Macedonia News - The Role of the Western Media in The Macedonian Conflict by Carl Savich

With the signing of a peace agreement in secret on Monday, August 13 in Macedonia and the deployment of NATO troops in Operation Essential Harvest, NATO has embarked on yet another peacekeeping mission. The key points of the peace accord are as follows: 1) the Macedonian Constitution will be amended to include all ethnic groups, not only Macedonians; 2) Albanian will be the second official language in Albanian-areas where they constitute 20% of the population; 3) there will be a greater percentage of Albanians in the police forces; 4) there will be a "degree of self-rule in Albanian-dominated areas"; and, 5) a census is to be held before the next elections. The accord meets the key demands of the NLA/KLA/ANA rebels/terrorists/separatists. What are those demands? Albanian must be an official language of Macedonia. Albanians must be a constituent nation of Macedonia, co-equal with the majority ethnic Macedonian population, although Albanians are a small minority. The Albanian population must obtain self-rule in Illirida, Western Macedonia, areas where Albanians are the majority. The signing of the accord was in secret and many of the terms and conditions are purposefully ambiguous and vague. But it is the first step in the emergence of partition, the initial phase in the establishment of the federalization plan. The agreement had to appear as a "compromise" but satisfies all the demands of the NLA separatists/terrorists/rebels/insurgents/guerrillas. You know there is an propaganda war or infowar when no one can decide on what to call the Albanian armed groups, "rebels", "insurgents", "guerrillas", "terrorists", "thugs", "murderous thugs". The choice is up to you. That is a sure sign, a tip-off of a propaganda campaign. The peace accord is a preliminary blueprint for partition/federalization. How did this peace agreement come about? What role did the Western media play in bringing about the peace accord in Macedonia?

The Macedonian government leaders and Macedonian citizens made accusations and allegations that the Western, NATO countries were arming, training, supplying, organizing, and supporting the NLA/KLA/KPC "rebels" in their invasion from NATO-occupied Kosovo-Metohija. The Macedonian government alleged that NATO did not interdict NLA/KLA/KPC/ANA/LAMPB "insurgents" as they illegally crossed the border that NATO controls between Kosovo and Macedonia. The "rebels" were coming across the border mainly from the zone the United States controlled, but also from the German sector. The Macedonian government accused the US of supplying and supporting the NLA/KLA "guerrillas". There were reports that German NATO helicopters were re-supplying NLA troops in their offensive on Tetovo. In the evacuation of the NLA troops from Aracinovo by US NATO troops, allegations were made that 17 US military "advisers" were with the NLA/KLA troops and that the "evacuation" was facilitated by the US Army/Pentagon to "rescue" the 17 US military advisers, suspected of being members of MPRI, the "private" military mercenaries and military "trainers" working in cooperation with the US Government, Pentagon, and CIA. Ljupco Georgievski, the Prime Minister of Macedonia, made the following accusation on March 18:

You can't persuade anyone in Macedonia today that the government of the United States and Germany do not know who the terrorist leaders are and what they want, they could stop them acting.

Antonio Milososki, a spokesman for the Macedonian government, supported this allegation, alleging that NATO is "a big friend of our enemies":

All our fears have proven true that the international representatives are in close coordination with the KLA. This is open, public cooperation between international mediators and the rebels.

The US and other NATO representatives "denied" the accusation and according to the Western media reports, "refuted" the allegations, although no tangible evidence or proof was offered to refute the charges. Moreover, what motive would the Macedonian leaders have for making "immature" and "irresponsible" allegations? The Western media unanimously rejected the "accusations" of the Macedonian leaders and ethnic Macedonian citizens. The media offered no evidence to refute the Macedonian allegations. This raises a red flag. Who is watching the watchers? Who is guarding the guards? The Western media reporting in the Macedonian conflict raises epistemological questions and issues about the role of the Western media in the Macedonian conflict. What role did the media play in Macedonia?

The Western media left tell-tale fingerprints and incriminating evidence during their media coverage. The Western media has an established and formulaic modus operandi (MO), a pattern of news reporting that leaves an evidentiary trail, fingerprints of a psyop and information war. The Western media was engaged in a formulaic infowar and propaganda war in Macedonia, following the pattern set in the Croatian/Krajina conflict, the Bosnian civil war, and the Kosovo-Metohija conflict. Infowar? Psyop war? Propaganda war? What do you mean? Here is the evidence.

The Western media used the well-worn device of making the propaganda so obvious and so blatant, so in your face, that hardly anyone noticed. The deceptive device was used in the Edgar Allan Poe detective story "The Purloined Letter"(1845). Detective C. Auguste Dupin had to find a hidden letter. No one had been able to find the letter. Dupin discovered that no one was able to find the letter because the letter was placed conspicuously and obtrusively in the open in plain sight. This was the propaganda device of the US/Western media.

What propaganda/infowar/psyop techniques did the Western media use in the Macedonian conflict?

The infowar specialist and media propagandist uses what works, what is effective. What worked before is used again and again. Wars and conflicts come and go, but propaganda techniques remain the same. This makes the analysis of Western media propaganda and manipulation easy. Like the convicted felon and criminal, the Western/US media "deny" that they engage in propaganda and manipulation, but the evidence needed to convict them is plain to all. "Plausible deniability" is the intellectual refuge of the Pentagon/CIA psyop technician and information/infowar/propaganda specialist. Let us examine the evidence.

From the start of the Macedonia conflict in January, 2001, when a Macedonian police officer was killed in Tearce, the Western/US media began suspiciously and un-explicably referring to the ethnic Macedonians as "Slavs". Albanians were unanimously referred to as "ethnic Albanians" without fail. This requires a parallel designation for Macedonians as "ethnic Macedonians" or simply as "Macedonians". But in almost all media reporting, especially in the Guardian (UK) by Christian Jennings, ethnic Macedonians were referred to as "Slavs". Why? What is the basis for this seemingly arbitrary and meaningless term? Could it have something to do with the fact that the NLA "rebel" platform did not recognize "ethnic Macedonians" but referred to them as "Slavs". So the independent and free media of the Western NATO countries was parroting the NLA separatist/terrorist platform. Is this bias? If ethnic Macedonians are "Slavs", that is, one of many "constituent nations" in Macedonia, then "ethnic Albanians" should be a constituent nation as well. This propaganda device negates the Macedonian ethnic identification and decomposes Macedonia into groups of many constituent nations, including Slavs, Albanians, Serbs, and Roma. This propaganda device raised a red flag. The Western/US media, however, disregarded complaints and continued to use this language, a dichotomy of "ethnic Albanians" and "Slavs". The NATO/US/EU brokered peace accord in effect gives the Albanians constituent nation status. So there was a method to the propaganda madness. Of course there was. There always is. Propaganda is expensive. The NATO countries do not throw money away for no purpose, they are capitalists not philanthropists. So somebody is paying for a large propaganda bill. Moreover, an infowar requires coordination, planning, team work, research, funding, and many work hours. Someone has to pay for this. And they did. Now we see why "Slavs" was used instead of "ethnic Macedonian". The BBC, Independent, Guardian, Reuters, and other British newspapers and news agencies engaged in the most intensive infowar against Macedonia. How is this to be explained? The largest NATO contingent in Operation Essential harvest, 2,000 troops, is made up of British troops, the vast bulk of the total 3,500 NATO troops, are British forces. Get the picture? The British media was laying the propaganda groundwork for the British military occupation of Macedonia, a sovereign and independent UN-recognized nation.

Embeds, the technical term of art, are editorial sentences or paragraphs that appear in every news account or dispatch during a conflict. Embeds are brainwashing editorials that tell the gentle reader or listener how he or she should think about an issue. Embeds are a technique of mind-control, thought-control, government-control of public perception through a "free" and "independent" free press. Embed "messages" appear gratuitously, consistently, and uniformly as odd non sequiturs in all news accounts during the Macedonia conflict. When you see an embed, you can be certain that an infowar or propaganda war is being conducted. Someone took the trouble to manipulate you. It is not by accident. Embeds are Big Brother watching over your shoulder to see that you are thinking the correct thoughts, that you think like everyone else does, that you are part of the herd, the pack. Who is the hidden persuader and hidden manipulator behind the embeds? Embeds are created by governments. In the Macedonian case, the US government, the British Government, and the other NATO governments. Is that a surprise? It should not be. Embeds? What do you mean by embeds? Embeds are very easy to analyze. Embeds rely on the device of Poe's detective story. Make the brainwashing so obvious that no one notices it. Where is the incriminating evidence needed to convict the "independent" and "free" media of the free world? If it is that obvious, why didn't anyone notice it? Where is the evidence? Why didn't we notice it then?

In every Western/US news account of the Macedonian conflict, there was a formulaic and standard propaganda embed. This embed was in every news article, newspaper account, Associated press (AP), Agence France Presse AFP), Reuters, United Press International (UPI), the UK Independent, the Guardian, National Public Radio (NPR), CNN, Time, Newsweek, US News & World Report, NBC, ABC, CBS, CBC, ITN, BBC, FOX News. The embed appeared not only once, but in every subsequent news report or article or news broadcast. This suspicious consistency and uniformity should set off some bells. It should raise some red flags. With all the information diversity and media outlets, one would logically assume that there should be some inconsistency, there should in theory be a diversity of viewpoints. But there was total and complete consistency. All the news accounts parroted the same message. The embed appeared in every Western/US news account consistently, uniformly, and regularly without fail. All one has to do is go back and read the news accounts from the Western media to verify this fact. But with hundreds of news agencies and thousands of media and news outlets, why was there not a diversity of views, no marketplace of ideas? How does one explain the consistency and uniformity of the news reporting? Who runs the so-called news agencies?

A news agency is an organization that gathers and disseminates information/news for clients, subscribers, news networks, banks, governments, newspapers, magazines. There are hundreds of news agencies in the world, but over 90% of all the news or information collected and disseminated is by four news agencies: Reuters based in London, Agence France Presse (AFP) based in Paris, and the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI) both based in New York. This is the explanation for why there is no diversity of views in the news, why there is not a marketplace of ideas. There is monopolistic control of the media. The governments, economic and financial institutions, media outlets, political institutions of the three countries where the agencies are based, Britain, France, and the US, are intertwined and overlap in a symbiotic relationship. All are members of NATO. All are members of the same international economic, political, military, social organizations, groups, and alliances. For all practical purposes, their interests are the same. AFP is essentially government-run and government-controlled media, state-run media. The French government subsidizes AFP and representatives of the French government make policy decisions in the agency. AFP functions exactly like TASS, the Soviet news agency, both being state-run media. The only difference is that very few people who read AFP realize this fact. AFP is part of the "free world" or the "West" so the automatic assumption is that it is independent. It is not. Pentagon psyop specialists routinely worked on the staffs of major news outlets, such as CNN, for example. The AP and Reuters are publicly owned corporate conglomerates with a monopoly on information dissemination. AP and Reuters are part of the capitalist/globalist economic structure and "free" market system, they are corporate actors in the marketplace themselves. There is a conflict of interest here. This is never revealed in the so-called analyses of the media in the Western world. AP and Reuters thus have an economic/financial stake in the information being disseminated. They can never in theory or in practice ever be neutral, objective, or unbiased. This is impossible in a free market capitalist/globalist economy. They will always spin doctor or manipulate the news to advance their own economic/financial interests. How is this done? AFP, AP, and Reuters invariably manipulate information to benefit their respective parent governments. This fact is essential in understanding the media role in Krajina, Bosnia-Hercegovina, Kosovo-Metohija, and now in Macedonia, and potentially in Montenegro in the future. Their subsidiary role is to maintain and foster information favorable to capitalist/globalist corporate interests, Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), "humanitarian" and "human rights" front groups for the respective governments, the Open Society Institutes of George Soros, Human Rights Watch (HRW), and other Western corporate conglomerates, organizations, and groups. But the primary role of the news agencies, AFP, Reuters, AP, UPI, is to support and foster the foreign policies and interventionist agendas of their respective governments. For all intents and purposes, the Western news media are government-run and government-controlled. The interests of the media and their governments are the same, the relationship is a symbiotic one, where each benefits from the other.

Embeds and planting are not the only manipulative infowar or propaganda techniques of the Western/US media. The technique of abridgement or condensation is a long-established media practice that is meant to narrows thought. Acronyms are an example of this technique. The acronyms NATO, ANA, NLA, KLA, UCK, KPC, LAMPB, KFOR, SFOR, UN, EU, OSCE, HRW, ICG, and MPRI. These acronyms narrow and preclude thought by creating static, fixed concepts which are inaccurate and oversimplified. What result is image simplifications. The plethora of acronyms in the Yugoslav conflict is not by accident. Such abridgements serve a vital manipulative function. The technique of inclusion/exclusion at the subliminal level obscures the identity and function of the group named in the acronym. It is a device to camouflage the true identity and meaning of the organization which is so designated. NLA stands for National Liberation Army. The acronym camouflages the fact that the Albanian terrorist troops are an army whose purpose is to kill "enemy" forces, to occupy "enemy" territory, and to resolve a conflict/dispute by armed military force. The term "liberation" means that the army is seeking to occupy territory and to neutralize the legal government and military/police force, in short, to destroy the authority of the established government by military force. National is purposely vague to obscure the fact that the NLA "rebels" are infiltrating Macedonia from NATO-run Kosovo, i.e., that they are a foreign army of invasion and occupation. NATO stands for North Atlantic Treaty Organization formed by North Atlantic states as a defensive military alliance formed against the USSR. But Greece and Turkey and Hungary and the Czech Republic are not North Atlantic nations. Thus, NATO as a designation is inaccurate. But the acronym, which is static and out of date, serves to camouflage the actual make-up and function of NATO and to obscure its original mandate as a defensive alliance against the USSR formed by North Atlantic states. The Oversimplification Technique can be achieved by means of the inflective genitive or possessive construction. This technique results in the rigid, authoritarian identification between news personalities and their functions. The media referred to "Macedonia's PM Ljubco Georgievski", "Macedonian Slav security forces", "hardline Macedonian Interior Minister Ljube Boskovski". The hyphenated attributive construction gives rigidity of meaning and classification. The person becomes identified with an ethnic group, religious affiliation, nation, and movement. A narrow, oversimplified negative image is produced which strait-jackets our thought processes and judgment. In legal terminology, the terms are conclusory, they leave no room for independent thought or evaluation, examination, but impose a meaning that the reader must accept uncritically as a conclusion. This is done through compound adjectives. Ljube Boskovski is an "ultra-nationalist", Macedonian protesters and demonstrators are "an angry mob", "a Slav mob", "Macedonian nationalists", "ultra-nationalists", "hardliners", "hawks". Tetovo is referred to as the "mainly Albanian town of Tetovo". The US media paradigm relies extensively on hyphenated attributive constructions: David Koresh was referred to as "child-molester" David Koresh. Randy Weaver was referred to as "white-supremacist" Randy Weaver.

When and how did news agencies originate? AFP is the successor to one of the first modern news agencies, a news bureau founded in 1832 in France by Charles Havas. In 1835, the Havas news bureau was reorganized as Agence Havas, a news agency that expanded during the next century, becoming AFP following World War II. UPI was founded in 1907 by E.W. Scripps under the name United Press. In 1909, William Randolph Hearst, one of the founders of yellow journalism, established his own news agency, International News Service. In 1959, the United Press and the International News Service merged to form UPI. UPI, based in New York and serving over 7,000 subscribers, is the only major news agency that is privately owned. AP was founded in 1848 when David Hale of the Journal of Commerce conspired with James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald, a "penny newspaper" and Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune, another penny newspaper, to pool their resources to form a newspaper cartel. The penny paper was a cheap tabloid-type of paper intended for the masses as opposed to the journals, which cost six cents. In all, six New York publishers met in the offices of the New York Sun to organize a monopoly. The competition was too expensive and too fierce so a monopoly was created. Competition from the telegraph companies was feared, who charged exorbitant prices. In 1849, Daniel Craig opened the first foreign bureau office of the AP in Halifax, Nova Scotia in Canada. Lawrence Gobright was a prominent Washington based AP correspondent who covered the US Civil War, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, and the political scene in the capital. In 1862, Gobright stated: "My business is to communicate facts. My instructions do not allow me to make any comments upon the facts." Embeds and planting and other manipulative techniques would later change that approach, a change in the instructions. AP gathered foreign news by means of "news boats" which would board ships to obtain foreign newspapers. In 1856, the transatlantic cable made news ships obsolete. In 2001, AP is a cooperative serving 1,500 newspapers around the world, with 5,000 broadcast outlets, in 112 countries. Globally, AP serves 15,000 news organizations. A financial and news service partnership, AP-DJ, was formed between AP and Dow Jones and Company, the publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

Reuters was founded in 1851 in London by German Jewish immigrant Paul Julius Reuter, born Israel Beer Josaphat, to originally deliver stock market data. Reuter formed a service in 1849 to transmit stock market information from Brussels to Aachen, Germany, using 40 carrier pigeons. In London, Reuters began transmitting stock market prices to Paris via the Dover to Calais telegraph cable. Roderick Jones became the chief executive officer in 1915 after Herbert Reuter committed suicide. At that time, Reuters of UK, Havas of France, and the Wolff news agency of Germany formed a monopolistic news cartel in Europe. Reuters developed a reputation for "speed, accuracy, integrity, and impartiality" and became a "prime source of fast, accurate, and unbiased foreign news." Peter Job was the chief executive during the 1990s, who was replaced by Tom Glocer, who is also the Executive Director. Currently, Reuters has a turnover of 3.59 billion pounds and profits of 657 million. Reuters is listed 20th as the "most valuable" company on the London Stock Exchange based on market capitalization. Reuters has a staff of 18,000 based in 214 cities in over 100 countries serving 558,000 users. Reuters was a privately-owned company until 1925. Since 1941 Reuters has been a cooperative trust owned by newspapers in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand.

Reuters has become the leading global organization for news and financial information transmittal and dissemination. Reuters generates over a million news stories per month in 190 news bureaus worldwide, with 73 million readers per month. Reuters serves the financial markets and media worldwide, supplying information to banks, businesses, private individuals, newspapers, and television. Reuters supplies real-time quotes on over 940,000 financial instruments including equities bonds and derivatives from 263 exchanges in 151 countries, providing information on 40,000 companies. Reuters itself claims: "We continue to deliver our vision to make financial markets work", and bills itself as the "world's leading provider of financial information", which is "unrivalled in the scope, sophistication and amount of information" that it supplies to financial markets and the global media. The conclusion is obvious and unmistakable: The primary focus is on financial and economic information and data. Non-financial and non-economic news/information is superfluous and normally non-essential and non-vital. The media is guided by the motto: Report all the news that sells.

Other prominent news agencies are Itar/Tass, the Russian news agency, the successor to the Soviet Tass news agency, Telegrafnoie Agentsvo Sovetskovo Soyuza, Novosti, the Chinese Hsinhua news agency, the German Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA), Deutsche Welle, the Italian Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata (ANSA), the Spanish Agencia EfE, and the Japanese Kyodo Tsushin. In 1964, the Inter Press Service (IPS) was established in Rome to focus on Third World issues.

The Cold War may have ended, but the elaborate and sophisticated propaganda or information apparatus set up by the CIA remains in operation. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty is the propaganda machine of the CIA, that is, the US government-run and government-controlled news outlet. A story that appeared on the RFE/RL Newsline for February 6, 2001, "Macedonian-Albanian Guerrilla Force Does Not Exist", illustrates the infowar and propaganda use of RFE/RL. RFE/RL denied the existence of the NLA "rebels" and indigenous "insurgents" and "guerrillas". RFE/RE analysts claimed that "the alleged Albanian National Army (AKSh) in Macedonia is the creation of Belgrade's disinformation experts." The invasion from Kosovo of the UCK/NLA/KLA/KPC/ANA/LAMPB and the murder and mutilation of Macedonian soldiers and police, the kidnapping and torture of Macedonian civilians, "recent violence", is attributed to "the work of criminal gangs" to develop greater trade in weapons, drugs, and trafficking in humans, i.e., to create greater drug and prostitution operations. RFE/RL maintained that the Albanian minority was "too well established in the political life of Macedonia" to resort to violence, quoting a Jane's Intelligence Review. The US propaganda/information/infowar machine controlled by the CIA was denying that the NLA even existed, arguing that it was created by "Belgrade's disinformation experts". But who is the "disinformation expert" here?

AP, UPI, Agence France Press, and Reuters control over 90% of the worldwide news generated on a daily basis. This explains why the news is uniform, monolithic, consistent, presenting a single propaganda line not much different than Soviet-style media. The four major news agencies are market actors, part of the economic, financial, and political framework of globalist/capitalist/free market systems. In other words, they have an interest and stake in the market. They cannot be unbiased and neutral actors. This would amount to economic suicide and bankruptcy. Here we have the secret of the news agencies of the Western world. This is why news reports contain embeds, planting, oversimplification techniques, inclusion/exclusion techniques of condensation/abridgement. This is why there is systematic and planned bias, advocacy journalism, and handout journalism. The news agencies are businesses, corporate concerns, economic/financial entities that have salaries to pay, budgets to balance, profits to calculate.

What was the embed that appeared in EVERY single Western news report like clockwork? The propaganda/infowar embed during the Macedonian conflict was simple and brief. It was repeated so often it became a nauseating and sickening and deplorable brainwashing slogan. One had to wonder whether we were living in a totalitarian state with a government-controlled media, or in the Western world, the "democratic" and "free world". The embed was simple so that even someone with no background in the Macedonian conflict could grasp it. The propaganda embed consisted of two parts. The first part of the brainwashing embed was as follows: Ethnic Albanians are fighting for "greater rights", stated sometimes as "equal rights", "human rights", "minority rights", "more rights", "constitutional rights", but with the same meaning. The second part of the propaganda embed is as follows: Ethnic Albanians are a third of the population of Macedonia, sometimes stated as "more than a third", "up to a third", "at least a third". Why this embed? By mischaracterizing the conflict as one where the "indigenous" population is revolting against government oppression/repression by the Slavs in Macedonia, the actual nature of the "insurgency" can be falsified, manipulated, and obscured. This is all common sense by the way. Just the name of the Albanian terrorist group the National Liberation Army is a tip off to anyone not brainwashed by the free world media. The term "Liberation" is the key term here. Liberation implies territorial aggrandizement, implies conquest and occupation of territory, implies separatism and terrorism and a war of conquest, conquest of territory. This term "Liberation" is significant. The NLA terrorists seek to "liberate" Illirida, Western Macedonia, from the Slavs, from the "Slav-dominated government" in Skopje. What is the goal of the "insurgency"? Looking up the term "liberation" in any dictionary will reveal that the goal of the NLA/KLA is separatism. This is what the embed seeks to conceal. The analysis is very simple. The propaganda is right there in the open for all to see. Why are not more people nauseated and disgusted by it? After all, the Western media has no trouble in terming the Basque "rebels" and "insurgents", ETA, as separatists. The Palestine Liberation Organization always is a "terrorist organization" and "terrorist group", never a group fighting for the human or greater rights of the stateless Palestinians. Are the Palestinians oppressed/repressed? In short, the choice of terminology is on purpose and by choice, it is purposeful manipulation.

Why does it matter if the Albanians are a third of the population? This propaganda embed is meant to assure the reader that the Albanian "insurgency" is motivated by demographics, i.e., democracy. The Kosovo embed of 1998 was that Albanians were 90% of the population. The reasoning of the infowar specialist/propagandist is the same. The brainwashing is supposed to emphasis that a large population is being denied democratic rights, that they are being oppressed/repressed. The population size of the Albanians, in short, warrants granting them autonomy/partition/greater rights. The uniformed reader naturally will question why Albanians are given autonomy but Basque "separatists" and Palestinian "terrorists" are not. This propaganda embed assures and assuages the doubts of the reader. The Albanians are a large population in Macedonia, a third or more than a third. Therefore, the Albanians should be given "greater rights" and autonomy and their language should be made the official language. The appeal is to "democracy", that people should rule themselves, i.e., there should be self-rule, which means autonomy/federalization/partition. Democracy comes from the Greek word meaning rule by the people, demos, the people, kratein, to rule, that is, self-rule. It is a subtle bit of brainwashing and subliminal manipulation. Propaganda is a science. Amateurs need not apply.

Here is a sample of the propaganda embed as it appeared in an Associated Press (AP) story by AP reporter Aleksandar Vasovic:

The militants launched their insurgency in February, saying they are fighting for greater rights for ethnic Albanians, who account for up to a third of Macedonia's 2 million people. The government contends they are trying to carve up the country.

This embed has appeared in EVERY news account in the Western media in media reporting on the Macedonia conflict. Vasovic gratuitously and inexplicably includes the non sequitur brainwashing paragraph in a story about Macedonian demonstrators attacking the US embassy in Skopje, breaking the windows with rocks. The German embassy was attacked as well as a McDonald's restaurant in Skopje. What did the embed have to do with the mass demonstrations against NATO? Moreover, the EXACT SAME embed has appeared in all of the AP news reports by Vasovic filed previously. We got it. We got it the first time the brainwashing embed appeared. Again, we got it the first time. Got it. Why repeat it ad nauseam until the reader becomes physically ill and nauseous? The mindless repetition tends to sicken one. It reflects a dehumanization. We are like cattle not human beings for these propagandists. Needless to say, repetition is a major technique in propaganda and commercial advertising. Ever notice how many times a commercial is repeated on television or radio in the US and the Western media? Ads are repeated non-stop endlessly. Buy Coke. Eat pizza. Buy cheeseburgers. That is not by accident. That is on purpose. Repetition is the name of the game in selling and in persuading. You can be selling burgers or "humanitarian intervention", but the underlying techniques are the same. Ask any advertising executive? But is this all of the evidence?

The Western media modus operandi (MO) followed a consistent pattern, a formulaic blueprint. If it isn't broken, why fix it? Propaganda techniques do not change. The Western media used terminology that sets off alarm bells and raises red flags. Did anyone notice? The Western media formula is as follows: When the media opposes a leader, that leader is referred to as a "nationalist". "Nationalism" and "nationalist" are the key buzzwords of the New World Order Lexicon. The US and Israel and Turkey and Spain are never "nationalist". In short, only those we seek to destroy are "nationalists". Count how many times the Western/US media used that term in describing Macedonian citizens opposed to the KLA/NLA/ANA/KCP/LAMPB separatists. Do a media content analysis, symbol counting. It is so obvious that no one noticed. Or no one cared, which is even worse. The media spin doctors even coined new terminology for Macedonia. Thousands of ethnic Macedonians ethnically cleansed from the Tetovo region were termed not "refugees", but "displaced" persons. Why? Because the NLA/KLA/KPC were torturing, murdering, kidnapping ethnic Macedonians, Orthodox Christians. The rebels fighting for human and greater rights were committing war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. This is why the Western media coined the term "displaced" persons. The NLA/KLA put Tetovo under siege as well as Orthodox villages in the region. Vratnica, Staro Selo, Belovishte were all surrounded and the inhabitants were told to leave. The NLA/KLA troops fired mortars into Belovishte to drive out the inhabitants. Perica Bojkovski, an Orthodox priest in Tearce, was kidnapped, tortured, and beaten nearly to death by the NLA/KLA "insurgents". Bojkovski suffered serious injuries, including internal bleeding, and was rushed to a military hospital in Skopje. This was a pattern of the KLA/NLA to terrorize the Macedonian population into leaving their villages,i.e., ethnic cleansing. This is called ethnic cleansing, a war crime and a crime against humanity amounting to genocide.

The "barbaric" and "savage" destruction of the 13th century Leshok Orthodox Monastery outside of Tetovo by the UCK is a horrendous act of inhumanity and a supreme violation of human rights. The UCK rivals anything Heinrich Himmler's SS ever did. The UCK indeed surpasses even the Nazis for utter barbarity and contempt for humanity. The UCK/KLA/NLA/ANA mining of the Leshok Monastery, the Orthodox church of Saint Athanasius reveals, moreover, the utter contempt the UICK has for ethnic or religious tolerance, democracy, and human rights. The UCK is a separatist and terrorist organization determined to create an ethnically pure Greater Albania, incorporating first an "independent "Kosovoa", and then, Illirida, Western Macedonia. The goal all along is partition or so-called self-rule and territorial occupation and annexation just as it was in Kosovo-Metohija.

But as horrific as the UCK destruction of the Orthodox Monastery at Leshok was, what was even more horrific and appalling was the US/Western media account of it. The so-called Western media, Reuters and the Independent (UK), argued that the destruction of the Orthodox monastery was caused by the Macedonian government to implicate the UCK. But why was the media advocating a position and why were they espousing a preposterous conspiracy theory? Is this the mark of an unbiased, objective media?

In the August 22, 2001 Independent (UK) article, "Orthodox Church bombing could wreck peace deal", Justin Huggler developed a conspiracy theory that blamed the Macedonians and the Macedonian government for the Leshok Monastery bombing. Huggler, like Christian Jennings of the Guardian, became an unabashedly pro-NLA and pro-Albanian advocate in his reporting. Advocacy journalism, known by its old fashioned name of war propaganda, is a clear violation of the canons and ethical precepts of journalism. But Huggler does not seem to notice or care. He followed the media pattern established in Bosnia and Kosovo, a biased, advocacy journalism meant to induce foreign military "humanitarian" intervention, the new "military humanism". Polish-born free-lance journalist Anna Husarska, now with ICG, employed similar media techniques in the Bosnia coverage, Husarska engaged in advocacy journalism for the Islamist regime of Alija Izetbegovic, referring to the Muslim-occupied region of Sarajevo as "my" side of the city in a news report, identifying totally with the Muslim regime and its Muslim Army. This rabid and arrogant advocacy journalism has been accepted as the ethical norm in Western news reporting. The conspicuous point of the Huggler article is the lack of attribution for the bombing of the Orthodox Church. The title is in the passive tense. Instead of "NLA bombs Orthodox Church", Huggler chose "Orthodox Church Bombing", a passive construction attributing no blame, leaving the agent anonymous. The second point is that there is a logical non sequitur. Huggler ties two different issues together: the destruction of the Orthodox Church, a fact, and the speculative issue of whether it will "wreck the peace deal". One can ask, What has the destruction of an Orthodox Church, a horrendous act of genocide, which violates the Geneva and UN Genocide Conventions, have to do with whether the peace deal will be "wrecked"? This is a subtle propaganda or brainwashing technique to deflect attention away from the act of genocide, here an act of genocide by an actor the British/Western media is supporting, the NLA. Is it that difficult in the Information Age for Huggler to look up the Geneva and UN Genocide Conventions? Huggler, nevertheless, conceded that the Church was "deliberately and calculatingly blown to pieces". He noted that it was "not just any church, but one that stood on the site of one of Macedonia's most revered Orthodox Christian monasteries." The St. Athanasius Church was part of the Leshok Monastery built in 1326. Huggler noted that the Orthodox Church "was reduced to a pile of grey rubble." Huggler noted that "somebody wanted to send a message to Nato ambassadors." The message is clear to Huggler: "The message was clear: the peace deal signed last week will not succeed." But isn't this groundless speculation based on an alarmist paranoia? The Macedonian government condemned the act of genocide by the NLA and compared it to the Taliban, a Pakistani-based ultra-nationalist Islamic regime sponsored by the CIA, which demolished Buddha statues in Afghanistan. The Macedonian government "blamed the rebels" according to Huggler. He noted that the Church was in NLA-controlled territory so the Macedonian government forces did not have access to the town. But then Huggler accepted the statements of the NLA: "The rebels said the government had blown up the church to blame them." Huggler noted that Leshok is a "mixed village where a few ethnic Macedonians are still living." But what happened to the Macedonian population of Leshok? Huggler is silent. He says nothing of the thousands of ethnic Macedonians driven at gunpoint from their homes and villages by NLA gunmen, a policy known as ethnic cleansing. But Huggler cannot accuse the NLA of ethnic cleansing. Why? The policy of the Western/NATO governments, and the "free" and "independent" media they control, is to regard the NLA as "rebels" fighting for "greater rights". To accuse the NLA of genocide and ethnic cleansing would legitimize the Macedonian government position which would negate a role for NATO and the British forces in NATO. Huggler does not want to reveal that NLA "rebels" had ethnically cleansed Macedonian civilians out of their villages and towns. He ignores this ethnic cleansing and goes on to develop a conspiracy theory: "Already the rumour mill was turning". He talked to Albanians: "One Albanian said he heard two taxis full of ethnic Macedonians had been seen leading into Lesok." But then there is another logical non sequitur. Huggler then blamed the "hardline splinter group", the ANA, which may have bombed the church. Then he stated that "there are reasons to suspect the Macedonian government, too." He quotes an unnamed, anonymous "Western observer" who called the bombing of the Orthodox Church "suspicious". The gist of the article then is that Huggler believed innuendo and unfounded speculation that the Macedonian government blew up the church to sabotage the NATO mission. He noted: "Somebody has been sending a lot of messages." Indeed, not the least of which have been Western media infowar or propaganda "messages", brainwashing "messages".

A Reuters article of August 21, "Nato Chief 'Wants Troops In'" had the exact same unnamed, anonymous Western observer which propounded the exact same conspiracy theory blaming the victims for the act of genocide. Why the systematic uniformity, conformity in the mass media? But why would the Macedonian government commit such a heinous act of cultural genocide against itself? Reuters quoted "a Western diplomat" who was "rather suspicious". The NLA was "not known to have attacked religious sites before." This was a rather disingenuous statement. The NLA/KLA/UCK had in fact attacked the Matejche Orthodox Monastery in northern Macedonia, had abducted Orthodox civilians, had tortured them with beatings and mock executions, and was using the Orthodox Church as a command post. In Kosovo, the UCK had demolished or damaged up to a hundred Orthodox Churches. Is it that difficult to see a systematic pattern here?

This propaganda or spin control represents the nadir, the lowest point in, in Western media coverage of the break-up of Yugoslavia that began in 1991. This is like saying that German Jews orchestrated the Kristalnacht destruction of synagogues in 1938 to implicate and impugn the regime of Adolf Hitler. The Western media has reached the nadir of its arrogant disdain and utter contempt for human dignity and human decency. The Macedonian people are treated like cattle or swine. The media is utterly contemptuous and scornful. In the name of human rights, the Western media violates our basic human rights, our dignity as human beings. This is a real catastrophe for human dignity and human rights around the globe. Herbert Marcuse put it this way: "The real catastrophe is the prospect of total moronization, dehumanization, and manipulation of man." This is what our media, in the service of the NATO governments, has inflicted upon us: Dehumanization, moronization, and manipulation.

We have to be wary of a media that dehumanizes and manipulates us. Most people do not even perceive what is happening. Konrad Lorenz warned: "We ostensibly free, Western, civilized people are no longer conscious of the extent to which we are being manipulated." The destruction of 13th century Orthodox monastery by the Uck was shocking and horrific. But what was even more shocking snd horrific was the way the Western media manipulated and reported on it.

What did the Western/US media do? They ignored these war crimes. This is a classic example of the Selection Technique in propaganda. You just select what you want the reader to see. Inconvenient information is not covered or reported. The creation in World War II by Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini of Greater Albania which included Western Macedonia, Kosovo, and southern Montenegro is ignored and forgotten. The Albanian Skanderbeg Waffen SS Division is likewise ignored and forgotten. Moreover, an analysis of the media coverage of the ethnic cleansing of the Macedonian population of Western Macedonia reveals that, indeed, these war crimes by the NLA/KLA terrorists were not covered by the US/Western media. And if it is not covered by the media, it did not exist. It is as simple as that, ladies and gentlemen. If it doesn't appear in the free press, in the Western press of the free world, it did not happen at all. It is an "accusation", an "allegation", a "charge", someone "claimed" it. The media coined the terms "hardline", "ultra-nationalist", "hawks", "nationalist politicians", to describe Macedonian political leaders, such as Ljupcho Georgievski and Ljube Boskovski, who did not accept the NATO/US peace plan.

The hostility and arrogant disdain and contempt bordering on racism and bigotry of the Western/US media towards the Macedonian population was shown in an Agence France Presse (AFP) report describing anti-NATO, anti-US, anti-Western demonstrations in Skopje. The AFP report referred to Macedonian demonstrators as "a mob of angry Slavs", "irate protesters", "violent protesters" and called the demonstrations "mob violence". The demonstrators were "incited by allegations NATO tacitly supports ethnic Albanian rebels" the report stated. Here there is some subtle slight of hand, some subtle legerdemain by the propagandist/reporter. The report stated that the Slav "mob" was "incited" by "allegations" of NATO support for the Albanian terrorist groups who have invaded from Kosovo. But in fact, the "mob" was incited by first-hand knowledge, first-hand experience, by evidence of their own eyes. US Army troops had just "evacuated" 500 armed NLA/KLA/KPC "rebels" along with 17 US "advisers" from MPRI in US-supplied air-conditioned busses and US Army vehicles along with their weapons. The US Army did not "disarm" the NLA/KLA terrorists but helped them re-deploy to a village held by the NLA. This is what incited the demonstrations and not the so-called allegations. This is a subtle one. This is a fast one. They pulled a fast one here. Watch the media magician carefully or you might miss the trick.

But where did this so-called peace accord or peace plan come from? Why does the peace accord capitulate to NLA/KLA terrorist demands? Haven't the terrorists won? Didn't the KLA/NLA prove that terrorism pays and succeeds? Could they have forced the Macedonian government to surrender and capitulate through peaceful, democratic, legal means, as provided for in the Macedonian Constitution? Is the peace plan sui generis, based on negotiations between Francois Leotard, James Pardew, the Macedonian government, and the Albanian political parties?

In 1995, George Soros, a Hungarian Jew by origin, he had emigrated first to England, then to the US, where he became a prominent "philanthropist", enunciated a program to make Macedonia an "open society" by advocating the EXACT SAME agenda as the NLA later would advocate in the 2001 "insurgency". The Soros agenda in 1995 is the EXACT SAME agenda of the NLA in 2001. Is this by accident and coincidence? The peace accord signed in Skopje in secret on August 13 is a carbon copy of the Soros proposals in 1995.What is an "open society"? Inquiring minds want to know? What did Soros propose in 1995?

Soros plagiarized his "open society" concept from the writings of Austrian philosopher of science, Karl Popper, a Cold War ideologue, who published his views in THE OPEN SOCIETY AND ITS ENEMIES in 1945. Popper attacked the philosophical writings of Plato, Georg Hegel, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, supporting a globalist corporate capitalism which was anti-socialist, anti-Soviet, anti-Communist. Popper provided the ideal ideology underpinning the propaganda conflict between the capitalist "free world" and the Communist bloc. In short, the open society concept entails the eradication of national borders, the eradication of sovereignty, the destruction of nation-states. Of course, Soros does not support an open society for the US or Israel. The open society is reserved for nations which the globalist/corporate powers seek to infiltrate and control, to bring "democracy" and "stability". In 1994, Soros donated $15 million for the preservation of the archives of the CIA-run Cold War propaganda outlet, Radio Free Europe (RFE).Moreover, Soros instructed his companies to start investing in Central and Eastern Europe. It is a new form of colonialism, neo-colonialism. It makes a mockery of national borders and sovereignty. Indeed, Macedonia is ironically the best test case for Soros' experimentation in nation-building. Macedonia is a laboratory for George Soros; the Macedonian Orthodox "Slavs" are the unwitting and unwilling Guinea pigs or lab rats in this New World Order laboratory.

What were the proposals made by Soros in 1995? Soros proposed that Albanians be made a constituent nation of Macedonia, co-equal with the "Slavs". Interestingly enough, Soros was the first to call ethnic Macedonians as "Slavs". Then Macedonian President Kiro Gligorov was outraged and angered that Soros referred to Macedonians as "Slavs". Nevertheless, the Open Society Institute in Skopje remained. Soros was also the origin of the plan to make Albanian an official language. In 1995, Soros demanded that classes at the Pedagogical Academy in Skopje be conducted in the Albanian language. He donated 25 million dollars for "multilingual studies",i.e., in Albanian. The Skopje daily Nova Makedonija accused Soros of supporting Albanian separatism by advocating constituent nation status for the Albanian minority, 23% of the population as determined in an EU census, an "international community" census. Soros denied the accusation but his actions showed that separatism/partition for the Albanian minority was his goal.

The Action Council for Peace in the Balkans was followed by the International Crisis Group (ICG), a foreign policy think tank organized by George Soros and Morton Abramowitz, the former US Assistant Secretary of State and US ambassador to NATO-member Turkey. Who runs ICG? Both Soros and Abramowitz are Board members. Soros also runs and funds Human Rights Watch (HRW), a front organization for NATO and US corporate interests, with ties to the US State Department. The Chairman of ICG is Martti Ahtisaari, the former president of Finland. Former US Congressman Stephen Solarz is the Vice-Chairman. Richard Allen, former National Security Advisor, and Ken Adelman, former US ambassador are members. Volker Ruehe, the former German Defense Minister, Louise Arbour, former chief prosecutor at the US-sponsored and US-created Hague Tribunal, and Wesley Clark, former supreme commander of NATO, are members. Oscar Sanchez, former president of Costa Rica, a former political leader in Guatemala, Taiwan, US newspaper reporters, former European parliament members, are members, a motley crew of banana republic leaders, former US cronies, and prominent figures in the globalist New World Order . Members may serve on "secondment" from UN agencies, governments, private companies, and NGOs. Grigory Yavlinsky of the Russian Duma is a token member from Eastern Europe. Polish-born journalist Anna Husarska, who covered the Bosnian civil war for The New Republic, is a political analyst for ICG. Husarska wrote blatantly anti-Serbian, anti-Orthodox propaganda diatribes and racist invectives during the Bosnian conflict. ICG has acknowledged that it has sponsored a strategy for Macedonia: "ICG's reports on Macedonia have over the last years outlined strategies to support the country's hazardous transition process."

In May, 1994, Soros was a member of the Action Council for Peace in the Balkans which visited Macedonia and studied its political structures and viability. The Action Council was also made up of Morton Abramowitz, the later "adviser" to the KLA and the mastermind of the Kosovo war, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the architect of "human rights" as a propaganda technique, Paul Volcker, George Shultz,Max Kampelman, Frank Carlucci, Jeanne Kirkpatrick, and Susan Sontag, the novelist who waged an unrelenting propaganda war on behalf of Islamic ultra-nationalist Alija Izetbegovic. The International Crisis Group (ICG) was the successor organization or think tank . Human Rights Watch is made up of George Soros and Morton Abramowitz works closely with US State Dept. Where did the peace agreement for Macedonia come from and where did it originate? As early as 1994 and 1995 US policymakers were working out solutions for Macedonia. The peace accord has all the indicia of being MADE IN THE USA. The 2001 "insurgency" by the KLA/NLA/ANA/KPC was merely the IMPLEMENTATION of the 1995 proposals and demands, it was the IMPLEMENTATION PHASE.

If the Macedonian conflict appeared phony and manufactured, there is a simple reason for that. If you felt manipulated and brainwashed by the independent and free media of the Western world, there was a reason for that too. The US/Western media was aiding and abetting the propaganda war initiated by the NATO governments. Indeed, the media was in collusion with the NATO governments, the propaganda/information wing of the NATO governments. Again, it is US citizens who are the victims. We are the brainless cattle and herd being manipulated and brainwashed. No one else. Guess who the media are targeting? Us. But we only have ourselves to blame. It was always right there, right in front of us. The embeds were right in front of our eyes. We refused to see it. Ignorance is bliss. But ignorance and freedom are incompatible. Brainwashing and propaganda persuasion and manipulation are anathema in a REAL and TRUE democracy. Infowar and psyop operations are not conducive to liberty but to slavery and degradation. We do not have an excuse this time. The evidence was right in front of us. We just didn't care. We didn't want to see. Apathy and ignorance. Brainless cattle being led to the slaughter, to "humanitarian interventions", to "peacekeeping" operations. Ian Collins was the first casualty of the Western/British media role in Macedonia. We are a mindless, zombie-like herd. Is this the stuff of freedom? Is this what liberty is about? Is this what it means to be free? Let us not delude ourselves. Of course it is not.