Bogdanich's film was five years in the making, and is impressive in its documentation of every assertion it makes. Those assertions include extremely strong evidence that many of the of the so-called "Serbian atrocities" were in fact stage-managed events for the news media.

Bogdanich's evidence includes on-camera interviews with Lord Carrington and Lord David Owen, who were European negotiators attempting to negotiate peace in the region, Vietnam War veteran Colonel David Hackworth, retired New York Times correspondent David Binder, George Kenney, formerly of the U.S. State Department (he introduced the phrase "ethnic cleansing" to the U.S.) and numerous senior United Nations peacekeepers.

The film has a slight, subtle anti-separatist slant to it, but Bogdanich is an honest reporter and never plays with the facts. One can easily see through this anti-separatist veil and understand what really went on during the Yugoslavian war.

It was Germany and Austria that strongly pushed for the separation of Slovenia and Croatia from Yugoslavia. Bogdanich shows that the strong ties that both Slovenia and Croatia have to Germany date back to at least the period when Hitler ruled Germany, a period when the Croats welcomed Hitler's move into Yugoslavia and Hitler's soldiers slaughtered many Serbs.

Bogdanich points to this history to explain the Serbs' fear of separate Croatian and Slovenian states with close ties to Germany. But Bogdanich argues that this separation would have occurred even with this Serb fear. Minor "civil war" skirmishes might have occurred, and that would have been the extent of it, argues Bogdanich.

What escalated the war was the U.S. stance in another region of Yugoslavia, Bosnia. Bosnia consisted of a majority of Muslims with large minority Serb and Croat populations. When Bosnia began to call for its separation from Yugoslavia, the minority Serbs and Croats were, to say the least, concerned. Fearing an oppressive Muslim regime, the Bosnian Serbs, in particular, wanted no part of a separation from Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia's Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic stood strong in his contention that Bosnia remain a part of Yugoslavia in order to protect the Serb population in Bosnia. But still a separation agreement resulted with a plan to turn Bosnia into a state similar to Switzerland, with separate "cantons."

The Muslims, Serbs and Croats would each control their own cantons. At the last minute, however, with prodding from the United States, the leader of the Bosnian Muslims, Alija Izetbegovic, objected to the agreement and wanted more. His demands doomed the agreement, and as the Bogdanich film shows, this United States-inspired support of a hard-line Bosnian Muslim position is the spark that dramatically escalated the war. (Bogdanich asserts that this support of a hard-line Bosnian Muslim position by the United States was an attempt by the U.S. to demonstrate its support for Muslim states to Muslim nations such as Saudi Arabia.)

From here, Bogdanich convincingly demonstrates that most of the atrocities supposedly committed by Serbs were in fact Bosnian Muslim staged events for the news media, with the Bosnian Muslims even retaining the high powered American public relations firm Ruder-Finn to manage their media campaign in the U.S. Where was the American media when all this was going on? In Muslim-controlled Sarajevo being shown, for the most part, what the Bosnian Muslims wanted them to see.

It is this part of the film that leads to the use of a term I had never heard before: "Agitation Operation," or Ag Op. An Ag Op is apparently when you stage an event to agitate a population to take a stand on an issue. In this case, the Ag Ops were aimed at world opinion, particularly Americans, to convince them of the evilness of the Serbs and the innocence of the Bosnian Muslims. This entire section of the film is a major indictment of the lazy, spoon-fed mainstream media.

From there the film goes on to document the Kosovar Albanians' movement for a separate Kosovo. Again we have a huge minority Serb population and staged events that result in the Serbs appearing as the only bad guys. One staged event is the pretext for U.S. bombing (as part of NATO) of Serb military and civilian positions. Apparently, then-President Bill Clinton and then-Secretary of State Madeline Albright assumed that a couple of days of the Unites States flexing its military muscle would force the Serbs to bend. It didn't. The bombing continued for 79 days, and Bogdanich convincingly argues that many civilian targets were hit on purpose.

With that ending to the film, you walk out wondering why Bill Clinton and Madeline Albright and others in the U.S. aren't on trial in the War Criminal Tribunal alongside Slobodan Milosevic, and wondering an awful lot about Ag Ops.

This is a must-see, eye-opener of a documentary. It doesn't absolve Serbs, but it certainly puts the war into perspective. It is also an eye-opener when it comes to understanding government lying, and stage-managed massacres. It takes all this stuff to a new level. After viewing this film, you will become even more suspicious of government information and mainstream news reports, regardless of how mistrustful you already are.

The film is currently showing through this Thursday at the Facets Cinematheque (1517 West Fullerton) theater in Chicago. I urge you to see it. The film was scheduled for a week in New York and ran over an extra five weeks! (Because of scheduling conflicts, it won't run longer in Chicago.)

The distributor of the film, Peter Hargrove of Hargrove Entertainment, hopes to have the film shown in other major cities, including Boston, Philadelphia, St. Louis and Los Angeles. He has one small problem: The film is shot on video and requires a theater that has video projection facilities. If you know of a theater in your area that has video projection and might be interested in showing the film, please contact him. He is interested in showing the film in theaters in any cities and at colleges and universities. When possible, Hargove tries to have the film's maker George Bogdanich present at some of the showings for a question and answer period. Hargrove is also attempting to get the film aired on PBS.

Hargrove can be reached at tvsales@hargrovetv.com