Karadzic: Monster

The Independent refers to Karadzic as a "Monster." Think back to last year and consider: "How do they know what they know?" How have they attempted to justify their knowledge claims? Please be specific.

The Independent refers to Karadzic as a "monster." In an attempt to justify their knowledge claims, the Independent uses war speak, empirical knowledge, and is written in such a way to make the reader feel primary emotions, such as anger and sadness, in order to make their knowledge claims justified.

War speak is the most prolific way in which the Independent successfully (at least, in my case) evokes anger and sadness, two primary emotions from the reader. Some examples of heavily emotionally laden terms, in the Peter Maass article, Love Thy Neighbor, are:

-"survivors of Auschwitz" (recalling the most brutal Nazi concentration camp in WWII)

-"Kalashnikov assault rifles"

-"God-knows-what torture"

-"the sorriest infirmary you could imagine"

-"more bruises, more swelling, more open wounds."

-"they walked surprisingly well for people without muscle or flesh."

-"talking skeletons!"

-"mutilated chest"

-"puss oozed out."

-"his skin was stretched like a transparent scarf over his ribs and shoulder bones."

-"you have a girlfriend who has not been raped."

Each of theses terms is used to describe what Peter Maass saw at the Serb prison camps, but his use of words such as "skeleton," and "mutilated," bring about emotions of sadness and disgust, making the topic of the article more realistic to the reader.

In the Independent article,war speak is used more frequently because the Independent focuses more on Karadzic, rather than on the prisoners of the war camps. Therefore, there is more war speak used in this article to justify that Karadzic is monster, because of the methods of his politics.

War terms in this article are:

-"tanks"

-"killing"/"brutality"

-"'war criminal'"

-"'ethnic cleansing'"

-"intolerance"

-"Nazi-style"

-"'provocation'"

-"detention camps"

-"artillery"

These war speak terms implicate Karadzic as a monster. Comparing him to the Nazis, compares him to one of the most notorious mass-murders of all time. The use of these aggressive war terms, is a (successful) attempt to make Karadzic out to be a dangerous mass-murder, a monster.

Empirical Knowledge

In Peter Maas's article, the reader receives empirical knowledge, as the writer, Peter Maass, is writing in the first person, and at the beginning of the article it is clearly stated: "(This chronicles my visit to several Serb prison camps.)"

Therefore the reader may conclude that this article speaks to the truth of what is generally happening in Serbian prison camps. Peter Maass has experienced it, seeing sights and going places, such as the infirmary, where he was "not supposed to be." If he tells us of his experiences, then the truth is relayed to us, the readers. We may assume that this article is truthful because it is:

-public

it has been published as a clip from a book, and the camp guards occasionally allow the journalists to enter the camps, so others may verify this.

-independent

Peter Maass is an American journalist( http://www.petermaass.com/about/), so his article is free of both the Serbian and Bosnian beliefs that dominate either side of the war.

-eternal

as a published book, anyone who would like to read this article, is available to it, and journalists are occasionally allowed into the camps to report on, so if one would like to visit the camps for his or herself, one could become a journalist to do so.

In conclusion, the Independent, and the Peter Maass article successfully convey the horror of the prison camps, and through knowledge justifications of their claims, portray accurately, I believe, that Karadzic is a monster.