{"id":591,"date":"2004-03-18T16:56:39","date_gmt":"2004-03-18T23:56:39","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2004-03-18T16:56:39","modified_gmt":"2004-03-18T23:56:39","slug":"drowning-boys-story-a-blood-libel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2004\/03\/18\/drowning-boys-story-a-blood-libel\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;Drowning boys&#8221; story a blood libel"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In addition to spinning the organized Albanian <a href=\"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/comments.php?id=P584_0_1_0\">pogrom<\/a> of Serbs as &#8220;ethnic clashes,&#8221; newspapers and wire services include in their reports a claim that Albanians rose up after three Albanian boys drowned in the Ibar river &#8220;because Serbs chased them with dogs.&#8221;<br \/>\nThe story appeared in Albanian newspaper Wednesday, just as the pogrom began, but UNMIK officials &#8211; in the past all too eager to accept Albanian &#8216;grievances&#8217; &#8211; this time issued a clear denial. Two boys did drown, and one is still missing, but there is no indication whatsoever that Serbs or dogs played any role in their death.<br \/>\nAccording to my sources, UNMIK&#8221;s denunciation of this accusation as false has been public knowledge since around 1700 local time Wednesday. So far, <b>none<\/b> of the agency or newspaper reports have quoted it, though <b>all<\/b> mention the Albanian allegation.<br \/>\nBut if, as many UNMIK officials say, this pogrom is obviously organized and premeditated, then the &#8220;drowning story&#8221; is just a deliberate piece of inflammatory propaganda, aimed to both incite the mob and create a justification for outside observers. Encountering fertile minds in both instances, it seems to have succeeded splendidly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In addition to spinning the organized Albanian pogrom of Serbs as &#8220;ethnic clashes,&#8221; newspapers and wire services include in their reports a claim that Albanians rose up after three Albanian boys drowned in the Ibar river &#8220;because Serbs chased them with dogs.&#8221; The story appeared in Albanian newspaper Wednesday, just as the pogrom began, but [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[676],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-antiwar-movement"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}