if Chris McGreal of the Guardian, Donald McIntyre of the Independent, and the BBC News web site will now report in full Garlasco and Human Rights Watch’s latest statements that the Israeli forces invest such effort not to harm innocent civilians and were correct in stating that an errant shell did not cause the killings.

And will they raise questions about the Palestinian witness evidence they so graphically reported, which had barrages of shells landing in the midst of the family on the beach?

Or will they raise questions about why the Palestinian authorities permit families to use a beach which they must know is likely to have unexploded ordnance lying on it?

[end quote here]

http://adloyada.typepad.com/adloyada/2006/06/human_rights_wa.html

The latter is a fair point. The PA had been given control of their own affairs by the OSLO agreements. But the main point to take from the above is how Human Rights Watch rlied on “evidence” from the Palestianian Arabs, obviously a biassed source. As we shall see this was central in anti Serb reporting in Yugoslavia, Roy Gutman and Maggie O’Kane coming immediately to mind.