RT and the Media War

I seem to have picked up the flu, so even reading is difficult, and writing doubly so. But I did want to weigh in on the whole RT non-issue.

As you may have heard, RT American anchor Liz Wahl quit, live on air, on Tuesday. A day prior, her colleague Abby Martin - anchor of the popular investigative show "Breaking the Set" - had some harsh words for the Russian government. The Western legacy media immediately swarmed like sharks smelling blood. Proof that RT is just vile Putinist propaganda! they all exclaimed in unison. Having reached that conclusion independently and impartially, of course.

But RT's editor in chief, Margarita Simonyan, pointed out the other part of the story:

See for yourselves what they did to poor Abby. First, she openly voiced disagreement with Russia’s stance on air – and was virtually made an American hero. But then Abby reminded everyone how much she disagrees with America’s stance as well, adding she takes pride in working at RT, where she is free to express her views. Less than an hour passed before Abby had her name dragged through something I have difficulty finding a decent name for this late at night.

It is no secret that I've been a frequent guest on RT, in particular over the course of the Ukraine crisis, but also many times before. All my engagements with RT are pro bono. They are not paying me for being a guest. Neither is the Russian government. And nothing I say on the air is in any way different than what I've written here, or at Antiwar.com, or at the Reiss Institute, in English or in Serbian. I don't need to lie to bolster my case; truth is not only more powerful, but requires far less effort.

Back in March 2008, when a group of Serbs gathered in front of the White House to protest the shameful "independence" of occupied Kosovo-Metohija, several crews showed up to cover the event. Being the designated media contact for the group, I spoke with all of them. CNN used one sentence of mine, plucked out of context to support their Serbophobic story. A local network didn't even use the clip. But the RT crew heard me out.

Now, I know a thing or two about the media, though journalism is not my profession. Back in Bosnia, in 1995, I'd worked with damn near every news house that had a correspondent in Sarajevo. None of them thought a thing about spiking the truth if it didn't correspond with the narrative they were tasked with manufacturing. On the other hand, RT has never censored me, never asked me to walk back a statement, never spiked an interview.

And what of the integrity of their journalists? When I read Alexei Yaroshevsky's report from a place he was emotionally tied to, I couldn't help but relate to my own experience - one no American (save, perhaps, those from Detroit) can imagine: watching your entire world torn to shreds before your very eyes. If fate is particularly cruel, you'll live through the torment, maimed and broken, and be condemned to living in the ruins. Oh yeah. I can relate.

But I'm not asking you to trust my feelings. I am not even asking you to trust my logic. Those who have made up their minds about Russia being evil, and RT being propaganda - an opinion helpfully prepackaged for them by the mainstream media octopus, natch - won't be swayed by proof. However, my conscience demands that I declare my belief - based on nearly two decades of observing the media - that RT is a hell of a lot more independent and objective than any supposedly "independent and objective" outfit that answers to the State Department, Langley, Whitehall, or corporate boardrooms somewhere.

Make of that what you will.

False Flag in Kiev

Remember those "Yanukovich" snipers that - suddenly, inexplicably, following months of appeasement and a capitulation to the Empire-backed opposition - supposedly opened fire on the "peaceful protesters", thus providing a pretext for the Maydanists to violently overthrow the government in Kiev?

According to Estonia's FM Urmas Paet, who recently came back from a fact-finding mission in Kiev, the "civil society" representatives he met with have said "all the evidence shows" the snipers who shot Berkut officers and demonstrators were one and the same.

This revelation comes from a phone conversation Paet had with EU ForPolCom Catherine Ashton, which RT says was "reportedly uploaded to the web by officers of Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) loyal to ousted President Viktor Yanukovich who hacked Paet’s and Ashton’s phones."

Here is Paet:

“And second, what was quite disturbing, this same Olga told as well that all the evidence shows that the people who were killed by snipers from both sides, among policemen and then people from the streets, that they were the same snipers killing people from both sides.”

You can listen to the conversation yourself; the part above is around the 8:20 mark.

Now, add that this that a violent "surge" in the protest was announced by EU commissar Jelko Kacin two weeks prior, and that Western officials have declared in advance they would pin any deaths on the government, and you get a pretty clear picture of cui bono.

Unless you're a fan of triple-blind conspiracy theories, like Anne (Sikorski) Applebaum.

The Crimean Crucible

RT's CrossTalk is a show noted for vigorous debate. I've been a guest several times over the past few years, more often as the minority opinion than not.

Yesterday, I taped a special edition of the show, where the guests (in addition to yours truly, Mark Sleboda and Alexander Mercouris were tuning in from Moscow and London, respectively) and the moderator weren't arguing with each other, but with the absolute madness of warmongering mendacity in the rest of the English-language media (see here for a good analysis of some examples).

The only reason we were commenting on John Kerry's inane "19th century" quip (he must have been thinking of the Crimean War) instead of the remark that ought to accompany the dictionary entry for "hypocrisy" is that we were recording the show as he was saying this:

“You just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests.”

That's right, one shouldn't. So, Mr. Kerry, why has your country invaded Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya on phony pretexts? And if funding "color revolutionaries" and hand-picking new Prime Ministers in intercepted phone calls isn't meddling in other countries' internal affairs and violating their sovereignty, then pray tell what is? That, in fact, is the point Vladimir Putin has been making for years.

Invade the world; invite the world; break the law and lie about it; ally with Nazis - you name it, the Imperial government has done it. Are we still talking about rational actors, or the lunatics running the asylum?

Watch CrossTalk here. 

No Idle Comparison

It is generally a good thing to be mindful of Godwin's Law in political discussion, though I haven't noticed it stopping many people of describing those they disagree with as "fascist" or "racist" even if they stop short of Nazi (without even knowing what any those words mean). But what happens in instances where one is dealing with, well, actual Nazis? People parading in SS uniforms, giving Nazi salutes, using Nazi language, and generally bring back the "glory days" of the "thousand-year Reich" (actual duration: 12 years)?

Yesterday, my friend Nikola Tanasic tweeted this cartoon:

self-explanatory

with the following comment: "The EU is showing once again where it got the notion of the 'great European family of nations'."

He is referring to a German propaganda poster from WW2, describing "What will happen once National-Socialism triumphs". It was featured in a 2002 study, "German Propaganda Posters in Serbia, 1941-1944" (Немачки ратни плакат у Србији, 1941-44) by historian Kosta Nikolic. Here is a low-resolution picture of the poster in question:

If you read Serbian, you can take a look at a slightly higher-resolution picture here, in the scanned version of the book (see page 102). There are other posters with similar rhetoric - on pages 41 and 46, respectively.

Here is the translation of the text on the right, extolling the Nazi new world:

The Serbian people will become a member of the great European family. Serbia will no longer be the petty change, to be used in bargains between world powers. There will be no fear of future wars, and the people will devote themselves to their own and general well-being, supported by the united Europe. Labor will become the only true value. Spiritual heritage, faith, family, all the cultural heritage and private property - the real engine of prosperity - will be protected and secured. A new, better life will begin. In the blood of Europe's finest sons, a new era will dawn for Serbia as well - an era of peace and prosperity for the people.

Lest one be tempted to nod along with some of these arguments, remember that as they were preaching this, the Germans were sponsoring a genocide of Serbs in "Independent State of Croatia," and executing 100 Serb civilian hostages for every one of their soldiers killed (and 50 for every wounded) in battles against the Serb freedom fighters. 

Is it surprising that the EU would use Nazi propaganda imagery and phrases? It really shouldn't be.

New Look, Same Falcon

Last November, on Falcon's blogiversary, I noted there might be some changes to the look of the blog. Those changes have mostly been minor and barely noticeable, until today, when the kind folks at Грамата design sent me the finalized visual identity package.

They also did a full visual redesign of Falcon's sister site, Сиви Соко.

Here is a banner, for those wishing to share:

New banner

Onward we go. Can't stop the signal. Keep flying.

Jatras on Ukraine

A short blog today, to recommend yesterday's appearance of James Jatras on Ancient Faith Radio. Both laymen and experts will find it of value.

You can listen to, and download, the podcast here.

Woefully Unfit, Indeed

Reuters "reports" on the crisis in Bosnia today, including this bit of editorial guidance:

It [the Dayton peace agreement] has created a highly-decentralized and dysfunctional system of power-sharing woefully unfit to steer Bosnia through economic transition or the process of integration with the European Union, to many their best hope of prosperity.

Ignore for the moment that the riots in (part of) Bosnia just coincidentally flared up during the lull in the Ukrainian drama, and petered out just in time for the predicted coup of "Maydanist" stooges this past weekend. For that matter, ignore the incongruity of EU being the "best hope of prosperity" for the unnamed "many"; to which the best response would be to list countries improved by their EU "integration": Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovenia... should I go on?

(photo: Antonio Bronic/Reuters)

No, I'd like to draw your attention to the "woefully unfit" language of the paragraph, implying - falsely - that the Dayton Accords are to blame for the malfunctioning of Bosnia as a whole, rather than - factually - that the problem lies in the corruption, bad faith and lack of responsibility in one part of Bosnia, the Federation. If there is a "dysfunctional system", it is the Federation, and that arrangement has nothing to do with Dayton (read for yourself), and everything to do with a wartime alliance set up by Washington in 1994.

While changing the Constitution of Bosnia would literally require rewriting a portion (Annex IV) of the peace agreement - and once that is done, the whole thing might well unravel - amending the Federation's constitution is far less of a chore. But it would require responsibility, a modicum of good will, and - perhaps most importantly - for Muslims and Croats to stop blaming the Serbs for all their problems and put their house in order.

Far easier to shift blame and demand Imperial intervention, through staged riots, arson, and "activist journalism" of the kind quoted above. 

Jelko's Confession

MEP and EU's commissar for Serbia Jelko Kacin (of Slovenia) is prone to running his mouth, so I try to tune out his frequent Serbophobic rants. However, given the events of the past two days in Ukraine, something he said in an interview to a Sarajevo TV station on February 10 sounds like a threat, admission and portent all at once:

"If you follow the developments in the Ukraine, you will see in a week or two how we treat the irresponsible political elite."

Here is the full video of the interview. 

And we're supposed to believe the EU and the US are not meddling in Ukraine, and that the "peaceful protesters" have quite spontaneously decided to storm government buildings and open fire on the police... why exactly? 

At Face Value

What is one to make of Barack Obama's remarks yesterday, during a visit to Mexico, when he condemned violence against "peaceful protesters" - considering that the tele-operated mob in the Ukraine determined to violently overthrow the government may be many things, but is most assuredly not peaceful?

(via Facebook)

Everyone knows that violence against peaceful protesters is wrong. That is why Ukraine's President Yanukovich has offered a general amnesty, offered a leader of the protesters the post of Prime Minister, and tolerated the occupation of Kiev's central square and public buildings for three months. The problem are not peaceful protesters, but the violent ones.

So, either Mr. Obama's statement applies to an abstraction, or what he said was that Washington doesn't mind legitimate police action against violent protesters. After all, the U.S. government has repeatedly resorted to force, both at home and abroad, to make its point. Surely, a government committed to the rule of law, freedom and democracy, i.e. the equality of all before the law (pace the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights) would not hold other governments to a different standard than itself, right? And surely it would be grossly unfair, and possibly bigoted, to suggest that Barack Obama does not know exactly what he is talking about.

With that in mind, Mr. Obama's remarks yesterday represent a clearly implied approval of subduing the violent law-breakers by all legal means. To interpret them any other way would be to suggest Mr. Obama is either a hypocrite, duplicitous, or stupid. Surely, the American public and the media don't mean to do that.

Do they?

Seeds of Chaos

So, according to the U.S. government, ransacking and burning government buildings, looting armories and attacking law enforcement are all part of "peaceful protests" and fighting them in any way is "repression" and "completely unacceptable"...

...as long as it happens elsewhere, the perpetrators are U.S. puppets and the target is a government that does not take orders from Washington, that is.

This is what all that talk of "human rights and American values" really means.

Between the "regime change" and "color revolutions" and overt meddling in others' elections to the point of making them meaningless, the Empire has sown chaos. The reaping cannot be far behind.

Crosstalk: Nuland's Cookies

CrossTalk with Peter Lavelle, RT, February 12, 2014

Today's CrossTalk on RT features yours truly debating the "Nuland-Pyatt Conversation" with Alexander Mercouris and Taras Kuzio. The title is taken from a PR stunt last December, when Victoria Nuland was filmed passing out pastries to the "opposition" gathered on Kiev's Independence Square.

Kuzio's ramblings were particularly absurd. Conspiracy theories in presence of hard evidence? Blaming Yanukovich for dismantling the government, violating the Constitution and "abolishing democracy"? Behind all his talk of "democracy" and "constitutional reform" is an apologist for Imperial takeover.

The best part was when he accused me of sympathies for Socialists and Radicals, which he termed "war criminals" in order to make Banderists (who are, let's recall, nostalgic for actual Nazis) look good. To which I pointed out that not only was this untrue, but those very Socialists and Radicals (now re-branded "Progressives") are now the most willing executioners serving Washington and Brussels. This is what happens when the Empire tele-operates a country for 15 years. That's what is at stake in Ukraine.

As for the actual fallout of the leaked conversation, I'll quote Jacob Heilbrunn, writing last week in The National Interest:

"The louder the Obama administration declares that it isn't meddling in the affairs of the Ukraine, the more certain you can be that it is."

Glitch, Yahtzee and Tinybook

If the Snowden affair has proven anything, it's that the Imperial government is spying on everyone, everywhere, does not intend to stop, and is not even the least bit sorry. Today, however, they might be - just a bit - after a recording of a phone call between Victoria Nuland (Assistant Secretary of State) and Washington's Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt, was leaked to the public.

Kyiv Post coverage of the story, including the photo of Nuland giving out cookies to protesters (via AFP)

In the exchange (see video here, with Russian translation), Nuland and Pyatt discuss the "leaders" of the "opposition" movement. They indicate a preference for Arseniy Yatseniuk, the need to manage Vitaly Klitschko, and the problems Oleh Tiahnybok's stormtroopers are causing. Except they characteristically mangle the names, so Klitchko ends up called something like "Glitch," Yatseniuk is "Yahtzee" and Tiahnybok comes out as "Tinybook."

White House and State Department officials have tried to spin this as Russian villainy, but let it slip that Victoria Nuland had "apologized" for the remark made in the conversation - thus confirming the leaked recording was, in fact, authentic.

I was on RT again this evening, commenting on the situation. Honestly, if I were one of the Three Stooges of Ukraine's opposition (or is that opposition to Ukraine?), I would be furious at this sort of treatment from the Empire. Meanwhile, if the fishermen have any sort of trade union, it ought to demand an apology from the State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who tried to suggest Nuland had learned her salty language aboard a fishing boat.

If I may venture some predictions here: Psaki will be quietly reassigned to a broom closet somewhere, because someone needs to take the fall for this fiasco. Nuland won't be sacked, but her PR value will be greatly diminished for a while; no more handing out cookies in Maidan, for sure. The EU commissars may fume at the Americans' language, but they won't change their policies; Brussels needs Ukraine in order to fuel its welfare gulag, Americans need it to hurt Russia, and so long as those objectives overlap, they will stay united.

I think it's also unlikely the Three Stooges will sever their ties with the Empire. They know who butters their bread, and figure that being treated like a puppet is a small price to pay for access to wealth and power. Their choice - "all the kingdoms of this world, and the glory of them" - has already been made, and they are unlikely to change their minds now.

Ordinary Ukrainians, however, may stop and wonder whether things are really the way the Stooges and their Imperial backers have been presenting them, and whether "freedom" and "democracy" mean anything in a world where Imperial officials "glue" and "midwife" Ukrainian politics, then call it will of the people.

Oh, and wouldn't it be a pinnacle of irony if the leaked conversation wasn't recorded by the Russians - as the Washington spin doctors insist - but rather by the NSA? Hoisted with their own petard, as it were. Something to think about.

Ecoutez, les Serbes!

If I seem to be on RT every other day, that's only because I am. This past Friday I did another live interview on the situation in Ukraine, a recorded one for later, and another recorded segment for their Arabic service. And in the process let one cat out of the bag.

You see, as of January 1, I've been President of the R. Archibald Reiss Institute for Serbian Studies, a nonprofit intended to challenge the falsified history (and media imagery) of the Serbs. It was named after the criminal investigator who came from Switzerland in 1914 to document Austro-Hungarian atrocities in Serbia. Reiss fell in love with the people and the country, went into exile with them in 1915, and settled in Belgrade after the war, helping organize the Red Cross and improve the police. The title of this post was the title of his 1928 testament - alas, unpublished for many years - that gave a frank assessment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, renamed Yugoslavia the year (1929) Reiss passed away.

I've been meaning to make the announcement here, as well as via other outlets, once our website was up and running. But as the page came online mid-last week, I was neck-deep in paperwork. Friday's RT appearance seemed as good a time as any, and would reach a greater audience as well. So in keeping with my tradition to shoot from the hip (for better or for worse, my interviews on RT are never scripted), I had them use my new title and affiliation.

Do bear in mind that when I post here, or on Sivi Soko, or on Antiwar.com, I do it in my personal capacity. Anything Institute-related will be published there.

The Institute's mission is to challenge the lies, fabrications and fictions told about the Serbs and Yugoslavia, and contribute to the accurate history thereof, for the sake of better understanding, justice, and peace in a corner of the world where they've been absent for far too long.

Do we really think the truth will matter? Oh yes. Because the real cause of death, hatred and suffering is an edifice of lies erected by the would-be conquerors and despots alike, a sham they have created to dress up the wastelands they've made and called peace.

"And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:32)

Between Serbia and Syria

With the putschists in Kiev (and in the west of Ukraine) getting more violent, the government is getting wobbly. Surely they know that trying to appease the Empire by tolerating an armed rebellion is akin to letting the sharks have just a little bit of blood?

I still think the escalation of "protests" is a sign of desperation. They've been out in the streets for two months, accomplishing nothing. So they - or their sponsors, more likely - decided to kick it up a notch. Remember, this is "Game of Thrones" thinking at work: you either win (i.e. get power) or you die (politically rather than actually, though if things get out of hand....).

So far, what's been going on in Ukraine is still following the Serbian scenario, as I told RT last night. But unless the protests are dealt with in a firm, yet careful manner, it is entirely possible the next step might be an escalation to something like Libya or Syria: an "Arab Spring popular revolution" that spun off into outright civil war.

I don't think most Ukrainians, even the fanatical Banderists in the west, actually desire an armed confrontation. Play-acting a revolution following a Western script, at the expense of American taxpayers and with Victoria Nuland feeding you cookies is one thing. Getting shot is quite another.

Klitschko, Yasenyuk and Tyahnybok are either playing with forces they don't understand, or don't care how many people get hurt in the process of them seizing power (and then, predictably, proceeding to fight each other). They obviously care not a whit for law - otherwise they wouldn't be breaking it so blatantly - or democracy, otherwise they'd have waited for the 2016 elections. Some "representatives of Ukrainian people" indeed. Unless John McCain gets to define what it means to be Ukrainian these days.

As a footnote, I suppose commenting on events in Ukraine for two months now may technically make me an "Ukrainian affairs analyst", though please note that designation was of RT's choosing, not mine. I run an Institute for Serbian studies; can't help it if Serbian issues are eerily similar to those unfolding in Kiev right now - and for a good reason, because the same power is behind both.

The Reek of Inhumanity

The chief problem with the Empire is that it's a sore loser. It isn't capable of building much, or even compelling obedience anymore, but it can certainly still tear things down and create chaos. This past weekend, the "pro-Western" (and that says a lot about the "West") rioters in Kiev, unwilling to admit that their policy of entitled petulance has failed to bring Ukraine into NATO and the EU, have decided to get openly violent. 

I spoke with RT this morning about the events in Kiev. The video is here, and the transcript here. 

Just to be perfectly clear: this isn't about "freedom" or "democracy". People spouting these slogans don't even know the meaning of words. Neither the EU nor the American Empire are democracies in any sense: one is run by a cadre of appointed commissars, the other by an incestuous political establishment dominating two puppet mainstream parties. And then there is the matter of democracy being antithetical to liberty in the first place, because in an actual democracy all it takes is half the votes plus one to lose your life, liberty and property to the whims of the mob. Remember Socrates?

Kiev rioters say they want "freedom". How is "freedom" having foreign-funded "non-governmental" revolutionaries forcibly depose your elected government? 

The best response to the arbitrary who/whom-ism is a simple role-reversal test. Imagine any of this happening in Washington, or London, or Berlin.  Yes, I know it's incredulous, and that's precisely the point. Russia or China or whoever aren't funding "civil society" front groups to subvert and influence the electoral processes in the US, UK, Germany or anywhere else. They aren't even running counter-groups in places thoroughly occupied by Empire's quisling cult (like Serbia), where much of the population would welcome such interference, however wrong on principle.

But let's say, for the sake of argument, that Saudi-funded "activists" got 10,000 Washingtonians to camp out at the Mall, block the entrances to the Capitol and the White House, and demanding the resignation of Obama and Boehner. How do you think the U.S. government would react? They already have extensive fortifications around government buildings as is; when a Connecticut woman ran a roadblock, back in October 2013, the police gunned her down. And the media painted her as a deranged terrorist (with a baby in the car!). 

It comes down to perception management. Because the Empire has declared itself to be for "democracy" and "freedom" and "human rights" (whatever any of those words actually mean), and it controls the mass media, it's perfectly normal to have government barricades on DC streets and execute private citizens who the police may feel endanger them by existing. But when Ukrainian riot police respond to firebombs, rocks and knives of the violent revolutionaries, that's "repression." Right.

It's perfectly fine for America to have the FARA (passed in 1938) and closely regulate electoral contributions, banning any foreign donations and placing all sorts of limits on domestic ones. But when Russia passes an identical law, and seeks to ban foreign donations to political parties, that's "authoritarianism". Right.

The bottom line is, the Imperial establishment believes the Empire is exempt from all rules and laws - which apply only to others, and even then selectively. But that very belief runs counter to the founding principles of the United States of America, as set out in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. So what "values" are we talking about here? What principles? None. Only power. And as the great Serbian poet Njegos once wrote, "He whose law lies only in the cudgel, has a trail that reeks of inhumanity."

This isn't about Ukraine, or about democracy, or human rights, or "freedom" - it's about having only the cudgel, and the entire world looking like something to beat with it. It's about crushing any thought of there being an alternative to the "end-of-history" West. It's about power. Just follow the stench along the trail.

Christmas Eve

Most of the Orthodox churches worldwide continue to adhere to the Julian calendar (as the Gregorian was established in 1582 by the Roman Catholic church, by then sundered from Orthodoxy for over 500 years). Which means that tonight is Christmas Eve, and tomorrow is Christmas.

Badnjak bonfire (2013)

Serbian tradition has the faithful burning an oak log in their fireplaces (or tossing branches of it on a public bonfire), following the vespers. One scene from the Mountain Wreath, a XIX century epic poem by the great Serbian poet and Bishop of Montenegro, Njegoš, takes place on Christmas Eve:

CHRISTMAS EVE

Bishop Danilo and Abbot Stefan sit by the fire, and the happy monastic students dance about the house and place Christmas logs on the fire.

ABBOT STEFAN
Have you, children, placed the logs on the fire?
Did you put them crosswise, to our custom?

STUDENTS
We have placed them as we should, grandfather.
Handfuls of wheat over them we have strewn,
and we have poured ruby wine over them.

ABBOT STEFAN
Now give me, too, a glass of good red wine,
and let it be a liter and a half,
that this old man may drink to Christmas logs.

They give him a glass of wine. He gives a Christmas toast and drinks the wine.

ABBOT STEFAN (wiping his moustache)
God's blessings on this joyous holiday!
Bring the gusle over here, my children.
My heart truly longs to hear it playing,
and to sing, too; I haven't forages.
Do not take it as sin, O Mighty Lord!
It is only an old man's old habit.

(The students give him the gusle)

ABBOT STEFAN (sings)
There is no day unless it can be seen,
nor is there real feast-day without Christmas!
I have observed Christmas in Bethlehem,
I have kept it on Mount Athos also,
and feted it in Holy Kiev, too;
but quite apart this celebration stands
for merriment and its simplicity.
The fire's burning brighter than ever,
the straw is spread in front of the fire.
Christmas logs are laid on the fire crossways.
The rifles crack, and roasts on spits do turn.
The gusle plays, and the dancers sing.
Grandfathers dance with their young grandchildren.
In the kolo join three generations,
it seems they're almost of the same age.
Everything is filled with bright mirth and joy,
but what I like best of all, so help me,
one has to drink a toast to everything!

(from a translation by Prof. Vasa D. Mihailovich, UNC Chapel Hill, 1997)

Waiting for Stalingrad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RIP M. Kalashnikov

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


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

As RT describes it:

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

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

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

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

Rest in peace, Mikhail Timofeyevich.

And Now For a Word

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

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

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

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

Tea and Biscuits in Kiev

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

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

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

cartoon by V. Kremlov, RT

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

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

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

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

Agent of Albion?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Rotten Orange

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Shameless

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

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

Downtown Zagreb last week (photo: BN TV)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Usurpation Day

On this day, exactly seventy years ago, a group of revolutionaries meeting in the Bosnian town of Jajce proclaimed themselves the only legitimate government of Yugoslavia.

By itself, their declaration meant little. Yugoslavia hardly existed in practice, partitioned between the German Reich and its Hungarian, Bulgarian and Croat allies. The royal government, which in April 1941 left the country to continue the fight from exile (as did the governments of Czechoslovakia, Poland, France, and Greece, among others) had appointed General Mihailovich, a staff officer leading the guerrilla movement, their Minister of War and commanding officer of the Yugoslav Army in the Homeland. In addition to fighting the Germans, Croats, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Albanians and even some collaborators among the Serbs, Mihailovich's guerrilla also fought the Communist partisans, who emerged following the Nazi invasion of the USSR and made their priority to claim Yugoslavia for the socialist workers' revolution.

By late 1943, after Stalingrad and Kursk, it was clear that Germany would lose the war. That the Soviet tanks would show up was a question not of whether, but of when. Meanwhile, the Western Allies landed in Italy, forcing its surrender in September 1943.

That had multiple consequences for the war in Yugoslavia. Until then, the Italians were able to suppress the genocidal rampages of Croats and Albanians. Afterwards, they had a free hand and full German support, in exchange for Waffen-SS divisions made up of Albanians and Bosnian Muslims (Skenderbeg, Handschar, Kama).

The Communists did nothing to stop the atrocities. In line with their dogma, the Serbs were "oppressors", while the Croats and Albanians were the "oppressed" - so even though the Albanian leadership and the Ustasha were "reactionaries" and "fascists" in the Communist book, the mass murder and expulsion of Serbs were not objectionable as such.

To be fair, Communists weren't the only ones at the meeting in Jajce. Some of the "delegates" were pre-war politicians from opposition ranks: Croat separatists, Bosnian Muslims, and others generally sympathetic to the Communist platform of resurrecting Yugoslavia, but as a federation. If the Communists were the radicals, these "democrats" were their useful idiots.

Meanwhile, the Serbs in Communist ranks have by then so internalized the dogma of their own collective guilt for alleged "bourgeois imperialism", become so fanatical in their faith - and make no mistake, Marxism was a religion, though its deity was of this world - that they not only agreed to stand by while their families were being slaughtered, but to shift blame for the atrocities onto the designated "fascists," while the collectives that participated were actually rewarded. Thus arose the post-war Socialist Republic of Croatia, laying claim to Istria, all the Adriatic coast, Dubrovnik and western Syrmia, for example. Thus came about the "Autonomous province of Kosovo".

Why did the Communists believe that November 1943 was the right time to declare themselves the new rulers of a country they had yet to resurrect from under the Nazi heel? The Red Army was coming, but it would take them another nine months. Could the answer lie in the West?

In 1915, the Serbian Army and government retreated before the German, Austrian and Bulgarian invasion; the survivors reached Entente territory in Greece, and were deployed at the Salonica Front. In September 1918, the Serbs spearheaded the Entente attack and rolled up the front; six weeks later, they had not only liberated their homeland, but were approaching Vienna. The royal Yugoslav government hoped for a repeat performance, with an Allied landing along the Adriatic coast helping Mihailovic launch a general uprising. But the plans for an Adriatic Landing never went beyond the theoretical.

A day before the meeting in Jajce, Stalin met with Churchill in Tehran, and demanded the British switch their support from Mihailovich to Tito's Communists. Churchill wasted no time in agreeing. Supposedly, this is because Tito's men were "killing more Germans" - which was simply not true. But the fact that Stalin's demand and the meeting in Jajce were almost simultaneous suggests it was coordinated on the Communist part.

As for Britain's betrayal, it is a fact of history - only the motivations remain beyond conclusive explanation just yet. There are several theories to explain it, from secret Communist sympathizers in British intelligence (who did exist), to a story that young Churchill was roughed up by some Serbian officers for libeling the Serbs while he covered the Balkan Wars as a journalist. But the best explanation is probably the simplest: to London, the Serbs have ever been but an extension of the hated Russians, so Whitehall preferred a Croat-led Yugoslavia that would keep the Serbs under control. Interestingly enough, Hitler thought the same.

Another clue can be found in the decision of Jajce revolutionaries (calling themselves the "Anti-Fascist Council of People's Liberation of Yugoslavia, or AVNOJ) to ban the royal government from returning to the country. In sections 3 and 4, the AVNOJ leadership is tasked to "review all the international treaties and obligations" the royal government entered into, "for the purpose of nullification or approval", and declared all subsequent treaties made by the royals null and void.

This enabled both London and Washington to effectively confiscate the gold reserves the royals managed to take with them, as "payment" for all the military aid provided to both Mihailovich and the Communists. The remaining gold, hidden in Montenegrin caves, was discovered in 1943 by an enterprising Italian officer - who sent a small portion to Mussolini, gave the half of the remainder to Tito in 1944, and kept the rest for himself. Meanwhile, the Communists kept telling the people the "corrupt plutocrats" of the royal government stole all their gold. And while King Peter II died broke, Tito lived and died like a pharaoh.

In addition to throwing Stalin a bone - on account of the Red Army doing the bulk of the fighting in Europe - the Western Allies had a few more reasons to back Tito. For one, that avoided the sticky matter of the wartime Croatia. Horrific crimes of the Croatian state, backed by the Roman Catholic Church, had disgusted the Italians and unsettled even the Germans. How could anyone ask of the Serbs to re-create Yugoslavia with the Croats, after that? Easy enough: by having Tito denounce the Pavelic regime as "a handful of fascists," then rehabilitate Croatia as a federal republic in the new Yugoslavia. And while the Serbs had to continue apologizing for their existence - "oppressors," remember? - a top Croat official (Stevo Krajacic) was able to tell the families of Serbs murdered in the Jasenovac camp complex,"we killed too few of you here." (1968)

The suppression of Croat atrocities not only made Tito's Yugoslavia possible, it was also extremely useful for keeping the Church of Rome useful during the Cold War, as a tool of anti-Communism in places like Poland.

And so, on that November night in Jajce, a plan approved in Tehran was set in motion. Hitler had already unwittingly provided a template. Eighteen months later, when Soviet tanks drove the Germans out, Tito became the pharaoh of a reanimated Yugoslavia. Though the principal victims of Nazi invaders, and principal fighters against them, Serbs loyal to the king were persecuted, and even those who backed Tito found themselves third-rate subjects in their own country. Adding insult to injury, they were told this nightmare was the ultimate fulfillment of their historical dream of freedom.

Though both Tito and Yugoslavia are long gone, the nightmare endures. Seventy years later, it is high time for the sleeper to awaken. 

Poor Little Nazis

Yesterday, after Croatia's victory over Iceland qualified them for the 2014 Soccer World Cup, one player led the home crowd in a victorious chant. AP (via HuffPost) has a video of it, noting that it caused a bit of furor on account of being, well, Nazi. 

WW2 Ustasha poster

AP quotes "Joe" Simunic - born in Australia, to Croatian emigre parents - saying, "I did nothing wrong. I'm supporting my Croatia, my homeland," and "some people have to learn some history."

Let's learn some history, then.

Ustasha (усташа, pl. усташе) - is an old Serbian word for "insurgent", appropriated (like everything else) by Croats. Specifically, a violent chauvinist movement sponsored by Fascist Italy after WW1, seeking to establish an independent Croatian state.

They were given the opportunity in 1941, when Axis powers invaded the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. An "Independent State of Croatia" was proclaimed on April 10. Mass murder of Serbs, Jews and Roma (in that order) began within days.

Ustasha Croatia opened an extermination camp in Jasenovac (with adjacent camps for women and children - the only such facility in Nazi Europe) almost a year before Germany's Nazi leadership decided to seek the "final solution to the Jewish problem" through mass murder. Their atrocities were so visceral, even the SS were appalled. But Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church had their back, so the genocide continued.

Ironically, it was the Italians who managed to rein in the Ustasha and provide some sanctuary to Serbs and Jews in their occupation zone - at least until Italy's surrender to the Allies in September 1943. From then onward, to the end of the war, Croats and Germans were able to murder with impunity.

The Communist Partisans, who later claimed to have liberated Yugoslavia single-handedly, did absolutely nothing to stop the slaughter. Oh no - after the war they resurrected Croatia as a "republic" within the Yugoslav "federation" reanimated from the kingdom's corpse, and rewarded it with territories ethnically cleansed of Italians, Germans and Hungarians. All in the name of "social justice", of course, because everything before and during WW2 had really been the fault of the "Greater Serbian bourgeois imperialism." No joke.

When a Holocaust-denying Ustasha fan became the first "democratic" president of that Croatia in 1990, his revival of Ustasha language, symbols and values was cheered in the West as "anti-Communist" (and again, got the Roman Catholic Church's blessing). Thousands of Ustasha Croats returned from exile in the U.S., Canada, Australia (Simunic, for example). Meanwhile, Serbs living in Croatia were first disenfranchised, then subjected to state abuse, property destruction and outright murder. But when they took up arms in self-defense, that was dubbed "aggression."

So obviously, in this twisted world, the Ustasha Croatians are "good guys" and their victims - the Serbs - are evil incarnate. And "Joe" Simunic is just a misunderstood patriot.

Sure, technically his words were innocent. All he said was, "For the home," and the crowd howled back, "Ready!" And it's not like they haven't done so before. So,  should we mind if, say, Germans give a salute to victory?

Oh wait.

Blogiversary

Take my love.
Take my land.
Take me where I cannot stand.
I don't care,
I'm still free.
You can't take the sky from me.
(Ballad of Serenity)

The first post on this blog (then called "Black Lamb & Gray Falcon") appeared on November 18, 2004. Has it really been that long? Time flies, when you're having fun.

I've blogged at Antiwar.com prior to that, and have been writing for a lot longer - since 1999, to be precise - but always as a guest. Falcon was the first Web location truly my own.

By my count, there have been 520 posts here prior to this one. Back in 2004, I could give my full attention to columns (then still called "Balkan Express", now "Moments of Transition"). Things that didn't fit there, found a home here. Then in March 2005, I launched Falcon's Serbian sibling, which has flown higher and farther yet.

Designs, templates, links and fonts have changed, but the substance has remained consistent. More than the posting schedule, anyway. I won't apologize for it, though: throughout, my guiding notion has been that an essay has to be done right, or not at all. Even if quantity has a quality all its own.

It has been an amazing journey. The blog has made a difference right from the start and continues to attract both fans and haters, legitimate comments as well as trolls. And that's the thing: before the internet, the legacy media were the only game in town. Today, everyone has a soapbox. Sure, this includes the trolls, the sock-puppets and the mainstream propaganda machine - but at least they are now on equal footing with the rest of us. I'll take that over the old order, any day.

In the coming days, I may clean up some tags, sort the links, and tweak the template a bit. Those are all details, though. What matters most are the articles. And they will keep coming, because that's always been Falcon's mission.

Keep flying.

The Real Extremists

On November 3, local elections, called under the so-called laws of the so-called "Republic of Kosovo", were held in this occupied Serbian province. In the four counties in the north, inhabited and defended by Serbs who refuse to submit to the NATO-backed Albanian regime, the vote failed: less than 4% of people showed up, in spite of overwhelming propaganda from the treacherous Belgrade government.

The Empire's solution was appropriately Orwellian: they will vote again (and again), till they get it "right" - i.e. submit to "Kosovian" authorities. As the repeat vote - scheduled for November 17 - looms, I've taken the liberty of translating some thoughts by Aleksandar Pavic, published Wednesday by the Strategic Culture Foundation. As Imperial and quisling media dominate English-language coverage coming out of Serbia, I think this would be a valuable reminder to Balkans-watchers of what reality looks like.

- Gray Falcon

"This country is too small for traitors such as us"
posters mocking the Serbian Regressive Party, Nis, Serbia, 2013

The Real Extremists
by Aleksandar Pavic

We await - and may wait indefinitely - for someone from the most progressive circles of the most progressive Euro-Atlantic civilization to condemn the outright racist threats directed at the Serbs in North Mitrovica recently by the most progressive Euro-Atlanticists in Belgrade. As the repeat "elections" loom at three precincts in that city, the message from Belgrade is: vote, or get an Albanian mayor!

Where is the European Union? Where is the European Commission? OSCE? UNHCR? EULEX? Independent observers? The Commissioner for Protection of Equality? Where are the Liberal Democrats, the Other Serbia, the Center for Cultural Decontamination? Where is Boris Tadic, the new global defender of multiculturalism? Where the hell is the American Ambassador? Does their silence mean approval of this racist message from the government of Serbia, namely PM Dacic and Commissioner Vulin? If they truly want a "multiethnic Kosovo" as they say, why would the possibility of an Albanian mayor in a Serb community be objectionable?

By the way, you won't hear such shameful, extremist intimidation from those advocating the boycott. The only thing that truly appalls them is the thought that anyone in Kosovo and Metohia - but especially in the North - could get elected on the basis of "Kosovian" laws. Because, unlike their "progressive" EUropean fellows, they truly believe in the rule of law, and are prepared to fight for it.

I am willing to wager that the boycott crowd has nothing against an ethnic Albanian being elected mayor of North Mitrovica - so long as the election is conducted under Serbian law. Of course, in that case the Serbs of the North would turn out in great numbers. Still, in principle they have nothing against the notion of a loyal Albanian holding the office of mayor. Such a person would bother them far less than one of Thaci's "Serbs."

Generally, boycott advocates - who oppose Kosovo's separation from Serbia - have shown a far greater commitment to multiethnic coexistence than their "urbane" opponents. Note that those who preach "letting go of the Kosovo ballast" most often imply that the "amputation" of Kosovo is necessary in order to avoid being "swamped by two million Albanians" allegedly living in the province (In truth, there are far fewer - but that's a topic for another day). On the other hand, the alleged "nationalists" have zero objections to living alongside Albanians - on one condition: that this be within the framework of Serbia, the most ethnically diverse country in this region of Europe, rather than in a quasi-state led by former and current drug-runners and merchants of human flesh.

So, who are the real extremists, and the truly intolerant? Those who exchange handshakes with faces on wanted posters, or those who refuse to be governed by them? Isn't all this a bit upside-down? The newest government line that the Serbs of the North "would be solely responsible" if an Albanian is set over them is a monstrous projection. Rather, the responsibility would rest squarely on the present government of Serbia. Because it accepted an "election" held under the so-called "Kosovian" laws. Because it refuses to call an election under its own laws. Because it signed an agreement in Brussels that recognizes "Kosovian" writ in the entire territory of the occupied province.

Is a government anywhere else in the world voluntarily giving up a number of its citizens, and forcing those citizens with everything at its disposal - including the threat of military intervention - into the hands of the enemy? And then trying to wash its hands, like Pilate, of the whole thing and blaming those who just want to stay in their own country, and have the same rights as everyone else?

By the same token, is there a media more shameless than the media in Serbia? Is there a press anywhere that absolutely refuses the opportunity to speak to any defender of the Constitution and the laws of the land? Where else is there a pack of journalists so willing to ignore the elephant named "Constitution" in the room, eager to whitewash the government of any blame, and organize witch-hunts against anyone daring to defend the legal order?

At the top of the dung heap is the daily Kurir, engaging in systematic demonization of Dr. Marko Jaksic. Their libels seem calculated to strip him of all humanity, turning him into the modern Goldstein, fair game in the Wild West called "Kosovo." Just the other day (November 12, 2013, page 2-3), Kurir accused Jaksic - the same man who speaks out daily of the need to comply with the Constitution, the laws and the UNSCR 1244 - of "undermining the system"! This is accompanied by repeated accusations that Jaksic has "met with Thaci", that he owns valuable real estate in the country and abroad, and that his arrest is impending. All this is calculated to create a climate in which any violence against dr. Jaksic would be spun as acceptable to the general populace.

Only 3,8% of the Serbs in the North actually turned out at the "Kosovian" polls on November 3. So, if Thaci's followers - Serb or Albanian, it really doesn't matter - take over, or some misfortune befalls dr. Jaksic, the blame will not rest on the boycott advocates, or anyone else in the North, but rather squarely on the shoulders of the government in Serbia. The very men who once swore to defend Kosovo and Metohija are now trying to surrender and force their compatriots under the yoke of the Albanian mafia. The very people mounting a smear campaign against the man who made it possible to negotiate about North Mitrovica in the first place.

Last, but not least, it is worth mentioning the newest edition of "Odnako" (However), hosted by Russia's best-known and most popular political journalist, Mikhail Leontyev. Shown on November 12 on Channel 1 of the Russian public TV, it looked critically upon the so-called local elections in Kosovo, and the role of the Serbian government in them. Those in the government with eyes to see and ears to hear ought to at least try and see the messages coming from Moscow these days.

Yes, there were pompous proclamations of mutual appreciation surrounding the (unnecessarily complicated) start of construction on South Stream. However, there was also an interview with Marko Jaksic, with a clearly shown poster in the background of the two Progressive leaders and the caption: "This country is too small for traitors of our caliber". There were also images of the defaced government posters calling for participation in the "elections", as well as the "clean up the trash day" in North Mitrovica, where the people took down government propaganda material. Analysts agreed that by backing the separatist polls, Belgrade "recognized that Kosovo is not Serbia". Slavko Stevanovic was interviewed and introduced, without any hesitation, as the "Chairman of the recently constituted Assembly of the Autonomous Province of Kosovo-Metohija."

Of particular note is Leontyev's sign-off to his viewers:

"...it is too early to feel sympathy for Nikolic. However, God only knows how this will end. This is Serbia, after all, where his predecessor Djindjic was simply taken aside and shot. Well, goodbye!"