On Sun, 2 Jun 2002, Ralph Walter wrote:

> A man after my own heart!
>
> But why A. M. Rosenthal?

He was the chief apologist for the Serbian nationalists during the war in
Bosnia -- the group which was responsible for most of the atrocities.  At
that time, I was following the ex-Yugoslav situation with anguished
fascination, reading all the histories, U.S. and foreign news media, email
newsletters from all sides, etc., etc.  I came to see that Rosenthal's
columns on the subject were misleading at best, if not outright dishonest.
As far as he was concerned, the Serb nationalists could do no wrong and
the Bosnian Muslims could do no right.  The Croat nationalists were okay
to him only if they were attacking the Bosnian Muslims, in which case he
constantly stressed that the Croats and the Serbs were Christians -- like
that was a relevant distinction under the circumstances, worth repeating
four or five times per column.  On the other hand, the fact that many
thousands of Croats and Serbs supported the Bosnian government, opposing
the nationalists, was not worth bringing up at all.

The wars in former Yugoslavia were deadly and horribly destructive, and it
was all unnecessary.  The EU and the US had the power to prevent it at the
outset, and deliberately or carelessly threw it away.  Two outsiders in
particular who did exactly the wrong thing at critical times -- read any
objective history of the situation -- were Hans-Dietrich Genscher and
James A. Baker.  (Don't get me started...)  But you wouldn't know any of
that from Rosenthal's columns.

Eventually I noticed that Rosenthal was dishonest about other topics, too.
So I added him to my villain list.

                                  Larry

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