Does CNN's Christiane Amanpour deserve the Lowell Thomas Award?

Took a shot and was pleased to discover that CNN.com provides the transcript for "Scream Bloody Murder", the "CNN Presents" 'Genocide' documentary hosted by Christiane Amanpour I refer to in this thread. The following is the portion on Bosnia and Hercegovina which focused on Richard Holbrooke.

The documentary aired on CNN on December 7, 2008. The President Bush referred to in it is "Bush 1" not "W".

AMANPOUR: When we come back, genocide in primetime.

(On camera): The relentless destruction and murder in Sarajevo...

(Voice over): And a man who tried to stop it.

(On camera): Why do you make these trips that involved faking I.D.s, sneaking in? What motivated you so much?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

AMANPOUR: These are some of the hundreds of thousands of victims of genocide in Bosnia 13 years after they were dumped in mass graves.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a very typical pattern of (INAUDIBLE) fractures that you get from shrapnel, bullet, that sort of thing.

AMANPOUR (on camera): That's the right humerus?

(Voice over): Now, experts are assembling the pieces. So that people like Kada Hodic (ph) can finally give her brother Mustafa a proper burial.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (Through translator): Mustafa's body was found without the head. There is a possibility it might be found in some other mass grave. If they can't find the head, we might have to bury him without it.

AMANPOUR: Unlike the holocaust, unlike Cambodia, in Bosnia, the media was there in full force. Genocide was on the front page. I was there and day after day I reported the story.

(On camera): The international community says there'll be no military interventions.

(Voice over): Now, in the era of 24-hour cable news, no one could say we didn't know.

In March, 1992, Yugoslavia was already breaking up along ethnic lines when Bosnia-Herzegovina declared independence. Bosnian Serbs, Orthodox Christians, wanted their own state and they went to war for it.

Their principle victims were Bosnia's Muslim population. The Bosnian Serbs attacked parts of the capital Sarajevo to force the Muslims out. They destroyed mosques, they burned books and they systematically raped Muslim women and girls.

(On camera): And now the people here truly believe the world has abandoned them.

(Voice over): Richard Holbrooke was the consummate Washington insider. He had been an assistant secretary of state under President Carter, managing editor of the magazine "Foreign Policy." and a Wall Street banker.

Anxious to once again be a player in foreign policy, and moved by the suffering in Bosnia, Holbrooke thought the solution was obvious. A U.S.-led intervention to stop the Serbs.

RICHARD HOLBROOKE, FMR. ASST. SECRETARY OF STATE: I felt we had a moral obligation and American leadership in the world was also at stake.

AMANPOUR: While the world called the Serbs' destruction of Muslim communities ethnic cleansing, Richard Holbrooke called it genocide.

(On camera): When you said genocide, you also must have known that that did carry moral and legal obligations under international law.

HOLBROOKE: Of course. Everyone understood that. You can't call it genocide and then do nothing about it.

AMANPOUR (voice over): When the bloodshed began, the major European countries vowed to resolve the crisis. And President George Bush vowed to stay out.

BUSH: The United States is not going to inject itself into every single crisis no matter how heart rending.

AMANPOUR: The U.N. had banned arm sales to the region to reduce the violence. This left the Muslims practically defenseless against the Bosnian Serbs who had heavy weapons from their patrons in Yugoslavia.

Instead of lifting the arms embargo, the U.N. Security Council sent in a peacekeeping force. Its mandate was to get relief supplies to the victims not to stop their killers.

In July, 1992, reporters learned about Serb concentration camps in Bosnia. Muslim prisoners were tortured, sexually mutilated and executed. These images hadn't been seen in Europe since the holocaust.

In primetime, they stirred U.S. public opinion but not enough to change U.S. policy.

BUSH: We are not going to get bogged down in some guerrilla warfare and I don't care what the pressures are.

AMANPOUR (on camera): So you were here in August of '92.

(Voice over): Appalled by the atrocities, Richard Holbrooke went to Bosnia as a member of a refugee relief organization. He wanted to see for himself.

(On camera): What was it that you saw here?

HOLBROOKE: People were lined up and they were soldiers with weapons everywhere.

AMANPOUR (voice over): Here, in the city of Banja Luka he saw Bosnia Serbs forcing the Muslims to sign over their property in exchange for their lives and a one way ticket out of town.

HOLBROOKE: And I thought, Christiane, I thought I'm seeing a color remake of the black and white scenes we'd seen in World War II of Jews signing away their property at the point of a gun and then being shipped off to who knows where.

AMANPOUR: Holbrooke's own Jewish grandfather had fled Germany in 1933 as Hitler came to power.

(On camera): Did it resonate with your own family experience?

HOLBROOKE: I don't think you have to be Jewish to understand that what you are seeing was a genuine crime against humanity.

AMANPOUR: Ending the crime, Holbrooke thought, might require the U.S. to bomb Serb military targets inside Bosnia.

HOLBROOKE: I took the stand that I believed was correct. I didn't think it was so controversial.

AMANPOUR: In that summer of '92, Holbrooke was supporting Bill Clinton's presidential campaign, offering advice on Bosnia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, August 1992)

BILL CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We may have to use military force, that -- I would begin with airpower against the Serbs.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Holbrooke had his eye on a job in a Clinton administration, but, in the back of his mind, a lingering question.

HOLBROOKE: Will he do as president what he said he would do as candidate?

AMANPOUR: December 1992, Bosnia's capital, Sarajevo, was under attack. The Bosnian Serbs shelled the city, cut the power, and blocked the roads. Snipers were everywhere.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: It may already be too late to save tens of thousands of people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: I was there, reporting on the siege, a ruthless three- year attempt to drive the Muslims out of their multiethnic city.

(on camera): So, up there, that's where all the guns were.

(voice-over): Richard Holbrooke, then a Wall Street banker, made his second trip to Bosnia. At Serb checkpoints, he had to use a fake U.N. identity card.

(on camera): Why did you make these trips that involved faking I.D.s, sneaking in? What motivated you so much?

HOLBROOKE: People weren't paying attention. I didn't go to solve the problem, because I was a private citizen, but there was a sense of bearing witness.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): What he saw appalled him: U.N. peacekeepers powerless even to bring food to starving people, because they had to negotiate with Bosnian Serb militias.

HOLBROOKE: They should have shot their way in, if necessary. And, had they shot their way in, the Serbs would have melted away, because they were thugs and bullies.

AMANPOUR: Bill Clinton, who had campaigned on a promise of tough action, was about to enter the White House. And Holbrooke wanted to be the new president's point man on Bosnia.

In a memo to Clinton's top advisers, Holbrooke again recommended direct use of force against the Serbs.

HOLBROOKE: And, by advocating vigorous action, I was kind of marginalized.

AMANPOUR: Instead of getting Bosnia, Holbrooke was named U.S. ambassador to Germany.

(on camera): You were basically, for want of a better term, screaming bloody murder, and they weren't listening.

HOLBROOKE: Well, I was very frustrated. But the political pressures were running the other way.

AMANPOUR: The European allies opposed airstrikes, because their peacekeepers on the ground would face retaliation. Clinton's national security adviser, Anthony Lake, told us, the president's hands were tied.

ANTHONY LAKE, FORMER CLINTON NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: They were, to put it mildly, extremely reluctant to see us pursue, unilaterally, any actions which could imperil their troops.

AMANPOUR (on camera): The question, then, is, why didn't the U.S. lead from the front? Why? You were the superpower. You had already made statements. Why didn't you lead and convince them?

LAKE: Well, we tried to convince them. And the Europeans said, absolutely no.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): April 1993, three months into the new administration, the opening of the U.S. Holocaust Museum in Washington.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ELIE WIESEL, NOBEL LAUREATE AND HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR: Mr. President, I cannot not tell you something.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel and personally and publicly challenged Clinton to intervene in Bosnia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WIESEL: As a Jew, I am saying that. We must do something to stop the bloodshed in that country.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIESEL: I nudged him. I nudged him. AMANPOUR (on camera): And he promised you that something would happen?

WIESEL: Right. Look, I tried everything.

AMANPOUR (voice-over): But Clinton's actions were a far cry from his campaign pledge.

Over the next year, he convinced European allies to use limited airstrikes against the Bosnian Serbs, but it did not stop the killing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MAY 1994)

AMANPOUR: Mr. President...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: At a 1994 news conference, I asked President Clinton about his get-tough words and the not-so-tough action.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, MAY 1994)

AMANPOUR: And do you not think that the constant flip-flops of your administration on the issue of Bosnia sets a very dangerous precedent?

CLINTON: There have been no constant flip-flops, madam. And we have been much more active than my predecessor was in every way from the beginning.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: That same month, the Clinton White House asked Richard Holbrooke to leave his post as ambassador in Germany and help with Bosnia.

HOLBROOKE: I think President Clinton, calling me back, understood full well that I would continue to advocate the use of force.

AMANPOUR: But Holbrooke and others in the administration who advocated force would see Bosnia's Muslims endure 15 more months of heartbreak and slaughter.

The U.N. established what it called safe areas, but without enough force to make them safe. Thousands of Muslims sought refuge in Srebrenica. And, in July, 1995, the Bosnian Serbs overran the small U.N. force there, and they captured the town.

The Bosnian Serb commander, General Ratko Mladic, staged a chilling show, complete with candy for the children.

"Don't be afraid of anything," he said on Serb television. "No one will do you any harm."

But, when his show was over, the Bosnian Serbs exterminated Muslim boys as young as 14 and men as old as 77, 8,000 in all, including the husband, brothers and son of Kada Hodic (ph).

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (through translator): We cannot understand how the world allowed this to happen right under their eyes.

AMANPOUR: Srebrenica shook the world's conscience, and, finally, President Clinton's foreign policy. He was now ready to lead from the front, with or without U.N. approval.

LAKE: And what I said to the Europeans was, we're going to do this, and it will work best if you come with us.

AMANPOUR: August 1995, after a Serb mortar attack on a Sarajevo market, Clinton pulled the trigger. With the Europeans now on board, U.S. and allied planes attacked Bosnian Serb positions.

HOLBROOKE: When I originally recommended the use of force in 1992-'93, I was ignored.

AMANPOUR: Now, three years later, with massive military power behind him, Richard Holbrooke led diplomatic talks. Within two months, he got enough concessions to negotiate an end to three-and-a- half years of war, vindication for a policy that Holbrooke calls bombs for peace.

HOLBROOKE: There are times when you have to use force in order to stop people from being killed.

__________________

This "presentation" was interesting -- as much for what it doesn't say, as for what it does, -- and for who is saying it.

Why aren't they telling the truth and the whole truth of what happened, independent of the Bosnian Serbs guilt or innocence? Why do they feel the need to ignore GLARING facts that put events in context and instead focus on emotionalism and exageration -- especially post-9/11 when those facts mean a lot t us?

What it doesn't say:

1. In 2002, a list of al qaeda financiers was discovered in Bosnia, known as "The Golden Chain". It is dated to 1988/1989, two years before the Bosnian war ever began, and the earliest known document on Al qaeda.

2. Bin Laden visited Bosnia and was given a Bosnian passport. This has been repeatedly confirmed by both video and witnesses.

3. Alija Izetbegovic was militant Islamist and was jailed for it during the communist era. Izetbegovic was also a youth recruiter during WWII for the Nazi Handzar Division under the Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al Husseini -- father of the the Muslim Brotherhood and all it's later offshoot jihadist organizations including al Qaeda.

4. Prior to the war, Fikret Abdic, a secular Bosnian Muslim, was elected as president of Bosnia but he was forced to step aside by the militant Izetbegovic. Although Abdic had made peace with the Serbs, he was ignored by us, and eventually prosecuted.

"AMANPOUR: "These are some of the hundreds of thousands of victims of genocide in Bosnia 13 years after they were dumped in mass graves"

A Bosnian Muslim research team and the ICTY after exhaustive digging BOTH documented the number of war dead in the Bosnian war at a little over 100,000 on ALL SIDES.

Casualty figures according to the Demographic Unit at the ICTY Total: 102,622

(Bosnian Muslim)Tokaca's database is so controversial because it puts the number killed at around 97,000, dramatically lower than the 200,000 estimate routinely used by the Bosnian government and global media outlets in the years after the war.(Tokaca's life as threatened for bucking the higher numbers)

So if EVERY victim of the Bosnian war, soldier and civilian alike, were "dumped into mass graves", it still wouldn't total Amanpour's "hundreds of thousands of victims of genocide in Bosnia 13 years after they were dumped in mass graves"!

Richard Holbrooke was the consummate Washington insider. He had been an assistant secretary of state under President Carter...

"ELIE WIESEL, NOBEL LAUREATE AND HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR"...

So who is Elie Weisel?

In 1978, President Jimmy Carter appointed Elie Wiesel as Chairman of the President's Commission on the Holocaust. In 1980, he became the Founding Chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

Both linked to Jimmy Carter, about the most anti-Semitic president we've ever had!

"AMANPOUR: While the world called the Serbs' destruction of Muslim communities ethnic cleansing, Richard Holbrooke called it genocide. (On camera): When you said genocide, you also must have known that that did carry moral and legal obligations under international law. HOLBROOKE: Of course. Everyone understood that. You can't call it genocide and then do nothing about it."

Once you say the magic word "genocide", the genie is out of the bottle and intervention is now demanded.

AMANPOUR: I was there, reporting on the siege, a ruthless three- year attempt to drive the Muslims out of their multiethnic city

"Their" multiethnic city? It's either multiethnic or it's "theirs" (Muslim) -- not both. Since that time, Sarajevo has become almost completely monoethnic -- so much so that they painted the streets Muslim green!

All these "Holocaust" allusions would be nothing without calling up "Srebrenica".

Here's what a Bosnian Muslim Sarjevo police officer and the Dutchbat Major in charge of UNPROFOR at Srebrenica had to say at the Milosevic trial:

Merced Kucanin finished his testimony today at the Hague Tribunal.Kucanin was a Sarajevo police officer who testified about shelling and sniping in Sarajevo.Kucanin, when asked by President Milosevic, also confirmed that the first victims of the war in Sarajevo were the members of a Serb wedding party who were fired on and killed while en route to the Orthodox Church in Sarajevo.

The next witness to testify was Col. Robert Franken. Franken was a DutchBat Major, and he was the deputy UNPROFOR commander in Srebrenica in July of 1995.

First of all I should say that Col. Franken said quite unequivocally that he saw no evidence which would indicate that there was any political or military cooperation between Belgrade and the VRS units that came into Srebrenica when the enclave fell. The Dutch Government conducted an exhaustive investigation into the alleged events at Srebrenica and drew the conclusion in point 10 of their report that Belgrade had nothing to do with any of the events in Srebrenica.

This evidence exonerates Slobodan Milosevic personally, but since the Serbs are on trial as a group at the Hague and President Milosevic is their foremost defender. President Milosevic is none the less endeavoring to prove the truth about what happened at Srebrenica even though it is totally outside the realm of possibility that he could in any way be connected to the events there.

According to Col. Franken Srebrenica was supposed to be demilitarized. However Franken said that the Muslims did not demilitarize, in fact he says the Muslims even received weapons at the airport and UNPROFOR was unable to stop them.

Col. Franken confirmed that the Muslims had a whole division of troops stationed in Srebrenica. He testified that the 8th Operation Group was there, and that it later became known as the 28th Infantry Division. The 28th Infantry Division consisted of the 280th Brigade, the 281st Brigade, the 282nd Brigade, the 283rd Brigade, the 284th Brigade, a Mountain battalion, 9 sabotage groups and a reserve police force. At a given time the 28th Division had over 4,000 men under arms, and Franken confirmed that every man in Srebrenica was at the disposal of the 28th Division. There was also a special unit that Srebrenica’s notorious Muslim war-lord Nasir Oric had at his own personal disposal. The 28th Infantry Division, according to Franken, was a poorly trained and poorly disciplined group.

Col. Franken testified that there was heavy fighting around Srebrenica. He testified that thousands of members of the 28th Infantry Division tried to break-out of the enclave across Serbian territory towards Tuzla, and that they took massive casualties in the process.

Franken also testified that there was internal Muslim fighting among the members of the 28th Infantry Division in Srebrenica and that casualties were inflicted by the Muslims on each other over the course of that fighting.

Franken also confirmed that Muslim soldiers attempted to attack the eastern flank of the VRS near Srebrenica and that they took heavy casualties during that offensive.

President Milosevic asked the obvious question. He asked if the members of the 28th Infantry Division who died during combat operations were being counted as the victims of the alleged “massacre” at Srebrenica. Col. Franken didn’t know.

An important point to observe here is that Col. Franken testified that none of the UN soldiers who were in Srebrenica at the critical time saw any executions taking place. In fact the only casualties they saw were of people who had been killed in the fighting. Again, none of the DutchBat personnel who composed the UNPROFOR battalion in Srebrenica saw any executions or mass-killings taking place there.

Col. Franken also testified that before the break-out operation that the Muslim Soldiers in Srebrenica would launch attacks out of the enclave onto the surrounding Serbian villages. To bear this out President Milosevic cited examples such as the time when Visnica was attacked by Muslim troops from Srebrenica and many Serbs were killed, and he cited the example when Muslim soldiers attacked and killed a group of Serbian woodcutters who were just cutting down trees in a forested area near Srebrenica, and of course there are many more examples.

Col. Franken testified that the only ones to kill a UNPROFOR soldier in Srebrenica were the Muslims. The VRS did not kill a single UNPROFOR soldier.

Col. Franken testified that the Muslims in Srebrenica would position themselves near UNPROFOR observation posts and then open fire on the Serbs in order to make the Serbs think that UNPROFOR was firing on them, with the ultimate objective being for the Serbs to retaliate and shoot at the UNPROFOR observation post.

Col. Franken recounted one occasion when Muslim soldiers in Srebrenica stole some UNPROFOR uniforms, disguised themselves as UNPROFOR members, approached a UN observation post and opened fire on the real UNPROFOR personnel who were there.

Whatever individuals did or didn't do during the war, this war was planned & executed by forces OUTSIDE of Yugoslavia, and guys like Holbrooke and Christiane Amanpour made it happen & have been covering up for it ever since. If that weren't the case, they would not be afraid to tell us all of the truth, warts and all, and let us decide. Instead, they decided for us and keep reinforcing their own version of events even to the point of lying!

Deserve the Lowell Thomas Award? Only if it a prize for "Advocacy Fiction" in getting as many people killed as possible!

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