‘Identifying national problems so well, and yet misrepresenting the war’
I would like to comment on «Our small role in a changing world» (April 12-13). I have been reading Kathimerini English Edition online and in hard copy ever since you began publishing. I doubt that I have missed more than a dozen issues over the past five years. Your editorials and commentary on the issues affecting Greek society and government, in my opinion, are for the most part absolutely right on the mark, a bull’s-eye almost every time. I continually find myself pounding on the desk asking, «How can these guys get it so right and how can they see and describe these problems so clearly?» Of course, at the end of the day, it is all talk and no action as problems in Greece are typically addressed with a shrug, upturned open palms and the Greek national response – ti na kanoume? («What can we do?»). My question is, how can you identify national problems so well and misrepresent entirely the coverage of the Iraq war? I and many others, as judged from your «begging for indulgence,» are deeply offended by Kathimerini’s unfair, unbalanced, unjust, and borderline unethical commentary. You begin by saying your baptism of fire came when the United States felt pressured into declaring war on Yugoslavia over Kosovo. Fair and accurate? If I recall it was all of NATO without pressure, and if I remember correctly, 90 percent of Greece sat on their hands once again, while thousands of innocents were being slaughtered by Slobodan [Milosevic] and his thugs. Where was the coverage of the hospitals and graveyards? Where was Kathimerini’s condemnation of the barbarians? The media is to accurately inform and assist debate, and not become a propaganda tool. What you have done and are doing with any issue where America is involved, is mold opinion in almost the same way as your sister publication, Rizospatsis. You get a red card on this one, Mr Konstandaras. JIM LEAHY, Kavala. Editor replies: My «begging for indulgence» was not a plea for forgiveness for anything we have written. It concerned the fact that my weekly column was taken up with presenting our paper’s policy rather than analyzing the week’s events. As for Kosovo, does anyone believe that if NATO had wanted to intervene it would or could have done so without the United States? This is not to judge the merits of the war.
