'Kosovo' at 10: Still wards of Washington

When they declared "independence" ten years ago, the KLA terrorists no doubt it was a transit stop on their 130-journey towards "Natural Albania." They had forgotten the crucial characteristic of the Atlantic Empire: any deals with it are Faustian in nature.

Ten years later, "Kosovian" independence is stalled, the promised prosperity is nowhere to be found, and instead of supporting Albanian expansionism the Empire is setting up special courts to keep KLA chiefs under control. Nor are "Kosovians" the first or only ones to have their hopes so dashed - but that's another topic, for another time.

Read more in my latest at RT.com:

#Kosovo: A decade of dependence (Op-Ed by @NebojsaMalic) https://t.co/ae25oTB3DR pic.twitter.com/sEJzwkrS6s

— RT (@RT_com) February 17, 2018

Kosovo: An Evil Little War Turns 18

March 24, 1999 ought to be a date that will live in infamy. On that day, NATO launched an unprovoked war of naked aggression, violating its own charter and international law, while claiming to be on a "humanitarian" mission.

For 78 days, the outnumbered and outgunned Yugoslavia (which would later be split into Serbia and Montenegro) resisted, turning back ground attacks from Albania, capturing a trio of US soldiers, and even shooting down a F-117 "stealth" bomber. In the end, abandoned by all and threatened with carpet bombing, the government in Belgrade accepted a compromise armistice - which NATO immediately tore up, letting the Albanian separatists terrorize the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo.

Thousands died in the war, and tens of thousands have died since from cancers caused by depleted uranium dust. Most non-Albanians were ethnically cleansed from Kosovo, and the province turned over to warlords and organized crime. In 2008, the province illegally declared independence, which is not yet recognized by the UN.

Thanks to the shameless propaganda and spin, the Kosovo War is considered by most American politicians to be a great success and even a shining example of virtue in the "liberal world order" the US is upholding through its military might. Only one candidate in the 2016 election dared disagree with that conventional wisdom even a little - and though he ended up getting elected, hasn't signaled any willingness to break with the inertia of US policy, either.

Serbia has since served as the test bed for the first "color revolution," and turned into a failed state ruled by a succession of servile slugs, each worse than the one before. The Atlantic Empire continued to enable Albanian aggression, in hopes of rekindling its romance with dar-al-Islam even as it bombed and invaded Iraq, Libya and Syria and fomented revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere that claimed even more Muslim lives.

That war, however, served as a wake-up call for Russia, which had until then lionized the West even as it was being robbed blind and buried alive. Within six months of NATO's land grab, Vladimir Putin was at the helm in the Kremlin. The rest, as they say, is history.

It is tempting to declare the saga of Kosovo over, 18 years after the war and as the quisling regime in Belgrade is busily recognizing the Albanian land grab. But the Atlantic Empire wouldn't be the first to write the Serbs off and declare them conquered and beaten, only to see them rise again... NATO1999

Five facts about Kosovo the #fakenews media is lying to you about

1. Kosovo is not ancient Albanian land. 

Its very name comes from the Serbian word "kos," meaning blackbird. Its Albanian name, "Kosova," means nothing whatsoever.

Kosovo was the heartland of medieval Serbian state and the site of the 1389 battle in which both the Serbian prince and the Ottoman sultan died, checking the Turkish expansion into the Balkans for almost 70 years. Ethnic Albanians were settled there by the Ottomans over the intervening centuries, and became a majority due to pogroms and persecution of Serbs - which began under Ottoman rule but continued under Austro-Hungarian occupation in WWI and German/Italian occupation in WWII.

Kosovo was never a political entity of any kind until 1945, when the Communist regime that reconstructed Yugoslavia after Axis occupation (with which Albanians overwhelmingly collaborated) created the "Autonomous Region of Kosovo & Metohija" - the latter being a Greek word describing church lands.

The Communists also forbid any Serbs expelled in WW2 to return to Kosovo, cementing its ethnic Albanian majority, which further grew through an influx of illegal immigrants from Enver Hoxha's Albania and the ethnic cleansing of non-Albanians since the NATO occupation began in 1999.

Aftermath of the March 2004 pogrom: burned-out Serbian church with "UCK" (KLA) graffitti

2. Operation Allied Force, the 1999 NATO bombing campaign, was not a legitimate humanitarian intervention approved by the UN.

It was a war of aggression, in violation of both the NATO and the UN charter. Contrary to what the mainstream Narrative says today, NATO's justification for the war was not Serbian "human rights violations" against the Albanians. No, the bombing began as a way to force Serbia to accept the ultimatum issued at the French chateau of Rambouillet, in which NATO demanded a 3-year occupation of the province and a NATO-organized referendum that would give the ethnic Albanians independence.

It was at Rambouillet that the US negotiated on behalf of the "Kosovo Liberation Army," a separatist group it had previously acknowledged as terrorists. As part of its terrorist campaign to separate Kosovo from Serbia, the KLA has engaged in murder, assassination, extortion, torture, and trafficking in drugs, guns, sex slaves and even human organs.

KLA commander Ramush Haradinaj was greeted as a hero after a NATO-backed war crimes court acquitted him of torturing Serb captives. Haradinaj was provisionally released, and witnesses against him were intimidated and killed.

3. Serbia did not kill 10,000 ethnic Albanian civilians during the 1999 war.

That figure is an estimate based on assertions by NATO, entirely unsupported by any facts whatsoever - same as the "up to 100,000 men" speculated by NATO propagandists during the war itself. Western media continue to repeat it the same way they repeated the claim of 300,000 dead in Bosnia, which was later revised down to under 100,000.

4. There was no Serbian plan to deport a million ethnic Albanians.

The so-called "Operation Horseshoe" was concocted by German and Bulgarian intelligence to provide justification for the illegal and illegitimate NATO war (see #2 above), to the point where they used the Croatian word for horseshoe. While there was a mass exodus of Albanians towards Albania, Macedonia and Montenegro (odd, since it was part of Yugoslavia same as Serbia), some evidence suggests that may have been orchestrated by NATO and the KLA.

5. Kosovo's "independence" is neither legal nor legitimate. 

UN Resolution 1244, which authorized a NATO-led peacekeeping mission after the June 1999 armistice, reaffirmed Kosovo's status as a part of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Legally, it remained a province of Serbia, whose integrity was sacrosanct on the same grounds as Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia (and later Montenegro) were recognized in their Communist-drawn borders when the proto-European Union and the US decided to declare Yugoslavia nonexistent in 1992.

In February 2008, the provisional administration of Kosovo set up under the UN viceroy and NATO occupation, declared independence - based on a plan rejected by the UN Security Council, the final arbiter of Resolution 1244.

The International Court of Justice later tortured logic and language to rule that international law didn't say anything about random people making such declarations - but these were not random people. Their very legitimacy rested on the UN mandate, which their declaration violated.

President Barack Obama lied in March 2014 that there was internationally recognized and supervised referendum on the issue; there wasn't. No mainstream media outlet ever called him on it, though.

Montenegro, NATO and 'Barbarossa II'

#NATO in Montenegro: Securing the rear before Barbarossa II? (Op-Edge) https://t.co/cQAgqbvZMI pic.twitter.com/7lbFHZLPy6

— RT (@RT_com) May 26, 2016

Yugoslavia was literally decimated, and the USSR lost almost 27 million people fighting the Nazis, only for the modern map of Europe to look eerily like it did in 1942. Many of Hitler’s allies then are NATO members now, and German troops are once again in artillery range of Leningrad (now called St. Petersburg). Having secured Montenegro and expecting no resistance from “softly” occupied Serbia, NATO may be emboldened to act even more aggressively towards Russia. This is madness, of course, but there is an alarming lack of sanity in Brussels and Washington these days.

That is why Montenegro matters.

Read the rest at RT

Kosovo: An Evil Little War

Still wrong, 17 years later

(This article originally appeared March 25, 2005 on Antiwar.com)

Belgrade, 1999

In the early hours of March 24, 1999, NATO began the bombing of what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. For some reason, many in the targeted nation thought the name of the operation was "Merciful Angel." In fact, the attack was code-named "Allied Force" – a cold, uninspired and perfectly descriptive moniker. For, however much NATO spokesmen and the cheerleading press spun, lied, and fabricated to show otherwise (unfortunately, with altogether too much success), there was nothing noble in NATO’s aims. It attacked Yugoslavia for the same reason then-Emperor Bill Clinton enjoyed a quickie in the Oval Office: because it could.

Most of the criticism of the 1999 war has focused on its conduct (targeting practices, effects, "collateral damage") and consequences. But though the conduct of the war by NATO was atrocious and the consequences have been dire and criminal, none of that changes the fact that by its very nature and from the very beginning, NATO’s attack was a war of aggression: illegal, immoral, and unjust; not "unsuccessful" or "mishandled," but just plain wrong.

Donald Trump on Kosovo in 1999

When I saw the media in Serbia reporting about Donald Trump's alleged condemnation of the 1999 NATO attack on then-Yugoslavia, also known as the Kosovo War, I shrugged it off as disinformation. Most of them, I'm sad to say, are almost entirely dedicated to gaslighting the general populace, and as likely to spread confusion and cognitive dissonance as actual news.

It turns out that Donald Trump did talk to Larry King about Kosovo - but everyone is leaving out that this took place in October 1999. That is sort of important, though: by that point, the Serbian province had been "liberated" by NATO occupation forces, and the ethnic cleansing of non-Albanians by the terrorist KLA had been going on since mid-June.

Here is the segment touching on Kosovo, from the official CNN transcript (with my emphasis):

KING: But, we don't know the - for example, you and Kosovo. Would you have done what Clinton did?

TRUMP: Well, I would have done it a little bit differently. And I know this would sound terrible. But look at the havoc that they have wreaked in Kosovo. I mean, we could say we lost very few people. Of course, we had airplanes 75,000 feet up in the air dropping bombs. But, look at what we've done to that land and to those people and the deaths that we've caused.

Now, they haven't been caused with us and the allies because we were way up in the air in planes. But, at some point, you had to put troops in so not everybody could go over the borders and everything else, and a lot of people agree with that.
Now, would people have been killed? Perhaps, perhaps more. But, at least ultimately, you would have had far fewer deaths. And you wouldn't have had the havoc and the terror that you've got right now. So, you know, I don't know if they consider that a success because I can't consider it a success.

KING: You don't.

TRUMP: They bombed the hell out of a country, out of a whole area, everyone is fleeing in every different way, and nobody knows what's happening, and the deaths are going on by the thousands.

He could be referring to the KLA ethnic cleansing of Serbs, Roma, and other groups here. But true to himself, Trump is being very vague and it is impossible to pin the statements down. At the time, he was considering running for the presidency, but ultimately decided against it.

It would certainly be interesting if someone asked him the same question today, 17 years later, when he is actually running for president (and may be getting the nomination, too). 

No to Kosovo in UNESCO

It ought to be the elementary standpoint of any civilized human being that those who destroy heritage (not to mention living houses of worship) absolutely do not belong in organizations whose purpose is to protect it.

The #EU wants us to say "This is perfectly fine." #NoKosovoUnesco pic.twitter.com/HwA4XEaac6

— Boris Malagurski (@malagurski) October 14, 2015

After gaining membership in the corrupt and morally bankrupt FIFA, "Kosovo," a NATO-occupied Serbian territory pretending to be a country, is trying to become a member of UNESCO.

The "Kosovar" Albanian treatment of Serbian churches, monasteries, cemeteries, libraries, books and monuments - deliberately destroyed and desecrated since the NATO occupation began in 1999 - has been no different than the one afforded by the so-called Islamic State to the antiquities in Mosul or Palmyra.

#ISIS is more qualified than Kosovo for member of UNESCO. Less monuments were destroyed. @UNESCO #NoKosovoUnesco pic.twitter.com/cAp02knvuF

— Марко (@MorgulValaris) October 16, 2015

Worse yet, these are not some ancient heritage sites, but living houses of worship - whose congregants have been expelled or murdered under NATO sponsorship in the past 16 years!

"Kosovo" does not belong in UNESCO. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.

Mad about Serbia

Seeing as it's the anniversary of the 1999 armistice that ended NATO's aggression, and began the Alliance's occupation of Kosovo, I wanted to comment on a recent attempt to force Russia into the US narrative about the Balkans.

Shocking, I know.

A few weeks back (May 22, to be precise), the Washington Times ran an opinion piece by L. Todd Wood about why the Russians love Putin regardless of Western propaganda, sanctions, etc. Wood's explanation is that Putin restored Russia's honor by confronting NATO, "mad" (angry, not crazy) over the 1999 war on Serbia.

Left to right: KLA terror boss Hashim Thaci; NATO viceroy Bernard Kouchner; UK general Michael Jackson
KLA "general" Agim Ceku; US general Wesley Clark. Occupied Kosovo, 1999.

Way to discover the obvious! I've said as much a year ago, and Putin has indeed mentioned 1999's evil little war (seriously, read that) time and again. But Wood appears to be so devoted to the mainstream Western narrative about Russia - and Serbia - that he turns Russia's justified anger over NATO's illegal, illegitimate aggression into some kind of proof that Putin is a fascist.

I'm not using that word lightly, either. Wood literally writes: "Russians would much rather have a leader who makes the trains run on time and can stand up to perceived Western aggression." The particular phrase I italicized up there has been commonly used to describe Benito Mussolini, the father of actual fascism.

The other propaganda trick in that sentence is describing Western behavior as "perceived aggression." Yeah, because when Washington backs an illegal coup and endorses a Russian-hating regime dead-set on glorifying its Nazi ancestors - and proceeds to gruesomely murder anyone who objects - everything's just peachy and any idea this might be wrong or objectionable is entirely in Vladimir Putin's head. Right?

Then there is Wood's description of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic (my take on him here):

"[Milosevic] presided over a reign of terror in several of the Yugoslav provinces; that is a fact. He used mass media to delegitimize certain ethnic groups and accused them of fascist tendencies, setting up justification for military action. Sound familiar? He turned a blind eye to genocide, especially in Kosovo, and supported ethnic cleansing of Kosovo for Serbia." 

One sentence at a time, shall we?

He did not; this is not a fact, it's pure fiction. What some Serbian media (others were paid by the West and actually defended any and all Serb-killing) pointed out were not "fascist tendencies" but actual fascism (see here, and here, and here). This only "sounds familiar" because Wood is trying to shoehorn Putin into the "mythical Milosevic" mold. That last sentence doesn't even make sense; for years the West accused Milosevic of committing "genocide," and now he's merely supposed to have looked the other way? Well, which is it? Plus, the phrase "ethnic cleansing" actually originated from an Albanian appalled by Albanian efforts to expel or kill the Serbs in the 1980s - efforts that eventually succeeded only thanks to NATO's aggression and the subsequent trampling of the 1999 armistice.

Wood also mentions that Milosevic died in a holding cell while being on trial for genocide by the ICTY. That "court" has been a bonfire of absurdities since its very beginning, but its greatest "accomplishment" surely has to be using third-hand perjured hearsay to accuse the Serbs of genocide by invoking a Nazi Croatian plot to genocide the Serbs. Enough said.

Anyway, in Wood's telling, Putin is as bad as the Very Evil Milosevic, and Russia is just like Serbia only (a lot) bigger. While he doesn't actually follow through to the natural conclusion of that "logic", I have to: therefore, the West (meaning the US, really) must do to Russia what they have done unto Serbia.

Just to be clear, the mainstream Western narrative is that Serbia was "liberated" in October 2000, when a popular revolution (albeit assisted with "suitcases of cash" and overseen by the National Endowment for Democracy and a series of US ambassadors) overthrew the Very Evil Milosevic and introduced the country to progressive liberal democracy and human rights. Naturally, it took several election cycles to "filter out" the "recidivists" until the country could get its Most Progressive Government Ever.

Washington isn't even bothering to hide that the ultimate objective of the sanctions and the propaganda is "regime change" in Moscow. What they want is a return to the 1990s, when Russia was systematically looted by a cabal of US "advisers", while its president was a drunken puppet who shelled the parliament and stole at least one election.

That's the real reason the noun "democracy" and the adjective "liberal" are considered insults in modern Russian, right there on par with "fascist."

(see the Disclaimer at top right of page)

The East Remembers

1999 - 2015

Unforgotten.

Unforgiven.

The East Remembers.

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. 

Residual Lies

One of the more ghastly features of Empire's war on reality is to what extent even those that have come to challenge its more recent lies still accept older ones as fact.

A perfect example is the otherwise enjoyable takedown of Mr. Obama's Brussels speech by Gayane Chichakyan on RT the other day. Responding to the Emperor's assertion that "NATO only intervened after the people of Kosovo were systematically brutalized and killed for years," Chichakyan simply said "Good point" and segued into talking about the civilian victims of NATO's 1999 aggression.

Here's the problem: it's not a "good point." It is just another lie.

NATO soldiers inspect a destroyed Serbian church in Prizren, following the March 2004 pogrom;
the graffiti (in gutter Albanian) reads "Death to Serbs" (photo: SrbijaDanas) 

WHY? - a RT Documentary

To mark the 15th anniversary of the NATO attack on Yugoslavia, RT has produced a documentary, asking the question in its title: Why?

NATO and its media apologist will give you a long list of excuses and justifications. But that won't be the actual answer. They did it for power, for kicks, because they could. And they will keep doing it, until they can't.

From the film's description:

Fifteen years after NATO’s 78-day bombardment of Yugoslavia, memories of the bombing still haunt present-day Serbia. NATO killed over 2,000 people, hundreds were civilians, 88 were children. Serbs ask ‘why?’ above all. Why did NATO smash their cities, kill their children, bomb hospitals and schools?
When the NATO bomb campaign began (on March 24th 1999) Jelena Milincic was a student at the University of Belgrade, and just 18 years old.
Jelena takes Anissa Naouai on a road trip, to remember the victims, and hear the survivors of NATO’s strike terror.

Watch "WHY?" on RT.

Directed by Pavel Baydikov
Written by Jelena Milincic, Anissa Naouai & Victoria Vorontsova
See RT for broadcast rights.

Drawing Them a Picture

Yesterday, "Kosovian" politician Vlora Citaku tweeted an image celebrating the NATO aggression 15 years ago. It was quickly re-tweeted by the proud NATO press office:

screen capture from Twitter

I'm curious to see if Nike will react to this infringement of their trademark by mobsters, drug-runners, butchers, slavers and aggressors. Not betting on it.

However, it wasn't long before someone created a response graphic:

via Facebook (by M.V.)

And then someone else created another:

(via Facebook)

For those who don't remember, the top right panel is a photo of what remained of the F-117 stealth bomber, shot down over Serbia on March 27, 1999.

UPDATE (3/27/2014) And here is another design, also referring to the shoot-down:

(via Facebook(

Yet this one, posted by Young Americans for Liberty, is my personal favorite:

(via Facebook, Young Americans for Liberty)

Something to remember, every time you hear the phrase "the entire world" or "international community" coming from the mouths of State Department deputy assistant undersecretaries, or EU commissars.

The Real Day Everything Changed

The phrase "the day everything changed" is used in America to describe that Tuesday, the eleventh day of September, 2001, when hijacked airplanes destroyed the twin towers of the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon.

Belgrade, March 1999

Yet a sober look back at the past dozen years reveals a continuity, not change - at least in the government's behavior. Meanwhile, a certain spirit has gone out of Americans, and they now tolerate the omnipotent surveillance state and accept the regular trampling of what remains of their liberty in exchange for empty promises of temporary safety.

The government of George W. Bush was quick to launch a punishment expedition against Afghanistan, which morphed into "nation-building" and eventually failed. NATO forces have now been in Afghanistan longer than the Soviets, and with much the same result. In 2003, Bush invaded Iraq - a country entirely unrelated to the events of 9/11, but of personal interest to him and his advisors - on a manufactured pretext. Though U.S. troops have officially withdrawn by December 2011, some 25,000 "embassy staff" and "military contractors" have remained.

Osama Bin Laden, the alleged mastermind of the attacks, was supposedly tracked down to Pakistan and killed in 2011 - though there have been claims he died way back in 2001 of kidney failure, and everything since had been chasing a phantom menace.

But there was definitely no War on Terror when it came to Islamic militants in the Balkans, for example - quite to the contrary, US lawmakers called out to "jihadists of all color and hue" to take note of Washington promoting jihadism in Europe. And in the very year Bin Laden was supposedly killed, Washington backed jihadists in Libya - and later in Syria.

That is not to say there hasn't been an actual turning point in modern history, however. You just have to go back a bit more to find it. I would argue it is 3/24/1999, when the Atlantic Empire - believing itself at the pinnacle of power, exceptional, and exempt from the rules it sought to impose on others by force - launched an evil little war against a country called Yugoslavia.

Those who waged that war openly described it in terms that perfectly fit the definition of terrorism. Look at the photos from Yugoslavia 1999 and New York 2001 side by side, and contemplate the eerie similarities.

The war was a clear-cut act of aggression, violating both NATO's charter and the U.S. Constitution and lacking any UN authorization. It was illegal, illegitimate, and unjust. Ostensibly fought for "humanitarian" reasons, in practice it backed a terrorist Albanian insurgency aimed at carving out a province from Serbia (one of the two states federated within then-Yugoslavia).

Empire's "diplomats" and perfumed generals believed the Serbs would surrender within a week. It took a Trojan truce, eleven weeks later, for NATO to actually occupy the province of Kosovo (and not all of Serbia, as initially demanded). Undeterred by reality, NATO leaders believed their own lies, ensuring they would make the same - and worse - mistakes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya...

Most importantly, perhaps, the bombing of Yugoslavia had one effect no one in the West had anticipated. Up to that point, Russians were still enraptured with the West, despite nearly a decade of financial and political rape. But the first bomb that hit Belgrade was a wake-up call.

Fifteen years later, the leadership in Moscow has demonstrated they had neither forgotten, nor forgiven. And something tells me that the West hasn't yet begun to pay the real price for that golden idol in Pristina, or the train of abuses and atrocities inflicted upon Serbia since. 

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

When I heard of the death of Marc Rich the other day, I shrugged it off. Just another Clinton crony, time catches up to us all, etc. But as Steve Sailer notes, Rich was one of the key players in the great Rape of Russia in the 1990s.

Between "business partners" like Rich and "reformers" like Jeffrey Sachs, the former Soviet Union was flayed to the bone, with billions in profits accruing to Western banks and in the hands of hand-picked oligarchs like Boris Berezovsky. In the mainstream Western press, this was (wrongly) referred to as "free market." Perhaps this explains why Americans can't recognize socialism even as it's punching them in the face.

Then came 1999, and NATO's bombing of then-Yugoslavia. It was a wake-up call for Russians: they realized they were being had, changed leadership, and purged the Yeltsin kleptocracy from power.

But just as few in early 1991 could have imagined the USSR disappearing, even fewer in 1999 envisioned a resurgent Russia and the crumbling American Imperium.

Perhaps there is a lesson here. Something about things not staying a certain way forever, especially if they are built on lies and deceit. I doubt the Riches and Clintons and Yeltsins of the world would pay it any heed - but the rest of us might.

Foundation of Lies

Bombs for "democracy"

Earlier this month, "Kosovarians" marked the anniversary of their "liberation" - i.e. the beginning of NATO's occupation of the Serbian province claimed by the terrorist KLA. Now, the Kosovo War was illegal and illegitimate, and its conduct doubly so - characterized by barbaric attacks on Serbian infrastructure and civilian targets, with the intent to demoralize and disrupt civilians. Most casualties suffered by the Yugoslav Army were along the Albanian border, while repelling the KLA invasion, and not from NATO airstrikes.

After the armistice was signed, however, the Empire wasn't satisfied merely with selectively applying its terms - it falsified the war's aftermath as well. A commission of "independent experts" was hired to proclaim it "illegal but legitimate." Despite solemn proclamations that the sovereignty of Yugoslavia (and later Serbia) would not be violated, the process of creating the "independent state of Kosovo" began almost right away. But perhaps most importantly, the actual combat reports were falsified in order to create the impression that the war was "won" by air power alone.

As Alexander Cockburn notes in Couterpunch yesterday, that falsification had far-reaching effects:

"[t]he Kosovo campaign’s apparent confirmation that bombs and missiles could achieve a victory at no cost in friendly casualties, and in a good cause too, undoubtedly prepared the political landscape for the automated drone warfare so eagerly embraced by our current leadership."

Indeed, as early as March 2003 it was obvious to some observers that Kosovo provided a precedent for the invasion of Iraq (and subsequently Libya).

Now, if NATO had not in fact beaten the Yugoslav Army, why did Belgrade surrender? The answer is very simple: it didn't. Even Cockburn makes a mistake of saying that Yugoslav President Milošević "accepted the allied terms", attributing that decision to Moscow's betrayal. While Yugoslavia was in fact betrayed by the puppet government of Boris Yeltsin - which some have argued played a crucial role in Yeltsin's subsequent demise and the rise of Vladimir Putin - it happened following the armistice, not prior.

The terms agreed upon in Kumanovo and built into UNSCR 1244 were different from NATO's demands prior to the war, in three crucial respects: NATO accepted UN authority over the province, there was no clause giving the Albanians independence after three years, and there was no mention of NATO's open access to the rest of Serbia (the infamous Appendix B of the Rambouillet ultimatum). On paper at least, NATO did not win an unconditional victory. That's why they proceeded to creatively reinterpret the paper.

Cheating the Serbs by altering the deal at gunpoint was one thing. Wrecking what was left of international law to establish the "independent Republic of Kosovo," was something else altogether. But perhaps worst of all, the falsified narrative of Kosovo as both the "good war" and a successful one has contributed to the quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, the disaster of Libya and the bloodshed in Syria. Something similar happened with the deceptive success of the "revolution" in Serbia (2000), leading to its replication around the world.

The lies then beget atrocities, which beget more lies. And so on, until the whole thing comes crashing down, in fire and blood.

An Evil Little War

On the 13th anniversary of NATO's attack on then-Yugoslavia, I'm re-posting a piece that ran on Antiwar.com in March 2005. Even after the creation of the "Independent state of Kosovia" in 2008 - or perhaps even more so because of it - every word still applies.

An Evil Little War 

[13*] Years Later, Kosovo Still Wrong

  In the early hours of March 24, 1999, NATO began the bombing of what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. For some reason, many in the targeted nation thought the name of the operation was "Merciful Angel." In fact, the attack was code-named "Allied Force" – a cold, uninspired and perfectly descriptive moniker. For, however much NATO spokesmen and the cheerleading press spun, lied, and fabricated to show otherwise (unfortunately, with altogether too much success), there was nothing noble in NATO’s aims. It attacked Yugoslavia for the same reason then-Emperor Bill Clinton enjoyed a quickie in the Oval Office: because it could.

Most of the criticism of the 1999 war has focused on its conduct (targeting practices, effects, "collateral damage") and consequences. But though the conduct of the war by NATO was atrocious and the consequences have been dire and criminal, none of that changes the fact that by its very nature and from the very beginning, NATO’s attack was a war of aggression: illegal, immoral, and unjust; not "unsuccessful" or "mishandled," but just plain wrong.

Illegal

There is absolutely no question that the NATO attack in March 1999 was illegal. Article 2, section 4 of the UN Charter clearly says:

"All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations."

Some NATO members tried to offer justification. London claimed the war was "justified" as a means of preventing a "humanitarian catastrophe," but offered no legal grounds for such a claim. Paris tried to create a tenuous link with UNSC resolutions 1199 and 1203, which Belgrade was supposedly violating. However, NATO had deliberately bypassed the UN, rendering this argument moot.

Article 53 (Chapter VIII) of the UN Charter clearly says that:

"The Security Council shall, where appropriate, utilize such regional arrangements or agencies for enforcement action under its authority. But no enforcement action shall be taken under regional arrangements or by regional agencies without the authorization of the Security Council." (emphasis added)

Furthermore, Article 103 (Chapter XVI) asserts its primacy over any other regional agreement, so NATO’s actions would have been illegal under the UN Charter even if the Alliance had an obligation to act in Kosovo. Even NATO’s own charter – the North Atlantic Treaty of 1949 – was violated by the act of war in March 1999:

"Article 1
"The Parties undertake, as set forth in the Charter of the United Nations, to settle any international dispute in which they may be involved by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered, and to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force in any manner inconsistent with the purposes of the United Nations. […]
"Article 7
"This Treaty does not affect, and shall not be interpreted as affecting in any way the rights and obligations under the Charter of the Parties which are members of the United Nations, or the primary responsibility of the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and security." (emphasis added)

The attack violated other laws and treaties as well: the Helsinki Final Act of 1975 (violating the territorial integrity of a signatory state) and the 1980 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (using coercion to compel a state to sign a treaty – i.e., the Rambouillet ultimatum).

Yugoslavia had not attacked any NATO members, nor indeed threatened the security of any other country in the region; it was itself under an attack by a terrorist, irredentist organization. What NATO did on March 24, 1999 was an act of aggression, a crime against peace.

Illegitimate

Perfectly aware that the bombing was illegal, NATO leaders tried to create justifications for it after the fact. They quickly seized upon a mass exodus of Albanians from Kosovo, describing it as "ethnic cleansing" and even "genocide." But as recent testimonies of Macedonian medical workers who took care of Albanian refugees suggest, the Western press was engaging in crude deceit, staging images of suffering refugees and peddling the most outrageous tall tales as unvarnished truth.

Stories abounded of mass murder, orchestrated expulsions, mass rapes, seizure of identity papers, even crematoria and mine shafts filled with dead bodies. Little or no evidence was offered – and not surprisingly, none found afterwards. The stories were part of a Big Lie, aimed to justify the intervention, concocted by professional propagandists, and delivered by the KLA-coached refugees. The KLA ran every camp in Macedonia and Albania, and there are credible allegations they organized the exodus in many instances. Albanians who did not play along were killed.

Eventually, the "genocide" and other atrocity stories were debunked as propaganda. But they had served their purpose, conjuring a justification for the war at the time. They had allowed NATO and its apologists to claim the war – though "perhaps" illegal – was a moral and legitimate affair. But there should be no doubt, it was neither.

Unjust

Even if one can somehow gloss over the illegal, illegitimate nature of the war and the lies it was based on, would the war still not be justified, if only because it led to the return of refugees? Well, which refugees? Certainly, many Kosovo Albanians – and quite a few from Albania, it appears – came back, only to proceed to cleanse it systematically of everyone else. Jews, Serbs, Roma, Turks, Ashkali, Gorani - no community was safe from KLA terror, not even the Albanians themselves. Those suspected of "collaborating" were brutally murdered, often with entire families.

According to the Catholic doctrine of "just war," a war of aggression cannot be just. Even if one somehow fudges the issue, "the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated." The evil conjured by NATO’s and KLA’s propaganda machine was indeed grave. But it was not real. In contrast, what took place after the war – i.e., under the NATO/KLA occupation – is amply documented. At the beginning of NATO’s aggression, there were fewer dead, fewer refugees, less destruction, and more order than at any time since the beginning of the occupation. NATO has replaced a fabricated evil with a very real evil of its own.

Monument to Evil

What began six years ago may have been Albright’s War on Clinton’s watch, but both Albright and Clinton have been gone from office for what amounts to a political eternity. For four years now,* the occupation of Kosovo has continued with the blessing – implicit or otherwise – of Emperor Bush II, who launched his own illegal war in Iraq. Kosovo is not a partisan, but an imperial issue; that is why there has been virtually no debate on it since the first missiles were fired.

Six years* to the day since NATO aircraft began their onslaught, Kosovo is a chauvinistic, desolate hellhole. Serbian lives, property, culture, and heritage been systematically destroyed, often right before the eyes of NATO "peacekeepers." Through it all, Imperial officials, Albanian lobbyists, and various presstitutes have been working overtime to paint a canvas that would somehow cover up the true horror of occupation.

Their "liberated" Kosovo represents everything that is wrong about the world we live in. It stands as a monument to the power of lies, the successful murder of law, and the triumph of might over justice. Such a monument must be torn down, or else the entire world may end up looking like Kosovo sometime down the line. If that’s what the people in "liberal Western democracies" are willing to see happen, then their civilization is well and truly gone.

(*originally published March 25, 2005)

Caged

Next week it will be two months since the Serbs in northern Kosovo erected roadblocks to oppose the Albanian government's attempted takeover of road crossings into the rest of Serbia. NATO's "peacekeeping" force and EU's "law and order mission" have both backed the Albanian takeover, and continue attempting to coerce the Serbs to submit to the self-proclaimed independent state.

On the rare occasion when Western mainstream media reports on the standoff, it uses terms such as "ethnic clashes". This not only suggests that the Serbs are being motivated by bigotry (following two decades of propaganda claiming that everything the Serbs did was based on bigotry), but also that the two communities are on some kind of equal footing. In actuality, the unarmed Serb civilians are squaring off against the well-armed Albanians, EULEX and KFOR, who in addition to teargas and pepper spray have  even used live ammunition. It is very telling that "ethnic clashes" was the official euphemism for the March 2004 pogrom some 40,000 or more ethnic Albanians perpetrated against the remaining Serbs in the occupied province.

I say "remaining," because hundreds of thousands of Serbs (and others, such as Roma, Turks, etc.) were ethnically cleansed from Kosovo since it was occupied by NATO and handed over to the Albanian separatist KLA in 1999. Over 1000 Serbs have been murdered, countless homes burned, churches destroyed and desecrated, and cemeteries bulldozed. All in the presence of NATO "peacekeepers," all with absolute impunity. Under NATO's "peace," two new Albanian insurrections broke out, in Macedonia and in southern Serbia.

Several pockets of Serbs survive in the south of the province, in ghettos surrounded by barbed wire and "protected" by NATO troops. The great irony is that without those troops, the Albanians would have murdered them by now; yet it was those NATO troops that made the Albanian takeover possible.

In the north of the province, the local Serbs succeeded in halting the KLA takeover in 1999, and have kept a watch on the roads ever since. The writ of the KLA regime does not run there, much to the frustration of the self-proclaimed state. Yet though the areas ruled by the Albanians are almost entirely devoid of non-Albanian inhabitants, while other communities live in peace on Serb-controlled territory, the Western press continues to refer to "Serb-dominated" areas. How about the entire "Albanian-dominated" province? Ah, but they also avoid "Albanian," preferring to use the politically correct euphemism "Kosovar," designed to promote the lie that they are the original inhabitants and rightful owners of the territory.

Recently the Albanian "government" in Pristina and the Albanian government in Tirana signed a deal to share consulates around the world, bringing them a step closer to "Natural Albania" - a state encompassing all territories claimed by ethnic Albanians. Dismissed as "Serb propaganda" in the 1990s, the idea is now publicly promoted by a political party in "Kosovo," and even has the endorsement of a prominent Imperial figure.Yet Imperial propaganda still seeks to dismiss concerns over this as unduly paranoid.

What's disappointing, though, is hearing media that aren't part of the Imperial propaganda mill, such as RT, using the Empire's propaganda phrases. By way of example, in this clip today the presenter used "Serb-dominated" to refer to the north of Kosovo, and reporter Aleksey Yaroshevsky claimed that the Serbs were growing "accustomed to living in the cage they have built for themselves."

Kosovo itself is a cage, not just for Serbs but for everyone else. Even the Albanians who live there are captives of a criminal regime and a bigoted ideology. The Serbs set up the barricades not to seal themselves in, but to keep NATO, EULEX and the KLA "officials" out. Which is precisely what they've done so far, despite all efforts to coerce them into submission. It was a desperate act of a people resisting repression and plans for extinction. They deserve better than to be maligned for it, least of all by people trying to hack the Empire's propaganda matrix.

I guess some people still need to realize there is no spoon.

Oh No, You Don't

To say that something "isn't quite right" about Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian (allegedly) behind the Utøya massacre on Friday, would be an understatement. Yet it is true in more ways than one.

According to the police, Breivik detonated a car bomb in front of the government building in Oslo as a diversion, then infiltrated a summer camp for the ruling party's children on the island of Utøya, and opened fire. Initial reports put the combined death toll of the bombing and the shooting spree at 93, which have since been revised to around 70.

Much is being made of Breivik's Facebook, Twitter and blog posts - all very recent - and the manifesto (CNN) he allegedly worked from. They almost read as a list of talking points of the diversity-obsessed multi-culturalists, wishing to discredit their critics.

Charlie Brooker rightly found it terrible that the media "experts" rushed to judgment and blamed the Muslims. Given the jihadist proclivity for terrorism, that wasn't an entirely outlandish conjecture; the problem was that it posed as certainty.

I'm not sure anyone will dare speak up in a similar manner against a rising tendency to smear all the traditionalists, conservatives, and opponents of totalitarian welfare-statism and unrestricted immigration as murderous fanatics. It will again be a conjecture posing as certainty, only even less grounded in fact. Breivik is shocking precisely because he is a glaring exception to the rule. Surely, his fanaticism can hardly compare to that of people who believe the best way to ensure diversity of appearance (a goal asserted to be good without explanation) is the ironclad uniformity of thought?

Those looking for sympathy for Breivik will find none here. He's a murderer. How can fighting for the future of one's nation - Breivik's declared goal, if the papers are to be believed - mean murdering that nation's children? An absurdity, if ever there was one.

Nor do I want to get into arguments over which of his convictions were grounded in reality; I've been saying for years that actions and beliefs ought to be judged on their own inherent merits, or lack thereof, rather than on the basis of who claims association with them.

I do, however, wish to address one particular aspect of Breivik's alleged motivation, which is getting more and more play in the Western press. According to CNN, his manifesto suggests that he was driven to action by Norway's involvement in the 1999 Kosovo war, directed against "our Serbian brothers (who) wanted to drive Islam out by deporting the Albanian Muslims back to Albania." Next thing you know, the media will declare, "The Serbs made him do it." Worked for that kid in Salt Lake City, did it not?

Let me clarify, then. If Breivik saw the 1999 war in the way described above, he was factually wrong. While Islam is a powerful factor that has shaped and driven Albanian chauvinism for over a century (and certainly underpins the destructive rage against the Serbian Orthodox churches), the Albanian regime controlling Kosovo today systematically oppresses not only the remaining Serbs, but also the Gorani - Muslims by faith, Serbs by language - which indicates that its bigotry is ethno-cultural as well as religious.

If anything, it was NATO - and the U.S. - who saw the war in terms of helping the "good Muslims" against the evil Orthodox Serbs.

The Serbian government fought to defeat a terrorist insurgency seeking to make Kosovo part of an enlarged Albanian state. There was no plan of persecution and deportation - unless one believes the sordid German fiction called "Operation Horseshoe". Serbia is actually the most multi-ethnic Yugoslav successor state, and home to a substantial Muslim population. These days, Belgrade is entirely too tolerant of a militant Muslim cleric who seeks to foment a rebellion in its southwestern parts. To argue that Serbia sought to expel the Albanians in 1999 due to their Muslim faith is to accept NATO's excuse for the bombing. That claim was wrong then, and it is wrong now.

Furthermore, over the past two decades of vilest demonization in the Western media - worse by far than the cartoon depictions of Muslims over which there have been riots, death threats and even murders - as well as not one, but two bombing campaigns, there has not been a single Serbian terrorist attack in the West. Not one. As a result of Imperial meddling, Serb populations in today's Croatia, large parts of Bosnia and Kosovo have become extinct, yet no Serb has ever resorted to terrorism against NATO countries. Let alone shot up a summer camp full of children.

No cause can justify the murder of innocents, whether it is purportedly a struggle against the loss of national identity (as Breivik claims), or bringing democracy (as the Empire and its allies have claimed) to Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya - or for that matter, Kosovo. Sadly, neither Breivik nor those who will sit in his judgment seem to understand that simple fact.

War and Remembrance

Arthur "Jibby" Jibilian, the last surviving member of the Halyard Mission, passed away on March 23. To his dying day, he fought for recognition of the people who helped him and his OSS colleagues rescue hundreds of Allied airmen shot down by the Nazis over what is today Serbia. They were given aid and shelter, in spite of both brutal German reprisals and Allied bombings of Serbian civilians in 1944. But this amazing escape remained secret and forgotten, because of the identity of their Serbian rescuers.

It was the royalists of Gen. Draža Mihailović who took part in the Halyard rescue. Meanwhile, however, the Western Allies switched their support to Tito and the Communists. Assisted by Soviet troops, they took power in Yugoslavia as the Nazis retreated. Mihailović was captured in 1946 and executed by the Communists for "treason." His grave is yet to be found.

In 1948, Mihailović was posthumously decorated by President Truman, for "organising and leading important resistance forces against the enemy which occupied Yugoslavia from December 1941 to December 1944". The citation stated that the royalists, "fighting under extreme hardships, contributed materially to the Allied cause and were materially instrumental in obtaining a final Allied Victory." It was never made public, though, for fears of alienating the Tito government. Meanwhile, Communist history books nurtured a narrative of Mihailović and his troops as Nazi collaborators, equating them with actual Nazi sympathizers, the Croatian Ustaša, and the Bosnian Muslim and Albanian Waffen-SS.

As Tito's Yugoslavia was torn apart in the 1990s, this rape of history went a step further: the pro-Nazi forces in 1940s Yugoslavia and their modern heirs were re-cast as "freedom fighters", while the modern-day Serbs as well as Mihailović were smeared as the actual "Nazis"! The ignorant Western public swallowed the story hook, line and sinker. One can only imagine how the few Americans that knew the truth, like Jibilian, must have felt.

In a March 30 letter to Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Mim Bizic explains the tragedy of it all:

Bill David, an Ohio pilot, was in the Boston airport when he learned of "Jibby's" passing. He wrote this in an e-mail to me: "Art and his fellow soldiers were honest-to-God real live American heroes, the kind that you would read about in comic books. Over 500 lives were saved during WWII and nobody knows about it. The guys they rescued went on to live their lives, father families, build careers, help make America great. Nobody knows of all of this.

"This is not the news of the day. We as a nation are worse off because of it. It disconnects us from our gallant values and what made us great as a country in the first place.

"Tiger Woods will take center stage for his indiscretions. That is the kind of stuff that is important to us now. Everybody knows who Tiger and Paris are, but nobody knows who Draza Mihailovich was and what he and the Serbian people did for our country, the sacrifices they made so that our boys could live."

Perhaps if Americans did know, this wouldn't have been written on the 11th anniversary of the illegal bombing of Serbia by NATO forces.

Rest in peace, "Jibby". And thank you.