Stench Along The Trail

What can I say about 2014?

At best, that it wasn't another 1914 - though not by much. And who knows what future historians might say about that, provided there are any.

It was a year of anniversaries: 15 years ago this March, NATO attacked Serbia (which occasioned a gut-wrenching documentary and a war of images on Twitter and Facebook). A hundred years ago this July, Austria-Hungary had attacked Serbia and set off the Great War.

Vienna had claimed it was a victim of "Serbian terrorism" and was conducting a "punishment expedition" against "bandits." It was a monstrous lie. Austria-Hungary perished in the ensuing cataclysm, though its specter continues to haunt Europe to the present day. It is hardly a coincidence that today's flashpoint - the Ukraine - was also the site of Austro-Hungarian ethnic engineering over a century ago. Or that there is an unbroken line between 1914 and today, running straight through Hitler...

To me personally, the events in the Ukraine were an uncanny re-run of the early 1990s and the demise of Yugoslavia. Even the instigators were the same: NATO, United States, the Atlantic Empire - as was the pattern of fomenting dissent, double standards, and backing Nazis.

There was also the incessant propaganda, as brazen as it was stupid. And yet, the sheer amount of it has generated enough poison that even the critics have not been able to resist the toxic residue. Perhaps the best example of how the media operate has been the "PUTIN KILLED MY SON" hysteria over the Malaysian airliner, which abruptly stopped once the Russians offered evidence to the contrary. Without any acknowledgment of the lies, of course.

You won't hear many challenges to the mainstream media reporting in the supposedly "free and democratic" West. At most you will laugh at the skewering of lies and lying liars in a German comedy show. Yet it should tell you much about the times we live in that only comedians are allowed to challenge the powerful...

Meanwhile, Bosnia and Serbia were hit by some of the worst flooding in a century. Western media only began noticing once tennis champion Novak Djokovic called them out on it - and donated his entire winnings from a tournament for the relief effort. Months later, USAID tried to influence the Bosnian elections by producing TV ads accusing the local governments of embezzling Western flood aid - though such aid never actually came. That election, by the way, was a veritable parade of plagiarism and absurdity.

In 2014, the Islamic State arose in Iraq and Syria, to the great joy of the Empire. Albanians were able to disrupt a soccer game with a drone - the first such attack in history - with impunity. And the U.S. government tried to use "Serbian music promoters" in a failed bid to conquer Cuba - only to abruptly abandon the decades-long blockade in December (while keeping the goal of regime change in Havana).

It was the year Falcon got a graphical update, but I ended up being too busy to wish it a happy 10th anniversary.

The oddest thing is, while I obviously couldn't predict the details of what would come to pass, a month before the Empire-backed coup in Kiev unleashed Hell I wrote this:

"[A]s the great Serbian poet Njegos once wrote, "He whose law lies only in the cudgel, has a trail that reeks of inhumanity."
This isn't about Ukraine, or about democracy, or human rights, or "freedom" - it's about having only the cudgel, and the entire world looking like something to beat with it.
It's about crushing any thought of there being an alternative to the "end-of-history" West.
It's about power.
Just follow the stench along the trail.

So, while I am grateful this wasn't another 1914, I am really glad 2014 is over. And I wish us all a better 2015, with all the help from the Almighty we can hope for. I have a feeling we'll need it.

I told you so...

It is that time of the year, when one draws the line and tallies up everything that's happened. My overview of 2014 is up today on Antiwar.com.

While I really don't have a habit of saying "I told you so," or even self-promoting much, this passage from last January leaped out at me in the process of writing that article:

As philosopher Alfred Korzybski famously noted, the map is not the territory. Yet both Imperial and EU officials and their regional clients firmly believe that they can magically alter territory by making alterations on the map. Sooner or later, something will put that belief to the test. It may even happen this year.

I would argue this is precisely what the current conflict is all about. The Atlantic Empire asserts it has the sole right to determine reality, right and wrong, virtue and vice, and impose that on the entire world - because of the divine right of "democracy." Russia - and many others - think this is absurd, unacceptable and perhaps even outright evil.

Until now, nobody who wasn't directly under attack made too much of an effort to resist; nobody wanted to become another Serbia, Libya, Iraq, Syria, or any country "improved" by a "color revolution" or two. But now that Russia is under attack, it has no choice but to resist. And others are coming to the realization that "hoping the Empire eats me last" isn't a strategy, but an absence of one.

And when delusions of omnipotence meet the wall of reality, who do you think is going to win? 

The Goal Is Still Regime Change

Last week, when the story came out of USAID's failed “color revolution” in Cuba - using “Serbian music promoters” no less - I thought its airing was just another effort at perception management. For one thing, it was an old story: the initial revelations were made in April. Then there was the fact that everyone was talking about the CIA torture report, so airing this was the perfect way to deflect attention from it, while also ensuring that nobody will pay too much attention to the Cuba fiasco as well.

Instead, the story was a trial balloon for Wednesday's announcement that Washington would lift the embargo on Cuba first imposed during the Kennedy administration.

That's good, right? Uh, not so fast. Consider the phrasing of Obama's announcement: “We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interest.”

Outdated? Why, then, is Washington using the very same approach against Russia, Iran, and other places? Because the US policymakers believe that in those cases, the “sanctions” are working. Just look at the maniacal glee with which Russophobes in the US media are cackling over the manipulated oil price and the equally orchestrated attack on the ruble. Which is, by the way, still a fundamentally stronger currency than the dollar.

So, the blockade wasn't lifted on grounds of the tactic being morally unacceptable for Washington, but because it didn't achieve the desired result (“failed to advance our interest”). That result, however, hasn't changed a bit: it's still “regime change” - in Cuba, in Russia, in any country that continues to believe it is sovereign, free and independent of Washington's commands.

If this all sounds too much like the attitude of the Hunger Games' Capitol towards the rebellious and disenfranchised Districts... well, decide for yourselves whether the resemblance is purely accidental.

"Serbian Music Promoters" and the Failed USAID Revolution in Cuba

Many Americans skeptical of the government give no second thought to USAID. The agency may be spending taxpayers' money overseas, they figure, but at least it's for the purpose of buying the world's goodwill with American kindness and generosity, right?

Little do they know that USAID also produces threatening political ads, and tries to subvert governments through pop culture. Recent reports by AP (see here) indicate the U.S. agency has tried to foment a coup in Cuba by infiltrating the Cuban hip-hop scene. This was part of a broader scheme involving a knockoff of Twitter, some details of which emerged earlier this year. Though some U.S. government officials (e.g. Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy) are blasting the venture as "reckless and stupid," USAID is claiming it was only "developing civil society."

It is certainly interesting that the original round of revelations about the project, supposedly discontinued in 2012, were leaked to the media as everyone was paying attention to the political meltdown in Ukraine this spring - and this story comes while everyone is focusing on the CIA torture report. The best time to "to take out the trash" is when the public's attention is elsewhere...

Notice also that only one person has been identified by name in the whole scandal: one Rajko Bozic, called "a Serbian contractor," though Western media indicate he wasn't the only Serbian "music promoter" working the gig. Turns out Bozic isn't an ordinary music promoter - Serbian papers reveal he was "involved in projects in Tunisia, Ukraine, Lebanon and Zimbabwe." So he is really one of those professional revolutionary types, who go around the world spreading the Imperial gospel of "democracy" and "human rights." This particular lot was chosen because of their role in the Exit Festival, a drugs-and-alcohol-addled extravaganza started in 2000 as part of the campaign to overthrow the government, and continued every year since, at Serbian taxpayers' expense.

But don't believe for a second their "outing" as Serbian is an accident, or an irrelevant detail. Back in 2011, when a damning documentary appeared linking these professional putschists to the so-called "Arab Spring" upheavals in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Syria, I wrote:

"Branding [them] as Serbian is no accident. Few in the world would be inclined to suspect a Serb of working for the Empire, after everything that happened in the Balkans in the 1990s... Merely defeating and conquering Serbia would not do. The Serbs had to be turned into the Empire’s most dedicated servants: when even a people like that can be so thoroughly crushed, resistance to the Empire must surely be futile."

And while every place that's been touched by these "activists" bears the scars of their involvement, Serbia is actually run by them, and has been for the past 14 years. So great has this "democratic democracy" been, ordinary Serbians are now worse off than during the era of sanctions and war. That ought to tell you everything about the kind of bliss these people - and their paymasters - truly stand for.

Tyranny of Ignorance and Manipulation

How did it come to this?

People riot in the streets not because the police are murdering citizens in cold blood while "just doing their jobs" (with all the banality of evil that phrase is meant to conjure), but because they've been told - and they believed - this was all about racism. Oh by all means, let's have people at each other's throats: that way they will never notice the government boot choking them to death.

I saw an essay today, written by a John W. Whitehead of the Rutherford Institute. commenting on both that and the Senate report about CIA torture. He says:

"We have relinquished control of our government to overlords who care nothing for our rights, our dignity or our humanity, and now we’re saddled with an authoritarian regime that is deaf to our cries, dumb to our troubles, blind to our needs, and accountable to no one."

He may as well be writing about Serbia under the "democratic progressives" (i.e. quislings of the Empire), but he's writing about a former republic still called the United States of America. A country that voted against a UN resolution condemning Nazism, and leads the "defensive alliance" (that has only ever waged wars of unprovoked aggression) now producing propaganda videos claiming there are no Nazis in Ukraine. Because they say so. Perhaps they need help looking?

How did it come to this?

A few years back, a columnist said this about the nature of political correctness, comparing it to Communist propaganda:

"...I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to co-operate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control." (source)

Think of this as you read the endless media promotion of manufactured scandal, from false rape stories to shrieks of outrage over a shirt worn by a scientist who just landed a probe on a comet. To hell with science, he sinned against political correctness! This cannot stand! 

As soon as the riled-up people begin thinking "Hey, wait a minute, this doesn't compute..." here comes another outrage, another assault on the amygdala, another crass emotional manipulation. The interval between the attacks is progressively shrinking, and soon may disappear altogether. 

How did it come to this?

Perhaps this gem, from Dmitri Orlov, will help you understand: "...there is a limit to how much you can know, but there is no limit at all to how much you don't know but think you do"!

An End and A Beginning

I've tried "unpacking" the implications of last week's announcement that the South Stream pipeline is no more, in a column for RT, and another for Antiwar.com.

Despite all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, I think the Empire's quisling cult is celebrating prematurely. South Stream's demise was primarily aimed at punishing Bulgaria's treachery, as Gazprom's CEO Aleksey Miller pretty much spelled out over the weekend - but also effectively destroyed all the Western plans to bypass Russia using Turkey.

Andrew Korybko has some interesting thoughts as to why Ankara defected. But I expect Washington and Berlin (Brussels is for show, after all) won't spend much time trying to figure that out, choosing instead to use all means at their disposal to bring the Turks in line. Good luck with that!

As for Serbia, well, notice the Russo-Turkish agreement says nothing as to where the Europe-bound pipes will go through after they reach Greece. Does anyone really think it would be through Albania, a client of Washington ever more than Bulgaria could ever aspire to be? And if not there, then perforce north, through FYROM and Serbia - which would require the stabilization of both, at the very least through the curbing of Washington-backed Albanian aggression. Given that Washington has relied on Turkey (and Germany) to do much of the work in actually supporting the Albanians, while the US sat back and basked in the adulation, let's just say that calculation will now need to be revised.

While it is certainly possible that Russia will just throw Serbia under the proverbial bus, I don't think that's likely. That line about the West wanting to destroy Russia like it destroyed Yugoslavia, in Vladimir Putin's big annual speech, was there very much on purpose. Unfortunately, while I would love to see Serbia take the lead on this, I don't know if the country - infested by the quisling cultists as it is - can muster the strength right now. As one Serbian commentator describes it (link to original, translation mine):

"Looking at Serbia and Russia over the past 25 years, one could say that they are comrades in arms whose mutual understanding has sometimes been better and sometimes worse. But one of them has been left behind, wounded and bleeding out, behind enemy lines. That is why it's Russia's move today, not Serbia's."

Call me naive, but I have faith that Russia will come through. For its own sake, if nothing else. The fact I can't see the signs of it happening doesn't mean it's not in the works: it just means the enemy can't see it either.

Nazis and Countries That Back Them

After Canada, USA and Ukraine were the only countries that voted "No" in the UN General Assembly to a resolution proposed by Russia condemning the glorification of Nazis, Peter Lavelle had Alexander Mercouris, Dimitri Babich and I over to discuss the meaning of that on CrossTalk.


(or watch on YouTube)

As you can see, I agree with the other two guests on almost everything - except for their assertion that Washington has ever actually regretted the consequences of its misdeeds. From where I stand, the Empire is not only absolutely unrepentant, it declares its wrongdoing to be right and just!

I mean, the New York Times of all media recently published an admission that a thousand (at least!) actual German Nazis still receive Social Security. How many thousands were brought over after WW2, and how many were propped up in Europe to "fight Communism"? And that's not counting the seven decades of collaborating with Nazis from the so-called "captive nations" (the Baltics, Ukraine, Croatia, etc), documented in The Nation (again, of all places). So it's fine that Croatians are sieg-heiling at fooball games while Kyevite militias are flying swastikas, since that represents "democracy and European future" merely defending themselves against "Serbian and Russian aggression" (see here, for example).

Another thing we didn't get a chance to mention is that all of the EU - and its hangers-on - abstained from voting. The sole European country that supported the resolution was Serbia. Personally, I'm shocked the quisling regime in Belgrade dared oppose Brussels and Washington on this, considering their absolute willingness to cut Serbia's throat on every other issue. Perhaps even they draw the line at backing Nazis, for what it's worth.

The show aired on Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and was recorded the day prior. Thus there was no time to fix the error in the titles identifying me as director of the Reiss Institute (I resigned earlier this month. It was a personal decision - nothing against the Institute, and I wish it all the best in future endeavors.)

Wastelands Called Democracy

Friday was a year since the start of the "EuroMaidan" protests in Kiev, which would lead to the February 21 coup and the subsequent fracturing of the Ukraine.

In spite of the overwhelming evidence of U.S. government involvement in funding, organizing and even controlling the protests, the mainstream Western media continue to present the events in Ukraine as a spontaneous popular revolt for the sake of "democracy and European future." Just like Serbia was (not). Or Libya. Or Georgia. Or any other place where "color revolutions" brought devastation and called it democracy.

Want to know what "European future" looks like? Here's Odessa, on May 2:

(RIA Novosti / Maxim Voitenko)

I spoke with RT on the subject Friday; here's the video and here a (mostly accurate) transcript. I also wrote a special feature on the subject, which was published this morning.

And while Biden the Deputy Emperor and Victoria "Biscuit-Giver" Nuland were posting for cameras in Kiev with their stooges, Nazi death squads and the Ukrainian Army were terror-bombing civilians.

Well, at least that explains why the US, UK and Canada were the only states to vote against a resolution condemning the glorification of Nazism.

RT vs the Western "Media"

Since last November, I have made so many appearances on RT, I've had people ask me if I work for them. I wish! In actuality, I am a guest commentator, who just happens to get re-invited a ton. Maube because I am right more often than not? Certainly not because I'm telegenic...

On Tuesday I was a guest on the episode of CrossTalk about the elections in the Ukraine, which aired today. Three days prior, I chimed in about V. V. Putin's remarks at the Valdai Club forum in Sochi. He identified the Empire-possessed U.S. (and its EU appendage) as the source of instability, violence and chaos in the world. I've said as much myself back in February, so it's no wonder I concur.

The Anglosphere media, predictably, did not. For example, the Guardian's obnoxious (and clueless) Shaun Walker described Putin's remarks as "railing" against the West. Good thing the full transcript of the remarks (in English too) is available via the alternate media.

But something in Walker's piece particularly rankled:

Putin did not face many tough questions from the assembled audience. Peter Lavelle, a presenter on the Kremlin’s Russia Today television channel took the opportunity to tell the president that he is “the most popular man in modern history” and in much of the world is “looked upon as a saviour of sorts”.

I've addressed here before the whole "RT is Kremlin propaganda" nonsense. Walker is simply trying to disqualify RT and Lavelle with a drive-by ad hominem. Worse, though, in this passage he is lying by omission: Lavelle did say the words quoted above, but as part of a question about the Western media's demonization of Putin. Watch and listen for yourselves. Putin's reply, too, for good measure.

Now tell me again why you or anyone else ought to think the Western media is fair, objective, accurate and decent, while "Kremlin's Russia Today" is nothing but evil lies and propaganda. Rubbish.

Debuts and Anniversaries

My first first column at Antiwar.com was published October 19, 2000. That's fourteen years ago. Even I forgot about the exact date, thinking it had been sometime in November.

Screencap of the very first column at Antiwar.com

"Balkan Express", as it was called, had 269 editions - more or less once a week. In 2007, we changed the name to "Moments of Transition", and the publication schedule to every other week. The latest column, "Two Parades and A Drone", was published this past Saturday. It was the 460th column for Antiwar.com that I have written over the past fourteen years.

Saturday was my debut as a columnist for RT's Op-Edge. The piece - "Ukraine's election: Behind the looking glass" - analyzed the background and possible outcomes of the ritual taking place in junta-controlled territories today. Looks like both the editors and the readers liked it, so look to more pieces from me over at Op-Edge soon.

I almost can't believe I've done all this, and plan to do more still. The very notion sounded surreal back in 1999, when I penned the first commentary in response to mainstream media rubbish concerning Kosovo, and had it published online. Yet here I am, fifteen years later, still standing. Still writing. Still flying.

Let's see what happens.

Anglosphere Media Spin: "A Small Drone Stunt"

Three days after the drone incident at the Serbia-Albania game in Belgrade, the propaganda in the mainstream Anglosphere media is getting worse. That should not come as a surprise: for the Empire's lie machine, anything goes when dealing with the Serbs - from simple spin and subterfuge to outright making up one's own "facts."

screenshot of the NY Times article header, October 17, 1500 EDT

Here is the New York Times' Dan Bilefsky, blaming the Serbs for attacking, insulting and provoking the pure, innocent Albanians:

Video of the event showed some Serbian spectators — Albanian fans were barred from the stadium — shouting “Kill! Kill! Kill!” Others ran onto the field, attacking Albanian players, sometimes with chairs, and forcing the Albanian team to escape through a tunnel at the end of the field. 

Per Bilefsky (or his editors), it all started when "a small drone trailing a nationalist Albanian flag" flew into the stadium. At this point, I would like to refer you to an outright brilliant analysis by the good folks at eBritic, who not only surveyed the British media's distortions of Tuesday's incident, but set the facts of the case straight. I also refer you to the Serbian Football Association account, endorsed by the match officials. 

Just to be perfectly clear: the NYT - and other media - is busily spinning this as yet another manifestation of "Serb bigotry" against the poor innocent Albanians. Imagine, the Albanian fans were "barred from the stadium"! Serbian fans were likewise banned from the upcoming game in Albania - for the same reason, security fears - but there is no mention of that, of course. It would spoil the "Serbs bad" narrative.

The "nationalist Albanian flag" was in fact a banner depicting the so-called "Natural Albania," the objective of Albanian chauvinists since 1878 or so, for which they have repeatedly enlisted support of outside conquerors (Austria-Hungary, Nazi Germany, NATO). Of course, Albanians and their Western sponsors are shrugging this off as "Serbian propaganda" or paranoia - even as the US "diplomat" involved in staging NATO's 1999 casus belli openly endorses the project.

And let's by all means talk about that particular elephant in the room. Fifteen years ago, NATO attacked Serbia in support of an Albanian terrorist insurgency, occupied a part of Serbian territory (the province of Kosovo-Metohija) and had it declared an independent state (in 2008). Albania has backed the insurgency, the NATO war and the subsequent land grab all the way.

Even though the quisling government of Serbia has nonetheless bent over backwards to properly host the Albanian team in Belgrade, the Albanians launched a drone with an incredibly offensive banner - and not just to Serbs, but also to Greeks, Montenegrins and Macedonians (all Empire's vassals, but I guess beneath Albanians on the ladder so their interests don't matter?). They have tried to profit from the resulting interruption, bragged about it on social media (the US standard of truthiness, per J. Psaki), Albanian officials congratulated them for a "job well done" and called the whole thing a "splendid subtle provocation". And this is somehow Serbia's fault?

Nuts.

"Flag" Against Football

To hear the Western media tell it, the sight of an Albanian flag sent Serbs into paroxysms of rage at a soccer (football, in the non-US world) match with Albania yesterday, and the game was called off amid the riot.

Serbian player Stefan Mitrović calmly folding the Greater Albania banner, flown by a drone
during last night's Euro 2016 qualifier between Serbia and Albania in Belgrade (photo: mondo.rs) 

Here is what actually happened: a drone (!) with a banner depicting the Nazi-allied "Greater Albania" flew onto the pitch. The British referee halted the game. A Serbian player grabbed the banner and began to fold it, whereupon the Albanian players attacked him. Outraged Serbian fans began throwing objects onto the pitch. Both the Serbian players and the police then shielded the Albanians and escorted them off the field until the disruption was sorted out. After the Albanians refused every reasonable offer to continue or reschedule the match, the game was abandoned.

The Serbian Football Association (FSS) has issued an official statement explaining the events:

"Vote or Suffer"

I have already written about some incongruities in the campaign preceding the Bosnian general elections, scheduled for next weekend, but there is one thing I left out, as it deserved a post of its own.

Local TV stations aired two ads in the third and fourth week of September, produced by USAID - the Empire's "Agency for International Development." Both had the punchline "Vote or Suffer" (Glasaj ili trpi). 

Still from the USAID propaganda video - "Vote or Suffer"

The first ad (watch on YouTube) blames the Bosnian authorities for failing to help the victims of May and August floods (!). On the same day it aired, the Imperial embassy website published a blog post co-authored by the military attache and the USAID head of mission, which accused the Bosnian authorities of embezzling the flood aid funds!

Both the Serb Republic and Federation authorities responded right away that the Empire was flat-out lying: they couldn't have embezzled anything, as not a penny of the promised flood aid from the US and the EU had actually arrived. But the Imperial officials refused to retract their claims. A few days later, another ad appeared, this time criticizing the economic situation (watch on YouTube).

There is no question that Bosnia is in a dire economic predicament, but a great deal of blame for that lies in the absurd legislation the locals outright copied from the US and the EU, under constant pressure from Washington and Brussels. One example is a 2009 law on "animal rights" which turned the Sarajevo Canton into a free range for feral dogs.

Let's also remember that US and EU officials supported the "demonstrators" with supposedly economic and democratic grievances, who earlier this year torched government offices in Sarajevo, Zenica and Tuzla, Maidan-style.

Lest you think this is someone impersonating USAID on YouTube, you can see both videos featured on the agency's official website. The claim by the agency head and Embassy officials that this is purely a "get out the vote" campaign is absurd. The ads very specifically urge the voters to elect a different government - presumably one more willing to obey orders from Washington. More to the point, USAID is engaging in behavior that would be blatantly illegal in America itself. Imagine a foreign agency running TV ads urging Americans to "vote or suffer"!

This is but the latest in a series of attempts by the Empire to influence the outcome of Bosnian elections. Imperial officials have turned a blind eye to jihadist activity (even when directed against the US!) in Bosnia for years, backed the rioters who torched government offices in February, sent in additional troops as a way of signaling support to those they back and threaten those they oppose, and outright "midwifed" the opposition coalition in the Serb Republic, recycling a name of a previous creation in the process. Thanks to genuine activists on the ground, their interference has been documented and brought to light.

Keep that in mind when Empire's stooges begin crying foul, after they lose at the polls.

Skewering the Liars

A satirical German TV show "Die Anstalt" (The Institution) has aired a segment on September 25 mocking the Western coverage of the conflict in the Ukraine.

Someone was kind enough to post it with English subtitles. Watch and enjoy:

Bosnia 2014: The Recycled Election

General elections in Bosnia-Herzegovina will be held on October 12. The date was originally supposed to be October 5, but the whole thing was postponed by a week at the insistence of the Muslims, because October 4 is Eid-al-Adha.

In the Serb Republic (Република Српска), the contest will be between the ruling coalition - led by Milorad Dodik - and the opposition alliance slapped together by the Empire. Ironically, the opposition's mainstay is the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), once led by Radovan Karadžić (now before the Hague Inquisition on charges of "genocide") and demonized by both the Empire and its Muslim clients.

Is Washington hoping to replicate the 2012 Serbian scenario? If so, the effort is as lazy as it is transparent: the opposition calls itself the "Alliance for Change" - the same name as a contradictory coalition the US had created back in 2000, only in the Muslim-Croat Federacija.

The original "Alliance for Change" ended up being an abusive marriage of (in)convenience, in which the Social-Democrats were constantly undermined by the Party for Bosnia, a splinter of the Islamist SDA (Alija Izetbegović's Orwellian-named "Party of Democratic Action").

A decade later, the Social-Democrats got to try again; this time they chose to ally with the SDA and fringe Croat groups. After the SDA's sudden but inevitable betrayal, they tried a pact with another splinter party: Better Future Alliance (SBB), run by the shady media magnate and ex-SDA propaganda chief Fahrudin Radončić. That too ended badly, surprising precisely no one.

Properly explaining the dynamics of Bosnian Muslim politics would take years; suffice to say that the momentum currently seems to favor the SDA. Its chairman, Sulejman Tihić, died of cancer last week; the funeral rites were an occasion for much rhapsodizing and rallying around Tihić's longtime rival Bakir Izetbegović (yes, Son Of), who has now taken over the party and is running for re-election in the country's three-member Presidency. The SDA is also sure to get a last-minute boost from the Islamic clergy, during the Eid festivities.

After four years of ever-shifting mathematical coalitions, the SDA is running with a seductive message of "Strength in Unity" (U jedinstvu je snaga):

from the SDA campaign website, snagabih.ba

If that slogan sounds vaguely familiar, that's because it is. Here's a still from the 2005 movie "V for Vendetta", showing a poster of the Anglo-fascist ruling party "Norsefire":

"V for Vendetta"

It's a year for plagiarism in Bosnia, it seems. First the Empire "recycles" the name it used 14 years ago in the Federation for the political group it's now backing in the Serb Republic. Then the SDA runs on a fascist slogan from a Wachowski movie.

But wait, there's more: the former chief mufti, Мustafa Cerić - now a private citizen running for the Presidency - outright plagiarized not one, but two Western designs: the logo of a Las Vegas casino, and that of the Virginia Mennonite Conference (!).

Though I suppose even that is better than the aforementioned Fahrudin Radončić's party advertising itself as a "Tsunami of justice" - in a country that's just been hit by two major floods...

Meanwhile, the politics of hatred and mistrust remain unchanged.

A Bomb and ISIS Show

Despite the ongoing air attacks of the Empire and its Gulf Vassals, it appears the ISIS Caliphate forces are advancing on Baghdad. Meanwhile, Iraqi helicopter pilots "mistakenly" directed food and ammo drops to ISIS forces, rather than their own. These supposedly inept and inexperienced pilots were trained by the Empire. Draw your own conclusions...

Cartoon by Jeff Danziger (source)

There is a thick fog of disinformation out there concerning this "Islamic State", ISIS, ISIL, Caliphate, or whatever it is. A week ago, we had to suffer through the Emperor personally chairing the UN Security Council meeting on the greatest-ever-threat of Islamic-but-unrelated-to-Islam terrorism, complete with calls for criminalizing volunteers who fight in foreign wars - so long as they fight against the Empire, anyway. Empire's proxies, clients and quislings are obviously exempt.

Yet it should be intuitively obvious to the casual observer that ISIS arose from the fertile soil of Imperial support for a rebellion in Syria against the Assad government, launched back in 2011. For all the talk of "moderates" and "democrats for human rights," it was the jihadists who had the will and skill to use those planeloads of arms the Empire provided via Croatia and Jordan.

There are even some who claim that the Imperial government created ISIS deliberately. If true, it wouldn't be the first time: Zbigniew Brzezinski boasted of setting off the Afghan jihad in order to provoke a Soviet intervention. But I am loath to give the Imperial government any more credit than it actually deserves. Having witnesses its appalling incompetence in a range of affairs on a daily basis, why would anyone believe it is somehow a genius international manipulator?

More likely, this is all perception management again. ISIS arose from the idiotic policy of backing the jihadists in Syria (and in general), but hey - we can spin it as a retroactive justification of the Iraq invasion, and a fresh new terrorist threat that will justify new strip-searches and snooping while making Barack the Blessed look more presidential. A win-win!

Spin, that's how all of this works. On one hand, acts of puppetry like the Kiev coup or the Hong Kong protests are presented as "spontaneous", while on the other hand, genuine disasters, blowbacks and fiascoes stemming from Empire's ignorant belligerence are spun as parts of some brilliant grand strategy - thus furthering the illusion that the Atlantic Empire is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-competent, though in reality it is none of those things.

Scotland

It is tempting to cheer for the independence of Scotland strictly out of spite for all the ills the United Kingdom has visited upon the world over the past three centuries. But that's not really fair to the English, who are just as oppressed by the coterie in London as the Scots or for that matter the Welsh.

Why on Earth would anyone want to be ruled by people who allowed Rotherham to happen? Who created a culture of repression in which protecting children from sexual abuse became impossible out of fear of being labeled a "racist"? Who deliberately flooded the country with unassimilable immigrants to spite their own people?

From the very beginnings of human society, people have made an implicit bargain: they would tolerate government - be in in the form of tribal chieftan or faceless bureaucrats - in exchange for its promise of protection for their lives and property from enemies foreign (invaders) and domestic (thieves and murderers). Modern government has not only outright failed to deliver on its end of the bargain, but has actually become the biggest threat to lives and property of its subjects. Examples are a legion, from the depredations of Quisling Cult regimes installed by "color revolutions" from Serbia to Kyrgizstan, to the sex-slavery of Rotherham and the police violence in the United States of America.

So the question isn't so much whether the Scots ought to "throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security" (source), but why so many others have not done so - and what are they waiting for?

Eppur si muove

I chose not to write a special essay on the anniversary of 9/11. What would be the point?

I've said everything I've cared to say over the past thirteen years - how one cannot fight terrorism and support it at the same time, how there are no "good" terrorists just because they currently serve one's agenda, how it's madness to appease jihadists in hopes of earning their gratitude, etc. etc. Go through the posts tagged 9/11 if you wish, and see for yourselves whether the questions I've posed are not just as relevant today as a year ago, or five, or ten.

And I stand by my contention that there was never any war on terror(ism): the grand crusade was all about power. Don't believe me? Listen to the Emperor's speech declaring war on ISIS.

Proving that the brevity of Twitter can be the soul of wit, someone named "Stalingrad & Poorski" summarized the speech thus:

POTUS Summary: We'll be bombing a sovereign nation (Syria) We'll be arming terrorist groups while fighting them. #Ref Economy is Great
— Stalingrad & Poorski (@Stalingrad_Poor) September 11, 2014

Justin Raimondo rightly called the speech a "dreary peroration exuding a skunk-like aura of insincerity" and correctly identifies it as a back-door attempt to effect "regime change" in Syria. Make no mistake, that is what "assistance to the Syrian opposition" really means. By the by, the mythical "Syrian opposition" is basically an adjunct of ISIS!

Jan Oberg dubbed the speech a "record low in terms of moral and intellectual analysis," and dwelt on the last two minutes of "everything is fine" (continuing the theme of protesting too much): "A combination of unbearable self-praise, slight megalomania and denial of the changing U.S. role in our changing world."

It's like watching the coyote from the old cartoons, chasing the road-runner bird over a chasm. Once he realizes he's running on air - but not a moment sooner - he immediately plummets to the ground. It now appears as if the Imperial government has convinced itself that so long as it pays no attention to the chasm, the law of gravity does not apply.

Newsflash: it does. 

The Emperor Doth Protest Too Much

His Most Elevated Majesty, Barack the Blessed, gave a speech in Talinn (Estonia) on Wednesday, filled with words such as "freedom" and "democracy" and "real progress" - whatever that means.

I'll deal with it in more detail in my Antiwar.com piece tomorrow (update: here's a link). For now, though, just some thoughts.

photo via RT

C-Span has the 30-minute video. The White House has a transcript.

Listen to it. Compare what he says to be the truth, with actual truth. Compare the actions of his own government, his own officials, his own troops - to his platitudes about "big bullying the small" and "dignity" and "independence". I dare you to listen with a straight face to his words about freedom of press and thought, what with Anglosphere media marching in absolute lockstep and every dissent dismissed as "propaganda."

Listen to his soothing platitudes about how NATO isn't aimed against anyone - the blood of Serbs, Iraqis, Afghans and Libyans begs to differ. Listen to his lies about how there were no Nazis in the Maidan, or how there was no coup in Kiev. "These are facts, provable, not subject to dispute" - except they are not.

And the "currents of history... flow towards freedom"? Who wrote this speech, Citizen Kang?

All this talk of the inevitable triumph of freedom, democracy, "real progress" (whatever that is) - methinks that's just His Imperial Majesty protesting too much. He is trying too hard to persuade his "allies" (i.e. clients) that he is still the most powerful, still the strongest, still the richest, that End of History is just around the corner.

Not everything in the speech was a lie. Moral strength is more powerful than tanks. People generally do wish to be free from bullying, and be independent. Might indeed does not make right.

So why is his country and his own government using tanks (or planes, or missiles)? Why does he bully other countries into making only the "choices" his government dictates, under threat of "kinetic military action" or "color revolution"? Why is it the core belief of the current government of the United States of America that might does make right?

He lies about motes in the eyes of others, while failing to see the beam in his own.

A Tale of Two Letters

Who would know better about the lies and fabrications of spies than people who used to be spies themselves? A group of ex-intelligence officials, called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), has spoken out against Imperial madness for some time now. On August 30, they sent an open letter to German Kanzlerin Angela Merkel, warning her about falsified claims of "Russian invasion". From the letter:

Obama, however, has only tenuous control over the policymakers in his administration – who, sadly, lack much sense of history, know little of war, and substitute anti-Russian invective for a policy.
[...]
Largely because of the growing prominence of, and apparent reliance on, intelligence we believe to be spurious, we think the possibility of hostilities escalating beyond the borders of Ukraine has increased significantly over the past several days.
[...]
Photos can be worth a thousand words; they can also deceive. We have considerable experience collecting, analyzing, and reporting on all kinds of satellite and other imagery, as well as other kinds of intelligence.  Suffice it to say that the images released by NATO on Aug. 28 provide a very flimsy basis on which to charge Russia with invading Ukraine. Sadly, they bear a strong resemblance to the images shown by Colin Powell at the UN on Feb. 5, 2003, that, likewise, proved nothing.
[...]
the government army that was starting to take heavy casualties and lose ground, largely because of ineptitude and poor leadership. Ten days later, as they became encircled and/or retreated, a ready-made excuse for this was to be found in the “Russian invasion.” That is precisely when the fuzzy photos were released by NATO and reporters like the New York Times’ Michael Gordon were set loose to spread the word that “the Russians are coming.” (Michael Gordon was one of the most egregious propagandists promoting the war on Iraq.)

One doesn't have to be an intelligence professional, of course, to realize the timing of the "invasion" propaganda was conspicuously coincidental with Kiev's crushing defeat. In resorting to such transparent lies, the Empire and its mainstream media betray a belief that their citizenry are idiots.

Beslan Remembered

September 1, 2004: first day of school in Beslan, in the Russian Federation's Republic of North Ossetia. Hundreds of children, parents and teachers were trapped by Western-backed jihadists in Elementary School #1, stripped to their underwear, and held hostage for almost three days.

When Russian security forces attempted to rescue the hostages, the terrorists began the killing they had planned all along: 334 hostages were killed, including 186 children. Only one of the terrorists was captured alive; he is serving a life sentence in a Russian prison, unrepentant.

"Memory Wall" at the School Number One (source)

Beslan was the beginning of the end for jihadists in Chechnya. One by one, jihadists leaders were hunted down and killed: Shamil Basayev, who ordered the attack, died in an explosion in 2006. Today, Chechens under Ramzan Kadyrov are some of the most fiercely loyal Russian citizens.

But those who backed the Chechen jihad have neither been forgotten, nor forgiven.

The East Remembers.

Empire's "Fascist Freedom Fighters"

This is what madness of the West looks like:

(click image to enlarge)

This is a screenshot of an article that appeared in Foreign Policy, August 30, 2014. (h/t Mark Sleboda)

As to why they did not opt for the alliterative "fascist freedom fighters," the answer is simple: they had to put "defenders" in there somewhere, so as to reinforce the lie of "Russian aggression." 

Novorussian Dawn

Yesterday I posted a photo of the Donetsk flag over the monument to Soviet heroes at Saur-Mogila, demolished by the spiteful Banderists as their rout began.

Here is a follow-up image, which I like to call "Novorussian Dawn":

via Colonel Cassad

Flag Over Saur-Mogila

Some photos of flags are destined to become iconic. Think Mt. Suribachi. Think the Reichstag. And now, perhaps, the Donetsk Republic flag flying on the ruins of Saur-Mogila:

via Vineyard of the Saker

This used to be a monument to heroic Soviet servicemen of WW2, who fought bitterly against the Nazis for control of the strategic hill, finally liberating it in August 1943. 

Though heavily damaged in the fighting between the Donetsk Republic forces and troops loyal to the coup regime in Kiev, the monument still stood until last week - when the retreating junta troops demolished it out of spite. 

"Every 30-50 Years, The West Invades Us"

Following the parade of captured Nazis, on August 24, leader of the Donetsk Republic gave a press conference. The fantastic volunteer translators, editors and bloggers at Vineyard of the Saker have uploaded a video of it, and provided transcripts in multiple languages.

As the transcripts are raw text files, I have taken the liberty of reproducing the English text here, with the timestamps removed for ease of reading and minor grammatical edits. I have also emphasized the parts I consider of particular importance.  ~ Gray Falcon

V. P. Kononov (left) and A.V. Zakharchenko (right), August 24, 2014

[Alexander V. Zakharchenko, Chairman of The Council of Ministers of The Donetsk National Republic]  As you all know, a week ago we announced our plan to attack. We started it yesterday. Until yesterday we have been preparing for the attack, examining trophy equipment, arming the crews, and testing communication between different military formations.

I can now proudly announce that we formed 2 tank battalions, 2 full artillery brigades, 2 Grad divisons, 1 mechanized infantry battalion, 3 infantry brigades and a special purpose assault airborne brigade. All these units have now received Army numbers. The communication system have been regularized and 2 field hospitals and 1 maintenance brigade have been formed.

CrossTalk: Russia's Worldview

Ray McGovern, Martin McCauley and I try to explain what's going on between Russia and the West.

CrossTalk, aired August 25, 2014:

Of Serbs and Symbolism

Having exhausted the excuse of "Russian invasion" to explain the setbacks in its "punitive expedition", the Kiev junta and its Western backers have seized upon another: it's the Serbs!

Balkan Insight, a propaganda outfit funded by the UK Foreign Office and the US State Department, reported last week on a group of Serb fighters bolstering the ranks of Novorussian militia - going on to praise the regime of Aleksandar Vučić for "neutrality" in Ukraine and commitment to obeying the orders from Brussels and Washington.

Serbian "Chetnik" volunteers in Novorussia (via Facebook)

While Vučić told BI that "dozens of Serbs can be seen fighting for both sides," those rumored to be fighting for Kiev junta (as no photos, names, or other evidence has ever been presented) are said to be mercenaries. Those who joined the Novorussian forces, however, have spoken out over social media - an accepted standard of evidence, according to the State Department - claiming that they fight out of principle, not for money.

Though the BI report mentions fourteen Serbs, social media sources claim the Serb fighters are numerous enough to have established their own unit, named "Yovan Shevich" (Јован Шевић), after a 18th-century Serbian cavalry officer from the Austrian Military Frontier who emigrated to Russia rather than convert to Catholicism. Officials of the government in Belgrade were apparently ignorant of Shevich, telling the local media they would issue a warrant for his arrest if he ever returned to Serbia (!).

Why such a fuss about these Serbs? Whether they number 14 or 140, there just isn't enough of them to turn the tide of battle - though the Novorussian forces seem to be doing just that right now - so it has to be something else. Could it be symbolism?

Serbia is supposed to be a conquered province, its "resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform" (Norris, 2005) crushed through an unprecedented UN blockade, NATO bombing and finally a prototype "color revolution" and electoral engineering, that have ensured the government in Belgrade always served its foreign masters first, and its people never.

Serbs are supposed to be a broken people, who see resistance and pointless and know they are conquered: at the end of July, U.S. Ambassador to Serbia Michael Kirby gave an interview to the local media demanding the Vučić government explicitly support Ukraine's unity, including the Crimea (which Vučić dutifully did a few days later). Kirby also mentioned the "problem" of Serb volunteers - while demanding an investigation into the deaths of several American Albanians who died as members of the "Kosovo Liberation Army" back in 1999. So, it's OK for Americans (of the Albanian kind) to volunteer for wars elsewhere, but not Serbs? Conquerors and conquered, you see - different rules.

Symbolism also helps explain why Brussels and Washington are so insistent on Serbia not exporting food to Russia at the moment. Hard-hit by the flooding this spring, Serbia is hardly in position to spare any food for export. Empire's demands, therefore, are intended to reinforce the established pattern of dominance and submission: Brussels and Washington order, Serbia obeys.

This would also have the benefit of giving the Empire's brute force a faux veneer of morality: see, if Serbia thinks sanctions against Russia are proper - the very Serbia that's Orthodox and harbors kinship with Russia, while it has been sanctioned, bombed and occupied by the West - then surely the West must be right and Russia is wrong.

And they would have gotten away with it, too, were it not for a handful of stubborn Serbs and the ghost of an 18th-century hussar.

Russian Statement on the Aid Convoy

The following is the statement by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, document 
1956-22-08-2014 (source), dated August 22, 2014, announcing the crossing of the humanitarian convoy into Lugansk and Donetsk regions of the Ukraine. (h/t Vineyard of the Saker)

The endless delays hampering the initial deliveries of the Russian humanitarian relief aid to southeastern Ukraine have become intolerable.

A lorry convoy with many hundreds of tonnes of humanitarian relief aid, urgently needed by the people in these regions, has been standing idle for a week now on the Russian-Ukrainian border. Over this period, the Russian side has made unprecedented efforts in all areas and at all levels in order to complete the required formalities. We have met all conceivable and inconceivable demands of the Ukrainian side and have submitted to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) exhaustive lists of food, drinking water, medications, essential items and diesel generators due to be delivered to Lugansk, where they are urgently needed by women, children and the elderly. These people are experiencing the horrors of daily artillery attacks and air strikes that have resulted in an increasing number of killed and wounded and destroyed the entire vital infrastructure in the area.

Time and again, we met requests to check and recheck the shipment route, to coordinate procedures for the shipment’s delivery, and have signed the required documents with the ICRC. We have provided all essential security guarantees and have ensured similar guarantees on the part of the self-defense forces. These guarantees apply to the Russian convoy as well as other humanitarian relief aid being sent to Lugansk by the Kiev authorities.

At the same time, Kiev has delayed granting its formal consent required by the ICRC for several days, while repeatedly inventing new pretexts and stepping up attacks on Lugansk and Donetsk that involve military aircraft and heavy-duty armored vehicles, targeting residential areas and other civilian facilities. Over the past few days, the Ukrainian side has been launching ballistic missiles, including the deadly Tochka-U missiles, ever more frequently.

On 21 August, the situation appeared to have been resolved when the Ukrainian authorities finally informed the ICRC of their readiness to start clearing humanitarian shipments for prompt delivery to Lugansk. The Ukrainian side officially confirmed its unconditional consent for the convoy to start moving during a phone conversation between the Foreign Affairs Ministers of Russia and Ukraine. On 20 August, customs clearance and border control procedures were launched at the Donetsk checkpoint. On 21 August, however, this process was stopped, with officials citing much more intensive bombardment of Lugansk. In other words, the Ukrainian authorities are bombing the destination and are using this as a pretext to stop the delivery of humanitarian relief aid.

It appears that Kiev has set out to complete its “cleansing” of Lugansk and Donetsk in time for the 24 August Independence Day celebrations. It seems increasingly credible that the incumbent Ukrainian leadership is deliberately delaying the delivery of the humanitarian relief aid until there is nobody left to deliver this aid to. Quite possibly, they hope to achieve this result prior to the planned 26 August meetings in Minsk.

Russia is outraged by the blatant external manipulation of the international experts involved in preparing this operation. An endless succession of contradictory and mutually exclusive signals and messages we have been receiving is a true indication of behind the scenes games for purposes that have nothing to do with accomplishing a set humanitarian objective. Those who are holding the reins and hampering efforts to save human lives, to mitigate the suffering of sick and wounded people neglect the basic principles of society. We have called on the UN Security Council to promptly declare a humanitarian armistice, but these proposals are being invariably blocked by those who pay lip service to universal human values. Last time, this happened on 20 August, when the United States and some Western members of the UNSC declined to issue a statement in support of a ceasefire during the delivery of humanitarian relief aid to Lugansk by Russian and Ukrainian convoys.

We hereby state once again: All the required security guarantees regarding the passage of the humanitarian convoy have been provided. The ICRC has officially recognised these guarantees. The delivery routes are known, and they have been checked by an ICRC mission. The documents have been drawn up. The shipments have long been ready for inspection by Ukrainian border guards and customs officers who have been waiting at the Donetsk checkpoint in the Rostov Region for a week now. The capitals that display heightened concern for the situation in southeastern Ukraine are well aware of this. The endless artificial demands and pretexts have become unconscionable.

It is no longer possible to tolerate this lawlessness, outright lies and inability to reach agreements. All pretexts for delaying the delivery of aid to people in the humanitarian disaster zone have been depleted. The Russian side has decided to act. Our humanitarian relief convoy is setting out towards Lugansk. Naturally, we are ready to allow ICRC officials to escort the convoy and to take part in distributing aid. We hope that representatives of the Russian Red Cross Society will also be able to take part in this mission.

We are warning against any attempts to thwart this purely humanitarian mission which took a long time to prepare in conditions of complete transparency and cooperation with the Ukrainian side and the ICRC. Those who are ready to continue sacrificing human lives to their own ambitions and geopolitical designs and who are rudely trampling on the norms and principles of international humanitarian law will assume complete responsibility for the possible consequences of provocations against the humanitarian relief convoy.

We are once again calling on the Ukrainian leadership, as well as the United States and the European Union, which are exerting their influence on Kiev, to promptly launch negotiations in southeastern Ukraine and start complying with the accords formalised in the 17 April 2014 Geneva Statement by Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the EU on stopping the use of force, mitigating the humanitarian situation and immediately launching nationwide dialogue that would involve all Ukrainian regions.

Convoys

Just how many convoys are there in Novorossia (or "Eastern Ukraine", if you swing that way)? It reads as a riddle, but the punchline is death.

There is the Russian EMERCOM convoy, white trucks bearing humanitarian aid for the beleaguered civilians of Donetsk and Lugansk regions - declared "terrorists" by the junta in Kiev and subjected to airstrikes, artillery, and deliberate destruction of utilities.

Then there is the phantom "Russian armored convoy" that Kiev and two British reporters claimed - but with zero evidence - had crossed over into Ukraine. Moreover, the Banderites then claimed they'd destroyed the said convoy. Offering no evidence, of course. Because there was none: no such convoy ever existed. In this age of ubiquitous cell phones (and their cameras), does anyone seriously think a mere assertion will suffice?

And then there was the convoy of refugees, allegedly hit by rocket fire on Monday. Kiev claims the separatists launched the strike that killed "dozens of people including women and children", but even Reuters has felt the need to add "it has yet to provide visual evidence."

Another Reuters report quotes a Ukie military spokesman who placed the strike "near the area of Khryashchuvatye and Novosvitlivka." That would be the two suburbs of Lugansk that recently came under attack by junta forces. Take a look at this map:

(via Colonel Cassad)

This is a detail from a bigger map of military activities in the region, between August 10-18, 2014. In case you do not read Cyrillic, allow me to explain: blue lines and arrows are Kiev troops. Red lines and arrows are the Donetsk self-defense forces ("separatists"). The blue bubble below Lugansk (ЛУГАНСК) is the airport pocket, where the 80th Brigade and "Aydar" Nazi Guard battallions have been surrounded for weeks.

At some point last week, the junta troops - probably somewhat resupplied from the air - struck at the village of Novosvetlovka (Новосветловка), cutting the road between Lugansk and Krasnodon (bottom right, near the circled "4"), and onward to Izvarino. This was done to block the Russian aid convoy from reaching Lugansk.

Now, pay attention to the blue arrow labeled 14.08 (for August 14), the red X marked 16.08, and the dotted blue arrow retreating to circled "9". This was the junta attack from Novosvetlovka to Khrashchevatoe, which failed.

So, what happened here? Could Kiev be trying to pass their own military casualties as civilians? Is the junta using captured civilians as human shields? Could this be the phantom "Russian column" that Kiev claimed to have destroyed - and is now spinning as "rebels killed civilians" instead? The most unlikely scenario is that this was an actual convoy of civilian refugees, attempting against all logic to drive through a combat zone.

The Kiev junta's Western backers have a history of targeting civilians and refugees. Recall the NATO terror-bombing of Serbian infrastructure in 1999, for example. Or, for that matter, targeting refugee columns: on at least two occasions, NATO planes hit the columns of ethnic Albanian refugees, claiming they were "Serbian army convoys". When confronted with evidence conclusively proving otherwise, NATO replied "Oops!" - and continued bombing.

I'll say one thing, though: if the junta has to resort to desperate lies such as "they are killing civilians" (when it's the junta troops that have been doing so from the start), it is far from winning the war, but rather desperately trying to postpone defeat. 

Whatever Happened to MH17?

Notice how it's been two weeks since we've heard anything about the Malaysian Airlines plane?

For two weeks it was a media frenzy: "PUTIN DID IT", "PUTIN'S MISSILE", "PUTIN KILLED MY SON"? And then - nothing.

When MH370 disappeared, the families of those aboard were a constant fixture on the screens. With MH17, they've been kept away. Perhaps so they couldn't ask uncomfortable questions, such as, "Why are you lying?"

(hat tip: The Saker)

Oh, and here is another thing that flew under the radar:

"Ukrainian Attorney General's office spokesperson Yuri Bojchenko confirmed that a non-disclosure agreement was signed on August 8, 2014 between the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and Ukraine regarding any results of Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 ‪#‎MH17‬ flight crash investigation." (source)

Can one even sign a non-disclosure agreement about evidence in a criminal investigation? And why would they - unless they were trying to hide it? As a reminder, all the data from the Air Traffic Control facilities that tracked MH17 was seized by the Kiev junta. The "black boxes" - flight data and voice recorders - recovered from the crash site were turned over to the Malaysians, who gave them to the Dutch, who promptly turned them over to the British! 

And while Washington claimed to have conclusive evidence the airliner was shot down by the Novorossians, it never produced any - aside from some Tweets and a couple faked YouTube videos.

The junta was the one with the means, motive and opportunity to shoot down the airliner. It is trying to hide the evidence. After the initial frenzy of blaming the Russians with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, the Western media have stopped talking about the plane entirely.

The truth points to itself.

Criminal Thanksgiving Day

It has been nineteen years since the Empire's "junkyard dogs" committed the biggest act of ethnic cleansing to date: Operation Storm.

What the Catholic Nazis of the 1941-45 Independent State of Croatia could not achieve with Hitler's help, their heirs of 1991-95 did with the funding, training, propaganda and material support of the Atlantic Empire. Of the Orthodox Serbs that have lived in Dalmatia and along the old Hapsburg Military Frontier for centuries, only traces remain - and even they are being destroyed on a daily basis.

Shameless in their bigotry and projection, the Croatian authorities celebrate "Homeland Thanksgiving Day" every August. But it is no victory, only a crime.

And the East remembers.