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

The next step in fighting "color revolutions"

Ростислав Ищенко: Девять тезисов о войне, которую мы ведемhttps://t.co/mrxM8N0Fa3 pic.twitter.com/5YZOhK6sIU

— Русский новостной (@ZaGraniu) April 29, 2016

I'm highlighting one of nine points from a presentation by political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko (Ростислав Ищенко) at the Russian Defense Ministry's conference on security, April 27-28, on the topic of "color revolutions" (via The Saker, Russian original here). The readers of this blog will quickly understand why.

"This leads us to thesis eight. Color coup can be stopped neither by consolidation of the national elite (it would simply progress to the next scenario), nor by preparedness of its military to fight (it will eventually be exhausted), nor by effective work of the national media (they will be overwhelmed by the technological capabilities of the aggressor).

The preparedness of the victim-state to resist is a necessary, but not sufficient condition to block the mechanisms of the color coup.

Only the support of the legitimate authorities of the victim-country by another superpower able to confront the aggressor-country with equal force in any way with any means can stop color aggression."

This is obviously based on the Syrian example, as Ishchenko himself notes earlier in his presentation. Now that it's clear that Moscow is aware of the key factor in resisting regime change via "color revolution" in the attempt, I'm curious whether Russian policymakers also have plans for rolling back color revolutions that have already taken place, with catastrophic consequences.

Does the superpower have a role to play in that, too, or would the near-impossible task of curing themselves of the Imperial plague be entirely up to the victims?

That Serbian Election

Many questions still remain about the general elections held in Serbia on April 24, mostly whether one nationalist and two liberal-quisling groups will make it past the 5% threshold and thus qualify for seats in Skupština, the Serbian legislature.

Here's why none of that matters: either way, the Progressive Party and its leader, Aleksandar Vučić, will remain in charge - of executing every order and whim of the Empire, that is.

Aleksandar Vucic has won another four-year term as prime minister of Serbia https://t.co/c51ALMW9aJ pic.twitter.com/Z0HoqOKMRI

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) April 25, 2016

(The Economist, official magazine of the Trans-Atlantic Empire, approves)

Elections in a satrapy such as Serbia (or Ukraine, for that matter) are meaningless by default. They don't decide anything. Their sole purpose is to paint a veneer of legitimacy on one quisling or another. Time and again, ever since the 2000 coup, whoever the Serbians voted for they got a quisling government either blessed or directly appointed by the Empire. Time and again, such governments would obey not the will of their electorate, but the orders of their overseas masters. So what difference does it make who gets to be the quisling-in-chief?

So, while the pundits debate who got a vote or two more or less than 5%, I'm going to ignore the entire sordid spectacle and pray instead for the "resurrection of the dead and life of the world to come" at Pascha tomorrow.

For God is just, and His justice cannot sleep forever.

To save the Republic, kill the Empire

“My foreign policy will always put the interests of Ukrainian people and Ukrainian security above all else. That will be the foundation of every single decision I will make. ‘Ukraine first’ will be the major and overriding theme of my administration."

Imagine for a moment that these words were spoken by one of the Empire's puppets in Kiev, installed after the February 2014 coup. Though official Washington lavishes praise on its Ukrainian stooges no matter how appalling their behavior, the outpouring of support for this kind of a statement would be deafening.

Except it wasn't a Poroshenko, Avakov, Saakashvili or "Yahtzee" who said it, but one Donald J. Trump - using "America" and "American," of course, in the quote I altered above. And because of that, the entire Washington establishment had a point-and-shriek episode.

Establishment figures left and right snarked about the speech being terrible, inconsistent, and awful. None other than Zbigniew Brzezinski, the Sith Lord of the Democratic foreign policy cult, called it a political suicide. This, mind you, is the same man who came up with the brilliant idea of using "riled-up Moslems" as a weapon against the Soviet Union in the 1970s, unleashing the modern-day jihad on the world, and remains unrepentant about it. It may have delivered his beloved Poland into NATO vassalage, but it sure hasn't helped the average citizen of the United States any.

Others guffawed at Trump's pronunciation of "Tanzania," or claimed that advocating unpredictability and consistent principles was somehow absurd. If there is an inconsistency in Trump's speech, though, it's in his simultaneous denunciation of Iran and ISIS - even though Iran is one of the few countries actually opposing the firestorm of jihad in the Middle East, sparked by Zbigniew and fanned by Bush the Lesser's 2003 invasion of Iraq and Obama's fumbling "regime change" policy in Syria (both of which Trump is on the record for opposing).

I'm neither a registered Republican, nor a Trump supporter. I did not vote for him in my state's primary, either. But as I listened to his speech today - having spent the better part of 15 years poring over US foreign policy and writing hundreds of articles about it at Antiwar.com, here and elsewhere - it struck me that Trump has just made an argument that the Trans-Atlantic Empire has eaten the American Republic alive, and that if there is any hope of saving the latter, the former must be relegated to the dustbin of history.

Hillary Clinton sneers that one can't "make America great again" because it's already great. Easy for her to say, when she's basically running not for a chief executive of a constitutional republic, but the Kaiserin of the Greater Atlantic Reich. Meanwhile, the current Kaiser thinks it perfectly acceptable to visit London and lecture the British on how sovereignty shouldn't really be a thing.

Back in 2012, Ron Paul made the argument against the Empire. He was muzzled by the media, and his supporters were shouted down at the GOP convention, with the establishment creating a special rule to favor its preferred front-runner. Who, by the by, ended up getting destroyed by Obama that November. The establishment has tried every trick in their playbook to do the same with Trump - and failed every step of the way.

Trump has already turned several of the establishment's sacred cows - open borders, free trade, and Muslims come to mind - into so much kebab. Today he challenged the Empire itself, and promised the chattering classes who spill other people's blood and money with reckless abandon that he will throw them out with the dishwater come November. Their snark and smug posturing is hiding what must be panic at the prospect that he may actually win the election six months from now, and put into practice what he just preached.

I don't know if he's genuine, if he'll be able to resist the lure of power and the insidious whispers of the dark side to join the Empire and rule the world - or at least pretend that's the case, as the current lot does - but I've spent enough time gazing into the abyss of trans-Atlantic (and -Pacific) imperialism to know that Trump's speech today made a powerful point. I don't know if that will be enough to save the American Republic, to be honest. But it will be interesting to watch him try, and the imperialists squirm.

(The usual disclaimer about this being strictly my personal opinion and in no way related to my employer or my work applies; ignore it at your own peril.)

Karadzic and the dogs of war

In July 2008, after the arrest of Radovan Karadzic, Brendan O'Neill wrote an article that provided the crucial missing piece to the puzzle of how the Atlantic Empire has interacted with jihadists: Bosnia.

Pointing out that America armed and trained a military machine that was using Mujahideen as "shock troops," O'Neill reminds us of the striking parallels between the positions of Al-Qaeda militants and "liberal hawks in newsrooms across America and Europe":

Indeed, many of the Mujahideen who fought in Bosnia were inspired to do so by simplistic media coverage of the sort written by liberal-left journalists in the West. Many of the testimonies made by Arab fighters reveal that they first ventured to Bosnia because they "saw US media reports on rape camps" or read about the "genocide" in Bosnia and the "camps used by Serb soldiers systematically to rape thousands of Muslim women." Holy warriors seem to have been moved to action by some of the more shrill and unsubstantiated coverage of the war in Bosnia.

Both Western liberals and the Mujahideen ventured to Bosnia in response to their own crises of legitimacy, and in search of a sense of purpose, O'Neill argues, citing a number of sources. The Serbs provided a convenient enemy to project all their pent-up frustration, anger and hatred onto.

"For both Western liberals (governments and thinkers) and the Mujahideen, Bosnia became a refuge from these harsh realities, a place where they could fight fantasy battles against evil to make themselves feel dynamic and heroic instead of having to face up to the real problems in their movements and in politics more broadly."

Both Western imperialists and Islamic jihadists became "super-moralized, militarized, internationalized" in Bosnia, as a result of their struggle against the "evil Serbs." Today, the Empire and its allies accuse Russia of "revisionism" but it was they who chose to trample international law and the existing order by inventing "humanitarian" wars and "responsibility to protect," reviving "coalitions of the willing" 200 years after Napoleon.

As for the Islamists, they went internationalist, spreading the message of jihad everywhere - fueled by Washington's wars, no less - from Kenya and Tanzania embassy bombings to 9/11 and Brussels just this week.

O'Neill says Karadzic has much to answer for. I'll accept that. But he also says that the demonization of Karadzic and the Serbs, and the resulting "rehabilitation of both Western militarism and Islamic radicalism, has also done a great deal to destabilize international affairs and destroy entire communities." Just ask the Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Libyans, Egyptians, Kurds...

Which brings me to a point I've been making here for years. I find it utterly disgusting that the same people who howl in outrage over the "genocide in Srebrenica" never seem to realize - or perhaps don't care - that "Srebrenica" has been used to justify the deaths of a million Muslims, and maybe more, in Western "humanitarian interventions" since 9/11. 

The Karadzic "conviction"

The more astute readers of this blog will remember that I have written and spoken against the so-called Hague Tribunal for years. It is a pretend-court that simply has zero legitimacy to begin with - regardless of its actions - since the UN Security Council cannot delegate (judicial) powers it does not possess. So, it is not meritorious to pass judgment on anyone.

Officials of the Atlantic Empire have outright bragged about creating the Tribunal for their own ends, writing its laws and procedures to ensure the desired outcome. "Sentence first - verdict afterwards," as Lewis Carroll so memorably put it.

The sham court was created to delegitimize the Serbs' right to exist, while legitimizing the aggression of the Empire and its clients. Pure and simple. Even if it were not founded on lies, even if its practices weren't sketchy and sleazy, its own presiding "judge" betrayed the truth behind the curtain when he treated the Big Lie as fact in pursuit of his mission.

Today, that "court" declared Radovan Karadžić guilty of "genocide" they had to rape reality to define as such - and on the anniversary of the NATO attack on Serbia, no less. It is no accident; the sham court has shown before that it chooses its timing with great precision.

Regardless of what he did, or did not do, they had to convict him. That was their mission from the Empire, their entire raison d'etre. But if you really want to know why, read Julia Gorin's excellent breakdown here.

All I have to say is that, if they think their dominion over this world is eternal and unquestionable... they clearly haven't been paying attention. 

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). 

Libya, 5 years later

It's been five years since the Atlantic Empire "liberated" Libya - turning the once prosperous North African nation into a jihadist hellhole. The very same governments that conspired to overthrow the regime of Col. Gadhafi in 2011 now bemoan that Libya is becoming a sanctuary for Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists.

Oh? You mean the Western "estrogen-driven paternalism on steroids" (as my friend Ilana Mercer so aptly described it) didn't result in a liberal-democratic republic based on diversity and human rights? I'm shocked.

Back in September 2011, when the Empire was basking in its "victory" in Libya, I went on CrossTalk to argue that the intervention was wrong on principle. The relevant passage is about 14 minutes in:

"This is no way to run the world. You can’t run a dog-catching operation like this without it backfiring... What we saw happening in Libya was basically the entire circle of Balkans interventions accelerated to hyperspeed – within weeks instead of years – and you ran through the whole gamut of excuses, from refugees to mistreatment of minorities to this and that and the other, to install in power a shadowy movement that we don’t really know much about – except that it’s composed of Al-Qaeda veterans (which isn’t supposed to bother us at all). But that’s sort of not the point. It doesn’t matter how this ended. The outcome of it is frankly irrelevant. It’s the principle of the thing."

A death and a reminder

Zdravko Tolimir (1948-2016) died in The Hague today, of causes unknown.

Reports of his passing will without exception note he was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity. None will say the verdict was passed in a kangaroo court, established by the Atlantic Empire to conjure a fig leaf of legitimacy for its conquest of Yugoslavia.

Everyone will quote the pious proclamations of presiding "judge" Theodor Meron, who said Tolimir "was aware of the genocidal intent of the Bosnian Serb leadership and was responsible for genocide.”

Likewise, everyone will bring up Srebrenica, and the supposed Serb massacre of Muslim "men and boys" (always that phrase), not missing to call it the worst atrocity in Europe since World War Two.

Just about no one - in the West, anyway - will mention Prisca Matimba Nyambe, a Zambian judge appalled by her colleagues' abominable standards of evidence. Buried behind 534 pages of farcical "fact" findings, Nyambe's brave dissent calls out the other "judges" for failing to prove even a single charge in the indictment.

“Without a single piece of evidence adduced during this trial of a written plan of a JCE to Murder, or any evidence of direct statements showing such an intent, the Majority relies upon circumstantial evidence to draw conclusions of a culpable mens rea,” Nyambe wrote. 

By JCE she meant the notorious doctrine of "Joint Criminal Enterprise," concocted by an American lawyer for the specific purpose of securing convictions of people the Tribunal sought to convict on the basis of who they were, rather than what they may or may not have done.

The entirety of the Tribunal's evidence against Tolimir, Nyambe wrote, was circumstantial and based on presumptions and suppositions of the other judges.

"On the totality of the evidence on the record, I am wholly unpersuaded that the Accused is
guilty of any of the charges alleged in the Indictment," she concluded.

Not only was Tolimir not guilty, but the prosecutors - and the judges that sided with them - failed to prove that many of the things in the indictment actually happened, Nyambe argued. For heaven's sake, this is the court that decided the killing of three people represented "genocide."

Not seven months after convicting Tolimir, Meron cited as credible third-hand hearsay "evidence" accusing the Bosnian Serbs of a plot that was actually a WW2 Nazi Croatia plan targeting the Serbs themselves. So much about his credibility, or that of the actual joint criminal enterprise that is the ICTY.

I have little doubt the kangaroo court will sink to even lower depths before its fell purpose is served. Until then, however, Zdravko Tolimir will remain a prime example of what Empire's "truth" and "justice" really look like.

Christ is born!

"And may we not be afraid of the difficulties that we inevitably encounter, and may none of us be broken by the trials that befall our lot, for God is with us! God is with us, and from our life fear disappears. God is with us, and we find peace of soul and joy. God is with us, and with steadfast hope in him we shall accomplish our earthly journey."

[...]

"On this light-bearing night of the Nativity and the following holy days let us praise and exalt our Saviour and Lord who, in his great love for humanity, deigned to come into the world. Like the biblical Magi, let us offer to the divine Infant Christ our gifts: instead of gold – our sincere love; instead of frankincense – our ardent prayer; instead of myrrh – a kind and caring disposition towards our neighbours and those afar."

- from the Christmas message of His Holiness Kiril, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus

2015: The year everything changed

Let's start with the obvious and personal: this is the year I found my home as a writer at RT. That has meant more work behind the cameras, rather than in front - though I've had a few of those as well - and a lot more focus on US and world stories, rather than my usual Balkans beat. Between that and the disclaimer on top of the page, that accounts for the relative scarcity of blog posts.

The Balkans has been the sole exception to the year of change. Though the peace in Bosnia has formally turned 20, the quiet, dirty war continues apace, with no end in sight. In Serbia, the quisling regime has continued the policy absolute surrender to the Empire, however gradual (see "frog, boiling of"). Everywhere else, NATO and the Atlantic Empire have reign supreme.

Until the end of September in Syria.

Just days before, Vladimir Putin thundered from the UN General Assembly dais, asking the arrogant Imperials, "Do you even realize what you have done?" The wreckage of Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen testified to the "great success" of Empire's jihad against secular Arab regimes and for Saudi and Turkish interests across the Middle East and Europe.

Then, in just a month, a handful of Russian bombers did more to fight the so-called "Islamic State" than the US-led "coalition" has done in a year. Shamed into actually fighting the terrorists they were hoping to use as proxies, the Imperials still dragged their feet - and had no trouble claiming credit for Russian victories, whether in cutting off the "living pipeline" across the Syrian desert or claiming they were the ones "bringing peace and security to Syria."

The desperate Empire even tried shooting down Russian planes, with Sultan Erdogan clutching NATO's skirts immediately afterwards. The Russian response was polite but firm: air defense systems that have kept the "coalition" mostly out of the Syrian sky, and trade embargoes that have hurt Erdogan's wallet far worse than his pride. If anyone in the Middle East will "have to go," it will be that wannabe-Suleiman, not the Lion of Damascus.

Let it also be said that Erdogan was the one that launched the Great Migration in late 2015, using the trek field-tested by Kosovo Albanians in February. After Angela Merkel of Germany singlehandedly revoked the EU's visa policy, the human wave was all too happy to set off from the squalid Turkish camps towards the promise of German and Scandinavian welfare. The Hungarian fence only diverted them a bit, and temporarily. Along with the Syrians came others, mostly from places where Empire's endless benevolence had established progressive liberal democracy (meaning, feudal oligarchy) through "humanitarian bombing."

With anyone who merely objected to the mass influx was demonized as a bigot, hateful hater, xenophobe or Nazi, the Europeans - and some Americans, too - began to wonder whether they were allowed to have their own countries at all. And so the seeds of the rebellion against the transnational oligarchy were sown, and began to sprout.

Regardless how any of these processes unfold, things will never be the same as they were just a year ago. For any of us.

(again, see the Disclaimer at the top right)

Peace In Our Time

Some may say the Dayton Agreement was made to be broken; that it was a temporary patch on the gaping wound that was Bosnia, scheduled to hold it together past a US election cycle and then - back to the way it was. Others say it was meant to "evolve" into something else, some sort of postmodern, omnipotent managerial state the likes of which we're seeing implode all across the West today.

Yet somehow, it held. The Guns of April fell silent, the armies were disbanded, and even the "peacekeepers" that still drive around are a bare handful, there just for show and a hefty per diem. The "High Representatives" proved to be a joke, tin-pot viceroys attempting to play God - and failing. Forces that tore Bosnia apart before it even came into existence have continued to seethe, and the underlying problem shows no sign of being solved anytime soon. But the armistice has held for twenty years now. That's something.

Five years ago, I wrote a personal account of those days. This time, I made it a history lesson. Lest we forget.

The Dayton miracle: Bosnia armistice, still alive at 20 (Op-Edge) https://t.co/nlH7ykhriz pic.twitter.com/ZVEHSOaCkQ

— RT (@RT_com) November 21, 2015

I meant to post this earlier this week, but the War In Our Time got in the way. Sometimes I think it's the extension of the same one I went through, 20 years ago. We'll see what happens. I figured I'd post it today, though, on the day Americans celebrate as Thanksgiving, in honor of something I am thankful for.

Here's to us, the living.

The Essential Saker - now available on Amazon

One of my long-time readers, the Saker soared into prominence last year following the Maidan putsch in Kiev, cutting through the smokescreen of lies about Russia and the Ukraine with his incisive analysis. He has not always been right, but he has been consistently straightforward about his opinions, and that's a rare quality in a blogger these days.

He has also accomplished something that I have only thought about doing, and collected his most important articles into a book. "The essential Saker: From the trenches of the emerging multipolar world" came out yesterday, on Kindle and in hardcover. I would go so far as to describe it as an essential resource for understanding the conflict between the Atlantic Empire and Russia.

I'll strive to post a proper review once I've read through the 600+ pages of the volume, but I confess to skipping ahead to the latter chapters, when he puts the events of Yugoslavia's demise into the context of Empire's war on dissenters. If the Saker's explanation of how the Empire has used Islam and Muslims as a weapon (always to their detriment) is the only thing you take away from the book, it will make a big difference in your understanding of the world today. 

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.

Remember Ukraine?

In the hubbub about the Syrian crisis - on which I will post some thoughts in the next couple of days - the world seems to have forgotten about the fiasco that is Ukraine.

Fortunately, CrossTalk host Peter Lavelle has not - and he was joined by Mark Sleboda, Alexander Mercouris and yours truly to discuss what is going on in Washington's dysfunctional satrapy on the Dnieper.

I'm not sure either that the intent of Minsk was to buy time until the Kiev regime inevitably self-destructed, but that sure seems to be how it worked out in practice. Any sort of progress towards a real solution can only be made after the political spectrum in the US puppet state of Ukropia stops being limited to fifty flavors of fascist.

That may seem like a long ways away... but winter is coming.

CrossTalk: Kiev's cul-de-sac

In which Patrick Smith, Marcus Papadopoulos, and yours truly discuss how Congress admitted there were Nazis in Ukraine, whether the US is seeking a way to back out of Banderastan, and if Washington's behavior is an expression of strength, or desperation.

Big thanks to Marcus for pointing out that the West destroyed its own world order by murdering Yugoslavia, a crime it has ever since pretended never happened.

Air date: June 24, 2015

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)

Macedonia - what gives?

Roughly three weeks ago, protests began against the government in Macedonia (FYROM). The folks protesting said the government was "corrupt" and spying on them. Big surprise, I figured - like the rest of the Balkans, the regime in Skopje is run by a vassal of Washington, so what else were they expecting?

But then these opposition activists ignored the Albanian terrorists - who came in from Kosovo and tried to take over a village, then seemed surprised when Macedonian police and military actually dared attack and kill a bunch of them (who were later given heroes' funerals in "Kosovo", to wit).

In fact, these protesters claimed the government had staged the whole thing as a way to defeat the protests! So I looked into the whole thing a bit, and found an all too familiar pattern. Soros, NED, "human rights activists," an opposition politician polling terribly but crusading against "corruption," the fact that the government favored a Russian-backed pipeline (can't have that, oh no)...

Then there was the hashtag. My knowledge of the language spoken in Macedonia (FYROM) is a little rusty, but I thought it weird that the hashtag they were using was "#протестирам" (or even "#protestiram" for reasons unfathomable; unlike the occupied Serbs, I was not aware that even in the wildest self-hating fantasies the Macedonians would give up on Cyrillic).

I looked up the Macedonian phrases for "I protest" (протестираат) and "we protest" (протестираме). Neither matched.  So what does the word actually mean in Macedonian? Is it even Macedonian at all?

To me, it sounds like a foreign consultant picked something that maybe sounded Macedonian-ish, but was based on their knowledge of "Croatian" (a dialect most Westerners who bother studying the region tend to learn). Except they goofed, since in actual modern Croatian, the word for protest is "prosvjed," so the proper form would have been "prosvjedujem/prosvjedujemo."

I can't be sure, though. I was ready to reach out and ask, to borrow a phrase, "I'm confused. Can somebody help me?"

But then today, I saw this from a "media fact-checker" backing the protesters.

Defending #Mariupol is admirable/breathtaking task. Task legends are made of. My support for #Ukraine. #Macedonia http://t.co/Ouql9hFA4K

— Vladimir Petreski (@VPetreski) June 7, 2015

Lavishes praise on the Banderite regime in Ukraine, cites Interpreter as the authoritative source,  in another tweet praises Soros for "helping" Macedonia - and oh, funded by USAID. Greeaat.

Let's say I'm much less confused now.

(see Disclaimer at top right of page)

Challenging the Enduring Fallacies

Croats and Muslims called to join the
Waffen-SS (WW2 recruiting poster)

A book by Croatian-American economist Jozo Tomasevic, tellingly titled "War and Revolution," has served as the authoritative work of "history" on the matters of Yugoslavia in WW2. Published in 1975, it remains the foundation for numerous pseudo-histories written since, with the aim of somehow proving that it was really the "greaterserbian bourgeois oppressors" (actual Communist phrase) to blame for wartime slaughter and the interwar "oppression" of other groups.

In present-day Serbia, the cult of Serbian collective guilt has dominated politics, culture and academia since the 2000 astroturf revolution. That explains why few, if any, challenges to Tomasevic's myth have been put forth. Until now.

Miloslav Samardzic, another economist who turned historian, has researched archives, interviewed eyewitnesses, and written over a dozen books about WW2, focusing on the royalist resistance (aka the "Chetniks"). He is also one of the authors of a documentary series about Yugoslavia in WW2, mentioned here before - which will be shown in Washington DC on April 19 (see here for more information).

Samardzic has recently written a two-part essay addressing the numerous problems in Tomasevic's work, too lengthy to reproduce here. I do, however, commend them to the attention of anyone interested in WW2 history of Yugoslavia:

- “Chetniks” by Jozo Tomasevich: The Fallacy that Endures (Part 1)
- “Chetniks” by Jozo Tomasevich: The Fallacy that Endures (Part 2)

If it were just the Communists distorting the history of the war, to justify their takeover in 1945, that would be one thing. Quite another is to see Communist-invented history championed (example) by heirs of Nazi collaborators in present-day Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia. Baffling as that might appear at first, once you realize that the common thread of these "histories" is the shared hatred of Serbs, things will begin to click into place.