A Beam In Their Eye

Last Thursday evening, February 24, Canadian authorities denied entry to Dr. Srdja Trifkovic and prevented him from giving a scheduled lecture at UBC.

Claiming credit was the ecstatic Emir Ramic, of the aptly named "Institute for [the Research of] Genocide" (read their URL to understand the irony). Ramic's Institute doesn't actually research genocide as such; it is only interested in one specific "genocide" - the one alleged to have taken place in Srebrenica, in July 1995. The Institute denounces as "genocide deniers" anyone who dares discuss the facts of Srebrenica, rather than blindly accepting the myth they are pushing.

By insisting on qualifying those events as genocide, they are stretching the definition of the term to the point of absurdity, and effectively engaging in denial of the actual genocides, from the Turkish mass murder of Armenians in WW1 (which inspired Hitler to believe he could act with impunity) to the Croat butchery of Serbs in WW2, and the Nazi genocide of Jews, Slavs and Roma in the death camps of eastern Europe. In fact, the most aggressively outspoken proponent of the "Srebrenica genocide" thesis is also the outspoken denier of Croat Ustasha atrocities.

People in glass houses really oughtn't throw stones for a living. It turns out that Ramic is on the editorial board of a Bosnian Muslim war veterans' magazine, Korak - and the magazine's editor-in-chief is on the board of Ramic's Institute - which routinely publishes militant jihad propaganda. And in his spare time, Ramic also engages in libelous attacks on honorable Canadian soldiers. This, then, is the sort of person the Canadian government takes its cues from, when it comes to deciding who may and who may not enter the country?

Earlier today, the Edmonton Journal published a particularly facetious attack on Dr. Trifkovic by one Srdja Pavlovic, lecturer at the University of Alberta. Asserting that "denying genocide" should not be called freedom of speech, Pavlovic claims that "One should, of course, have the right to one's own opinion but not the right to one's own facts."

That's a brave thing to say for one whose sole claim to historical scholarship is a vile pamphlet equating the Serbs with Nazis.

Pavlovic also has the gall to claim that:

"Trifkovic and his supporters do not want to have a dialogue. As any nationalist would do, they see their version of the past as true and valid, and demand that others believe it, too. While calling for a dialogue they shout at their critics, rather than talk to them and then have the audacity to call such shouting the expression of the freedom of speech."

The hypocrisy is simply stunning. This is precisely what a legion of professional Srebrenica advocates, and Pavlovic himself, are doing - yet he accuses Trifkovic of it!

Proponents of the claim that Srebrenica was a genocide have engaged in much more than "shouting" : character assassination, libel, defamation, lawfare and now outright repression. They never even bother to present any actual facts in support of their claim, preferring instead to cite ICTY verdicts - a situation anyone acquainted with logic ought to recognize as the fallacy of Appeal to Authority.

That certain parties in Bosnia have by this point resorted to bringing up Srebrenica for the purpose of jockeying for political power indicates that they really don't give a damn about the people who lived and died there.

If they truly believed their claim was the objective truth, as they so shrilly insist, they would not be so afraid to debate it, or subject it to cross-examination. How dare those who have repeatedly shown they don't accept anything but unconditional obedience talk about discussion and debate?

All of this suggests that Srebrenica was declared a "genocide" for that very reason - to silence any discussion of the Bosnian War with the charge of "genocide denial."

Any society that allows them to do this cannot truly call itself free.

Character Assassination, Part 2

Back in 2009, I first took notice of the "Srebrenica Genocide Blog," and later outed it as the outfit behind the propaganda project called "Palluxo." They responded with a vicious campaign of character assassination, using link farms and fake feeds to Google-bomb my name.

Their favorite "official academic", Marko Attilla Hoare chimed in, mocking me as a "romantic nationalist" (thank you for the compliment! - and no, I won't link to his blog, either). On his own blog, Hoare says that "some or all" of the labels used to describe him: "neoconservative, Trotskyite and Croat nationalist and a supporter of Islamism and Western imperialism", depending on definition, "may be accurate."
[edited for clarity: the labels are invoked by Hoare to describe himself, not me]

In March 2010, they tried again, declaring an essay I had written here to be an incendiary comment I'd left on SGB (as if!). I documented the lie.

Last year, the Congress of North American Bosniaks and something calling itself "Institute for Genocide Research" lobbied in Ottawa to get a Canadian parliamentary resolution recognizing the "Srebrenica genocide." I wrote against such a foolish decision, but it ended up passing on the sly in September. In December, the "Institute" re-published a libelous attack against Major-General (ret.) Lewis MacKenzie, accusing him of raping Muslim women during the war in Bosnia. And just last week, they launched an effort to prevent Srdja Trifkovic from speaking at UBC in Vancouver (British Columbia). For more about that sordid affair, I recommend the essay by Ambassador James Bissett, over at the Lord Byron Foundation.

Today, I got word that TV1, a TV station in Bosnia, ran a "news report" about my alleged "genocide denial" right after the headline news on the crisis in Libya. They used my clips from RT interviews, and images of my articles, but their accusations against me were taken straight from Hoare and the SGB. That leaves no doubt in my mind who was behind this character assassination. (TV1 is a relatively new station; set up last year by "Sanela Diane Jenkins" of the Ganic affair fame.)

Now, if it were just another attempt to libel and slander me, I'd be perfectly happy to denounce it here and expose its authors as liars and scoundrels. America still legally guarantees freedom of speech, and we're on equal footing here. However, the attackers were merely using me to get at my family, which still lives in Bosnia. My mother is an official of the Social Democratic Party, and currently chairs the parliament of Canton Sarajevo. It is the SDP, and my mother, that are the real targets of this smearbund.

Let me repeat here: They went after my family.

Think about this for a second. Even if my mother and I share the same politics (which we do not), how would she be responsible in the slightest for what I think or do, having lived nearly half my life halfway across the world? What sort of Dark Age values motivate TV1, that they impugn my mother's politics because of what a grown son of hers thinks or does?

They went after my family.

They didn't go after me, on the (still, relatively) level and fair playing field of the USA, where free speech is still in the Constitution and there are still certain rules of conduct and debate. They ran a hit piece on me on a TV channel in Bosnia, without ever calling for comment, without offering me any recourse or opportunity for rebuttal. If they take issue with things I've said or done, they ought to take that up with me. Instead, they went after my family.

Particularly disgusting is the fact that this is part of an intra-Muslim political conflict, between the SDP (whose membership is mostly Muslim) and former governing Muslim parties, or those that aspire to govern but - unlike the SDP - never got enough of those pesky votes in those pesky democratic elections. Yet who is the target of the anti-SDP campaign? An ethnic Serb.

Well, my American readers, this is the kind of Bosnia your government created and has nurtured for the past 15 years. This is the kind of "freedom of speech" that exists there, the kind of "tolerance" and "multiethnicity" and "democracy." I hope you're proud of it.

As for the smearbund, I have a simple message:

You went after my family. I will end you.

Still Smearing the Serbs

As I predicted last month, the Hashim Thaci Defense League has come out swinging, trying to discredit the Marty report as "Serb propaganda" aimed at "smearing Kosova." One good example is Dennis McShane (a Serbophobic former Labour official), writing in the War Street Journal this Tuesday, but the full extent of Empire's efforts to cover up their KLA monster can be found in Julia Gorin's excellently researched expose.

Note that the common strand in all arguments in favor of Thaci, the KLA and their "independent state" is the call for "evidence" to back up Marty's report. This is very important. These very people telling you today that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, and that we shouldn't judge an entire nation based on allegations without evidence? They are the ones who have, for the past two decades, done precisely that: leveled outlandish allegations against an entire nation, without a shred of evidence - worse yet, with actual evidence running counter to their claims! But you see, the nation we should not judge are the Albanians (specifically, the made-up "Kosovars") and the nation we've become used to instinctively condemning against all the evidence to the contrary are the Serbs - so that's perfectly all right, then.

As if on cue, an example appears. There are many objectionable things in Newsweek's "Deposed Despots" feature, posted on Monday. I don't have time or inclination to go into all of them. Of the eleven "dictators" they list, only two were not clients of the Empire. Actually, I'm not so sure about Romania's Ceausescu. The one whose mention is the occasion for this post, of course, is Slobodan Milosevic.

Here's Newsweek's description:

This genocidaire brought horror to ’90s Europe and died while on trial for war crimes. After the fall of the “Butcher of the Balkans,” Serbia remains a hotbed of organized crime, and Kosovo’s independence sparked violent protests. But at least the mass ethnic slayings are gone.

Ah yes, the old Big Lie about the 1990s wars being Milosevic's fault. They weren't. There are confessions by Croat and Muslim leaders proving it, and memoirs of US officials who wanted to "give war a chance." That Milosevic is to blame for everything is an article of propaganda-induced faith; once you start looking for evidence for it, there simply isn't any. That is the problem the Hague Inquisition (a.k.a the ICTY) ran into when they put Milosevic in the dock. After almost 300 witnesses, they had no case. Milosevic's death, under suspicious circumstances, saved the ICTY the embarrassment of having to convict against facts - though that hasn't stopped them before, or since.

There was no genocide. The 2007 decision by the ICJ - an institution hardly biased towards the Serbs - rejected all the Bosnian Muslim claims to that extent, noting only that the events of July 1995 were categorized as genocide by the ICTY (a definition that insults elementary logic, as explained elsewhere).

It was the British tabloids that labeled Milosevic the "Butcher of the Balkans." With the details of KLA's butchery of captives to sell their body parts to rich Westerners beginning to emerge, it is becoming clear that Hashim Thaci is far more deserving of the moniker.

The declaration of independence by the Albanian provisional government in occupied Kosovo, three years ago, did actually spark protests. They were by and large peaceful - much more than the ones in Egypt, for example - but the propaganda machine seized on several smashed shop windows and an attempt to set the US embassy on fire. I actually do think that's the Serbs' own fault: they should have called it an "unfortunate accident," and claimed they really wanted to burn the Albanian embassy, but couldn't find it on the map. Hey, it worked for NATO when it bombed the Chinese embassy in 1999...

As a matter of fact, I agree that Serbia is a hotbed of organized crime: the current government, installed by Washington and Brussels, is the foremost criminal organization in the country. But I doubt that's what Newsweek had in mind. Conventional crime, then? Again, Serbia can't hold a candle to the "freedom fighters" in its occupied province of Kosovaristan.

"At least the mass ethnic slayings are gone"? Tell that to the Serbs remaining in today's independent Croatia, or the Bosnian Muslim-Croat Federation, or "independent" Kosovo (where you can also check on the Roma, Jews and Gorani). If you can find any.

Newsweek's treatment of Milosevic actually fits Thaci more. But we can't have that, oh no. That would be smearing, and might just offend Dennis McShane. Every single claim made in the one-paragraph, drive-by character assassination is either completely false, or true in a sense Newsweek's reporter absolutely did not intend it to be.

It is amazing that in this world, where "progressives" of all stripes have declared tolerance, diversity and inoffensiveness to be the highest virtues, it is not only allowed to be hateful, and offensive towards the Serbs, it is expected as proof of one's political correctness. The Newsweeks and McShanes of this world see nothing wrong with demanding evidence when their ox is being gored, but inventing or ignoring it when they wish to smear someone else.
That's actually a bigger problem for them, and their countries and societies, than it is for the Serbs, who are used to such treatment by now and don't give a damn.

For all the faults and flaws he had, Slobodan Milosevic was a democratically elected president, who has done more for peace in the Balkans than any of the "democrats" in the surrounding client-states of the Empire. However, his insistence that he, his country, and his people would not be anyone's servants earned him Empire's enmity and endless demonization of the kind described and dissected above.

At least he is still treated with more respect and dignity than Saddam Hussein - who, interestingly enough, didn't make Newsweek's list, even though he was supposedly so evil that the U.S. absolutely had to invade Iraq and have him executed. Go figure.

Democracy, Egypt and Empire

As I pointed out in the most recent Antiwar.com piece, the West has been the principal nemesis of democracy in the XX century, even as the U.S. elevated it into a veritable religion. The EU doesn't mouth off about democracy as much, and prefers bureaucratic repression to military one, but at the end of the day. the distinction hardly matters to those "democratized" by either.

Then there is the matter of "color revolutions," starting with the October 2000 coup in Serbia that established the template for them. By now, every time there is a "democratic popular uprising" somewhere, the first question on many minds is whether the Empire is really behind it.

I've heard such a question raised about Tunisia and Egypt over the past couple weeks. While I've seen some flags inspired by the CIA-trained and NED-funded "Otpor"movement in Serbia, and heard that some of the protest organizers were similarly trained, I still doubt the Empire was behind this deliberately. Both Ben Ali and Mubarak have been Imperial stooges for years; what possible reason could there be for getting rid of them, and in such a fashion besides?

Therefore, I am inclined to believe that the Tunisian revolt at least was quite spontaneous, and if Egypt may have been given a little push, that doesn't make the revolution there any less authentic. One Serbian journalist described the protesters as "hungry for freedom but fed up with Empire." That might be a projection of his wishes for Serbia - but it sounds about right nonetheless.

H.L. Mencken once wrote that "democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard." I think we're about to see this demonstrated firsthand.

The protesters in Tunisia and Egypt claim to want democracy and freedom. If the Empire truly wants to help them (ha!) it will stay away. But the Empire cannot go against its nature. For all that he proclaims that the "people of Egypt" will decide their future, the Emperor follows that with a list of what "must" happen. How very democratic of you, Mr. Hussein.

For all its verbal commitment to freedom and democracy (as long as they get to define what both those words mean in practice, anyway), the Imperial establishment is running scared. They know all too well that in turbulent times, those with determination and clarity of vision come out ahead. Right now, the revolutionaries know what they don't want - Ben Ali and Mubarak, and their cronies - but it is people like the Muslim Brotherhood and Rachid Ganouchi who know what they do want, and are waiting in the wings to seize it. And there isn't much the Empire can do to stop them.

What if Islamic regimes do take over? It will be a pity for those Egyptians and Tunisians who didn't want that to happen, for one, but will it really be a disaster for the Empire? I mean, it will free up all that foreign aid that went to Cairo and Tunis for decades. And hasn't the current Emperor, like his predecessor, gone on about how the Empire isn't at war with Islam or the Muslims? So what's the problem, exactly?

Well, there is the whole matter of the Muslim Brotherhood wanting to wipe Israel off the map. Honestly, though, the Israeli military has soundly beaten the Egyptians in conventional wars four times in the past 63 years. The fastest way for that expensive US hardware in Egyptian hands to turn into a heap of scrap metal is for a hypothetical Brotherhood regime to attempt an attack on Israel.

Camp David made Israelis believe that trading land for peace was a real possibility. It also shifted the Arab-Israeli conflict from the realm of interstate conventional warfare (in which Israel excelled) to that of a low-intensity insurrection conducted by sub-state actors (the intifada, Hamas, Hezbollah), where Israel has fared much worse. So the possibility of a hostile, Islamic Egypt shouldn't really induce histrionics among the partisans of Israel, the way it seems to be doing.

If anything, given the importance of the Suez route for its possibilities of trading with Europe (in light of the recent acquisitions of Greek ports), it is China that ought to be concerned about the future of Egypt and its relationship with Israel. Yet we don't hear much fretting from Beijing.

From a historical perspective, odds are the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt will propel to power a more radical and violent regime (see Cromwell in England, the Jacobins in France, the Bolsheviks in Russia...). The silver lining would be the demise of the pernicious illusion - promoted by the Empire - that democracy means freedom (it doesn't; they are just about mutually exclusive, actually), and that everyone around the world should aspire to it. That may well be too much to ask, though. And besides - we should be careful what we wish for. We might just get it, good and hard.

Blind Spot

Reading James Bovard's review of Derek Leebaert's "Magic and Mayhem: The Delusions of American Foreign Policy From Korea to Afghanistan," I am struck by how persistently the Balkans shows up as a blind spot for critics of the U.S. foreign policy.

Leebaert puts together an interesting read about how arrogance and ignorance have led the policymakers down disastrous paths, yet he offers the 1999 Kosovo war as a contrasting example of success! Bovard disagrees, and it is worth quoting him at length:

Leebaert actually understates the U.S. debacle rate abroad. He hails the American-led NATO bombing of Serbia: “The 1999 eleven weeks’ war over Kosovo was undertaken by a coalition of Western governments, preceded by two months of negotiation that legitimized and clarified its objectives, then followed by a UN peacekeeping mission. The presence of overwhelming backup forces nearby as well as American military leadership resting on political good sense and seasoned diplomacy further increased the chances of success.”

What success? After NATO planes killed hundreds if not thousands of Serb and ethnic Albanian civilians, Bill Clinton could pirouette as a savior. Once the bombing ended, many of the Serbs remaining in Kosovo were slaughtered and their churches burned to the ground. NATO’s “peace” produced a quarter-million Serbian, Jewish, and Gypsy refugees. At least the Serbs were not murdering people for their body parts, as the Council of Europe recently accused the Kosovo Liberation Army of doing to Serb prisoners in recent years. (“When the transplant surgeons were confirmed to be in position and ready to operate, the [Serbian] captives were … summarily executed by a KLA gunman, and their corpses transported swiftly to the operating clinic,” where their kidneys were harvested for sale.)

Perhaps even worse, Clinton’s unprovoked attack on Serbia set a precedent for “humanitarian” warring that was invoked by supporters of Bush’s unprovoked attack on Iraq.

That the Serbs were vicious, genocidal fascist aggressors who could have only been stopped by an American intervention - details such as law and truth be damned - is an article of faith in the U.S. mainstream, and it is not often someone like Bovard dares to defy it. It takes a lot of courage to go against the self-appointed guardians of Official Truth.

Saakashvili's Agenda

A suicide attack on a crowd at a public place, Monday's bombing of the Domodedovo airport had all the trademarks of a jihadist operation. Several comments on my essay about it, however, cautioned that one had to make a distinction between actual jihadists, and terrorists in the service of Empire.

Then Prime Minister Putin made a enigmatic statement yesterday that the attack was not connected to Chechnya. Were the terrorists, as the Russophobic Washington Post speculated, from Ingushetia or Dagestan instead? Could it have been, as Lilia Shevtsova of Carnegie's Moscow office speculated for the WaPo the other day, a "Russian nationalist"? (Shevtsova seems like a Russian analogue of Serbia's Sonja Biserko and Natasa Kandic, so I didn't take her seriously.)

Enter Mikhail Saakashvili, the tie-chewing American satrap of Georgia, gloating over the attack and calling it "payback" for the August 2008 humiliation Moscow's border garrison inflicted on his NATO-trained military.

Yet from his remarks to the The Independent, it seems Saakashvili was just enjoying the opportunity to stick it to Moscow, rather than claiming responsibility for the attack or knowing who was behind it. Crass, sure. But even a bumbling idiot such as Saakashvili ought to know that offering oneself up as a possible perpetrator of a terrorist attack against Russia - or cheering the terrorists on, for that matter - is pure idiocy. Especially since Putin told him that Moscow would "crush" the terrorists "like cockroaches."

So, what is he trying to accomplish, then?

Terrorism and Jihad

As I was waiting in the RT studio this morning, to comment on the PACE considerations of the Marty report (which ended up being adopted, by an overwhelming majority vote), I heard about a poll they were conducting in the aftermath of the Domodedovo Airport bombing. Something like 60% of the respondents said they did not believe terrorism could be defeated.

They are right. Because, you see, terrorism can't be defeated. But terrorists can.

The purpose of terrorism is to effect coercion through instilling fear (Latin: terror). Governments routinely use coercion, and particularly bad ones believe that the only reason people obey laws is the fear of consequences (oderint dum metuant and all). How is that not terrorism? Well, there's an element of hypocrisy involved, to be sure. Just as printing money at home is a felony, but when the Federal Reserve does it it's called "quantitative easing."

There is one distinction, I suppose. Very few governments resort to arbitrary arrests and executions (and once they do, they usually aren't around for long thereafter). Terrorists kill randomly. By doing so, they don't just challenge government's monopoly of force, but strike at the very heart of a government's existence. The primary purpose of a state, you'll recall, is to provide security. This is why governments the world over have a rule not to negotiate with terrorists. If they do, they undermine their own raison d'etre.

Of course, if the terrorists are fighting for something that the government can afford to give up, accommodation eventually happens. And let's not forget that in today's world, you're only a terrorist if you dare attack the "good guys" (i.e. us). If you are bombing, killing or maiming "them" (i.e. others, the designated enemy), you become a "guerrilla" or "rebel" or "freedom fighter." If you secure support of a powerful state, you can even carve out a state of your own, declare yourself prime minister or president, and make quite a comfortable living practicing criminal activities with impunity.

Though nothing has been confirmed just yet, the prime suspects in the bombing of Domodedovo airport yesterday are members of a jihadist organization from the north Caucasus. Russophobes of all stripes will no doubt suggest that the best course for Moscow would be to withdraw from the area. These are the same people who would never contemplate, much less condone, American withdrawal from Iraq or Afghanistan - even though these are countries half the world away that Washington chose to invade, while Chechnya is part of Russia's own territory.

They also ignore the fact that Moscow actually did leave the Chechens alone. Russian troops retreated from the region in 1996, leaving it at the mercy of jihadists. Did they settle down and build a peaceful, prosperous nation? No - they made Chechnya into a black hole of jihadist banditry, and began invading the surrounding areas.

If the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing humanity he did not exist, then the greatest service Bush the Lesser ever did to the Prince of Lies was invading Iraq. By doing so, he helped create a perception that there was no such thing as jihad, and that the principal dynamo of Muslim grievance was the occupation. Yes, it plays a part. And so does the existence of Israel (the "occupation of Palestine" actually refers not to the territories taken in 1967 from Jordan and Egypt - but to the existence of Israel, period). But where was Israel in 1453, when Mehmet II sacked Constantinople? Where was "Crusader aggression" in 732, when Charles Martel stopped the Muslims at Tours? That, by the way, is in France - a long way from Arabia.

We're looking at two different things here, then. One is the imperial impulse in Washington (or London before that), which results in murderous overseas adventures and the backlash they inspire. The other is the commandment to the followers of Mohammed's teachings to spread the faith by fire and sword and slay the infidel wherever they find them. Many people ignore one of these aspects, trying to explain the world strictly through the prism of the other. That's a mistake.

This is why Afghanistan is not Kosovo, and why Chechnya is not Iraq. Picking a fight halfway around the world is not the same as having to defend your own life, at your own doorstep. Of course, in the world according to Emperors on the Potomac, the latter is a crime and the former is statesmanship.

In the ensuing confusion, jihad advances.

TANJUG or TANK?

Starting off the new year is this interesting news item:

"The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kosovo on Tuesday passed a regulation which prohibits the movement in the province of vehicles with new Serbian Interior Ministry (MUP) license plates inscribed with the first letters of the Kosovo cities on them.

The license plates are being issued by MUP since the beginning of 2011, and the regulation was issued by outgoing Interior Minister of Kosovo Bajram Redzepi."

If you thought this originated somewhere in the self-proclaimed "Republic of Kosovo," you would be wrong, however. The source of this story is the Serbian state news agency, Tanjug.

That, by the way, should be written TANJUG, as it stands for "Telegraphic Agency of the New JUGoslavia." With Yugoslavia gone the way of the telegraph, some may question the reason for Tanjug's continued existence. But how then, I ask you, would the Serbian public be brainwashed into accepting the "Republic of Kosovo" as an actual state?

Over the past 15 years or so, I've become intimately acquainted with the Western news media. There is nothing inherently evil about the inverted-pyramid structure of the news story; it does precisely what it was designed to do, leading with the important information and providing the details later. The real trick is choosing the words and phrases to plug into the template. Search engines are a wonderful thing. They can show us how many ostensibly independent and separate news outlets have used the exact same, or sufficiently similar, phrases to describe an event or persons involved, often indicating that the original phrasing came from the same source.

Words have power. Compare the effects of calling someone a "war criminal" or "war crimes indictee" with a more accurate (but oh-so-not-demonizing) "defendant" or "suspect." Designated victims are never "breakaways" or "rebels" - those terms are reserved for the designated enemies. By calling the Muslims of Bosnia "Bosnians" and the Albanians "Kosovars," the Anglophone media have deliberately endorsed these groups' claim to the territories in question. One famous example of how deep this deception went was the 1990s argument that the US should have bombed the Serbs "as soon as they crossed the border" of Bosnia. Given that the Serb presence in Bosnia dates back to the first mention of the word "Bosnia" in recorded history, the US would have needed a time machine for the task...

Long story short, by using the terms such as "Ministry of Internal Affairs of Kosovo" and recognizing Rexhepi as a government official, Tanjug is implicitly recognizing the legitimacy of the state declared by the Albanians in the occupied Serbian province. As is the Serbian Secretary for Kosovo-Metohija Oliver Ivanovic, whom the article quotes describing Rexhepi as an "outgoing minister who now holds his mandate only in technical terms.”

No, Oliver, he has no mandate, and no legitimacy, because he represents an illegal government, illegally proclaimed on Serbian territory. But, hey, I hear logic is hard...

I find it ironic that the Albanians often blast the handful of Westerners who dare question their claims as "Serb propagandists" who "repeat Tanjug lies". Yet here is Tanjug, taking their "Republic of Kosova" at face value, giving their "officials" respect and stature they in no way deserve. Some "Serbian propaganda," that. They ought to be called TANK ("Telegraph Agency of New Kosovia") instead.

As the old saying goes, the fish rots from the head. Not only is the Tanjug story unacceptable from the standpoint of its official mission - it is a state news agency, after all - it is also sloppy and poorly written. This sort of incompetence is merely a symptom of the general collapse of all standards of professionalism, ethics and decency under the quisling regimes installed in Serbia since the October 2000 coup, and this latest one in particular.

Merely overcoming the two decades of Western media demonization, or the consequences of blockade and war, is a gargantuan task. But the Serbs also have to deal with decades of destructive social engineering that have poisoned almost all aspects of their society. The idiotic behavior of Tanjug is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Bear in mind, however, that Serbia is not the Titanic...

A Year of Revelations

It's become an annual tradition to reserve the last Antiwar.com article in December for a look back at the year that has passed. At least as far as the former Yugoslav lands are concerned, 2010 has not been a year of great upheavals - but it has been a year of revelations.

Many suspicions about the Empire have been confirmed by diplomatic dispatches published by Wikileaks. Those cables also confirmed many more suspicions - and introduced new ones - about the quisling regime in Belgrade. And of course, the mid-December Marty report to PACE exposed the mafia hellhole of Boss Snake, also known as the "Independent State of Kosovo" (ISK).

It is both entertaining and ghastly to watch as legions of Imperial and EU busybodies try to scrub off the stench of being "friends" with butchers. With even the Belgrade quislings helping, I would not be surprised if nothing much came of the entire affair. Being the Empire means never having to say you're sorry. Until it is far too late to do any good, anyway.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. In 2010, the world has gained a lot of knowledge about the way Imperial "reality" really works. And it's not pretty. The question now is what, if anything, will be done with that knowledge. That's where 2011 comes in.

Cheers!

Shared Values

Russia Today has posted the clip from my live appearance on Wednesday morning, discussing the Council of Europe report about the organ-harvesting mafia in occupied Kosovo calling itself the government. Basically, Swiss rapporteur Dick Marty confirms the allegations first made by Carla Del Ponte (former Grand Inquisitor for Empire's faux war crimes court) two years ago. Worse yet, his report confirms that the Empire knew damn well what was going on, and who exactly they were dealing with - but chose to ignore that, in pursuit of crushing Serbia.

What has Serbia done to deserve such undying enmity, to the point of using a vicious gang of terrorist, gun-running, drug-dealing slavers and organ harvesters to occupy its ancient heartland and destroy all traces of Serb habitation therein? Nothing at all - save for existing.

Such imperial luminaries as Strobe Talbott openly admitted years ago that the 1999 Kosovo War was not about the Serbs, or the Albanians, but about Russia. Yes, the Empire is still fighting the Cold War, even as it chases the end of history.

One is know by the company one keeps. Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, John McCain, John Kerry, Joseph Lieberman, Eliot Engel, Tom Lantos, Mitch McConnell, James Rubin, Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice, Richard Holbrooke - those are just some of the names of people who have praised Hashim Thaci and the KLA over the past decade.

Lieberman actually said that "United States of America and the Kosovo Liberation Army stand for the same human values and principles ... Fighting for the KLA is fighting for human rights and American values." (The Washington Post, April 28, 1999) He never retracted that statement.

So, according to this Senator and onetime vice-presidential candidate, the values of the US government are identical to those of an organized crime syndicate dealing Afghan heroin throughout Europe, trafficking in weapons and sex slaves, and chopping people up for body parts to be sold on the black market.

Good to know.

Sic Transit Holbrooke

It is an ancient Roman custom to speak no ill of the dead. Not being Roman, I don't feel bound by it. I shall speak truthfully instead.

Richard Holbrooke - who died yesterday, at age 69, of a ruptured aorta - was somewhat of a symbol of this age: a diplomat who took pride in his absence of tact. His job was to "lie for his country" - and did he ever! But he also enjoyed killing, cheating and stealing. This is the man who urged his superiors to "give us bombs for peace" (NATO intervention in Bosnia in 1995); who admitted in his own memoirs that he tried to swindle the president of Serbia during the Bosnia peace talks; and who took up investment banking when on sabbaticals from diplomacy (Credit Suisse, Lehman Brothers). Ironically, it was the latter that got him in the only spot of trouble in his career, when he had to settle charges of ethical violations before becoming Empire's ambassador to the UN.

Yes, he ended the Bosnian War - on America's terms, and only after Washington sabotaged every attempt to end it any other way. He then spent years on trying to undermine and destroy the very treaty he helped broker.

In 1998, he famously sat down with the KLA - shadowy militants his colleague Robert Gelbard had labeled a "terrorist organization". The photo of the shoeless Holbrooke sitting on the floor next to the bearded (and booted) KLA terrorist went around the world.



Later he told TIME magazine that he had been "furious". If he was, it never showed. He went to Belgrade as the Emperor's envoy again, and tried to repeat his 1995 performance. He bought the KLA three months to prepare for the coming NATO attack and set up the Racak "massacre," a pretext for it. But when the time came to try and bully Serbia into accepting the so-called Rambouillet Agreement, it was Holbrooke's boss, Madeleine Albright, who took over the limelight.

Holbrooke hitched his diplomatic career horse to John Kerry's wagon in 2004 and Hillary Clinton's in 2008. As a result, he never became the Secretary of State. He would eventually become Emperor Obama's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Before that, he would pontificate once a month from the pages of the Washington Post, a newspaper that's never seen a Russian or a Serb it did not love to hate - unless the said Russian or Serb did Empire's bidding without a second thought; then he merely could not be trusted.

In one such column, in July 2008, gloating over the arrest of former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadzic, (in a piece called "The Face of Evil" no less), Holbrooke put forth at least four verifiable lies:
- that the war "had already taken the lives of nearly 300,000 people";
- that his colleagues, Bob Frasure, Joe Kruzel and Nelson Drew traveled through "sniper-filled, Serbian-controlled territory" when their vehicle slid off the road into a mine-filled ravine;
- that his meeting with Karadzic in Belgrade "resulted in the lifting of the siege of Sarajevo," and
- that Serbian PM Zoran Djindjic was assassinated in 2003 "as a direct result of his courage in arresting Milosevic and sending him to The Hague in 2001."

When I challenged those lies, I called Holbrooke a "sanctimonious, uncouth, arrogant, corrupt slimebucket," and I stand by that assessment. Yet I've always had a measure of respect for him due to one thing, and one thing only. He was arrogant enough to eschew hiding what he thought and felt. This is why his 1998 memoir, "To End A War," is an invaluable source in understanding his mind, and the motives of Imperial diplomacy.

By way of example, he quoted a note Robert Frasure had slipped to him during a meeting in Zagreb:

Dick: We "hired" these guys to be our junkyard dogs because we were desperate. We need to try to "control" them. But it is no time to get squeamish about things.

Sure enough, Holbrooke was not squeamish at all. If it took the establishment of a fundamentalist Islamic regime, a Nazi revival and the expulsion of half a million people to re-establish American hegemony in Europe and in the Balkans, so be it. Arrogance of power, or power of arrogance? He lived long enough to see that hegemony begin to crumble, though.

As someone who helped bring the American Empire into being, Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke was a perfect embodiment of the vices it extolled as virtues. Ultimately, his brand of bullying "diplomacy" did America and Americans no favors. Oderint dum metuant didn't work even for Caligula. It absolutely debased the country that claimed to stand for values and principles, then went around the world violating them. Holbrooke either never realized this, or refused to let it stop him.

May God, whom he had forsaken to serve the earthly power instead, have mercy on his soul.

Angelina's Bosnian Adventure

Angelina Jolie is being hoisted with her own petard. Having decided to make her directorial debut a love story set in the Bosnian War, she is now being besieged by professional war victims, who want input on the script, money, or both. Just yesterday, one of these "victim associations" petitioned the UN to revoke Jolie's status as "Goodwill Ambassador", since the plot of the film is causing them "mental suffering."

How now? Rumors of the film's plot have been circulating for months, and the most persistent is that it involves a love affair between a Muslim inmate in a Serb "concentration camp" and her Serb guard. Eventually, it is said, the Serb kills the Muslim and surrenders to peacekeepers as a war criminal. However, one version of the story is that this is a "rape camp", and that the love affair is between a victim and her rapist - something Jolie and her crew have vehemently denied. It is important to note that these are all rumors - neither the professional victims nor the government officials who banned Jolie from filming in the country (the film is being shot in Hungary instead) have actually read the script. I don't think it would have made a difference, though.

I am reasonably sure that Jolie is motivated by her own bleeding-heart feelings towards the "women victims of war," and therefore cannot understand how they ended up being her worst enemy. This is because she is ignorant of what actually happened in Bosnia, and doesn't know a damned thing about the people living there.

There's a whole sub-genre in modern cinematography that has been termed "Chetnixploitation" (from "Chetniks" - a Serbian word for guerrillas, used as an insult by Muslims and Croats). It relies on prejudices and stereotypes created by the Communist propaganda since 1945, then distilled and recycled in the 1990s wars, to portray the Serbs as drunken, bearded, bloodthirsty butchers of innocents. (For some examples, look at the blog linked above and an essay I wrote back in 2002.) Any film made about the Balkans wars is expected to fit into the genre - and if it doesn't, expect professional victims to complain about it.

Jolie's film does fit, however. Her cast and crew have repeatedly said it would be a story of Serbs abusing Muslims. Back in July, a Serbian media magnate made public that he refused to work with Jolie on the project, because it was "disgusting" and "Serb-bashing." So why are the Muslims targeting Jolie, then?

One of the reasons is money. What the "Association of women victims" is doing is pure extortion. Ironically, it is Jolie's own bleeding-heart humanitarianism that is preventing her from doing what is expected under the circumstances: pay them off so they shut up. She sympathizes with the "victims" so much, the idea they would be extorting her is inconceivable.

There could also be a fear that Jolie's highlighting of the Bosnian rapes may actually draw unwanted attention to the allegation - never documented or substantiated in any way - that the Serbs engaged in systematic mass rape of Muslim women, as a weapon of war. This propaganda concoction has been widely accepted, and any attempt to question its veracity or even ask for elementary evidence would run into condemnations of "defending rape" and "violence towards women." The very last thing professional war profiteers want is for someone to actually look into the factual background of their sacred cow.

Last, but probably most important, is the mentality of the people Jolie is dealing with. As many other foreigners have discovered over the past two decades, it isn't enough to support the Muslims (or Croats, or Albanians) 99.9% of the time. Oh no, even that .01 percent of criticism of anything they've done is enough to disqualify one as a "Greater Serbian propagandist" and "apologist for aggression and genocide." Only total, unconditional submission to their vision of the truth - a difficult thing to do, seeing as how that changes with circumstances, mind you - is tolerated. Even then, don't expect any gratitude for doing so.

I don't imagine Jolie had any idea trying to make a pro-Muslim movie would end up being so frustrating. She's not alone. In his memoirs, Richard Holbrooke recounted this scene from the final days of the Dayton talks:

"Chris Hill, normally highly supportive of the Bosnians, exploded in momentary anger and frustration. ‘These people are impossible to help,’ he said. It was a telling statement from a man who had devoted years of his life to the search for ways to help create a Bosnian state."

Now, I doubt Jolie would have canceled her project if someone had got in touch with her and explained all this. This kind of behavior is so utterly irrational, it beggars belief - until one is forced to actually contend with it. But I wonder if she would have scrapped her plans had someone told her that in 2004, the Sarajevo-born Serbian director Emir Kusturica filmed "Life is a Miracle," a love story between a Serb soldier and his Muslim captive. Kusturica's film wasn't a politically correct piece of Chetnixploitation, so few in the West have heard of it. Yet even a passing acquaintance with it would have saved Jolie a lot of trouble.

Some Call It Peace

I remember it vividly, as if was just yesterday. It was a Tuesday, November 21. Just a day prior, we got word that the talks had collapsed - yet again - and that the war would go on. And then it was over.

It didn't seem over at the time. By the time I left Bosnia, two months later, the armies were still in position, the roads were still passable only to NATO peacekeepers, conscription was still in effect, and utilities were not yet restored. But the longer the ceasefire held, the less likely it seemed the shooting would restart. By the time the treaty was officially signed, in mid-December, it dawned upon us that it was peace at last.

Thus ended the Bosnian War.

There is still some contention as to when precisely it began. For me, it was April 5, 1992, when roadblocks appeared in Sarajevo. From that Sunday morning, until that Tuesday when the word came from Ohio, I had counted 1,376 days. Not the longest war in history, or the bloodiest, or the cruelest - but when it happens to you, that's hardly a consolation.

The day after the peace treaty was announced, my first ever article in English appeared, published by The Independent. The way I wrote it, it was a schmaltzy celebration of peace. The way it was headlined, it sounded like a one-cheer of a disappointed war victim. Unlike some folk, who were perhaps hoping for a "final victory" and a Bosnia remade according to their fantasies, I was not the least bit disappointed by the Dayton peace treaty. I didn't feel much like a victim, either. I just hoped it would last.

I was entirely too young to realize that the war would merely move back to the realm of politics. So, the headline - "At least there will be no more killing" - proved strangely prophetic.

Earlier this year, while visiting Bosnia, I wrote:

"In Bosnia, ethnic warfare was the direct result of the complete destruction of trust between the communities as the regime of Alija Izetbegovic pushed for independence at the expense of everything and everyone else. The Dayton settlement did not restore that trust, but offered a framework in which it could be re-forged if Bosnia’s peoples so chose. When the U.S. and the EU made Bosnia into a de facto protectorate shortly after the war, and began to impose their often conflicting but always confused visions of what Bosnia should be, they created a powerful disincentive for internal dialogue.

When Bosnian Serb PM Milorad Dodik said recently that it might be time to talk about a consensual separation, president Silajdzic angrily replied that this was impossible. "Those who dislike this country are free to leave, but they can’t take an inch of the land with them," Silajdzic said.

This very argument, that Bosnia belonged "100 percent" to Silajdzic and the Muslims, while everyone else is welcome to get out, is precisely what ignited the 1992-95 war and claimed 100,000 lives. After fifteen years of peace and "nation-building," Bosnia seems to be back at square one. And this is what the State Department describes as a great "success."

One shudders to think what failure would look like."

Whatever the Empire - or the Serb, Croat and Muslim leaders who signed it - intended to accomplish with the Dayton agreement, it did silence the guns. And it still offers hope, however fleeting, that the people who live in Bosnia may eventually sit down and figure out how to live together - or part ways - peacefully.

As for me, I will always remember that moment of unadulterated joy I felt when I heard the news that the war was over, when I realized that my family and I had made it through alive.

So many people take life for granted. I'm not one of them. And now you know why.

Revolutionary Acts

It is said that the 1991 "Desert Storm" was the first war waged live on cable TV. Eight years later, NATO attacked Serbia (Operation "Allied Force") and the attendant media adhered to the same matrix of behavior. Only this time, there was the internet. However clunky and amateurish citizen-reporting was back then, in its infancy, it nonetheless provided an alternative to the relentless propaganda churned out by compliant reporters regurgitating Alliance spokesman Jamie Shea's infamous briefings. Bit by bit, the truth of NATO's atrocities came out, while the rumors of Serbian atrocities were shown to be greatly exaggerated.

Many of the news sites and proto-blogs that helped expose the truth about NATO's "humanitarian war" are no longer around. One, however, has persevered - and continued the struggle for truth ever since, through the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. And as George Orwell so aptly put, "speaking the truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act."

All too many people in the United States today still see things through the darkened lens of partisan politics. Democrats this, Republicans that, liberals this, conservatives that. Yet what Antiwar.com has demonstrated over and over is that both parties march in lockstep when it comes to waging wars, empowering the state and repressing the citizenry. It doesn't matter whether the Emperor is Slick Willie, Bush the Lesser, or Saint Barack of Hopechange: the policy of killing people and breaking things always remains the same.

I've had a small part in this endeavor since October 19, 2000, when Antiwar.com published my first column. "Balkan Express" ran weekly for many years, eventually becoming the biweekly "Moments of Transition." I would like to think that I've helped prove the point about the Empire in my coverage of the troubles in the Balkans and Europe in general. Both the fan mail and hate mail accumulated over the years suggest that I have, as do some figures of speech - "Empire" itself being a case in point - that have since made their way into foreign policy discourse in the Balkans itself.

The Imperial government has created this fantasy world in which it can move nations around the Grand Chessboard by sheer strength of willpower - and a few smart bombs here and there. It need not concern itself with the "reality-based community," or such mundane things as money and facts. If needed, facts are invented, and money is simply printed (oh, is it ever!). But the rest of us, we live in the real world, and deal with real facts. And when bills come in, we need to pay them with real money.

Now, you'll notice this blog doesn't have a donation box or anything like that. I work for a living, and what I do here and at Antiwar.com is something I can afford to do on my own time. But I am well aware that running a major news website, collating news, editing and posting articles - all that costs money. Thanks to the government and the likes of the giant vampire squid, none of us have much. But what we have ought to be put to good use.

So, if you want to hear what the mainstream media refuse to tell you - for example, understand why the TSA gets to grope you, or what is really happening in the Balkans (and why that is relevant) - consider making a donation to keep Antiwar.com going. Unlike with the Empire and its attendant media, you actually have a choice in the matter.

Clinton Does the Balkans

I was on RT this morning (evening, if you're in Moscow), commenting on Hillary Clinton's Balkans trip. She won't say or do anything new, only deliver the same old demands. Centralize Bosnia, dismember Serbia, recognize the "Independent State of Kosovo," and maybe some day the Balkans "savages" might earn the right to clean NATO boots and fill NATO body bags. Or, if they really behave, wait tables in the EU.

But it is no longer 1999, and the Empire is destined for the fate of Ozymandias. Clinton's Potemkin promises aren't fooling anybody. Empire's clients will cheer at her words, but when she leaves they will realize that they made no difference. Perhaps only to bolster her own bid for the throne, two or six years from now - but that's another story...

Anti-Government, Not Anti-Gay

In the minds of the quisling government in Serbia, its lapdog media, and the Western press (used over the past two decades to demonizing the Serbs without a second thought), what happened on Sunday were "anti-gay riots" by "right-wing extremists."

That is simply not true.

Ten years ago, the "Democratic Opposition of Serbia" came to power in the October 5 coup. Funded by NED and the CIA, it was the trial run for "color revolutions" later organized elsewhere. Back then, these very same "democrats" eagerly employed these very same "hooligans" when it came to storming the state TV, the party offices of President Milosevic and his wife, and the national Parliament, which was set on fire. But, you see, violence is "democratic" when it democratically serves the interests of democratic democrats. Employed against them, why, it's fascism!

Sunday's riots had very little to do with the "gay pride" parade. The parade itself was nothing but the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. The camel, in this instance, is the Serbian people, who were "rewarded" for their "democracy" with a decade of systematic pillaging, corruption and destruction of everything worth anything, and a never-ending series of humiliations.

The government has long since stopped pretending it had any democratic legitimacy, demonstrating in no uncertain terms that it held to Mao maxim that "power came from the barrel of the gun" - or in this case, the police baton. It envisioned the "Pride parade" as a show of dominance over the general populace, and a way to impress its masters in Brussels and Washington. At a time when almost half of Serbia lives in abject poverty, and rummaging through rubbish has become a major branch of agriculture, the government set aside twelve million dinars (about $160,000) to organize the "Pride parade."

This was not about the homosexuals. There were barely a thousand people who "marched" on Sunday. Among them were government officials and foreign ambassadors. The rest were professional homosexuals, "gay activists," people who have reduced their entire lives down to their "queerness" and the need to rub it into everyone else's face, so they can get pity and special treatment for being "victims of oppression" when people who aren't into face-rubbing react predictably. They didn't want rights, they wanted attention. The parade was first and foremost a political event, a message from the government that its will is the law, that some people are going to be "equaler" than others, that the opinion of ordinary folks isn't worth a dime.

On Saturday, October 9, some ten thousand people rallied in downtown Belgrade, and peacefully marched through the city, singing, walking with their children, sending a message to the government that this was, in fact, Serbia. The mainstream media either completely ignored this event or reported that "several hundred citizens" rallied "against the gays." Nor did the Western press make a peep.

Sunday, it was a different kind of Serbs on the streets. The young, the angry, the people with nothing left to lose. Yes, some of them hate homosexuals. Yes, some of them may fancy "far right" ideas. And yes, they let their fists and rocks and sticks do both the thinking and the talking. But their rage was directed principally against the government. Just look at their targets: a bus with the logo of B92, a hated propaganda network; the RTS building, the state TV that also broadcasts government propaganda; the HQ of the ruling Democratic party. According to the police, they also attacked "a mosque and some foreign embassies."

What do all these things have in common? They are all symbols of the quisling government and the foreign powers that have de facto occupied Serbia. (Why the mosque? Because a militant Islamic cleric has been fanning the flames of hatred and war in southwestern Serbia for the past six months; except the rioters were so incensed, they didn't stop to make a difference between his followers and those of the moderate Mufti of Belgrade, whose mosque they - allegedly - attacked).

It was the government that cynically manipulated and abused the homosexuals, setting them up for violence and bloodshed so it could assert power over the "hooligans" that responded. Now we're treated to proclamations by Brussels that the Belgrade regime is "protecting human rights." What rights?!

Sunday's events shattered what little was left of this government's legitimacy. It didn't have much to begin with, composed of two coalitions that ran against each other in 2008 (no one, not a soul, actually voted for the current regime). As of Sunday, it has none. It rules not by the will of the people, but by the will of the Empire. While it lasts.

10-10-10 may well turn out to be a turning point in modern Serbian history, a day when open revolt against the quislings finally began. Yes, it is ironic that it would start over a "pride parade" as opposed to countless acts of robbery and treason the regime is responsible for. But history tells of many major upheavals that started with the seemingly unlikeliest of events.

For the past decade, and especially the past two years, Serbia has been in the grip of a regime so abominable, that any attempt to restore normalcy appears extreme. It was only a matter of time before some people concluded that extremism in defense of virtue was no vice.

Madness? This is BOSNIA!

To say that Bosnia-Herzegovina is a strange place would be an understatement. Little about that country makes sense. It is theoretically one state, comprised of two "entities" (a Republic and a Federation) and a District (which isn't the capital). It has three major ethnic groups, five Presidents and thirteen Prime Ministers. No one knows exactly how many people live in the country, because there hasn't been a census since the war - and some politicians are blocking a new census from being conducted. Though nominally independent and sovereign, the ultimate authority in the country is a viceroy (called "High Representative") acting on behalf of a self-appointed group of external powers (called the "Peace Implementation Council"). And there is no such thing as a "Bosnian," strictly speaking; one is either a Serb, Croat, "Bosniak" (Slavic convert to Islam) or "other." To keep the (uneasy) peace between them, ethnic quotas are enshrined in the Constitution.

In short, the place is a mess of epic proportions. But just as I think that it cannot possibly get any crazier, something happens along to prove me wrong.

The internet is a wonderful place insofar as it allows ordinary folk, like yours truly, to share their thoughts and ideas with the general public without dealing with governmental or big business gatekeepers. Whereas you can be reasonably certain that the governments and the official media will lie to you about any given issue any given time, with the internet you have to make your own decision about what is true and what is a howling blast of nonsense.

It isn't the fault of Blogger, or Wordpress, or the do-it-yourself PR portal "i-Newswire" that some of their users may be raving lunatics, or folks a few beers short of a six-pack. But when I saw a link to a release on i-Newswire two days ago announcing that the "Bosnian Royal Family" has reasserted sovereignty, my jaw came very close to hitting the floor.

Quoth the release:

Under international law and customs pertinent to monarchical reinstatements, the Bosnian Royal Family recently reclaimed their "divine right to sovereignty". The claim was met by 85% public approval, but also by insults from the media financed by NED, USAID, etc. The Bosnian medieval state thrived between 1153 and 1527, when the Ottomans committed regicide of the last Prince-pretend and established their first occupying administration. Bosnia has not had her own sovereign de jure (a monarch; a president) ever since.

While it is true enough that the Ottoman Turks killed the last king of Bosnia (also the last despot of Serbia), that was in 1463, not in 1527. But the real howler here is the line about "85% public approval." How could they possibly tell? What public? Bosnia is so fragmented, this kind of polling is just plain impossible.

At first I thought this was some kind of practical joke, like the pranks played by a group of Serbian linguists over the past few years, who would plant false news and then mock the gullible press for taking them at face value. But this "royal family" seems to be taking itself seriously. This is also indicated by the tone of their press release, which goes on to accuse the powers administering Bosnia of working "...in the interest of none other but the Anglo-Zionist geostrategy, apparently aimed at destabilizing the continental (mainly Catholic) Europe..."

Just the other day someone asked me why I never tried my hand at writing fiction. How can I, with stuff like this existing in actual reality? A fiction writer who imagined this "royal family" would be laughed out of any serious publishing house. Yet here they are, quite real.

In 2002, British peacekeepers found a man living in the mountains of Western Bosnia with only a bear for company. He didn't know the war had ended (well, sort of), but he seemed remarkably sane, all things considered. Perhaps he was on to something.

Capitulation, Not Compromise

Though the terrorist bombing of a market in Vladikavkaz and the Yaroslavl summit have been top news on RT, the TV station did not neglect to note the tragedy at the UN General Assembly, where Serbia stood before the world, agreed to be violated and humiliated, and then spat on its allies while praising its violators.

Earlier in the day, RT interviewed Diana Johnstone (author of the excellent "Fools' Crusade"). I joined the late night newscast from the Washington DC studio, sometime after 2 AM Moscow time, and offered a few observations as well, along the lines of what I said yesterday.

To recap: the proposed resolution was not a compromise, but a capitulation. The original resolution, not very strong to begin with, was completely gutted by the EUrocrats. This was done with the full knowledge and approval of President Tadic and Foreign Minister Jeremic, who then openly lied to their people that the new resolution would not recognize the "Independent state of Kosova" in any form. In actuality, the revised resolution is an implicit recognition of the occupied and detached province, a public renunciation of international law, and a blanket endorsement of Empire's actions - past, present and future.

In exchange for this absolute abdication of sovereignty, Serbia got - nothing. Only a vague promise of possibly, some day, maybe, eventually being considered for possible annexation by the EU. This would happen whenever the EU decides, and to whatever is left of Serbia at that point; which may not be much.

Simply put, the EU has chosen to pursue the exact same Balkans policy as Austria-Hungary exactly a century ago. The Royal and Imperial court in Vienna saw Serbia as a direct threat to the Empire's existence, as its independence emboldened the disenfranchised Slavic majority. As a solution, Austria-Hungary envisioned not a weak Serbia, but no Serbia at all. A hundred years and two world wars - in which that concept seemed to have been defeated - later, Serbien muss sterben once again.

Such a policy would be ghastly enough by itself. But it is both enabled and embraced by the craven and corrupt quisling government in Belgrade, willing to sacrifice the entire country to stay in office (and keep to plunder accumulated while therein). At this moment, nowhere in the world is there so much treason per square meter per second. Meanwhile, the government, the media and the so-called civil society are force-feeding the Serbs a diet of lies, apathy and despair. Many suffer from cognitive dissonance as a result. But while there may not be limits to malice and stupidity, there are limits to gullibility and wishful thinking. In any other place in the world, the camel's back would have broken by now; perhaps this could be the proverbial last straw for Serbia.

God only knows what happens next.

EUssisted Suicide

If there are people in Serbia still who wondered whether some residual patriotism remained in their government officials, as of today there should be none.

Serbia's proposed resolution before the UN General Assembly, scheduled to be presented tomorrow, was at the last moment sent for "consultations" with the government's "friends and allies" in Brussels. The result was entirely predictable. Of the original resolution, which one Serbian commentator described as "a possibility for the UN to shine for at least a moment and protest an injustice in a world without justice" and an undertaking "worthy of our ancestors and covenants", nothing remains.

Quite the opposite, in fact. Instead of even a verbal protest against the obvious sophistry and hypocrisy of the ICJ verdict, the new proposal calls for the UN to "take note" of the verdict and acknowledge its "careful consideration" of the question asked!

As a reminder, the ICJ never actually did answer Serbia's question, asked through the General Assembly back in 2008. The question was whether the declaration of independence by the PISG (an Albanian-run provisional government) was legal. Under the current international law, including the UNSCR 1244 that governed the status of the occupied Serbian province, there was no way that answer could have been "yes." So the ICJ resorted to redefining reality, by declaring that the Albanians who issued the declaration weren't really the provisional government (even though they clearly were) but "direct representatives of the Kosovo people" (sic)!

And now Serbia itself is proposing to the UN General Assembly to "take into account" this malicious misinterpretation as fact!

But wait - there's more! In addition to thanking the ICJ for its "careful consideration" of the question (!), Serbia does not ask the General Assembly to condemn the occupation and separation of Kosovo, and the sponsors thereof. Quite the contrary, it thanks them!

Section F of the proposed resolution reads as follows:

f) Welcomes the readiness of the EU to facilitate the process of dialogue between the parties. The process of dialogue by itself would be a factor of peace, security and stability in the region. This dialogue would be aimed to promote cooperation, make progress on the path towards the EU and improve people's lives.”

(source: Serbian government; emphasis added)

So, this "dialogue" facilitated by the EU - 22 of whose members already recognize the "Independent State of Kosova" (ISK), and whose EULEX mission has already usurped the UN presence in the occupied province, with Serbian quislings' approval - would by itself be good, regardless of what it achieves. It isn't hard to imagine what that "dialogue" would look like: Brussels says "Jump," Belgrade replies "How high?" Just as it happened with this resolution. And if the hypothetical dialogue ever involved the usurper regime in Pristina, they would be considered equal to Belgrade, and the only things on the table would be cooperation, path to the EU, and the phantom better life. What about the status of Kosovo? There is nothing about it in the resolution - explicitly.

Implicitly, however, the entire resolution - and Section F in particular - are nothing short of an outright recognition of the ISK. See for yourself: since the ICJ ruled that the declaration was not illegal, and Serbia itself is taking note of that decision, thanks them for all the deliberation, and asks the General Assembly to do the same; and since it doesn't even ask anything, but instead thanks the EU for its efforts to sponsor dialogue about cooperation and better life (but not status!) that is by itself good regardless of outcome, what do you get when you add that all up? An implicit recognition that the "Republic of Kosova" is, in fact, an independent state.

So much for President Tadic's claim that the proposed resolution "excludes recognition of Kosovo's independence."

If this proposal even makes it before the General Assembly, let alone gets adopted, it would be a tragedy for Serbia. Such an outcome would be an unprecedented capitulation - worse than the Kumanovo armistice in 1999, or the March 1941 treaty with Hitler, or the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum of 1914. It would also mean a crowning success in Empire's effort to commit a crime in full view of the world, and have the victim express gratitude for it.

By proposing this resolution, the Serbian government is renouncing not just a piece of territory, but Serbia's sovereignty, any claims to justice, and even the right to continued existence. This is nothing short of national suicide - assisted by its "friends" from the EU.

When, some day soon, Boris Tadic, Vuk Jeremic and all the other participants in their joint criminal enterprise find themselves facing judgment, this proposed resolution will be the crucial evidence that these people were traitors, crooks, liars and scoundrels. May God have mercy on their souls.

(Updated 9/10: The government of Serbia is so inept it uses dynamic links on its website, so the link to the text of the resolution was broken the very next day. It has been updated and should be functional.)

Remembering the Storm

(This article originally appeared on Antiwar.com, on August 5, 2005)

In the early morning hours of Aug. 4, 1995, on the heels of an incessant artillery and air bombardment, some 200,000 Croatian troops moved in to “liberate” Krajina, a stretch of mountains inhabited by Serbs who had rejected Croatia’s secession from Yugoslavia four years prior. Overrunning the token UN observation posts, the U.S.-trained Croatian army quickly overwhelmed localized Serb resistance. President Franjo Tudjman declared Aug. 5, the day Croat troops entered the Serb capital of Knin, a national holiday: “Homeland Thanksgiving Day.” By Aug. 7, the “Republic of Serb Krajina” was no longer in existence.

A grand celebration is scheduled for tomorrow in Knin. Prime Minister Ivo Sanader, the late Tudjman’s political heir, will no doubt give a rousing patriotic speech, glorifying Croatia’s “defenders from Serbian aggression.” Some mainstream media will report that the offensive resulted in civilian casualties, and that one high-ranking Croatian general, Ante Gotovina, is a fugitive from war crimes charges at the Hague Inquisition. And that will be the end of it. Dwelling on “Operation Storm” (Oluja) serves no purpose in the official narrative of the Balkans wars. Its victims are that narrative’s principal villains, so their suffering must be suppressed. The victors, on the other hand, are no longer useful to the Empire. “Storm” is something Washington would like to forget. Serbs and Croats don’t have that luxury.

Frustrated Dreams

The area of Krajina was for several centuries the borderland between the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires, a buffer zone that protected the inner Hapsburg lands from Turkish raids. It was populated largely by Orthodox Serbs, who had fled Ottoman persecution, and who became frontiersmen for the Hapsburgs in exchange for land and liberty. By the 19^th century, the Ottoman Turks were in retreat; the new danger to the Hapsburg Empire was Slavic nationalism. Vienna turned on its frontiersmen, encouraging conflict between the Orthodox Serbs and the Catholic Croats, who became its staunchest supporters. Vienna’s Serbophobia eventually led Austria-Hungary into a fatal conflict that destroyed much of European civilization.

It also nurtured the hatred that would explode in 1941 as the vicious Ustasha genocide. These homegrown Croatian Nazis, led by Ante Pavelic, set out to destroy the “race of slaves” (A. Starcevic) with ruthless abandon, but ran out of time. Still, by 1945 they had killed anywhere between half a million and 750,000 Serbs.

With the end of communism in 1990, Franjo Tudjman and his Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) brought a revival of Pavelic’s symbols and vocabulary. Some of the top supporters of the HDZ were Ustasha émigrés. Tudjman himself expressed relief that his wife was “neither Serb nor Jewish.” Tudjman’s constitutional reform redefined the republic as a nation-state of Croats, with Serbs as an ethnic minority. When Tudjman’s government declared independence from the Yugoslav federation in 1991, most Serbs saw 1941 all over again. This – and not some imaginary “aggression” from Serbia – was the root of their “rebellion,” and the genesis of the Krajina Republic. After several months of bitter fighting, marked by massacres, ambushes, and the most vitriolic propaganda, the UN brokered an armistice. The so-called Vance Plan envisioned four “protected areas,” with a Serb majority, whose eventual status would be resolved through negotiations.

Over the next three years, Tudjman’s government feverishly prepared for war, training its troops on the battlefields of Bosnia and staging quick, limited offensives at the strategic edges of UN-protected areas (most infamous being the Medak Pocket attack in 1993). Although enjoying political, diplomatic, and even military support from Vienna and Berlin since 1991, it was only when it got Washington’s support that Zagreb was ready – and able – to strike. “Retired” American officers, working for government contractor MPRI, claimed to teach Croat officers “democracy” and “human rights.” The events of May and August 1995 would demonstrate MPRI’s definitions of both.

Junkyard Dogs

"Dick: We ‘hired’ these guys to be our junkyard dogs because we were desperate. We need to try to ‘control’ them. But it is no time to get squeamish about things."
– To End a War, Chapter 6

US envoy to the Balkans Richard Holbrooke thus described the note slipped to him by Ambassador Robert Frasure, during a meeting with Croatian officials in 1995. Holbrooke’s own account of how the U.S. officially condemned Croatian attacks even as he was meeting with Tudjman and telling him which cities to take, suggests he was hardly “squeamish” about using Croats to fight what he – and hundreds of advocacy journalists, lobbyists, and policymakers – had termed “Serb aggression.”

On May 1, 1995, Croatian troops tested both their readiness and the UN’s will by staging a lightning strike at an exposed Serb enclave of Western Slavonia. The operation was code-named Bljesak – “flash,” or perhaps more appropriately, “Blitz.” The clear violation of the armistice went unpunished. The stage was set for Oluja.

According to Serb documentation, the three-day offensive in August 1995 resulted in the expulsion of 220,000 people. Some 1,943 people have been listed as missing/presumed dead, including 1199 civilians, 523 women, and 12 children. The death toll would have been greater had the Serbs not fled en masse before the advancing Croat tanks; all who stayed behind were killed. The Croats, and their American sponsors, were definitely not squeamish.

Ten years later, Krajina is still a wasteland, with “scattered ghost villages strewn with shell-scarred houses overgrown with ivy and tall grass” (Reuters). Only a tenth of some 400,000 Serbs who lived in Croatia before it seceded have returned, only to face bureaucratic abuse and frequent physical violence. Tudjman made Pavelic’s dream to rid Croatia of Serbs a reality. It seems everything is in the choice of allies.

Unpleasant Comparisons

After obliterating Krajina, the conquering Croatian army moved into western Bosnia, aiding the Izetbegovic government to crush a dissident faction led by Fikret Abdic and assisting in the major Muslim offensive that “coincided” with NATO’s massive bombing of Bosnian Serbs. But after the Dayton Agreement was signed and peace imposed on Bosnia, Empire’s junkyard dogs discovered the supply of Milk Bones had run out. They had served their purpose.

Today’s Croatia is frustrated that its ambitions to enter the EU and NATO hinge upon the capture of Ante Gotovina, a general involved in Oluja who is universally considered a war hero, but whom the Hague Inquisition accuses of war crimes. Some of the truth about atrocities against the Serbs is slowly coming to light, but interestingly enough, only after the prominent personalities accused have fallen out of political grace. The Zagreb leadership snaps back at any hint that Oluja might have been anything but just, right, and noble. When Serbian president Boris Tadic called it an “organized crime” in a statement Monday, President Mesic replied it could hardly compare to Serb crimes such as Srebrenica.

But by all means, let’s compare. In both cases, a UN “safe area” was targeted by the attack. In Srebrenica, the UN at least tried to protect Muslim civilians; in Krajina, it did no such thing. Serbs evacuated Muslim noncombatants from Srebrenica; Serbs who did not flee Krajina were killed. Yet Srebrenica is somehow “genocide,” while Oluja is a victory worth a national holiday?!

Another reason the Empire prefers to keep Oluja out of sight and out of mind is the push to establish an independent, Albanian-dominated Kosovo. If Croatia’s conquest of Krajina was legitimate, because Krajina’s existence violated its sacrosanct administrative borders, then why did Serbia not have the right to uphold its borders when it came to Kosovo? If obliterating the Serb population did not disqualify Croatia from keeping Krajina and Slavonia, how can the exodus of less than half of Kosovo’s Albanians disqualify Serbia from keeping Kosovo? If the Serbs, a constituent Yugoslav nation, did not have the right to ethnic self-determination in Krajina and Bosnia, how can the Kosovo Albanians (an ethnic minority) have one?

The “Abramowitz Doctrine”

This apparent paradox was “explained” by Morton Abramowitz, the eminence grise of U.S. foreign policy, in an interview last summer: “there is no entirely rational answer … you seek perfect reasoning, which does not correspond to reality on the ground.” Logic does not apply to the Empire, because it creates its own reality; where have we heard that before?

The “reality” Abramowitz and his like-minded policymakers have sought to establish, by force, has been one in which, whatever the circumstances, Serbs are in the wrong. Apologists for the Empire dismiss this observable, verifiable fact as a “conspiracy theory” and claim the Serbs have a “victim complex,” even as their entire Balkans “reality” rests on the claim that everyone else has been victimized by the Serbs.

What “perfect reasoning” is involved in recognizing the simple fact that the centuries-old Serb community in Krajina is practically extinct, and that the Serb community in Kosovo – from which most of their ancestors came – is facing the same prospect? Where the Nazis failed, the American Empire has succeeded. Is that really something to be thankful for?