BALKAN WITNESSArticles on the Kosovo and Bosnia Conflicts
Deniers of Serbia's War Crimes:
Edward S. Herman
Last modified June 30, 2010
The politics of denialism: The strange case of Rwanda Review of The Politics of Genocide, by Edward Herman. This article focuses on Herman's denial of the Rwanda genocide, but Herman's approach to that issue is similar to his denial of the Serbian genocidal campaign in Bosnia and Serbia's attempted genocide in Kosovo. The author aptly dissects Herman's propensity for inverting the roles of perpetrators and victims. By Gerald Caplan, Pambazuka News, June 17, 2010
What Motivates Edward Herman and the Balkan Revisionists? Why is he reflexively living out a Cold War paradigm, apologizing for those who have committed ethnic mass murder in the name of a shadow of socialism. By Roger Lippman, April 26, 2009
Why Yugoslavia Still Matters (Follow-up discussion here.) Edward Herman manages to construct an alternative universe in which Serbian military forces only acted in defense, Slobodan Milosevic was a benevolent Gorbachev figure, and the international legal community functioned as some kind of adjunct to NATO. The article critiques Herman's latest recitation of his usual themes. By John Feffer, Foreign Policy in Focus, April 6, 2009
Srebrenica: Response to left-wing apologists for genocide The Srebrenica genocide has been actively denied by a coalition of people on the far right and left of the political spectrum. The apex of this campaign was the publication by Ed Herman, who now appears to work full time on such issues, of "The Politics of the Srebrenica Massacre." I will respond to the main allegations within it. By Michael Karadjis, November 11, 2007
The lists of missing at Srebrenica Of Edward Herman’s many dubious and outright false assertions about Srebrenica, one of the most contemptible is his attempt to make disappear from history the roughly 8000 Bosnian civilians massacred by Serbian forces. Some of his mystification is couched in slippery deniability, in a half-hearted attempt to deflect the criticism he deserves. But taken together, his comments comprise a clear endeavor at war-crimes denial. By Balkan Witness staff, August 2005
Edward Herman: The Politics of the Srebrenica Massacre On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre, Herman insulted the survivors with denials of Serbian atrocities and apologetics for Serbian aggression. Several readers responded. July 2005
Srebrenica and the London Bombings: The ‘Anti-War’ Link This article examines what unites the left-wing and right-wing deniers of Serbia's war crimes. Includes discussion of Edward Herman, Justin Raimondo, Nebojsa Malic, Neil Clark, Tariq Ali, and others. By Marko Hoare, July 23, 2005
The Left Revisionists An extensive review of a broad array of those on the Left who downplay the violence and suffering involved in the wars in the former Yugoslavia and shift the blame to the Western alliance. Among those discussed are Edward Herman, Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti, Michel Chossudovsky, Diana Johnstone, Mick Hume, John Pilger, Harold Pinter, and Jared Israel. By Marko Hoare, November 2003
The Kosovo Verification Mission at Racak A summary of the events surrounding the Racak massacre and its investigation. Concisely refutes some of the inaccurate statements of Edward Herman, Diana Johnstone, Philip Hammond, and David Peterson. By Alex J. Bellamy, 2002
Mediating Denial Martin Shaw reviews Edward S. Herman and Phillip Hammond's anthology Degraded Capability: The Media and the Kosovo Crisis. Shaw analyzes distortions by Diana Johnstone, John Pilger, Mick Hume, and others. June 2000
Diana Johnstone, whose work has been praised by Herman, and from whom he casually lifts many of the misrepresentations he repeats, has been critiqued in the articles below:Diana Johnstone's Fools Crusade is reviewed by Kirk Johnson, 2006. Several installments, linked from the cited page.
Johnstone's article "Srebrenica Revisited," is reviewed by Eric Gordy, October 13, 2005.
Raçak - Mutation of a Massacre This review of a Diana Johnstone article shows that she uncritically repeats Serbian government propaganda on Racak, and that her work is characterized by missing evidence, a paucity of sources, the spreading of untruths, and conspiracy theories. By Peter Wuttke, November 18, 1999 (Newly translated from the original German, March 2002.)