L-I: THE ARROGANCE OF ROME

[Borba100@xxxxxxxxxxx]

THE ARROGANCE OF ROME
by Jared Israel (4-18-00)

www.tenc.net [emperors-clothes]

"Late last week, 11 months after the bombing [of the Chinese Embassy], the
C.I.A. dismissed one officer and punished six others for their roles in
identifying and approving the target in Belgrade....

"State Department spokesman, James P. Rubin, responded today that the
investigations had been "thorough and complete." He said the administration
had gone to great lengths to explain to the Chinese the circumstances leading
up to the bombing, and had described the dismissal of the agency officer and
the punishment of six others as "appropriate steps."...

"[But] criticism from China reflected the anger still lingering over the
attack. Pentagon and other administration officials say the Chinese position
appears intended in part for domestic consumption in China, but they also say
the bombing has deeply wounded Chinese pride. (NY Times, 4/11/00)

Power breeds arrogance, and arrogance breeds.

So it is with the Chinese Embassy bombing.

Almost as amazing as the notions that a) the US took the extraordinary step
of sending a B-2 bomber all the way from Missouri to b) attack a minor
warehouse in Belgrade that played no role in the defense of Yugoslavia and
which target had c) been chosen by an ill-trained officer who d) had actually
mistaken the handsome Chinese Embassy building for an old warehouse (NY
Times, 4/17/00) - almost as amazing as all this is the belief, apparently
held by US officials and newspapers, that the Chinese government ought to
accept this string of notions and shut up.

"Some folks seem hopelessly addicted to conspiratorial interpretations of
events," says a Boston Globe editorial April 12, 2000, commenting on Chinese
disbelief.

Below is Lies, Damn Lies and Maps, which I wrote shortly after the Embassy
was bombed. It dissects the misinformation we were fed at the time. It's
worth reading because it will remind you just how preposterous the US cover
story was then, and how preposterous it remains.

A US airplane destroyed the Chinese Embassy, a building which according to
international law constitutes Chinese territory. In other words, the US
bombed the Chinese government, just the same as if it had flown into Peking.
In the process, the US killed three people and wounded 20.

The first US response was to claim it was an accident. As Lies, Damn Lies and
Maps proves, this is nonsense.

The second response was to apologize. You may remember, Clinton did it
casually, while playing golf. Calculated to offend.

Third, the government refused to allow an internationally monitored
investigation or even to appoint a US team to investigate.

Fourth the US gave the Chinese a few million dollars. Doesn't this smack of
the rich man buying his way out of a crime by tossing some money at the poor
man's family?

And now the CIA fires one guy and disciplines six. Isn't this a rather
obvious attempt to scapegoat lowly employees? If it really was these seven
people's fault - why did it take the government 11 months to figure it out?
And since the "mistake" ended in death and destruction - isn't job discipline
a mite weak for a punishment? Doesn't all this suggest that these seven have
been bribed or coerced (or both) to take a fall?

When two US embassies in Africa were blown up, the US navy launched missile
attacks against Afghanistan and Sudan, despite a total lack of evidence that
either country was involved in the bombing. The US also arrested several
'suspects' and is now pressing for the death penalty.

Does this suggest a different standard for measuring US and Chinese
Embassies, U.S. and Chinese lives?

And anyway what kind of defense is it to say, as the US government has said,
"Sorry, it was a tragic mistake. We meant to blow up someone else!"

LIES, DAMN LIES AND MAPS
Or - How NATO and the media misrepresented the Chinese Embassy bombing

By Jared Israel

Opponents of the war against Serbia argue that much of what passes for news
these days is really a kind of war propaganda, that NATO puts out
misinformation and the media disseminates the stuff uncritically.

A case in point is the coverage of the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in
Belgrade. I download wire service reports from the AOL world news database.
This lets see exactly how wire services and newspapers change the news from
hour to hour. Very instructive for studying how misinformation is
disseminated.

Studying misinformation is my special interest. If you'd like to see some of
my previous work, check out Credible Deception, which analyzes how the NY
Times misinformed its readers about the bombing of a Sudanese pill factory in
August, 1998.

Let's take a look at the "news" coverage of the Chinese Embassy bombing.

SORRY, WRONG BUILDING

NATO spokesman Jamie Shea's first response to the Embassy bombing was a) to
apologize and b) to explain that the NATO missiles had gone astray. NATO had
intended to hit a building across the street, a building that houses what
SHEA called the "Federal Directory for the Supply and Procurement."

Said Shea: "'I understand that the two buildings are close together."'
(Reuters, May 8)

(If they ever catch the terrorists who bombed the US Embassy in Kenya and
bring them to trial, could their

legal team utilize the Shea Defense which consists of a) first you say I'm
very sorry and b) then you say you

meant to blow up the building across the street?)

But getting back to the "news" -- according to Jamie Shea the Chinese Embassy
is close to the "Federal

Directory for the Supply and Procurement." But the Chinese Embassy is in fact
located in the middle of a large lawn or park in a residential neighborhood
and:

"The embassy stands alone in its own grounds surrounded by grassy open space
on three sides. Rows of high-rise apartment blocs are located 200 (600 feet)
metres away and a line of shops, offices and apartments sits about 150 meters
(450 feet) away on the other side of a wide tree-lined avenue,
[called]...Cherry Tree Street." (Reuters, 5/8)

NEARBY BUILDING? WHAT NEARBY BUILDING?

Apparently realizing that a "Federal Directory for the Supply and
Procurement" would not be placed in an apartment complex -- or on a 1000 foot
lawn - NATO spun a new story a few hours later:

"Three NATO guided bombs which slammed into the Chinese embassy in Belgrade
overnight struck precisely at the coordinates programmed into them, but it
was not the building NATO believed it to be.

"'They hit bang on the three aim points they were given,' a military source
said....

"[NATO military spokesman General Walter] Jertz declined to say what sort of
weapon hit the Chinese embassy, except that it was 'smart' or guided
munitions and not free-fall bombs. He denied planners were 'using old maps,
wrong maps.'" (Reuters, May 8)

OK. Three smart missiles or bombs hit the three locations they were supposed
to hit. It was a misidentified target. And the Pilot(s) wasn't misled by old
or bad maps.

On the face of it, what is the likelihood of NATO picking target coordinates
that just happen to coincide with three apartments occupied by journalists? I
mean, one computer-guided bomb destroying a journalist's home would not be
unlikely. But three hitting three journalists' homes?

TOO MANY SPOKESMEN

In the same Reuters story, another expert suggests it would be highly
unlikely for NATO to make the kind

of mistake Jertz is suggesting:

"'Target identification and pilot preparation would have been extensive in
this case, because of the military importance of the intended target and
because Belgrade is heavily defended by Serb forces,' [Air Force Maj. Gen.
Charles Wald, a strategic planner for the Joint Chiefs of Staff] said at a
briefing for reporters.

'`'The way targeting works ... the higher the threat, the more valued the
target, the more time you would study it. The more time you have to study it,
the better,' Wald said."

Based on what Wald is saying here, isn't it pretty much unlikely that an
embassy would be mistaken for a "Federal Directory for the Supply and
Procurement?"

TOO MANY NAMES

Which brings us to yet another problem. Because in the same MAY 8 Reuters
Story the name of the place which NATO intended to bomb mysteriously changes
? not once but twice. Read the following quote from General Jertz carefully:

"Careful to avoid making excuses, NATO military spokesman General Walter
Jertz said NATO went after the target because it thought it was the weapons
warehouse of the Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement.

"'The information we had was that in this building was the headquarters of
the Directorate, and we have no evidence that we were misled,' he said."

So now the thing they thought they were bombing was:

a) the Federal Directory for the Supply and Procurement;
b) Weapons warehouse of the Federal Directorate for Supply and Procurement;
and
c) the headquarters of the Directorate.

No wonder they couldn't be misled. They couldn't even name the place.

AND TOO MANY MISSILES

NATO?S next spin-control effort was an attempt to simplify things. Retelling
the story again a bit later on the 8th, AP reported that: "The
precision-guided weapon that hit the Chinese embassy in Belgrade apparently
did just what it was told. .."

One weapon. That does make things more believable, unless of course the
reader has seen the previous stories that refer to Three missiles....Since
few people read multiple news stories about the same topic, and even fewer
read them carefully, moving from three to one missile is a pretty safe
gambit. But theproblem still remains: how could NATO targeteers, pouring over
their maps, not notice the label CHINESE EMBASSY on a building they were
planning to bomb?

THE MAPS! IT WAS THE MAPS!

NATO?S answer: switch positions on the map question.

What was the source of "the erroneous B-2 bomber attack, which dropped
several satellite-guided bombs on the embassy"?

Here's the latest explanation:

"In mistakenly targeting the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade Friday night, U.S.
intelligence officials were working from an outdated map issued before China
built its diplomatic compound several years ago, American and NATO
authorities said yesterday.

'The tragic and embarrassing truth is that our maps simply did not show the
Chinese Embassy anywhere in that vicinity,' a senior NATO official said."
(Washington Post, May 10)

Let's consider the implications of what we've just read.

First, the Post accepts without question NATO?S assertion that the embassy
bombing was accidental. Indeed the Post doesn't mention the highly newsworthy
fact that the news accounts are so mutually contradictory. Doesn't that tell
us something about these news agencies, about their attitude toward NATO and
this war? That they are really part of NATO?S public relations effort,
dutifully reporting whatever they are told without pointing out the
implications of NATO?S ever-evolving explanations. Doesn?t that suggest that
we should be very skeptical about other media coverage ? for example, the
stories "proving" the Serbs are committing genocide?

Second, the claim that using "old maps" was the problem flatly contradicts an
equally confident assertion made about 36 hours earlier by a NATO spokesman,
General Jertz. You remember: "He [that is, Gen. Jertz] denied planners were
'using old maps, wrong maps.'" (Reuters, May 8)

Third, consider the phrase "outdated map issued before China built its
diplomatic compound several years ago." This phrase suggests NATO was using
map-books or perhaps fold-up maps, the kind you take on a road trip. Is it
conceivable that NATO would be using such ancient technology? What's the
matter, they can't afford computers? They have no technical staff? We are
after all talking about the combined armed forces of the U.S. and most of
Europe. The whole focus of their attack on Serbia is aerial bombardment.
Aerial bombardment depends primarily on maps and intelligence. Doesn't it fly
in the face of rudimentary common sense -- indeed of sanity -- to believe
that this super-technological military force would have anything but the most
sophisticated mapping facilities, updated with satellite photos and local
intelligence reports hourly, all of it in computerized war rooms with giant
screens, scores of technical personnel, etc.

And isn't it equally obvious, that that one thing such an armed force would
have at its finger tips would be exact information about sensitive
installations -- such as diplomatic facilities -- precisely to make sure they
did not get bombed?

Unless of course NATO wanted them to be bombed.

And of all the diplomatic facilities in all of Yugoslavia, wouldn't the one
to which NATO would pay the most attention be the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade
- both because of China's immense world-importance and because it is
Belgrade's chief ally?

Of course NATO had up-to-date maps of the area around the Chinese Embassy.
And of every square inch inside the Embassy and complete dossiers on all the
people working in the Embassy as well.

Fourth, since NATO claims it decided to bomb the Embassy because of what the
targeteers saw on these "old maps" ? just what did the targeteers see? We are
told they didn't see the Embassy. Did they see something else they wanted to
attack and destroy? Just what was this something else? Was it a building
which housed some military facility? In the middle of a 1000 foot lawn in a
residential section of the city? And if there is such a map with such a
building, why doesn't NATO produce this ancient document, and show it to us?

Fifth, the story says the bombs were delivered by a "B-2 bomber." Don?t the
B-2?s fly out of a U.S. base ? I believe it?s in Missouri. So let us "be from
Missouri" for a moment, and ask a couple of Missouri (that is skeptical)
questions:

Keeping in mind that NATO has air bases in Italy ? right near Yugoslavia ? as
well as aircraft carriers in nearby waters, is it really believable that the
U.S. government would send a super-expensive plane on an eight hour flight to
deliver three smart missiles or bombs to a relatively minor site in
Yugoslavia? (I say relatively minor because it took NATO two days to even get
clear on the name of the institution they meant to bomb...)
b) Having made the unbelievable decision to send this plane on that mission,
is it

believable that the U.S. military would do such a thing based on the
information

contained in some "outdated maps issued" years before?

And sixth -- did you notice we are once again talking about multiple bombs or
missiles?

LET US NOW REVIEW NATO'S STORIES

According to NATO there were three ?

NO, there was only one

smart bomb that hit the Chinese Embassy by mistake because it missed a
building across the street that houses the "Federal Supply and Procurement
Office" --

NO, that wasn't the problem. The missiles (because we're back to three
missiles again) didn't miss -- they hit right on target except it turned out
the target was all wrong, wasn't the Federal Supply and Procurement Office at
all, it was the Chinese Embassy and somehow the targeteers got it all
confused but one thing is definite: the mix-up was not the result of using
old maps.

But that's not right either because if a target is important a great deal of
care is taken, and given that this was such an important target, even more
care would be taken to make sure it really was the a) Federal Directory for
the Supply and Procurement and -

NO, that should be the b) Weapons Warehouse of the Federal Directorate for
Supply and Procurement,

NO, that isn't right either it wasn't just a warehouse, it was the c)
HEADQUARTERS of the Directorate and -

NO! Forget everything we've said so far. It was the maps. The maps were very
old so you couldn't tell that the building on that site was an Embassy. And
there were three missiles, of course. Who ever said anything about there only
being one?

And as for sending a B-2 bomber half way around the world to carry out this
mistaken attack on a target whose name nobody can get straight, all I can say
is: what damn fool went and admitted it was a B-2 bomber?

A PARK AND OTHER MILITARY TARGETS

This writer has just spoken to a Serbian gentlemen whose family lives a few
blocks from the Embassy. He says the Embassy was built 4 or 5 years ago and
that prior to the building of the Embassy, the only thing there was: a park.

A letter from an American living in Belgrade says the embassy is in area
called New Belgrade (Novi Beograd), developed from sand marsh land after
W.W.II. She confirmed that the land on which the Embassy sits was unoccupied
before it was built. However, she says "park" is too fancy a term, that it
was just a huge lawn, with very few trees.

Therefore the notion that NATO could possess a map drawn before the Chinese
Embassy was built which showed any building occupying the land on which the
Embassy now stands is simply impossible. There was nothing there.

Therefore NATO is lying.

Since NATO is lying, what are we are left with? There is the possibility that
this bombing is an intentional provocation, perhaps aimed at challenging
China before China gets too big. There is the possibility that the U.S.
government was "delivering a message" to China ? and to other would-be
independent governments ? that giving aid and comfort to countries, such as
Yugoslavia, which the U.S. had targeted for destruction - that such acts of
independence are punishable by death.

Also, keep in mind that the bombing occurred at the perfect time to disrupt
German Prime Minister Schroder's visit to China. The trip had economic
motives (Schroder went with top German businesmen with the goal of getting in
on the possible privatization of industry) and was also an attempt by Germany
to enlist China in helping "settle" the war on terms favorable to Germany.

When Schroder returned from China he gave a press conference on May 19.
Here's what the NY Times says:

"At his news conference, even before he took questions, Mr. Schroder also
challenged Washington's official explanation for the bombing of the Chinese
Embassy in Belgrade - that target analysts relied on a faulty street map --
by renewing his demand for a formal NATO inquiry into the bombing. 'Diplomats
here say that Mr. Shroder, who just returned from China, was angry that a
trip he had long planned to herald his chairmanship of the European Union was
transformed into an official apology for the embassy bombing.'" (NY Times,
5-20-99)

Was the attack intended to 'send a message' not only to Beijing, but to Bonn?

In any case, it seems clear that the attack was planned, and that to make
sure it went precisely according to that plan, the most sophisticated plane
available was sent thousands of miles to deliver three bombs. NATO
deliberately attacked the Chinese Embassy, killing 3 people. This was a
high-tech execution.

The question is: What will NATO do next?

Postscript ? This document has been read by several thousand people by now,
and I?ve received quite a few responses. Perry, an American grad student in
California writes:

"Talking to people about the Embassy bombing, I?ve noticed how the lies which
you point out actually *dovetail* in the mind of many people - 1) old maps;
2) nearby target. People naturally put this misinformation together and
"create" meaning! The common interpretation is as follows: There was a
military target which US/NATO was trying to hit, but because of "old maps"
they got confused and bombed the wrong location.
Now I know that this line doesn't make any sense, but I can't tell you how
many people have repeated it to me.. Very effective propaganda; we can almost
call it ?art.?"

This recalls a point I made in my analysis of NY Times coverage of the
bombing of the pill factory in Sudan, an analysis I called Credible
Deception. (See Note # 1 at the end...). In that analysis, I pointed out that
several days after the bombing of the Sudan factory, the Times "floated" an
entirely new explanation for U.S. actions. A page 1 story claimed that not
only had the pill factory secretly manufactured nerve gas ? but Iraq was
behind the whole thing. This justification apparently didn?t fly because it
was repeated in a minor story one more time, then dropped entirely.

Five days later, the Times printed a letter from a gentleman who commented on
this "Iraqi connection" as if it were a matter of record. And the thought
occurred to me that these bits of non-fact stick in our heads, interfering
with our thinking like the graphite ribbons NATO dropped on electrical
generators in Yugoslavia and that this nonsense, multiplied a thousand-fold,
forms a kind of smog, preventing us from seeing the surrounding mountains of
evidence: that the US government has murdered people and lied about the deed.

IF there is anyone to whom you would like me to email documents and analysis
concerning this war and related questions, please send the email address(es)
to: jaredi@xxxxxxx .

***

Note # 1 - To learn how the NY Times mis-reported the US bombing of a
Sudanese pill factory click on Credible Deception or go to
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/sudan.html

Note # 2 - For a most interesting series of articles analyzing Western media
coverage of NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia, click on Reporting Kosovo:
Journalism or Propaganda, or go to
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/articles/hammond/propagan.html

***

Order 'JUDGMENT' - This Emperors Clothes Movie shows illustrates the process
by which visual lies about Bosnia were constructed for TV and newspapers

The time was 1992 and the movie is truly stunning - see it and you will never
look at news the same again. To find out about or to order a copy of the
video, go to http://emperors-clothes.com/Film/judge.htm

If you'd like to see more articles from www.emperors-clothes.com, please go
to www.emperors-clothes.com

www.tenc.net [emperors-clothes]


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