Ned Crabb, Letters Editor

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

New York, NY

Subject: A letter to the editor re. "Truth Wins One” - a WSJ editorial (June 7, 2000)

Dear Ned,

Your today’s editorial “Truth Wins One” (WSJ, June 7) was a delightful read.  For a real truthmonger, that is.  Because this time, your editor really put his foot in it.  All the way…

“It’s official: NATO did not commit war crimes…” your editorial trumpets in the opening sentence, citing as “proof” the opinion of a proven kangaroo court prosecutor - Carla Del Ponte of the War Crimes Tribunal at the Hague.

It’s official: NATO did commit war crimes, concluded Amnesty International the same day your editorial was published (June 7).

Even your cross-town rival, just as rabidly anti-Serb, the New York Times, admitted today that, “in an extensive report that infuriated NATO leaders, Amnesty International has said that NATO violated international law in its bombing war over Yugoslavia by hitting targets where civilians were sure to be killed.”  The Amnesty report said “up to 1,500 civilians” were killed by the NATO war criminals.

And what did the Journal say?  “Truth rarely counts for much with intellectual squirrels and scoundrels.  But setting the record straight for posterity has its uses.”

Oh, so Amnesty International are “intellectual squirrels and scoundrels?”  Or the more than 60 other peace groups from all over Europe want to have legal proceedings launched against NATO, according to a June 3 ABC (Australian) news report?  These activists say NATO's bombardment of Yugoslavia was in breach of international law, and that the war was fought with disproportionate means.  

“Setting the record straight for posterity?”  Not so fast, I am afraid.  And not only because the Amnesty report authoritatively refutes the opinions of proven intellectual whores who work at the Hague court.  Also, because this one is far from over.  In fact, the real war crimes trials - those for NATO’s crimes against humanity - have not even begun as yet.  Yet they are coming.  Hold on to your hats.  Or better still, to your heads. 

Because the media, including the Journal, a prominent backer of the NATO bombing of Serbia, may also end up being charged in the upcoming trials with complicity in NATO war crimes.

And what does the Journal say?  Killings of Serb civilians were “well-intentioned blunders, hardly a definition of a war crime.”

Which is total nonsense.  The Serb TV building was deliberately targeted.  So was the Novi Sad TV.  So was the civilian train on the Grdelica bridge.  So were the refugee columns in Kosovo.  So was the civilian bus near Pec.  So was the Varvarin bridge.  And so on and so forth.  None of these targets were of any military value whatsoever.

Nor was the use of cluster bombs in residential areas of Nis and other Serb cities a “well-intentioned blunder.”  Cluster bombs are intended to kill people, not blow up buildings.

There has been by now a public record developed that proves that hundreds of people who died in these attacks were killed as a result of deliberate NATO targeting actions.

And now, the Journal editors are defending the international thugs and murderers who had ordered these strikes against civilian targets.  And they are siding with them against their fellow-journalists who were among the civilians killed by NATO bombs.  O tempora, o mores…

Finally, and even if a small number of civilian victims did die as a result of “well-intentioned blunders,” so what?  NATO broke just about every international law on the books when it launched its illegal attack on Serbia.

And what does the Journal say about that?  Nothing. 

But you did end your editorial on an upbeat note.  For a real truthmonger, that is.

“We hope that the period of navel-gazing may now give way to renewed efforts to bring the real war criminals to book.”

What a delightful thought!  Shall we start with Bill Clinton, Madeleine Albright, William Cohen, Tony Blair, Wesley Clark, George Robertson and Javier Solana, for example? 

And then, after running through the gambit of other NATO leaders, shall we begin the procession of media accomplices to NATO’s war crimes by accusing the Journal’s Peter Kann (publisher) and Robert Bartley (editor) of it?  Anyone seconding the idea?

Best regards,

Bob Djurdjevic, Founder, Truth in Media, Phoenix, Arizona

P.S. Here's what one TiM reader wrote to us on June 8 about the media bosses being prosecuted for complicity in war crimes:

"...Your claim that the WSJ could be tried for War Crimes is not that outlandish. Julius Streicher was found guilty and hanged at Nuremburg in 1946 for the sole crime of promoting aggressive war in his newspaper. The UN codified this in a convention written in 1966 and ratified ( I think) in 1972. Do a Law Journal search on Julius Streicher and you'll find a pack of stuff on how journalists can be found guilty of war crimes."

Indeed, here's an excerpt from The Nizkor Project about the Nuremberg trial and Julius Streicher's guilt as a Nazi propagandist:

"The crime of Streicher is that he made these (Nazi) crimes possible, which they would never have been had it not been for him and for those like him. Without Streicher and his propaganda, the Kaltenbrunners, the Himmlers, the General Stroops would have had nobody to do theirs.  In its extent Streicher's crime is probably greater and more far-reaching than that of any of the other (Nuremberg) defendants. The misery which they caused ceased with their capture. The effects of this man's crime, of the poison that he has put into the minds of millions of young boys and girls goes on..."  

Now, just substitute the words "NATO" for "Nazi," and "establishment media" for "Streicher," and you can see some striking similarities between Germany of 1939 and the New World Order 60 years later.

Also, check out Djurdjevic's WASHINGTON TIMES columns: "Chinese Dragon Wagging Macedonian Tail,"  "An Ugly Double Standard in Kosovo Conflict?", "NATO's Bullyboys", "Kosovo: Why Are We Involved?", and "Ginning Up Another Crisis"

Or Djurdjevic's NEW DAWN magazine columns: "Blood for Oil, Drugs for Arms,"  "Washington's Crisis Factory,"  and "A New Iron Curtain Over Europe"