The anti-Christian and anti-European bias of the United States’ elite is nowhere more apparent than in its decades-long, love affair with Turkey. President Clinton argued in Ankara last November that Turkey will not only bridge “the gulf between the West and the Islamic World” but is also slated to become “fully a part of Europe, as a stable, democratic, secular Islamic nation.”

A massive Turkish migratory invasion of Western European cities may be the real “challenge that remains for Europe,” and that is one reason some Europeans are finally realizing that Turkey is unfit for “Europe.” Unlike their American mass media counterparts, they can write about it—although the correspondent for the London Independent could complete his final report only after he was safely out of Istanbul (July 15):

My image of Turkey will always include the day I tried to visit Siirt, a wretched town in the south-east, where the people herd cattle in the streets of the town centre because their villages have all been burnt down by the Turkish security forces. A plainclothes policeman spotted me, a foreign journalist daring to try to do his job in a country that is an official candidate for membership of the EU, and I was followed all day by two carloads of police . . . . It was in Turkey that I first met people who had been tortured. One victim, a Kurd, . . . was arrested on his way from Istanbul to visit relatives in Kurdistan. He was beaten, sprayed with hot and cold water, and given electric shocks to his genitals . . .

A rare American expose of Turkish government brutality and U.S. complicity was published not in the New York Times nor the Washington Post, but in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (March/April 1999):

In 1995, the Clinton Administration recognized that the Turkish government used American arms in domestic military operations where human rights abuses occurred. In fact, Turkey has forcibly evacuated, leveled and burned more than 3,000 Kurdish villages in the past decade. Most of the atrocities, which have cost over 40,000 lives, took place during Clinton’s first term in office. As an ally of the U.S. through NATO, Turkey receives U.S. weapons, from dozens of companies, including Hughes, Boeing, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. . . . The war in Turkey represents the greatest use of U.S. weapons in combat anywhere in the world today.

This condemnation is quoted in the annual report published by Sonoma State University’s Project Censored. For the past 24 years, the members of the Project have been compiling a list of news deemed unfit for reporting in the United States.

Project Censored confirms the influence on U.S. foreign policy of multinational oil companies eager to exploit the Caspian Sea region, and it challenges other multinationals as well, especially pharmaceutical companies that focus their research and development on high-profit drugs such as Viagra, rather than developing cures for life-threatening diseases:

Viagra earned more than one billion dollars its first year . . . Though representatives of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America claim that some funds are directed toward eliminating tropical diseases, neither they nor individual firms are willing to provide statistics. Research into Third World tropical diseases is not being extensively considered or produced. A recent and effective medicine for African sleeping sickness was pulled from production, while older remedies are no longer available because they are not needed in the US. Meanwhile AIDS continues to receive the most attention in the Third World, mainly because the disease also remains a threat to the First World.

Another health-related story that the establishment media refuse to discuss concems the wealthy and powerful American Cancer Society (ACS). Project Censored quotes from the International Journal of Health Services (Volume 29, number 3, 1999):

More than half the funds raised by the ACS go for overhead, salaries, and fringe benefits for its executives and other employees, while most direct community services are handled by unpaid volunteers. The value of cash reserves and real estate totals over $1 billion, yet only 15 percent of funds go into direct services for cancer victims. Conflicts of interest affect ACS’s approach to cancer prevention. With a philosophy that emphasizes faulty lifestyles rather than environmental hazards, the ACS has refused to provide scientific testimony needed for the regulation of occupational and environmental carcinogens. The Board of Trustees includes corporate executives from pharmaceutical industries with a vested interest in the manufacture of both environmental carcinogens and anti-cancer drugs.

One thoroughly censored story is the Yugoslav presidential election scheduled for September 24. The speed and seriousness with which the democratic opposition in Serbia has managed to get its act together is both surprising and impressive, in view of its chronic divisiveness in the past. Its leaders have agreed on a joint presidential candidate who will stand against Milosevic. Dr Vojislav Kostunica of the Democratic Party of Serbia is their choice, which is a welcome development: He is a politician of impeccable democratic credentials, keen intelligence, and high personal integrity. He has not compromised himself either by making deals with Milosevic (unlike Vuk Draskovic of the Serbian Renewal Movement) or by being too subservient to the West (like, say, Zoran Djindjic of the Democratic Party). His consistency and perseverance have finally paid off.

The subsequent attempt by Vuk Draskovic to undermine the long-overdue unity of the democratic opposition in Serbia by fielding his own presidential candidate will finally finish him off as a political contender of any stature. That is insignificant in itself; but it provides Milosevic with the potential for fraudulent electoral games. By having a relative of the late General Draza Mihailovic (the present mayor of Belgrade, Vojislav Mihailovic) run as his locum tenens, Draskovic is hoping to keep his hat in the ring—but at the same time he does not dare test his diminishing political fortunes directly. Since he will therefore not run himself, Mr. Mihailovic is unlikely to gamer more than three percent of the vote. This may tip the balance in a tight race, allowing Milosevic to claim victory even on the first round (regardless of the number of actual votes cast), but the real problem created by Draskovic’s breaking of the ranks is that it allows the regime potentially to rig the election results.

Kostunica’s candidacy has caused near panic in those Western (particularly American) circles that regard the survival of Milosevic as the sine qua non of their present and future Balkan strategy. Since Kostunica looks like a man with a real chance, the attack against him has been brutal. He is now described in State Department background briefings as an old fashioned Serb nationalist, a sort of “Seselj in coat-tails,” and thus unacceptable as a partner in the “international community.” His condemnation of last year’s NATO bombing and his refusal to commit to cooperation with The Hague warcrimes tribunal are pointed out as evidence of his unsuitability. Worst of all, Western news stories on the elections have referred to every other politician by name but have carefully avoided mentioning the one opposition leader who can actually win.

At the same time, pro-Western opposition leaders in Belgrade are being sounded out on the possibility of selecting a new, “compromise” candidate who could unite the Serbian Renewal Movement (SPO) of Draskovic with the rest of the opposition. But the effect of any such compromise would be predictable: The fragile unity of real opposition parties would be thrown into disarray yet again, while the electoral clock is ticking. At the same time, no last minute replacement for Kostunica could have even a theoretical chance of winning. According to all opinion polls, including a very reliable sample in the newsweekly Vreme, he is the only opponent of Milosevic with a real chance.

If the West is finally serious about replacing Milosevic and allowing Serbia to find its place in the community of nations, it should tell Vuk Draskovic to call off his farce and get on board with everyone else against the despot. Western diplomats should indicate that they are willing to expose the many skeletons in his closet—particularly the corruption charges that are well known in Serbia. Draskovic, a deeply insecure man, would not want to jeopardize Western acceptance.

If the opposition stays united, Milosevic may lose the election even without the SPO on board. In that event, according to our Belgrade sources, he would stop the vote count if it was turning against him, proclaim a state of emergency (there has been a spate of arrests of “foreign spies and terrorists” in recent days), and rule by decree.

It is in the interest of the United States to have a new government in Belgrade and to seek a genuine long-term settlement in the Balkans that would be just and equitable. It is unrealistic, however, to expect a policy shift in that direction from the Clinton-Gore administration in general, and from Mrs. Albright’s State Department in particular. A more pragmatic, less ideologically rigid and morally bankrupt team may well be in charge six months from now, but by that time it may be too late: Milosevic will have secured himself another “mandate,” ensuring that the ordeal of his long-suffering people continues unabated.