Fool's Crusade

Fool's Crusade is a book written by Diana Johnstone. This is what Edward S. Herman has to say about it:
 * Diana Johnstone's Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions is essential reading for anybody who wants to understand the causes, effects, and rights and wrongs of the Balkan wars of the past dozen years. The book should be priority reading for leftists, many of whom have been carried along by a NATO-power party line and propaganda barrage, believing that this was one case where Western intervention was well-intentioned and had beneficial results. An inference from this misconception, by "cruise missile leftists" and others, is that imperialism can be constructive and its power projections must be evaluated on their merits, case by case. It is a pleasure to watch Johnstone dismantle the claims and expose the methods of David Rieff, a literary and media favorite, as well as Roy Gutman, John Burns, and David Rohde, three reporters whose close adherence to the party line in Bosnia was rewarded with the Pulitzer prize – all fueling the "humanitarian bombing" bandwagon. While critics of the party line risk being dismissed as apologists for the Serbs, even the most fervent partisan of an idealized "Bosnia" and campaigner for NATO military intervention, like Rieff, or the novice journalist Rohde, who wrote on Srebrenica in a semi-fictional mode, with U.S. intelligence guidance, have never had to fear being criticized as apologists for the Muslims or NATO.

Reaction in Sweden: from media smears to thought police witch hunts
In the summer of 2003, Sweden's Ordfront Magazine published an interview with Diana Johnstone about her book and the wars in former Yugoslavia; the interview was conducted by Björn Eklund, the managing editor of the magazine. The reaction came in the form of highly tendentious articles in Sweden's mainstream newspapers: Dagens Nyheter (articles by Maciej Zaremba) and Expressen. The reaction within Ordfront Magazine led to the dismissal of the managing editor, the firing of junior staff, mass resignations, and then an attempted coup by a innner clique who sought to exploit the opportunity to take over the magazine and remold it to their particular idological stance. Burke summarizes the events:
 * The most important alternative to Swedish mainstream media provoked a furious backlash when it challenged the conventional wisdom on the Balkan tragedy that has been used to justify “humanitarian warfare”. The initial broadside of the mainstream assault, fired by a journalistic attack dog named Zaremba, triggered a chain of events that has exposed the sorry state of democracy and public discourse in Sweden.

External Resources

 * Louis Proyect, Diana Johnstone's Fools' Crusade: A Book Review, Swans, 26 May 2003.