Dear Andrej, Thanks for your kind words about my work and for re-posting texts from Emperor's Clothes. Replying to my criticisms of Chomsky: you wax poetic about your 'terrible' government, etc., etc., but this avoids my criticism of Chomsky, which have nothing to do with Yugoslavia's internal affairs which would undoubtedly improve in many ways if the United States were not trying, with all its power, to crush Yugoslavia. Being crushed is of course a distorting experience. I will address Chomsky first and after that I will comment on your remarks about Milosevich's allegedly dictatorial rule. The Western media has continuously slandered Milosevich - and the Yugoslav Army - for alleged war crimes, particularly but not only in Kosovo. These include the phony massacre in Racak and the concocted stories about mass murder which were broadcast incessantly during the bombing. These charges, now admitted to have been lies, have been supported by Chomsky, time and again. While Chomsky has adjusted his position, his adjustments sometimes lag behind even what some elements of the media in NATO countries are saying at a given time. And Chomsky always lags way behind facts widely known within the antiwar movement. For example, during the bombing the antiwar movement publicized certain German court documents. These documents, based on studies of claims made by Albanian refugees from Feb. 1998 to Feb. 1999, concluded that Yugoslav forces did not target Albanian civilians. Chomsky knew about these court documents as soon as the rest of us. But Chomsky is still, over a year later, writing that "By summer [1998], the KLA had taken over about 40 per cent of the province, eliciting a vicious reaction by Serb security forces and paramilitaries, TARGETING THE CIVILIAN POPULATION." (el Ahram, June 2000, my emphasis) Why does the man repeat these known lies? (It is especially vicious that he repeats them in an Arab intellectual journal - especially vicious since one of the tactics the West uses is to paint "the Serbs" as anti-Muslim.) During the bombing Chomsky's key criticism of NATO was that by bombing "the Serbs" NATO guaranteed "the Serbs" would go on an anti-Albanian rampage. In fact during that period the Yugoslav army was desperately trying to organize anti-KLA resistance among Albanians. The KLA countered this by a) assassinating loyalist Albanians and b) calling in air strikes against anti-KLA Albanians, against refugees attempting to return home or who refused to leave Kosovo, as the KLA demanded they do, and so on. Similarly, Chomsky knew, from email sent to him during the bombing, that the Rambouillet ultimatum included Appendix B which permitted the takeover of Yugoslavia by NATO. But Chomsky ignored this information in material he published during that period. He compared the Yugoslavs to muggers and NATO to a trigger happy cop who shoots the muggers (Serbs) but also shoots the victims (ethnic Albanians). Even today he continues to suggest a moral equivalence between Milosevich and NATO. In the mid-90s, during the fighting in Bosnia he publicly argued that the Serbs were guilty as charged. Precisely because many people idolize Chomsky I ask: how has Chomsky used his influence to affect the antiwar struggle in the US and other Western countries? How has he, who wrote to me on May 12 1999 that he knows Milosevich is being demonized because, and I quote, '"demonization' of Milosevic was necessary in order to maintain public support for the bombing." How has he used his influence? The answer is that he has supported NATO lies while criticizing NATO enough to maintain his credibility on the left. His broad influence has helped prevent the formation of a mass antiwar movement in the US and Europe because nobody is going to get passionate about supporting criminals. Even when he "adjusts" his positions, he does so without (to my knowledge) criticizing past positions - so the sludge of his past lies about Yugoslavia stays in his readers' minds, with new sludge, adjusted to the current stance of the NATO media, added. Now, regarding your picture of Yugoslavia as the most repressive of states with the most corrupt government "this side of the Colorado" - hogwash. I am in close contact with a score of activist Serbs, some of whom disagree strongly with Milosevich about many things. One of their criticisms is that the Yugoslav government tolerates outrageous destabilization by US-financed "opposition" elements. You ignore the most important fact about Yugoslavia internally: that the US and Western Europe are doing everything possible to distort its political life. That includes openly distributing $100,000,000 to opposition elements in Yugoslavia. As the website editor of B292, whom I interviewed, told me (this is on tape) B292 is not the ONLY place that gets this US-Soros money. "There's a list." he said. "Everyone gets it." One hundred million dollars in Yugoslavia, an impoverished country with 4% of the US population and where $150 is a good MONTHLY salary, has the influence of a trillion dolalrs in the US. US officials openly discussed in the July 29, 1999 Senate hearings on destablizing Yugoslavia (see http://www.emperors-clothes.com/analysis/hearin.htm ) the details of their use of the "democratic" opposition arguing that their manipulation of the "independent" opposition is just another part of the attack on Yugoslavia, similar to the bombing of Serbian TV. Check it out. I am not exagerating.. Opposition elements funded by the US government and the Soros people, whether these elements call themselves leftists or rightists, are walking around free. It is unbelievable that Yugoslavia has not arrested these people who are paid as part of a vicious campaign that combines military attack, economic strangulation and bribery, bribery on a scale unprecedented in history. Even today, the so-called 'democratic' opposition, funded by the US, is allowed to function. Nowhere else would this be tolerated. I am sure, Andrej, that with a little effort you could get some of this cash, distributed like play money through NGOs all over Belgrade. New computers, nice office space, whatever you wanted. All you would have to do is attack Milosevich. Only your integrity stands in the way of the best career in Serbia - working for US intelligence or for Soros, its private arm. Regards, Jared
