Return to 1999

So, following the government-worshiping ritual last Tuesday, Barack Hussein Obama will become the 44th President (and not sure which Emperor in order, not that it matters) of the USA. Given the current state of the country, and its standing abroad, I'm not sure whether to say "'Grats" or "Sorry." Maybe both.

I viewed the prospect of either Obama or McCain gaining the presidency as distasteful, both as a libertarian and as a Serb. Neither is a friend of human freedom, so I won't belabor that point. Unlike most of his fellow Republicans, McCain has consistently supported Clinton's Balkans adventures during the 1990s, from Bosnia to Kosovo. One of his partners in those crimes was Joseph Biden, then Senator from Delaware, now VP-elect.

I could write an entire column about all the things Joseph Biden has said and done pertaining to the Balkans. In fact, I did write a column about him once. At the time, I asserted that Biden's belligerent ranting was less of a sign that "liberal" interventionism was making a comeback and more of a "last roar of an establishment whose time has passed, and while still capable of mischief it cannot fundamentally change the course of events." But lo and behold, that establishment seems to be back in power, and under the banner of "change" no less!

Let's see now. In addition to cheering the murderous terrorists of the KLA and their "independent state of Kosovo," Biden also called for a "Japanese-German style occupation" of Serbia. He is also said to have advocated that “all Serbs should be placed in Nazi-style concentration camps” back in 1999, during Senate debate on the NATO attack on then-Yugoslavia, and called the Serbs "...a bunch of illiterates, degenerates, baby killers, butchers and rapists" on CNN's Larry King Live.

Apparently, a Croatian friar has taken credit for guiding Biden to the "truth" about those wicked evil Serbs. Isn't that great, knowing that a foreign cleric can influence an American lawmaker so? Then again, his task wasn't hard. Being a Serbophobe - as opposed to, say, anti-Semite - has never been a career-killer in Washington. Quite the contrary.

Within the postmodern morality in which the American politics operates, there's absolutely nothing wrong with calling the Serbs "degenerates, baby killers, butchers and rapists," since they are an officially designated villain. The entire narrative of the American Empire rising to "liberate" the world from itself in the aftermath of the Cold War rests on the myth of Serbian Evil.

Biden could not get away with saying things like this about the Jews, or Americans of African origin, or Muslims. But Serbs are fair game. Everybody knows they are evil, right?

It seems that every possible group of people has some sort of agency in Washington, whether they have a grievance now or think they may have a grievance in the future and doesn't hurt to be prepared. The Serbs do not, even though they've been on the receiving end of American "benevolence" longer and harder than the Iraqis or the Afghans. This is why there is little or no response to Serbophobic drivel routinely spewed by politicians and lobbyists (and now the future Grand Vizier). This is why no one in the U.S. mainstream cared about Biden's comments, or how positively Hitlerian they sounded (not to mention having not even a passing acquaintance with the truth).

Now all we need is Dick Holbrooke back in the State Department, and as far as Washington is concerned, it will be 1999 all over again.