May 5, 2006
Peace Practitioner
Nobody got a better, close-up view of the collapse of the former Yugoslavia than the last Canadian Ambassador there, Joe Bissett. So when Ambassador Bissett talks about Yugoslavia, Milosevic, and the mistakes western governments made it is worth a careful listen, perhaps especially because international intervention in Yugoslavia became a template and point of departure for later adventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. If you haven't got the fundamentals on the Yugoslav mess in roughly the right perspective it becomes orders of magnitude more difficult to understand the context of these later wars. It's the nitty-gritty of the world today. In his retirement Joe Bissett has very courageously taken unpopular positions, and I salute him for that. He personifies the truest aspirations of Canadian humanitarian thinking—it's fair to say, moreover, that in the best of all diplomatic traditions he's an officer and a gentleman. Runtime for this podcast is about fifty-eight minutes. Enjoy!
Comments
Ambassador Bissett kindly gave us an endorsement for the back cover of our recently published book entitled: Media Cleansing: Dirty Reporting... Journalism & Tragedy in Yugoslavia by Peter Brock, now in its second edition. This is what the Ambassador said:
"Peter Brock's devastating portrayal of the role played by western journalists in distorting the truth about what was really happening during the break up of Yugoslavia is a major accomplishment. The book underlines the terrible power of the media in influencing governments to make unwise policy decisions affecting the very course of history. It also exposes the close affinity that exists between media and government. Both are capable of telling lies and both are unwilling to admit mistakes. This is a "must-read" book. It is a sad and shameful story but one that should be mandatory reading by every politician and by every practicing and aspiring journalist."
William Dorich, Publisher
gmbooks.com
Posted by: wdoric | May 7, 2006 4:55 PM