Waiting for Stalingrad

I have a long tradition of year-in-review articles for Antiwar.com (the most recent is "Moments of Revelation."), though not so much here. Nonetheless, it seems like a good idea to recap the year that was.

"By their fruits you shall know them," I began the year, quoting Matthew. And sure enough, the fruits of the Empire and its servants have been poison throughout.

KLA supporters in Washington DC famously said the "Kosovian" bandits fought for "human rights and American values;" I offered a glimpse into what that looked like in practice. Meanwhile, the spineless quisling regime in Belgrade committed outright treason by recognizing "Kosovia" in all but name. Even so, Serbia is not dead and buried, much as the Empire would like it to be so.

This was the year in which Great War revisionism gained more steam. Not only have there been efforts to blame everything on the Orthodox Other, but - as this item from February showed - to actually explain the war as the legitimate reaction of the Central Powers to being "threatened"! In such a climate, it was easy for Christopher Clark to argue that the war originated with the 1903 May Coup in Serbia. I mean, if the Serbs had only stayed Austrian vassals...

Such a climate of calumny made it possible for "Bosniak" activists to slander a WW1 Serbian march performed at the UN, with the help of the mainstream Western media.

Not that internet journalism has done better this year; after 14 years of online work, I've shared a few insights, inspired by another blogger's year-in-review posting. But the tendency to print unverified rumor, or even deliberated disinformation - case in point being a faux story about Tom Hanks supporting the Serbs - was inherited from the mainstream media. The Internet may be the media version of the AK-17 (whose inventor passed away in December, at age 94), but whether it's bullets or words, proper use and precision do matter.

A good friend and great fighter for the cause of truth, Stella Jatras, reposed in the Lord this June. Many of her Serb friends gave her a fitting tribute. When the history of these dark days is written, her name will shine brightly in it.

For my part, I've taken aim at many mistakenly beloved illusions this year: I took issue with Daniel Greenfield's drone worship in February; and challenged the perceptions that 1389 was a defeat, or that October 5, 2000 was a triumph.

Likewise, on the 70th anniversary of the Communist revolutionaries declaring a rebirth of Yugoslavia, I questioned their proclamation, and addressed the problematic features of their creation. And then there were unanswered questions about the Great Leader...

Chechen bombers of the Boston Marathon did not cause a re-evaluation of Empire's support for the Caucasus jihad. Instead, it backed the jihadists in Syria. In fact, by the summer, everything seemed set for yet another evil little war. As if on cue (because it was on cue) war talk was everywhere, the Imperial media eager to watch the world burn. Croatia actually bragged about being a conduit for weapons to the Syrian "rebels."  Had the attack actually gone forward, it would have been a defining moment for the Empire, marking it unmistakably as the greatest danger of our time. And then... nothing. Whether it was the Russian fleet off the Syrian coast, or Vladimir Putin's words of caution, but the Syrian campaign ended up stillborn.

Just the other day, Chechen bombers attacked public transportation in a city that, for six days every year, still bears the name Stalingrad. Their sponsors would do well to remember what happened to the "invincible" Wehrmacht there, seventy years ago.

Is it really a coincidence that Nazi revival is all the rage in the European Union? Seven years after murdering Slobodan Milosevic, the faux-Tribunal overtly promoted a Big Lie, presenting the Croatian Nazi plan to exterminate the Serbs as a Serb plan to exterminate the Bosnian Muslims. Meanwhile, Croatians reveled in their "heritage" after qualifying for the 2014 soccer World Cup - and then shamelessly tried to silence the few voices daring to protest.

Open Nazism was on display in Ukraine as well, where the Empire tried to stage another "Orange revolution" in December. It failed. Because the East remembers.

RIP M. Kalashnikov

Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov, inventor of the world's most ubiquitous automatic rifle, passed away today at age 94.


As with almost every technological innovation, the rifle that bears his name is a product of evolution in weapons development. The genius of the injured tank mechanic was to put the existing pieces and concepts together in a novel way. Thus came about the Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947, or AK-47.

As RT describes it:

AK-47 is not a weapon designed for accuracy tests at the firing range. It is a weapon for firefights at close quarters, in harsh Russian conditions.

It can be assembled by a person with no military training, is fired by simply pointing at a target, and it can be easily looked after without a cleaning kit. It does not jam by itself (due to the generous allowances between moving parts, which also explain its mediocre accuracy at range) and it does not stop functioning in any weather conditions.

There are layers of irony in the fact that the Soviet Union gave birth to the most democratic weapon of the modern age. What Samuel Colt's six-shooter did for individual self-defense, Mikhail Kalashnikov's rifle did for nations.

Just a hundred years ago, the world was partitioned between the empires of Europe. As Hillaire Belloc famously wrote, "Whatever happens, we have got/The Maxim gun, and they have not." (The Modern Traveller, 1898) The AK-47 put the firepower of the Maxim machine gun within everyone's reach, enabling the small and weak to challenge the mighty and powerful.

Rest in peace, Mikhail Timofeyevich.

And Now For a Word

I wanted to title this "We interrupt this broadcast for a message from our sponsors," but a) it's too long, b) I don't have any sponsors, and c) posting here isn't on any sort of regular schedule anyway.

I do have a promotion, however. Back in 2012, an essay of mine appeared in a collection titled "Why Peace?" It isn't a case for pacifism, but rather for non-aggression. Yes, there is a difference, and no, it's not hair-splitting but rather precision in speech and thought. War may be a necessary evil sometimes, but we must remember it is evil nonetheless.

There are many other valuable essays in the book. You may like some more and others less. For what it's worth, mine is a rare firsthand glimpse into the Bosnian War, which I put into the broader context of Imperial white-knighting.

The book is available through a variety of channels; you can find out more here. 

Tea and Biscuits in Kiev

Tuesday night I got another call from RT, to comment (video) on the situation in Kiev as the police moved to dismantle the "opposition" barricades.

Ukraine's government is in a difficult position. If it allows the protesters to blockade downtown Kiev, it appears powerless. If it breaks them up, and there is blood, it appears brutal. Thing is, all of this is in Gene Sharp's playbook, developed into the manual for "color revolutions." The motley coalition of marginal political parties (including Nazi apologists)? Check. A charismatic leader that's all style by no substance? Check. Meaningless acts of media posturing? Check. Celebrity endorsements instead of an actual program? Check.

Now the top "diplomats" from Brussels and Washington are hobnobbing with the would-be revolutionaries, stirring the pot. But if the EU couldn't secure Ukraine's submission with financial incentives (or - and here's a discomforting thought for many a EUrocrat - couldn't afford to), what makes them think Baroness Upholland showing up for tea, or Victoria Nuland giving away biscuits, would work any better?

cartoon by V. Kremlov, RT

The revolutionaries' script is both their greatest strength and their greatest weakness. Strength, because it has been developed to maximally use human psychology. Weakness, because if the other side can somehow disrupt the protesters' OODA loop, get them off the script, the "revolution" fails. Moscow and Minsk have done it.

Another thing to keep in mind is that neither official Kiev, nor Moscow, nor RT - routinely demonized in the West as "Russian propaganda" - are challenging the underlying illusions peddled by the EU and the Empire: that the EU equals Europe, and that "European values" are justice, order, and prosperity, when they are manifestly none of those things. Perception management is as deadly in politics as it is on the battlefield. Letting the other side frame the debate is tantamount to losing in advance.

Yet even with all their advantages in perception management, it is the Empire and the EU that are losing. Already, the fickle attention of the Western media is shifting onto the Emperor's "selfies" at the funeral of their secular saint.

Because even the best-conjured illusions only go so far, for so long. 

Agent of Albion?

Reader "Endless Struggle" sent in a comment concerning last week's piece on the Communist takeover of Yugoslavia:

Good analysis of the significance of Nov. 29, however, not enough credit goes to the British in "making" Tito, especially since the recently disclosed CIA analysis of his speech indicates that the Tito of WWII and later is not the original Tito.

"The name is Broz. Joe Broz" (via the Daily Mail)

He's referring to this document (PDF), in which the NSA analysts argue that Tito's speech patterns belie his origin story - but conclude, tellingly, that it doesn't matter, since Yugoslavia's ruler is doing the West's bidding anyway.

We now know - thanks to Michael Lees' book, "The Rape of Serbia" - the British were recruiting and training Croatian communist for a British-controlled guerrilla army in Yugoslavia in late 1941, a full half year before their official history said the British even heard of Tito. And David Martin, in his book "Web of Disinformation", tells us that is was Churchill that convinced Stalin to switch Soviet support from Mihailovic to Tito. You see, Stalin did care about who was killing Germans because the SU was close to breaking in 1941 - 42. Meanwhile Britain is safe and secure behind the Channel and the combined British and American fleets. In fact, Gen. Eisenhower, in his private journal,  accuses the British of cowardliness for not fighting the Germans by deliberately delaying D-Day for nearly two years. 

The assertion that Tito was Stalin's pawn rings false on many levels. For one thing, there is 1948, and the Tito-initiated split. But way before that, there was the case of Mustafa Golubic. A WW1 Serbian veteran, Golubic became a NKVD general and ran several Soviet networks in the West (e.g. he's alleged to be the mastermind behind the assassination of Trotsky). He was sent to Yugoslavia in the spring of 1941, to be Tito's minder - and in June 1941, he was ratted out to the Gestapo, tortured and executed. Although officially it is still a mystery who sold him out, rumors allege it was Tito's aide Milovan Djilas, on Tito's orders.

Also, since Churchill had liaison officers at Tito's HQ, it is much more credible that Tito arranged the Jajce event to coincide with Churchill asking Stalin (and not the other way around) in Tehran to abandon Mihailovic, than the official story. Certainly, the British betrayal of the royal Yugoslav government was entirely too enthusiastic for something allegedly forced on them by Stalin. Though I wouldn't put it past Tito to play Moscow and London against each other, for his benefit.

And since Tito's true significance was to cover up the Serbian Holocaust and save the indispensable Roman Catholic Church for the Cold War becomes logical and clear. Or perhaps we are to believe the British are so noble that they "fought" Hitler out of pure altruism. then I suggest you read John Costello's "Ten Days to Destiny: How the British Tried to Strike a Deal with Hitler".
As many have commented, since the end of the Cold War, the true history of WWII is only now seeing the light of day. 

I, for one, never thought Britain fought Hitler out of altruism. In both 1914 and 1939, London went to war to safeguard the Empire - and in both cases, only hastened its demise. As far back as the Seven Years' War, it has been British policy to foment unrest in Europe. So I have no trouble believing Churchill's intent was to have the Germans and the Soviets smash each other to bits, whereupon Britain would leverage their American cousins' (Churchill himself was half-American) manpower and industry to conquer and rule the ashes.

On one hand, it didn't quite work out that way: Britain never really recovered from the war, sliding into moribund welfarism. India became independent in 1947; the rest of the Empire followed soon enough. On the other hand, the spirit of British imperialism moved across the Atlantic and infested the American host; hence the Cold War and the Atlantic Empire of today. But as I've been pointing out for over a decade, that hasn't been going well for the imperialists, either.

Of course, none of that is any comfort to the people they've sacrificed like pieces in a board game, in the 1940s or today. It just goes to show that, once you agree to be a piece on the board, you lose your say in how the game is played.

Still, conniving as the British - and their American apprentices - may be, they are hardly all-powerful. While they can and do a lot of damage, their dreams of conquest routinely fail. Or as one famous Englishman wrote, in an entirely appropriate context, "Oft evil will shall evil mar."

A Rotten Orange

I was on RT this morning, commenting on the events in Ukraine.

Honestly, I don't understand how anyone can believe the utter rubbish coming out of the EU and peddled by the mainstream Western media these days. Srdja Trifkovic explains the whole thing pretty clearly here, but let me try summing it up even further.

Brussels did not offer Kiev a "deal" - they demanded unconditional surrender. Current trade arrangements with Russia, far more favorable to Ukraine than what the EU offers, would have ended - yet Kiev would have nothing to show for it but promises of eventual EU "aid."

Think of it this way: someone offers you a "deal" to quit your job, and in return he'll move into your house, take all your possessions (to do with them as he pleases) while you go beg on the street to make rent (because you have to support him living in your house now), all for a promise that in a decade or so, he might give you some money. Maybe. If he's not broke by then.

Would you do such a thing? No? Then why would Ukraine?

Ah, but the "evil Russians" this and that. Nonsense. Moscow is all about commerce, while Brussels and Washington are all about coercion. It isn't Moscow's (phantom) operatives staging "revolutions" and promoting "regime change" around the world, but "activists" funded by EU and US governments - even as EU and US citizens sink into poverty themselves, bled dry to support an Empire.

The EU is not some mythical land of plenty, with rainbows and unicorns and manna from heaven. It is the hungry of Greece, the robbed of Cyprus, the debtors of Ireland, the corruption of Italy, the ghost cities of Spain and the destitute of Portugal. It's the "guest workers" of Poland, the starving Bulgarian potato-diggers, and the Nazis of Croatia.

And EU's support for the rioters in Kiev basically means that "democracy" is whatever they say it is, and violence is perfectly acceptable if it's for the "proper" (that is, EU) cause. You'd think people who lived under such "logic" for 70 years, and profess to despise it, would recognize it when it's shoved in their faces.

I understand the Galicians wanting to rejoin Austria-Hungary (not that they'd be any happier there, but whatever). I even understand Vitaly Klitschko; he did take a lot of blows to the head. But what's everyone else's excuse? 

Shameless

The great Serb poet Jovan Dučić, who sought refuge in 1941 from the atrocities of Nazi Croatia, once called the Croats the bravest people in the world, "not because they are fearless, but because they are shameless." Just to be clear, it was not meant as a compliment.

Almost every day brings new proof of Dučić's accuracy, from sieg-heiling on football pitches and smashing Cyrillic signs, to street "art" about hanging Serbs on willow trees.

Downtown Zagreb last week (photo: BN TV)

But while the EU and its quisling cult constantly insist the Serbs apologize for the unforgivable crime of continuing to exist, there are no calls on Croats to apologize for their overt Nazism. Nor do Croats feel any urge to do so. Quite the contrary!

"Joe" Simunic is "proud to be a patriot." The sign-smashers and "artists" believe they are honoring the legacy of the "Homeland War." Because Croatia has been a loyal client of the Atlantic Empire and even more so of Berlin (being "rewarded" earlier this year with EU membership), there is little criticism of such behavior in the mainstream Western press. What there is, usually contains an attempt at moral equivalence, such as "Croatia fought a war with Serbia [sic] in the 1990s". So I guess that makes hating the Serbs OK?

A simple litmus test would go like this: Read anything in the mainstream Croatian press about the Serbs. Replace the word "Serb" with "Jew." See how that reads.

Now a Croatian grievance group in France has sued Bob Dylan and Rolling Stone magazine, claiming he "incited hatred" with a 2012 (!) interview, in which he said - among other things - this:

“Blacks know that some whites didn't want to give up slavery - that if they had their way, they would still be under the yoke, and they can't pretend they don't know that. If you got a slave master or Klan in your blood, blacks can sense that. That stuff lingers to this day. Just like Jews can sense Nazi blood and the Serbs can sense Croatian blood.”

Supposedly, the CRICCF was horribly offended because Dylan dared "compare Croatian criminals to all Croats." This is baffling. On one hand, isn't official Croatdom proud of their hatred of Serbs and service to the Reich? Also, doesn't phrasing it this way mean they agree the Ustasha - and their present-day heirs - are criminals? These, however, are hatefacts, and all you are supposed to do is focus on how horribly offended they are because Dylan - who, by the way, is an actual participant of the U.S. civil rights struggle - made a comparison that hit a little too close to home.

The timing of the lawsuit ought to be a clue: right as Nazi incidents in Croatia are out in the open, and Dylan has just been given a Legion of Honor. This is a PR stunt, pure and simple. Unfortunately, under EU's most-progressive-and-democratic "hate speech" laws, there is a more-than-zero chance a Parisian judge may decide the horrifying anguish of Croats in France upon being compared to Nazis and the Klan is entitled to financial compensation.

The ironic part about Dylan's statement is that it's the Croats usually sniffing around for "Serb blood" in people they dislike - an obsession even more absurd because the vast majority of Croats are genetically indistinguishable from Serbs. It's just that they were ruled by Catholic kings for over a thousand years, and their national identity was eventually formulated in the late 1800s (under the influence of Austro-Hungarian expansionism) as militantly Catholic, Serbophobic and anti-Semitic. Driven by that hatred, entirely unprovoked, they committed barbaric atrocities against the Serbs in both world wars, and again in the 1990s (having murdered most of the Jews in 1941-45). Call it a triumph of monstrous nurture over nature, if you will.

It would be interesting to see if any Serbs in France will file an amicus brief in Dylan's case, detailing all the Croat "contributions to civilization," such as Jastrebarsko, the only death camp for children in WW2. Not so much for Dylan's sake - I'm sure he can defend himself - but for their own. Because the untold numbers of their kin, "civilized" to death by the "bravest people in the world", cry out for justice - in this world or the next.