Ukraine Update

To someone who has only watched the Western media - with its calculated nurturing of the rabid squirrel attention spans - the situation in Ukraine may make no sense beyond the simplistic narrative of "good Ukrainians" facing off the "invading Evilrussians."

One could just look at all the posts here tagged "Ukraine," but alas, my coverage of the crisis has been rather spotty, since I've had to spare some attention to Serbian issues as well.

To remedy this, I've been meaning to put together a brief summary of events in the past four months, but that turned out to be unnecessary: Russian vlog "Goblin News" has already done so. Watch their video here, with English, German or even Ukrainian subtitles (select from the CC menu). Hat tip to The Saker for finding the video.

The Saker has also posted Vladimir Putin's letter to Russia's gas buyers in Europe, and his analysis thereof. Both are worth reading, as is the Saker's coverage of recent unrest in Donetsk, Lugansk, Kharkov, and other regions in the East.

As for the big picture, I have a new piece up on Antiwar.com today, comparing the present situation with the plot of an undeservedly forgotten 1991 sci-fi novel. For all the differences, there are some eerie similarities - the transformation of the USA into a militarized, paranoid police state, and the use of Ukraine to strike at Russia, to name just two. And the author, Norman Spinrad, has a keen eye for understanding and describing what makes people tick.

About the only advice I can give, based on 15 years or so of observing the media, is this. When you read, watch or listen to the coverage of Russia in the West, keep in mind the following observation by Jacques Ellul, in his 1962 book "Propaganda":

"The propagandist will not accuse his opponent of just anything, but precisely of the deed that the propagandist himself aims to perpetrate."

In other words, an extreme form of psychological projection. Observe many examples of it in Frank Furedi's account of Western activists, published in Spiked. So, the next time you hear about Russia "violating international law," or "invading" someone, or being "imperialist", keep in mind that those accusations speak far more about the person or organization making them, than about their target.

If the Shoe Fits

A few days ago, a reader sent in a comment demanding I "stop using sexist remarks against women." (Being sexist against men is OK, then?)

Apparently, my recent use of "harridan" annoyed her, because it's a derogatory term that only applies to women, so my anonymous correspondent demanded I "cut it out."

Not a chance.

As a very American saying goes, "if the shoe fits, wear it." And does "harridan" ever fit the two women I mentioned in the article! Like a bespoke article of clothing. They are, in fact, belligerent, "bossy" women, carrying on in ways that are entirely inappropriate to anyone in their profession, male or female.

There is this thing I endeavor to adhere to here, called precision of language. So long as people like Ambassador Power and "journalist" Amanpour behave like harridans, I will call them that. I may also use shrew, termagant, harpy, gorgon, battle-ax - or any number of other appropriate expressions available in the English language.

And the Thought Police, both official and self-appointed, can go hump a burrow. 

"Kosovian" Suicide Bomber Behind Baghdad Attack

Serbian national television RTS reported earlier today that the March 25 suicide bombing in Baghdad was the work of Blerim Heta, a "Kosovian" Albanian. This, they say, is the first confirmed instance of any Balkans jihadist taking part in a suicide attack; there have been reports of Bosnian Muslims doing so in Iraq, but none could be corroborated.

Screenshot of the RTS report

Heta is a native of Uroševac (called Ferizaj by Albanians), and his family believed he was fighting in Syria. They confirmed his death, with Blerim's father Remzi denouncing religion and claiming his family followed "European values", while his son was "seduced".

RTS further cites a report on the website of the jihadist outfit ISIL, confirming Heta's death and referring to him as "Abu Habbab al-Kosowi".

Yet the most interesting detail of Heta's biography - that he worked for the U.S. military at Camp Bondsteel, the major military base right outside of Uroševac - is mentioned only in passing. When did he work there? What was he doing? Was he fired and then turned to jihad, or the other way around? Or was he recruited there to go to Syria? Questions about, yet RTS offers no answers. Maybe someone else will.

Residual Lies

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

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

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

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

Empire's War on Reality

I sure am glad I wasn't the only one telling the Emperor he had no clothes. The boy in Hans Christian Andersen's tale was lucky; in this day and age, he might have been hauled away for "diversity training".

Perhaps that is why the mainstream media are still silent on the (to put it mildly) Brussels gaffe. The Washington Post even quoted it without comment (!) while spinning Mr. Obama's speech as being a "generous spin" on the Iraq War. Fox News settled for reprinting the article written by two journalists at Breitbart London.

Just in case someone missed it, here is Mr. Obama's behind-the-looking-glass claim, made in the March 26 speech in Brussels:

"Kosovo only left Serbia after a referendum was organized – not outside the boundaries of international law but in careful cooperation with the United Nations, and with Kosovo’s neighbors."

And just to be clear, none of this ever happened. There was no UN-supervised referendum, no "careful cooperation" with anyone (least of all "Kosovo's neighbors", whoever that might be referring to), and no staying within international law. Why else would it have been necessary to bend it?

One possible explanation, as I noted yesterday, was that the Emperor's speechwriter mixed up the (nonexistent) referendum in Kosovo with the 2006 vote in Montenegro - a dirty affair in which the separatists barely scraped up the 55% majority arbitrarily decided upon by the EU. Bad enough when retired diplomats can't tell Kosovo and Bosnia apart, but the Emperor's own speechwriters mixing up his Balkans clients?

Daniel McAdams of the Ron Paul Institute may sound harsh when he calls this a "war on history," but he might actually be too lenient. This isn't just a war on history, but a war on reality. Remember Karl Rove's tirade to Ron Suskind, about the Empire shaping reality? Apparently this kind of delusional thinking is not just the province of Republicans and neocons. The party currently in power in Washington very much believes in the power of conjuring "reality" with words and images: Hope and change. Keep your doctor. Russia is an aggressor. There was a referendum in Kosovo. And so on.

The two experts interviewed by Breitbart reporters expressed expectations that the White House would issue a retraction, or at least an apology. That has not happened. Nor is it likely to happen, as that would undermine Washington's projected aura of infallibility - the only thing still hiding the fact that the Empire has no clothes.

Do Try This at Home

To Doris Pack, MEP:

It has come to my attention that you have praised the so-called "citizen plenums" in Bosnia, calling them a "good idea" and urging people to "take to the streets and take control of their own destiny."

Noble words. But this is what that looks like in practice:

(AP, via Daily Telegraph)

How about this, Doris: you do that, in your native Schiffweiler, first.

Don't bother letting me know how it turns out. I honestly don't give a damn.

WHY? - a RT Documentary

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

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

From the film's description:

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

Watch "WHY?" on RT.

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

From Belgrade to Baghdad

Amidst all the activity concerning the Ukraine, I barely managed to set aside some time to commemorate the anniversaries of NATO's 1999 war of aggression and the 2004 pogrom it produced. And somehow I missed March 19, the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq - one of those invasions "on completely trumped up pretext" that, according to John Kerry, no one does anymore.

Except, you know, the Empire.

Just before the invasion began, I wrote about the complete moral bankruptcy of invoking the Balkans precedent, and all the ghastly, appalling "arguments" proffered by both advocates and "critics" of the invasion.

Here was Richard Holbrooke, for example: "one should never underestimate the persuasive power of power itself." And here was Veton Surroi, a "moderate" ethnic Albanian demanding that Iraqis die to justify the American murder of Serbs four years prior: "Change will only come when the bombs begin to fall."

All the "debate" in the West, then as now, has focused on appearances of Imperial interventions. With a handful of notable exceptions such as Ron Paul, few have ever questioned their validity. Until it is recognized that the Empire had no right to initiate the use of force, whether in Serbia in 1999, or in Iraq 2003, comparisons between the different acts of aggression will be mere exercises in justification.

Considering the number of falsehoods per sentence in yesterday's statement by Mr. Obama, however, I wouldn't wager on that recognition coming any time soon.

A Telling Slip

Here is a still from the minute-long propaganda video by "Fatherland" party of Ukrainian "Prime Minister" Yahtzee, following his trip to Brussels:

Notice anything? Right between Italy and Romania? Instead of the shards of Yugoslavia, there is now just one country: Croatia.

Is this ignorance of geography, as some have suggested, or perhaps outdated maps? I doubt it. Unlike Americans, the rest of the world actually bothers studying geography, and while I can imagine getting some frontiers wrong, erasing half a dozen countries is still a bit much.

Nor is this a pre-1991 map, as Germany is united, while Czechs and Slovaks are separated. Also note that Cyprus (a tiny speck of blue disappearing off the southeastern edge of the picture) is correctly noted as an EU member.

Far be it from me to suggest that this map betrays a delusion of the Empire that some day all of what was once Yugoslavia would be "Croatia" - though I am kind of curious what Slovenians, "Bosnians," "Montenegrians", Macedonians and "Kosovians" think of that. And I can't shake off the feeling the Serbs are being systematically bullied and brainwashed to that very end.

Drawing Them a Picture

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

screen capture from Twitter

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

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

via Facebook (by M.V.)

And then someone else created another:

(via Facebook)

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

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

(via Facebook(

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

(via Facebook, Young Americans for Liberty)

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

The Real Day Everything Changed

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

Belgrade, March 1999

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About That Gratitude, Again

I have written before on the downright idiotic belief of the Imperial establishment that their white-knighting around the world on behalf of jihadists would result in gratitude. Except, you know, not.

In fact, there is a lengthy list of jihadists attacks perpetrated by those very "secular, modern, democratic, etc." Muslims from the Balkans the Empire has waged several wars to "save" or "liberate" - and it keeps growing.

Two commenters just sent in links to a developing story from southern Turkey. It appears that a Turkish patrol was ambushed on a highway near the Syrian border, and two soldiers and a policeman were killed. The Turks have captured three suspects, described as "two Albanians and a Kosovan [sic]" who were likely fighting the anti-government jihad in Syria. Which, by the way, Turkey has supported.

Here is a Macedonian news agency quoting the AFP quoting Turkey's Interior Minister:

Two Albanians and a Kosovan have been arrested for a suspected 'terror' attack that claimed the lives of two soldiers and a policeman in southern Turkey, Interior Minister Efgan Ala said Friday, AFP reports.

And here is that AFP story, as posted by Lebanon's Daily Star:

Two Albanians and a man from Kosovo have been arrested for a suspected "terror" attack that claimed the lives of two soldiers and a policeman in southern Turkey, Interior Minister Efgan Ala said Friday.

The three men were arrested after Thursday's attack, in which assailants opened fire on security forces carrying out a highway patrol near the town of Ulukisla, close to the Syrian border.

"The suspects captured were two citizens of Albania and the third from Kosovo," the official Anatolia news agency quoted Ala as saying.

Albania's interior ministry, however, denied that any of those arrested were Albanian citizens.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had labelled the shooting a "vile act of terror" and said the three security officers killed were "martyrs".

Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay said the attackers had "a link with Syria", without giving further details.

Local media reported they were affiliated with militant Islamist organisations operating in Syria.

Recall that the Empire had arranged for the Syrian "rebels" to "train" with the KLA back in 2012. And there are obviously Albanian (and Bosnian) jihadists fighting for the "rebels", as reports keep coming in about many of them reaching their goal of martyrdom (i.e. getting killed). Meanwhile, Turkey has not only backed the jihad in Syria, but also the Muslims of Bosnia and the "Kosovian" Albanians in their claims on Serb territory.

Perhaps this instance of Albanian jihadists biting the hand that fed them might cause the Turks to reconsider their position, if not on the Syrian jihad then "Kosovistan." But I'm not holding my breath.

Four (Not So) Easy Pieces

Over on my Serbian-language blog, I have a weekly overview of interesting articles that runs every Sunday. I wish I had the time to do something like that here, but it's just not practical. So a quick round-up now and then will have to do.

Here is an interesting view of the Ukraine tug-of-war from China's People's Daily. My best guess is that this sums up Beijing's official position, and that interpreting China's abstention in the UNSC as weakness or disinterest would be a huge mistake.

And here is how an Indian commentator looks on Russia vs. the West. I don't know how mainstream this publication is, but the author is very pointedly dispensing advice to the likely incoming cabinet and arguing that the Atlantic Empire simply can't be trusted.

I first heard the name Anne Williamson via Steve Sailer's blog, three weeks ago, when he quoted at length her 1999 testimony describing the financial Rape of Russia after the Soviet Union'd demise. Imagine my interest, then, when an essay by Williamson appeared on LewRockwell.com this past week, talking about how the Empire has adopted Lenin's "logic." Especially since some of you may remember me making the same argument here, back in 2012.

And then there is the inimitable Fred Reed, whom I simply have to quote:

"I mean, by all the gods and little catfish, what does he think a tiny irrititing [sic] boat like that is going to do—torpedo the Crimea? It doesn’t float, Barack. It’s stuck to the bottom. You can’t sink it."

Meanwhile, the Western press is bleating how the "international community" (what's that, again?) or even "the whole world" is against Russia. Yeah, about that...

Handling Harridans

The uncouth behavior of Samantha Power, Empire's envoy to the UN, confirms once more former Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali's assessment that America, like the Roman Empire, has no need for diplomacy. "Diplomacy is perceived by an imperial power as a waste of time and prestige and a sign of weakness," concluded Boutros-Ghali (p. 198 of his 1999 memoir Unvanquished)

I would argue the same applies to journalistic integrity. After all, if one believes one can just make up "reality" and impose it with lies or bombs, why bother dealing with the truth?

Empire's journalists are so used to getting their way, believing themselves to be the all-powerful shapers of reality, that they get outright bitchy when someone refuses to play along.

Enter Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the UN. A veteran diplomat, he first handled the hysterics of Ms. Power (who had zero diplomatic experience prior to being appointed to her post)
with a polite but firm request to get out of his face. Now he is refusing to bow before CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

Back in November last year, Churkin appeared on Amanpour's show, only to see his interview on Syria sliced and diced. CNN claimed it was "cut down for length and time on-air", but the Russian mission argued the alterations left out "crucial" bits of the interview. Feel free to compare what was shown with the original remarks, and decide for yourselves.

So when Amanpour wanted to repeat the experience, Churkin gave her a cold shoulder. Frustrated, the CNN anchor got personal:

“Churkin’s own daughter is the US-based reporter for ‘Russia Today’ in New York. She's shown here, quizzing US State Department spokesman, Jen Psaki, over this whole Ukraine crisis. And in the past, she's even reported on her own father.”

To which Churkin replied:

...I wouldn't be writing to you if you did not also choose to personally attack my daughter... a Russian TV journalist. I am very proud of her – not only is she a good journalist, but she strictly keeps her professional distance from me.

Incidentally, I recall you married the State Department Spokesman. How was your professional credibility in the course of your courtship?

Margarita Simonyan, RT's editor in chief, added this:

When you don’t know what to say, fall back on those [double] standards at the double, as it were. But it is getting tedious and hard to stomach anymore.

If this is beyond the pale in the hallowed halls of American journalism, Amanpour would do well to remember this charming little video where she interviews her husband, James Rubin (former aide to State Secretary Madeleine Albright).

The interview is conducted alongside Victoria Nuland’s husband, Robert Kagan, who sits on the board of directors of the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI). The FPI, incidentally, has been roundly implicated in the now well-worn story surrounding the dramatic on-air resignation of our anchor, Liz Wahl.

In fact, CNN hasn’t been bothered in the slightest by the fact that two relatives have hammed it up on opposite ends of the camera, on more than one occasion. For example, here is a video of another CNN anchor, Chris Cuomo, interviewing his brother, New York governor, Andrew Cuomo.

Now how do you like them apples?

In the Media

Here's an excerpt from my March 19 interview with the Voice of Russia radio (full transcript here):

Of all the legacies of communism that the West had denounced, the borders drawn up by the commissars, whether Stalin in the Soviet Union or Khrushchev, or Tito in Yugoslavia, they are the only thing that the West has been defending. Why?

I was also a guest on today's edition of CrossTalk, with Sir Michael Arthur in London and Jacques Cheminade in Paris.

You can watch the show on RT, or on YouTube.

Meanwhile, reporters from TruthDig dug up an interesting revelation: RT anchor Liz Wahl's public meltdown earlier this month was orchestrated by the neocon war lobby. The stunt was run by none other than Jamie Kirchick, the neocon operative who tried to smear Ron Paul as racist and anti-Semitic a few years back. Kirchick and Wahl tried to dismiss the story via Twitter, but it didn't quite work out the way they intended...

And over on CNN, Stephen Cohen schooled Christiane Amanpour on Russia. A joy to watch.

Clearly an Outrage

This letter appeared today in The Boston Globe. Make sure you read it carefully, and all the way to the end:

IT’S TRULY an outrage that, in this day and age, a region within a sovereign country can be taken over and declared independent simply because they have a majority of residents with an ethnic identity different from the majority of citizens in their country. That this sort of thing can be successfully orchestrated militarily by a foreign power is alarming. This is a blatant violation of international law and should be strongly opposed by the citizens of every free and law-abiding country where respect for national borders is held high. After all, if it can be permitted to happen even once, there will be no end to it.
Therefore, we must stand firm and refuse to recognize Kosovo.

Theodore L. Bosen
Plymouth

Well done, sir.

Well done. 

RIP, David Yeagley

Dr. David Yeagley, a great scholar, American patriot and Comanche, passed away last week. Among the many issues he had addressed during his prolific writing career was the plight of the Serbs. To honor his memory, I am reposting his most recent article on the subject.

I can't help but think that his desperate plea from the last paragraph was finally answered this week.

- Gray Falcon

Serbia: A Lesson for the Modern World

By David Yeagley, November 7, 2013
BadEagle.com

To this day, because of liberal, biased media, most people in the world still do not know what has happened to Serbia. The fraud, the corruption, and the international robbery of a nation go unrecognized, unjustified, and unpunished. Is this to be the fate of every country facing the same issues?

Serbians of their northern Kosovo resisted Albanian Muslim government elections in the internationally usurped province.

BadEagle.com has written numerous articles on Serbia, pointing out the ironies and agonies, and the stark shame due the United States government under President Bill Clinton and his NATO commander, Gen. Wesley Clark, as well as President Bush following, and the Obama administration to date.

It was all about crime, heroin, and Albanian Muslims. That’s how Kosovo became an “independent” nation, a heroin haven forworld corruption, with such renowned leaders as former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari. The media never once pointed out these underlying evils. “Ethnic Albanians” who had migrated en mass into Serbia’s Kosovo province were presented as victims! Whoever helped them was heroic, just, and to be greatly honored, regardless of reality.

Serbia was branded barbarian, when the Serbians were simply white Christian nationalist patriots, trying to protect and preserve their own. The liberal West wouldn’t have it.

Yet, there are still Serbian patriots, even in the norther area of Kosovo, some 40 to 50 thousand of them. They refused to vote for the integration into Kosovo, and disrupted the recent mayoral voting process in Mitrovica, in northern Kosovo.

Of course, the new, liberal-leaning Serbian government in Belgrade is trying desperately to get Serbia integrated into the European Union, and wants all Serbians to acknowledge the independent Kosovo. Thus, the new Serbian government has betrayed Serbians, calling them ulta-nationalists, instead of patriots, non-cooperatives, hold-outs, hardliners,etc., condemning them as the problem for the rest of Serbia. Kosovo plans another election, in defiance of such patriotism.

Serbians of Kosovo are being presented as those needing to be integrated into the new “foreign country” of Kosovo, created by masses of migrated Albanian Muslims who moved in on Serbian territory. Imagine, being “integrated” into a new country on your own land–robbed from you by a liberal, Western world united against you.

The last of the Mohicans, I’ve called these Serbian patriots. They are Christian, Serbian orthodox. They are denied by Muslims, liberals, and Western drug machines. White Christian is out, Muslim tyranny is in. Western governments, including the United States, prefer it this way.

It is an international disgrace, this betrayal of Serbia. That the United States should have had such a profound role in it only shows just how corrupt the United States government has become. Bi-partisan betrayal, indeed. It is nearly unfathomable.

Mass migration of foreigners, enemies of the culture they invade; international government cooperation with the invaders, business cooperation, criminal pay-offs; and utter misrepresentation of liberal media; these things create cosmic crime. These are the lessons of Serbia to the world. Beware.

No nation is safe today. No, not one. International forces have gained the ascendancy. Whatever your nation has that is valuable to the internationals, it will be taken from you, by coercion, by government force, by arms if necessary. Whatever it takes.

We can only pray for divine intervention. When the patriots are outnumbered by the world, how can they defend what’s theirs? When the patriots are out-manned, out-monied, out-gunned, the most they can hope for is “reservations,” like the American Indians. Is that where all true honor ends, on reservations?

The Only Principle

Time and again, RT presenters and hosts ask me what I make of the U.S. selectively applying international law. Why is secession of X perfectly acceptable, while secession of Y is wrong and condemned? Why is territorial integrity of Z not up for debate, but Q can be carved up, and is?

One can analyze the details of each particular case, examine the legality of each actor and action, and still be none the wiser. Not because the pattern does not exist, but because those details are, quite frankly, irrelevant to it. The answer is in understanding how the West thinks.

In a particularly ironic turn of history, the political class in "the West" has internalized Lenin's "logic" of Who/Whom. According to this way of thinking, the "what" does not matter, only "who" does it to "whom". If Washington is carving up a country, that's fine (e.g. Yugoslavia, then Serbia). If Washington is backing a coup ("color revolutions"), that's fine too. If Washington is invading and occupying countries on made-up pretexts (Iraq, Libya) or fomenting civil wars (Syria), or waging undeclared drone warfare (Yemen, Pakistan) that is likewise fine. Washington, and its clients, can do anything, because they are by (their own) definition the "good guys."

Anyone else, however, is a different matter. (U.S. clients) Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina seceding from Yugoslavia is OK, but Serbs seceding from them is "aggression." Croatian and Bosnian borders are sacred, and cannot be changed, but borders of Serbia can and should, because ethnic Albanians (U.S. client) want to claim the province of Kosovo as their own independent state. And then the borders of "Kosovo" become sacred, and cannot be changed.

Not only was Serbia denied the right to defend itself from the armed Albanian rebellion, it was attacked by NATO in a clearly illegal war of aggression. NATO occupied Kosovo, and in 2008 recognized the illegal declaration of independence that clearly contravened the UN resolution (1244) upholding the territorial integrity of Serbia. It doesn't matter what the Albanians have done, or what the Serbs have not - the Serbs are a priori wrong.
 
Just to make sure, Washington installed a quisling regime in Belgrade that said all this was perfectly acceptable, and even muscled the World Court to redefine the question in order to make the land grab appear legal.

To summarize: it is an article of faith in the Atlantic Empire that Washington and its clients (EU, etc.) can do no wrong, while their victims can do no right. Once you understand that as their sole guiding principle (for lack of a better word), all the other pieces fall into place.

Kosovo's Kristallnacht Remembered

March 17, 2004. NATO "peackeepers" had occupied the Serbian province of Kosovo for almost five years, following an illegal war. In practice, they had turned over the province to the "Kosovo Liberation Army" - an ethnic Albanian terrorist organization praised in Washington as fighting for "human rights and American values" (Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn, quoted in the Washington Post, April 28, 1999). After the occupation, the KLA split up into multiple organized crime clans.

After claiming that the surviving Serbs - living within barbed-wire enclosures and under NATO armed guard - had caused the drowning deaths of three Albanian children (blood libel), over 50,000 Albanians launched a province-wide pogrom that one NATO official openly compared to Kristallnacht.

For four days, Kosovo burned.

Fold and Fumble

A month ago, Barack Obama used an inderesting turn of phrase in a message to Moscow, when he said America wasn't playing on "some Cold War chessboard." Because Foggy Bottom was doing just that in Ukraine, trying to make into reality Zbigniew Brzezinski's 1997 book called - "The Grand Chessboard".

Thing is, Russians are much better at chess. As I noted on CrossTalk two weeks ago:

"Americans are playing the only games they know, which is poker and American football. So brute force and bluffing. But in this case, they’re the scrawny nerd that can’t run and can’t pass and can’t throw the ball and they’re holding a pair of sevens. I’m honestly not sure who they think they are fooling." 

To be fair, the credit for the observation about poker and football rightly belongs to my colleague, Belgrade scholar Vladimir Trapara, who brought it up in an interview with Al-Jazeera Balkans I happened to see the day before. I just expanded upon it. A Bloomberg staffer tasked with mocking RT's "propaganda" quoted that segment as an illustration. He apparently thought it was absurd and funny. But was it? You decide.

Earlier today, the usually well-informed Moon of Alabama blog noted this item, via Reuters (emphasis added by MoA):

(Reuters) - Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry agreed on Sunday to seek a solution to crisis in Ukraine by pushing for constitutional reforms there, the Russian foreign ministry said.

It did not go into details on the kind of reforms needed except to say they should come "in a generally acceptable form and while taking into the account the interests of all regions of Ukraine".
...
"Sergei Viktorovich Lavrov and John Kerry agreed to continue work to find a resolution on Ukraine through a speedy launch of constitutional reform with the support of international community," the ministry said in a statement.

MoA proprietor notes that this is almost exactly what the Russians laid out in their recent "non-paper", and concludes:

Obama has given up. His empty threats had not worked and he now has largely accepted the Russian conditions for the way out of the crisis.

The U.S. plot to snatch the Ukraine from Russia and to integrate it into NATO and the EU seems to have failed. Russia taking Crimea and having 93% of the voters there agree to join Russia has made the main objective of the U.S. plans, to kick the Russians out of Sevastopol and thereby out of the Middle East, impossible.

The Russian (non public) threat to also immediately take the eastern and southern provinces from the Ukraine has pushed the U.S. into agreeing to the Russian conditions mentioned above. The only alternative to that would be a military confrontation which the U.S. and Europeans are not willing to risk. Despite the anti-Russian campaign in the media a majority of U.S. people as well as EU folks are against any such confrontation. In the end the U.S. never held the cards it needed to win this game.

Should all go well and a new Ukrainian constitution fit the Russian conditions the "west" may in the future well be allowed to pay for the monthly bills Gazprom will keep sending to Kiev.

So, then. Looks like Washington just folded - or fumbled. I'd like to ask the Bloomberg staffer whether he still thinks my (and Trapara's) observation was funny.

I won't lie, I am surprised at this development. It suggests a degree of common sense I wasn't prepared to credit Washington with. And the Empire doesn't exactly have a history of keeping its end of the bargain. Quite the contrary. But if they think they can use this as breathing room to create more "reality" on the ground, they are sorely mistaken. Russia's behavior in the past six months suggests they have taken the lessons of Serbia to heart (even if Serbia itself has not), and if Washington - or its Banderite clients on the ground - tries to twist this deal to their advantage, there are no doubt several contingency plans already in place.

And to be entirely fair, the Empire hasn't tried to weasel out of the arrangement it accepted last fall regarding Syria. Yet. So I am very cautiously optimistic about this. But let's see what happens.