On Stooges, Coups, Legitimacy and "Invasions"

Here is the transcript of my most recent interview with RT, on the topic of Ukraine and Crimea. I've cleaned up a couple of typos, and bolded certain passages for emphasis.

RT: The US, the UK and others insist that Russian troops have taken over Crimea. The armed men there say they are local self-defense units. So what proof does the West have of a Russian incursion?

Nebojsa Malic: I don’t think they have any proof, but then again, they’ve never needed any proof for any of their allegations over the past 25 years. They simply say what they want the public to believe, and expect the public to believe it. I don’t see a problem even if these were Russian troops because Russia has a treaty that allows it to keep a number of troops in the Crimean region, and the number of troops Russia does keep is far fewer than allowed by the treaty.

So again, I don’t really see a problem here. There’s been no invasion, the people in Crimea are happy enough. They’re posting selfies with these soldiers, they’re smiling, they are walking around with flowers. That’s not like a typical Western invasion, which involves lots of bombs and lots of dead people. This isn't exactly the kind of imagery the West usually projects when they go around flexing their power, and that’s why they’re trying to be as panicky and as alarmist as possible in their public announcements.

RT: They said Russia is violating Ukraine's sovereignty. But what about the EU and the US politicians propping up the Maidan opposition before it came to power?

NM: I would say that a far greater violation of sovereignty is actually staging a coup and replacing an elected government of a country with unelected stooges, like the United States has specifically done with the Maidan opposition. There was the intercepted phone call, which we all heard, where the United States government was plotting whom to install in power. Lo and behold, that’s exactly what happened. That is a violation of sovereignty. Before that is resolved, nobody should really speak about any sort of other violations, real or imagined.

RT: The UK says the new government in Kiev is legit, while Yanukovich didn't honor the February 21 agreement with the then-opposition and fled. Do they have a point?

NM: Who decides the legitimacy of these things? Normally it would be the Ukrainian people. The last time they were polled, they elected Viktor Yanukovich as their president. The crowd in Maidan didn't have any sort of democratic legitimacy. What they did have is weapons. And they had money from the West, and the diplomatic support of Western governments. And using those levers, they actually took over power by force on February 22. The agreement that was purportedly achieved between European ministers and President Yanukovich was violated by the Maidan protesters who resorted to violence and forced the issue. So honestly, for the Western governments propping up these rebels, to declare them legitimate is obviously expected. But they don’t get to decide the legitimacy of these things.

RT: We've seen how many people in Crimea aren't happy with the Kiev leaders. Why is the will of the people not taken into account by Western nations then?

NM: Western governments generally don’t take will of the people into consideration at all, anywhere, ever. The only will that matters to them is their own. So if they want to achieve something, if they want to carve up Yugoslavia, or Serbia, or Russia, or Ukraine, or anywhere else, they just find stooges that they can manipulate, install them in power, and then claim that the stooges’ decisions are legitimate because they represent a will of some phantom people or other. And that’s usually how they've been doing business for the past two decades. Sooner or later, somebody is going to have to stand up to them and say, “No, you can’t do this. This is against your own rules, this is against everybody's rules. Stop.”

RT: Washington says the rights of minorities are protected in Ukraine. But what about those ultra-nationalists affiliated with the government, who made no secret about their hatred towards Russians and other ethnic groups?

NM: How can the United States government say the minority rights are protected in Ukraine when the very first thing that the rebel government did was pass a law banning the use of Russian language? If that is a protection of minorities, then what’s going on in Kosovo is multi-ethnic democracy, and Kosovo has been ethnically cleansed of everybody but Albanians, and even the Albanians who disagree with the current regime – which was also installed by the United States. Obviously some definitions are not all straight here.

RT: What do you think the international community will ultimately do if the referendum in Crimea goes ahead, and people vote to re-join Russia?

NM: It’s hard to predict what the international community will do, because there is no such thing as the international community. The United States uses this phrase to represent what it and its NATO allies are doing around the world. If the referendum in the Crimea is legitimate, and by all democratic standards, it looks like it is, have any treaties been violated? No. Has any force been used? No. By all rights, it should be a legitimate decision. However, this is not in the interest of the people who just overthrew the government in Ukraine and want to claim the entire country for themselves, including the people that don’t want to have anything to do with these neo-Nazi parties involved in the new government. And they will try to impose their will by force, and I fear what might happen then.

RT: Many in the international community want Russia to start negotiating with Kiev's government. What would it take for that to happen?

NM: I think the Russian government has repeatedly said that they would be perfectly willing to negotiate with a legitimate government in Kiev. So for any sort of negotiations, there has to be a legitimate government in Kiev to negotiate with, and right now we don’t have that. I think there would need to be some sort of political solution within Ukraine that would create an actual legitimate government in Kiev that would be able to conduct negotiations about any of these issues, from the status of minorities or any other groups, to all sorts of international treaties, to EU accession, etc. But right now, there is no legitimate government. There’s just a group that proclaimed itself the new government based on violence and foreign support.

RT: Yatsenyuk has passionately argued many times that Russia should not intervene into Crimea’s affairs and that Kiev wouldn't recognize the results of Crimean referendum. Is that an attempt to protect Ukrainian territorial integrity or is it what Washington and Brussels want him to say?

NM: Mr. Yatsenyuk can certainly give a fairly impassioned speech, but who does he actually represent? Does he represent the Ukrainian people? Does he represent a portion of the Ukrainian people? Does he represent the international banker interests? Does he represent the US government that put him in the position he’s currently in? Who exactly is he speaking for? Until we can figure that out, we can’t really figure out what any of his words mean.

The Sane Hitchens on Russia

Peter Hitchens, the younger (and saner) brother of the late Christopher, offers a refreshing view of the entire Ukraine mess, writing in the Mail on Sunday. Excerpts followed by my comments:

Any visitor to Sevastopol will find it contains many monuments to genuinely heroic defences of that city against invasion (one of those invasions was our more or less incomprehensible incursion into the Crimea 160 years ago, which achieved a good deal less than nothing and cost a great deal of lives). The biggest memorials commemorate the 1941-44 invasion by Germany, which was resisted and eventually expelled at great human and material cost, in battles whose names and nature are unknown to most in the ‘West’.

If they knew more about it, they might understand why Russians are ‘paranoid’. The country has no natural defensible borders. A street in southern Moscow, Ulitsa Bolshaya Ordinka (the street of the Great Horde) commemorates to this day the five-yearly visits to Moscow of the Great Horde, to collect tribute from that frontier city. We tend to think that the Urals, supposedly mountains but really rather unimpressive hills, form Russia’s eastern boundary. But it isn’t really true. From every direction, the heart of Russia lies open to invaders. Moscow has been invaded or occupied by Swedes, Poles, Lithuanians, The Golden (or Great)  Horde, Crimean Tatars, Napoleon,  No wonder the Russian word for ‘security’ (Byezopasnost) is a negative construction (‘Byez’ means ‘without’ ; ‘Opasnost’ means ‘danger’). The natural state of things is danger.

Contrast this with the British and American world view, predicated on having a large body of water as a moat securing them from any attack. In the Anglo-American mind, war is something that happens "over there". Russian wars generally begin with someone invading Russia, and generally end with the Russians gloating in the defeated invader's capital.

One might add that states which supported the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the attack on Libya, cannot really get very hot under the collar about Russia’s intervention in Ukraine.

But they are - because their worldview is Who/Whom, where they can do no wrong, and the designated Other can do no right.

It’s also interesting that Ukraine, while giving Crimea a great deal of autonomy, always strove to prevent a referendum on the region’s future, knowing for certain that it would lead to open calls for a return to Russian rule. Were I a Ukrainian politician or citizen, I would actively support the return of Crimea to Russia, because it was always bound to lead to trouble...

In fact, a fellow blogger suggested just yesterday that Russia may not want to take Crimea out of Ukraine, as that would only strengthen the Banderovtsi.

What continues to strike me about this whole row is the inability of most people to view Russia as a country, or Russians as people. Russia is portrayed as a bogeyman, and its people as either oppressed or as tools of a new Hitler.

This should actually not be so surprising. Isn't the key characteristic of the postmodern Western mind the lack of actual empathy, and the tyranny of the false one? Other people are never seen as having agency, they are either oppressors or oppressed.

Let me remind readers that Russia existed as a civilisation long before Lenin turned it into a Communist slum.... Russia still contains a large, educated, cultured middle class, who of necessity care more about history, literature and patriotism than their complacent, spoiled, semi-conscious western equivalents.  They, their parents and their grandparents have seen with their own eyes what can go wrong with a happy life, how suddenly it can happen, how little you can do about it, if invaders come, or if fools are in charge of your country, or both.

This is why "Pussy Riot" is rightly condemned by most Russians for what it really is - a group of spoiled, entitled brats acting like animals in public to get attention. Meanwhile, the "liberals" - the kind of Russians favored in the West, who don't even like to call themselves Russians - go so far as to complain the Nazis had lost the war, because had Germany won, they'd all be driving BMWs and making German wages. I kid you not.

For years now, trivial-minded, historically ignorant, efficient, glinting people have tried to turn Ukrainian independence into an attack on Russia. They did it in the ‘Orange Revolution’ and failed because the victors turned out to be as corrupt and divided as those they replaced (a problem which may well emerge again now they have had a second go). And now they have done it again.

As I've said before, this is not about the Ukrainians, just as Kosovo was not about the Albanians. This is about the Empire seeking to destroy Russia. And Imperial officials have admitted as much.

...I suspect that Mr Putin, and most Russians do not really regard Ukraine as a proper sovereign state, and I think they may be on to something.  They view its existence  as an artificial and accidental result of a moment of Russian weakness, which has since been maintained, for cynical reasons, by Western interference. Is Ukraine really sovereign, economically, diplomatically, militarily or in any other important way? Has it ever been?

I might add that Russia, bound by the modern rules of diplomacy, has refrained from compelling Ukraine to return to Moscow rule by naked force, as it would not have hesitated to do 50 or 100 years ago.  Instead the Russians have sought to ensure that Ukraine remains very much under their influence, while Kiev retains formal independence. Something very similar can be said of the EU’s treatment of many of the former countries now under its rule, including our own. The polite fiction of sovereignty is maintained for the convenience of ruler and ruled.
But, because of the EU’s (and NATO’s, and the USA’s) aggressive and repeated attempts to disrupt this tactful arrangement,  Russia feels the need to take some firm concrete action, both to stop this going further, and to deter future attempts to disaffect areas which Moscow believes are in its sphere of influence.

Compare and contrast: the West (Empire, EU, etc.) keeps meddling, keeps pushing for "reforms" that enrich (their) oligarchs and impoverish everyone else, keep treating Ukraine as a puppet or a piece on the gameboard. Yet Russia, that does nothing of the sort, is accused of "meddling" and "aggression." Typical propaganda tactic, blaming the target.

Such disaffection has gone quite far enough already, thanks to the weird, selective anti-Russian prejudices of so many in the USA. What exactly do these people see as the concrete reason for their hostility to Russia? What is it actually about?
[...]
This is about globalism versus national sovereignty, and the curious anomaly of Russia, an old-fashioned European country that is too big to be sucked into the EU, too small to be a superpower (and so invulnerable, like China) , too patriotic to be persuaded to dissolve itself. 

Spot on. There are other factors involved, to be sure - a Russophobia prevailing in the Anglo (and later American, by extension) ruling circles since the 1800s; a passionate hatred for the Orthodox nurtured by Rome for a thousand years - but Hitchens has zeroed in on the intersection of both.

The current Western model of "liberal democracy" and "capitalism" is said to be the pinnacle of human political evolution, the "end of history" and the inevitable state of Man. Yet the existence of Russia - almost vanishing under Yeltsin's wholesale adoption of the Western model, then flourishing rapidly as soon as Putin abandoned it - proves this is not so. As with any system based on blind dogmatism, any deviations from the dogma must be eradicated, lest someone start doubting. So even though Russia is not seeking to export its system, or impose its values, or control the world - its very existence is a threat to those that do. In a world of meddlers, minding your own business is the cardinal sin.

A Sacred War

Empire's politicians who wish to whip up popular frenzy for invading other countries in the name of "freedom, democracy and human rights" (or on some other such imaginary pretext) always invoke the specter of Adolf Hitler, supposedly defeated by American men, guns and tanks. And oh yes, some Russians and Brits may have helped a little bit. But it was Private Ryan's war - Spielberg showed us so.

Rubbish. You want to know who actually ended Hitler? Who did the bulk (90%) of the fighting against him in Europe, and the bulk of the dying as well? The Soviets. To 185,000 American soldiers who died fighting in Europe (total American deaths in WW2, including the Pacific campaigns: 418,500), the Soviets lost anywhere from 8 to 13 million troops. Their total war losses, factoring civilians, may have reached as high as 28 million people.

This may help explain why, when Elena Vaenga starts singing "The Sacred War," people in the audience stand up, as if for the national anthem:

Because for Russians - and all other Soviet citizens who fought against Hitler back then, such as Galina Shaykislamova - the fight against Hitler is the holiest of wars. This is why they cannot abide neo-Hitlerites, in Ukraine or elsewhere. And why anyone, especially cowardly foreign REMFs, who spits upon that memory will be treated with as much respect as the "rotten fascist filth" from the third verse. 

Logic and the West

As actual aggressors and actual perpetrators of Munich continue to accuse Putin of being Hitler, perhaps Philosoraptor could explain the problem with their "reasoning":

(via Facebook)

Translation: If Putin is Hitler, shouldn't the Banderovites be taking orders from him?

Instead, they are taking orders from Washington.

Questions?

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)