HOW NATO & 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 (accessible
at
aol://4344:30.WORLD.338815.464449182
) if you are an
AOL member. This allows me to 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 a special
interest of mine. If you'd
like to see some of my previous work
in this area, send me a
note and I'll email you The Emperor's
Clothes, which
analyzes how the NY Times misinformed
its readers about
the bombing of a Sudanese pill factory
in August, 1998.
Before we examine the news coverage of
the bombing of the
Chinese Embassy, let me recount a very
interesting report
from a Chinese intellectual, currently
at Harvard's Kennedy
Institute, who spoke on May 8th at the
weekly Boston
anti-war rally (held at 3:00 every Sat.
in Copley Square).
The man had conferred with people overseas
and thus had
direct knowledge of the attack on the
Chinese Embassy. He
said three missiles had struck the Embassy
compound, hitting
three apartments where one or both adult
family members
was a journalist. The missiles apparently
carried a light
explosive charge.
Why NATO Targeted Chinese Journalists
Why, asked the speaker, did all three
missiles strike
journalists' apartments?
Clearly, he said, the goal was to punish
China for
sympathizing with the Yugoslav people
against NATO. More
specifically, the intention was to terrorize
Chinese
newspeople in Yugoslavia, thus silencing
yet another
non-NATO information source.
Does that seem too nightmarish to be true?
Keep in mind, NATO has consistently bombed
Serbian news
outlets with the stated intention of
silencing sources of "lying
propaganda." Why would it be so far-fetched
for them to do
the same to Chinese newspeople?
Perhaps NATO wants to silence ALL non-NATO
reporting
on the war, even at the risk of starting
WW III.
Or perhaps NATO, or a part of NATO, such
as the U.S.
government, wants to provoke a fight
with China before
China gets too strong to be crushed?
Let's take a look at the "news" coverage.
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 the
problem 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:
a) 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
Chinese gentleman's explanation. 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 NATO and or the U.S.
government was
"delivering a message" to China
and to other would-be
independent governments that independence
will be
punished with death.
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 small bombs.
NATO deliberately blew
up three apartments inhabited by Chinese
journalists in the
Chinese Embassy. This was a high-tech
execution.
The question is: What will NATO do next?
Note 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 The Emperor's
Clothes. (If you'd like to see the Emperor,
drop me a line and I'll send it
to you...). 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 an established fact.
And the thought occurred to me that
these bits of non-fact stick in our
heads, interfering with our thinking
the way graphite flakes interfere with
electrical generators, and 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.
Jared Israel was an anti-war activitist
in the 60's. He slept comfortably
from the mid-70s until August 1998 when
the government's bombing of
and the media's lies about a Sudanese
pill factory awakened him and he
has been sleepless ever since, spending
the last seven months studying
and writing about U.S. foreign policy,
especially it's attack on Serbia.