So, following the government-worshiping ritual last Tuesday, Barack Hussein Obama will become the 44th President (and not sure which Emperor in order, not that it matters) of the USA. Given the current state of the country, and its standing abroad, I'm not sure whether to say "'Grats" or "Sorry." Maybe both.
I viewed the prospect of either Obama or McCain gaining the presidency as distasteful, both as a libertarian and as a Serb. Neither is a friend of human freedom, so I won't belabor that point. Unlike most of his fellow Republicans, McCain has consistently supported Clinton's Balkans adventures during the 1990s, from Bosnia to Kosovo. One of his partners in those crimes was Joseph Biden, then Senator from Delaware, now VP-elect.
I could write an entire column about all the things Joseph Biden has said and done pertaining to the Balkans. In fact, I did write a column about him once. At the time, I asserted that Biden's belligerent ranting was less of a sign that "liberal" interventionism was making a comeback and more of a "last roar of an establishment whose time has passed, and while still capable of mischief it cannot fundamentally change the course of events." But lo and behold, that establishment seems to be back in power, and under the banner of "change" no less!
Let's see now. In addition to cheering the murderous terrorists of the KLA and their "independent state of Kosovo," Biden also called for a "Japanese-German style occupation" of Serbia. He is also said to have advocated that “all Serbs should be placed in Nazi-style concentration camps” back in 1999, during Senate debate on the NATO attack on then-Yugoslavia, and called the Serbs "...a bunch of illiterates, degenerates, baby killers, butchers and rapists" on CNN's Larry King Live.
Apparently, a Croatian friar has taken credit for guiding Biden to the "truth" about those wicked evil Serbs. Isn't that great, knowing that a foreign cleric can influence an American lawmaker so? Then again, his task wasn't hard. Being a Serbophobe - as opposed to, say, anti-Semite - has never been a career-killer in Washington. Quite the contrary.
Within the postmodern morality in which the American politics operates, there's absolutely nothing wrong with calling the Serbs "degenerates, baby killers, butchers and rapists," since they are an officially designated villain. The entire narrative of the American Empire rising to "liberate" the world from itself in the aftermath of the Cold War rests on the myth of Serbian Evil.
Biden could not get away with saying things like this about the Jews, or Americans of African origin, or Muslims. But Serbs are fair game. Everybody knows they are evil, right?
It seems that every possible group of people has some sort of agency in Washington, whether they have a grievance now or think they may have a grievance in the future and doesn't hurt to be prepared. The Serbs do not, even though they've been on the receiving end of American "benevolence" longer and harder than the Iraqis or the Afghans. This is why there is little or no response to Serbophobic drivel routinely spewed by politicians and lobbyists (and now the future Grand Vizier). This is why no one in the U.S. mainstream cared about Biden's comments, or how positively Hitlerian they sounded (not to mention having not even a passing acquaintance with the truth).
Now all we need is Dick Holbrooke back in the State Department, and as far as Washington is concerned, it will be 1999 all over again.
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
Failed God's Holiday
Today is Election Day in the United States, where subjects of the omnipotent imperial state get to indulge their self-delusion that their will, mystically transferred through the magic ballot box via a piece of paper (or a more modern digital device) gives a divine mandate to one of the candidates to become the absolute ruler of America and Emperor of the known world.
Of course, each election is the Most Important Election Ever, and each time the voting ritual is supposed to be of crucial importance for the fate of America and the world, and each time the people are told that if the "other guy" wins there will be an apocalypse, but if "our guy" is elected there would be heaven on Earth. And each time it's all a load of manure.
Emma Goldman was right; if elections could change anything, they'd be made illegal. What actually takes place today is a ritual of the dominant secular religion, wherein the masses give their overlords power by pretending to have a hand in choosing them. There is even a religious overtone to the campaign this year, as one of the candidates is painted almost as a Messiah coming to save America (and the world, let's not forget about the world - though it gets no say in the matter) from its present troubles.
If you are really looking to put a messiah into the White House, and you're a Christian, Muslim or a Jew, that makes you a blasphemer. Have fun with that. And that's the least of the problems I have with the self-anointed prophet of HopeChange. But I won't go into those now; this essay isn't about him - it's about the process in general.
Same goes for the other guy. If he's "conservative," there's nothing worth conserving. One's tempted to think the GOP frantically looked for anyone that wasn't Ron Paul. Now, Paul championed real change, and real conservative values - but he didn't want to be Emperor, and he wanted to cut off as much parasitic, bloodsucking scum from the government feed trough as possible. Good for the country, but bad for the political class; can't have that.
Don't delude yourselves. Whoever the high priests of democracy anoint Emperor today will keep breaking your leg and picking your pocket. He may just make it sound more pleasant. The strongest chains that bind a man are always in his own mind. It's a lesson governments all over have learned long ago.
As for me, even if I could vote today, I would not. Whatever happens in the coming months and years, don't blame me - I didn't encourage them.
Of course, each election is the Most Important Election Ever, and each time the voting ritual is supposed to be of crucial importance for the fate of America and the world, and each time the people are told that if the "other guy" wins there will be an apocalypse, but if "our guy" is elected there would be heaven on Earth. And each time it's all a load of manure.
Emma Goldman was right; if elections could change anything, they'd be made illegal. What actually takes place today is a ritual of the dominant secular religion, wherein the masses give their overlords power by pretending to have a hand in choosing them. There is even a religious overtone to the campaign this year, as one of the candidates is painted almost as a Messiah coming to save America (and the world, let's not forget about the world - though it gets no say in the matter) from its present troubles.
If you are really looking to put a messiah into the White House, and you're a Christian, Muslim or a Jew, that makes you a blasphemer. Have fun with that. And that's the least of the problems I have with the self-anointed prophet of HopeChange. But I won't go into those now; this essay isn't about him - it's about the process in general.
Same goes for the other guy. If he's "conservative," there's nothing worth conserving. One's tempted to think the GOP frantically looked for anyone that wasn't Ron Paul. Now, Paul championed real change, and real conservative values - but he didn't want to be Emperor, and he wanted to cut off as much parasitic, bloodsucking scum from the government feed trough as possible. Good for the country, but bad for the political class; can't have that.
Don't delude yourselves. Whoever the high priests of democracy anoint Emperor today will keep breaking your leg and picking your pocket. He may just make it sound more pleasant. The strongest chains that bind a man are always in his own mind. It's a lesson governments all over have learned long ago.
As for me, even if I could vote today, I would not. Whatever happens in the coming months and years, don't blame me - I didn't encourage them.
Thursday, October 23, 2008
Harping Has-Beens
What do Paddy Ashdown and Richard Holbrooke have in common? If you said "Serbophobia" that would be correct, though entirely too obvious. No, another thing they have in common is that Bosnia was the high point of their careers. Holbrooke had famously "negotiated" the peace agreement that ended the fighting in the 1992-1995 civil war (but not the war itself, which merely moved to the political sphere). Ashdown was the viceroy of Bosnia for three years, ruling the Balkans country like a personal fief.
After Bosnia, Holbrooke served for a while as the U.S. ambassador to the UN. He hoped to become Secretary of State in either the Gore or Kerry administration, but his hopes were foiled both times. He had gambled on Hillary Clinton, and lost. Though he still likes to pontificate in the U.S. press, Holbrooke is in effect a private citizen.
Ashdown was likewise spurned after his disastrous Bosnia reign. In what could be considered the ultimate humiliation for an aspiring colonial government, he was rejected out of hand by the Karzai regime as the proposed special envoy for Afghanistan. I'm not entirely sure what he's into these days, except that he's not involved with his former party, the Liberal Democrats. Since they got rid of Ashdown, they seem to be doing better than ever, by the way.
Now, Paddy has tried to raise a ruckus in the British media for several months now, claiming that the sky is falling in Bosnia and that the Empire needed to "do something" to stop the evil, genocidal Serbs hell-bent on destruction of that multi-ethnic paradise. After his first hysterical episode, back in July, Ian Banks demolished his argument and demonstrated that Ashdown was either clueless, or malicious. I'll say he's probably both.
Two days ago, Ashdown teamed up with Holbrooke, and once again they ranted, raved and railed against the evil Serbs threatening Bosnia, supposedly as proxies of the even eviler Russians, and "Europe" and the U.S. had to "do something" to stop it, or else. It's fact-free, Serbophobic, imperialistic rubbish, really, typical of those two.
Normally I would not give a flying rodent's posterior that two Serbophobic has-beens are polluting the press with their drivel. Most Balkans coverage is offal, really, and the latest Ashdown-Holbrooke oeuvre doesn't stand out in any way. However, their screed has resonated in the region and beyond; apparently, it was republished by the Muslim nationalist daily "Dnevni Avaz." At that point, it showed up on the radar of the local Reuters correspondent, so it made the wires. Somehow, in the process of quoting the opinions of two imperialist has-beens, they begin to sound like facts. Idiotic nonsense, such as the claim that Croats want a strong central government, or that Muslim leader Haris Silajdzic wants to "end ethnic division" (so that is how one spins "desires Muslim dominance" these days), was thus presented as self-evident truth.
The disturbing amount of attention and approval the Ashdown/Holbrooke philippic seems to have attracted suggests that the spirit of Empire is still alive and well in the West, even as the body of it is shrivels and dies from fatal financial disease. In truth, I would be a whole lot more alarmed if the Atlantic Empire and the EUSSR actually had the wherewithal to mess with Bosnia again, as they have done over the past twenty years or so. But it is no longer 1992, or 1995, or 2004. The Empire they helped create by lying through their teeth in and about Bosnia is finally collapsing under the weight other lies.
That isn't to say they can't try, if they come into positions of power once more. There's still a whole lot of potential for mischief in the Empire, and still entirely too many willing quislings in the Balkans who seem as oblivious to Empire's current condition as others were to the fate of the USSR in the early 1990s. Vigilance is definitely called for.
Still, I can't shake the impression that Dick and Paddy are just trying to bring back the good ol' days when they had their grubby little paws on the closest thing to absolute power any diplomat or politician had ever seen. I can certainly understand why they would want it back. But why should the rest of us give a damn?
After Bosnia, Holbrooke served for a while as the U.S. ambassador to the UN. He hoped to become Secretary of State in either the Gore or Kerry administration, but his hopes were foiled both times. He had gambled on Hillary Clinton, and lost. Though he still likes to pontificate in the U.S. press, Holbrooke is in effect a private citizen.
Ashdown was likewise spurned after his disastrous Bosnia reign. In what could be considered the ultimate humiliation for an aspiring colonial government, he was rejected out of hand by the Karzai regime as the proposed special envoy for Afghanistan. I'm not entirely sure what he's into these days, except that he's not involved with his former party, the Liberal Democrats. Since they got rid of Ashdown, they seem to be doing better than ever, by the way.
Now, Paddy has tried to raise a ruckus in the British media for several months now, claiming that the sky is falling in Bosnia and that the Empire needed to "do something" to stop the evil, genocidal Serbs hell-bent on destruction of that multi-ethnic paradise. After his first hysterical episode, back in July, Ian Banks demolished his argument and demonstrated that Ashdown was either clueless, or malicious. I'll say he's probably both.
Two days ago, Ashdown teamed up with Holbrooke, and once again they ranted, raved and railed against the evil Serbs threatening Bosnia, supposedly as proxies of the even eviler Russians, and "Europe" and the U.S. had to "do something" to stop it, or else. It's fact-free, Serbophobic, imperialistic rubbish, really, typical of those two.
Normally I would not give a flying rodent's posterior that two Serbophobic has-beens are polluting the press with their drivel. Most Balkans coverage is offal, really, and the latest Ashdown-Holbrooke oeuvre doesn't stand out in any way. However, their screed has resonated in the region and beyond; apparently, it was republished by the Muslim nationalist daily "Dnevni Avaz." At that point, it showed up on the radar of the local Reuters correspondent, so it made the wires. Somehow, in the process of quoting the opinions of two imperialist has-beens, they begin to sound like facts. Idiotic nonsense, such as the claim that Croats want a strong central government, or that Muslim leader Haris Silajdzic wants to "end ethnic division" (so that is how one spins "desires Muslim dominance" these days), was thus presented as self-evident truth.
The disturbing amount of attention and approval the Ashdown/Holbrooke philippic seems to have attracted suggests that the spirit of Empire is still alive and well in the West, even as the body of it is shrivels and dies from fatal financial disease. In truth, I would be a whole lot more alarmed if the Atlantic Empire and the EUSSR actually had the wherewithal to mess with Bosnia again, as they have done over the past twenty years or so. But it is no longer 1992, or 1995, or 2004. The Empire they helped create by lying through their teeth in and about Bosnia is finally collapsing under the weight other lies.
That isn't to say they can't try, if they come into positions of power once more. There's still a whole lot of potential for mischief in the Empire, and still entirely too many willing quislings in the Balkans who seem as oblivious to Empire's current condition as others were to the fate of the USSR in the early 1990s. Vigilance is definitely called for.
Still, I can't shake the impression that Dick and Paddy are just trying to bring back the good ol' days when they had their grubby little paws on the closest thing to absolute power any diplomat or politician had ever seen. I can certainly understand why they would want it back. But why should the rest of us give a damn?
Friday, October 17, 2008
Whose Order?
Commenting on a recent incident in Serbia, where several hooligans attacked a young lady at volleyball practice and broke her arms (!), a Serbian blogger called "Jane" doesn't buy the establishment explanation. It isn't the "traumas of the 1990s", she avers, but:
I could not agree more. When people see the state act this way, when they see the individuals who act this way become rich and powerful (even to the point of calling themselves "elite"), it is but a matter of time when the bulk of the people will start acting and thinking the same way. At some point, belief in the "law of the jungle" becomes necessary for survival. Because human nature demands some kind of order, some kind of rules, no matter how irrational.
Among other things, the demise of Yugoslavia was made possible by the collapse of the values that country was built on. Once upon a time, Tito was everything. But by the time Yugoslavia began to crumble, he'd been dead for a decade, and the promised Marxist utopia had failed to arrive. What came were the bills for debts previously incurred, higher by the day. Then came the demagogues, and with them a "new order" favoring those that did the taking and the killing.
The violence "Jane" was talking about isn't limited to Serbia. Croatian crime pages are filled with similar stories: beatings, murders, ambushes, suicides. Bosnia is no different, either. There once used to be a sort of honor among thieves (not much of one, for they were, after all, thieves), now even that is gone. Violence has become random, unthinking, animalistic. There is no order anymore. There are no rules. And the leading exponents of such behavior are the very people whose job description requires them to uphold the rules and protect order. Instead, they merrily destroy both - in order to eventually save the people from themselves, I guess, by establishing a new set of rules, a new order, better suited to their ends.
Or have they done so already?
Could the problem be the current zeitgeist, recently adopted by just about everyone? The ethics promoted by the state and society today go something like this: Power is its own right. The only right is the right of the strong. The strong are always right - if they demand something, give it to them. Do not fight those stronger than you, no matter the cause or circumstance. Yesterday doesn't matter, tomorrow is far away, the only thing that matters is now. You want something, take it. Take it today.
How can we expect the youth of today to obey any sort of moral code, when the state itself rejects it altogether? Why should anyone want to submit to humiliation in a country that keeps being humiliated? Why not play by the state's rules? There are two players in that game: the strong, thuggish one that can take anything he wants with impunity; and the weak, pathetic, incompetent victim who accepts the beatings, approves of them, and continues to crave the companionship of the strong, no matter how hard the beatings get.
I could not agree more. When people see the state act this way, when they see the individuals who act this way become rich and powerful (even to the point of calling themselves "elite"), it is but a matter of time when the bulk of the people will start acting and thinking the same way. At some point, belief in the "law of the jungle" becomes necessary for survival. Because human nature demands some kind of order, some kind of rules, no matter how irrational.
Among other things, the demise of Yugoslavia was made possible by the collapse of the values that country was built on. Once upon a time, Tito was everything. But by the time Yugoslavia began to crumble, he'd been dead for a decade, and the promised Marxist utopia had failed to arrive. What came were the bills for debts previously incurred, higher by the day. Then came the demagogues, and with them a "new order" favoring those that did the taking and the killing.
The violence "Jane" was talking about isn't limited to Serbia. Croatian crime pages are filled with similar stories: beatings, murders, ambushes, suicides. Bosnia is no different, either. There once used to be a sort of honor among thieves (not much of one, for they were, after all, thieves), now even that is gone. Violence has become random, unthinking, animalistic. There is no order anymore. There are no rules. And the leading exponents of such behavior are the very people whose job description requires them to uphold the rules and protect order. Instead, they merrily destroy both - in order to eventually save the people from themselves, I guess, by establishing a new set of rules, a new order, better suited to their ends.
Or have they done so already?
Friday, October 10, 2008
Disgrace
In these dark times, just as I think the world can sink no further into depravity and decadence, something usually happens that proves me wrong.
Anyone who ever won the Nobel Peace Prize should feel revolted and disgusted that this year it was awarded to Martti Ahtisaari. Oh, supposedly the ex-president of Finland helped Namibia become independent, made peace in Aceh (hey, aren't they still fighting?) and mediated in Iraq (no comment), but we all know what really drove the awards committee: Ahtisaari's services to the Empire in first ensuring the NATO occupation of Kosovo in 1999, then engineering the "peace plan" that handed this Serbian province to Albanian terrorists in February this year.
The Nobel committee has made some questionable decisions in the past, but this is truly beyond the pale. What he did in Kosovo was not peacemaking, not in 1999 and certainly not in 2006-2008. He was a hatchet-man for NATO and the Atlantic Empire, a phony, a fraud. Even if he didn't receive kickbacks from the Albanian mafia (and those claims were never seriously investigated, but simply dismissed as "Serbian propaganda" - even though they originated from Germany and Finland!), he was still rotten to the core.
If this...thing can get the Nobel Peace Prize, then there is no such thing as peace, and the Nobel Prize is worthless.
Anyone who ever won the Nobel Peace Prize should feel revolted and disgusted that this year it was awarded to Martti Ahtisaari. Oh, supposedly the ex-president of Finland helped Namibia become independent, made peace in Aceh (hey, aren't they still fighting?) and mediated in Iraq (no comment), but we all know what really drove the awards committee: Ahtisaari's services to the Empire in first ensuring the NATO occupation of Kosovo in 1999, then engineering the "peace plan" that handed this Serbian province to Albanian terrorists in February this year.
The Nobel committee has made some questionable decisions in the past, but this is truly beyond the pale. What he did in Kosovo was not peacemaking, not in 1999 and certainly not in 2006-2008. He was a hatchet-man for NATO and the Atlantic Empire, a phony, a fraud. Even if he didn't receive kickbacks from the Albanian mafia (and those claims were never seriously investigated, but simply dismissed as "Serbian propaganda" - even though they originated from Germany and Finland!), he was still rotten to the core.
If this...thing can get the Nobel Peace Prize, then there is no such thing as peace, and the Nobel Prize is worthless.
Tuesday, October 07, 2008
Illyrian And Other Myths
Most Albanians today will tell you they are direct descendants of Illyrians, an ancient people that inhabited the Balkans in pre-Roman times. Rome conquered the peninsula early in the first century AD and it is universally assumed that the Illyrians became Romanized. As Goths, Alans, Huns, Magyars and Slavs passed through or settled in the Balkans in the two centuries following the fall of Rome, it was assumed the Illyrians vanished as a distinct population, merging into the overall gene pool of the Slavic settlers. Except, so it is claimed, in the rough country of today's Albania.
The Illyrian hypothesis was advanced by Franjo Rački (1828-1894). A Roman Catholic priest and politician, Rački "promoted the merging of Dalmatia with Croatia ruled by the ban, he wrote discussions about the Croatian nature of Srijem and Rijeka, but he spent most energy on analyzing the relationships between Croatia and Hungary, fighting against the Hungarian expansionism," says his Wikipedia entry.
(As a side note, few today question the "Croatness" of Dalmatia or Rijeka and Istria in general, but in the XIX century these were very much in dispute. Istria was claimed by Italy, as was a lot of Dalmatia, and the dialects spoken there even today sound nothing like the Slovenian-related speech of the region around Zagreb. For "Srijem", see Syrmia/Srem. The only time in history this area was a part of Croatia was 1941-1944.)
Rački also originated the "Bogomil hypothesis," claiming that the Christianity of medieval Bosnia was a heresy that originated in Bulgaria, and had nothing to do with Serbian Orthodoxy. Croat politicians have used this hypothesis to argue that the inhabitants of Bosnia are really apostate Catholics (and hence, Croats). Similarly, conventional wisdom among the Bosnian Muslims is that the "Bogomils" all converted to Islam and became the "Bosniaks" of today, while those who identify as Serbs and Croats are interlopers.
There's а gap in that theory one could drive a carrier battlegroup through: the Ottomans would have considered the so-called "Bogomils" just as Christian as the Orthodox and the Catholics. Therefore, as "people of the Book," they would have been permitted to keep their faith. There are other Christian churches in the East, once persecuted by the Byzantines, that survived under Islamic rule: e.g. Coptic, Maronite, Chaldaean. Yet there are no "Bogomils" in Bosnia. Zero, zip, zilch, nada, not a single one remaining. Bosnia must be the only Ottoman province in which a Christian church simply vanished like it never existed. Strange, is it not?
About a week or so ago, I read a short tidbit in a Bosnian newspaper about the shocking results of genetic research by a Swiss institute IGENEA, indicating that only 20% of Albanians has Illyrian DNA, while it was actually present in 40% or so of Bosnians!
As soon as I returned, I searched for any sign of independent confirmation. What I found suggests that the revelation came as a side effect of research done to settle the issue of Macedonians' (FYROM) genetic origin. Digging some more, I found the following post in the "Antic macedonians" thread of an IGENEA forum:
IGENEA spokeswoman Inma Pazos has made it clear several times that "our numbers in statistics are an average from more than 150 genetic studies published in Science, Nature or AJHG" and that they were not contacted by the journalist who wrote the story. She also appealed that politics should be kept out of the thread or it would be locked. Fat chance - 90% of the thread's content was in the form of "Hahaha, stupid [insert name of ethnic group here], you are wrong!", and that's putting it politely.
Also, this particular thread does not cite any figures about Bosnia at all - Pazos mentions only Bulgaria, Greece, Albania and Macedonia (FYROM). So I'm not sure where the whole "40% of Bosnians have Illyrian roots" came from. Also, the Illyrian percentage in Albania is listed as 30%, not 20% as cited in most articles.
I've thought for a while that it would be nice to do some genetic testing in the Balkans, on fairly large samples of the population, to put an end to a lot of baseless, politically driven speculation. Romantic nationalism was all the rage in the 19th century, with everyone trying to claim ancient origins. Sure, that was easy for the Germans, but all of a sudden people claimed they were Goths, Gauls, Illyrians...
In fact, the "Illyrian movement" was the name adopted by the Croatian activists of the early 1800s. But unlike these activists, who saw similarities between Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and even went so far as to argue that they shared a language, Rački's contemporary and fellow politician Ante Starčević advanced the idea of Croats as a distinct and superior volk in the late 1860s. This idea eventually triumphed; modern notions of Croatian identity are almost entirely in line with Starčević's work.
Would disproving Rački's theories right any of the numerous wrongs perpetrated by chauvinists who have subscribed to them? Unlikely. But it could at least prevent their further use as "historical" arguments, and that by itself is a step in the right direction. So, let's see some actual science at work - more DNA studies, more actual historiography and history - while the theories of Franjo Rački ought to be retired where they belong, alongside the Piltdown Man and the Ptolemaic theory.
The Illyrian hypothesis was advanced by Franjo Rački (1828-1894). A Roman Catholic priest and politician, Rački "promoted the merging of Dalmatia with Croatia ruled by the ban, he wrote discussions about the Croatian nature of Srijem and Rijeka, but he spent most energy on analyzing the relationships between Croatia and Hungary, fighting against the Hungarian expansionism," says his Wikipedia entry.
(As a side note, few today question the "Croatness" of Dalmatia or Rijeka and Istria in general, but in the XIX century these were very much in dispute. Istria was claimed by Italy, as was a lot of Dalmatia, and the dialects spoken there even today sound nothing like the Slovenian-related speech of the region around Zagreb. For "Srijem", see Syrmia/Srem. The only time in history this area was a part of Croatia was 1941-1944.)
Rački also originated the "Bogomil hypothesis," claiming that the Christianity of medieval Bosnia was a heresy that originated in Bulgaria, and had nothing to do with Serbian Orthodoxy. Croat politicians have used this hypothesis to argue that the inhabitants of Bosnia are really apostate Catholics (and hence, Croats). Similarly, conventional wisdom among the Bosnian Muslims is that the "Bogomils" all converted to Islam and became the "Bosniaks" of today, while those who identify as Serbs and Croats are interlopers.
There's а gap in that theory one could drive a carrier battlegroup through: the Ottomans would have considered the so-called "Bogomils" just as Christian as the Orthodox and the Catholics. Therefore, as "people of the Book," they would have been permitted to keep their faith. There are other Christian churches in the East, once persecuted by the Byzantines, that survived under Islamic rule: e.g. Coptic, Maronite, Chaldaean. Yet there are no "Bogomils" in Bosnia. Zero, zip, zilch, nada, not a single one remaining. Bosnia must be the only Ottoman province in which a Christian church simply vanished like it never existed. Strange, is it not?
About a week or so ago, I read a short tidbit in a Bosnian newspaper about the shocking results of genetic research by a Swiss institute IGENEA, indicating that only 20% of Albanians has Illyrian DNA, while it was actually present in 40% or so of Bosnians!
As soon as I returned, I searched for any sign of independent confirmation. What I found suggests that the revelation came as a side effect of research done to settle the issue of Macedonians' (FYROM) genetic origin. Digging some more, I found the following post in the "Antic macedonians" thread of an IGENEA forum:
Albania:
30% Illyrians
15% Phoenician
14% Hellene
18% Thracian
2% Viking
20% Slavs
Macedonia:
30% Macedonian
10% Illyrian
15% Hellene
5% Phoenician
20% Germanic
5% Hun
15% Slavs
IGENEA spokeswoman Inma Pazos has made it clear several times that "our numbers in statistics are an average from more than 150 genetic studies published in Science, Nature or AJHG" and that they were not contacted by the journalist who wrote the story. She also appealed that politics should be kept out of the thread or it would be locked. Fat chance - 90% of the thread's content was in the form of "Hahaha, stupid [insert name of ethnic group here], you are wrong!", and that's putting it politely.
Also, this particular thread does not cite any figures about Bosnia at all - Pazos mentions only Bulgaria, Greece, Albania and Macedonia (FYROM). So I'm not sure where the whole "40% of Bosnians have Illyrian roots" came from. Also, the Illyrian percentage in Albania is listed as 30%, not 20% as cited in most articles.
I've thought for a while that it would be nice to do some genetic testing in the Balkans, on fairly large samples of the population, to put an end to a lot of baseless, politically driven speculation. Romantic nationalism was all the rage in the 19th century, with everyone trying to claim ancient origins. Sure, that was easy for the Germans, but all of a sudden people claimed they were Goths, Gauls, Illyrians...
In fact, the "Illyrian movement" was the name adopted by the Croatian activists of the early 1800s. But unlike these activists, who saw similarities between Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and even went so far as to argue that they shared a language, Rački's contemporary and fellow politician Ante Starčević advanced the idea of Croats as a distinct and superior volk in the late 1860s. This idea eventually triumphed; modern notions of Croatian identity are almost entirely in line with Starčević's work.
Would disproving Rački's theories right any of the numerous wrongs perpetrated by chauvinists who have subscribed to them? Unlikely. But it could at least prevent their further use as "historical" arguments, and that by itself is a step in the right direction. So, let's see some actual science at work - more DNA studies, more actual historiography and history - while the theories of Franjo Rački ought to be retired where they belong, alongside the Piltdown Man and the Ptolemaic theory.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
The Wild Frontier
The reason for my protracted absence is that I'm traveling, in places where reliable 'net connections are scarce.
Look for my return next week.
Look for my return next week.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
The Dying Nations
Asia Times' columnist Spengler argues that championing the cause of Ukraine and Georgia is futile, for in less than 50 years Georgians and Ukrainians will be functionally extinct.
How now? Well, like many post-Communist societies, they aren't having babies. Spengler illustrates his point with UN statistics, showing a 40% or more population decrease projected for Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus.
Russia is facing a demographic challenge as well, but, Spengler notes, "[w]hether Russia survives or not, it still will be a power in 2050 when the Ukraine and Georgia will exist only as obscure PhD topics in linguistics."
He concludes:
Subtlety? Skill? Good faith? An Empire needs not such things, right?
How now? Well, like many post-Communist societies, they aren't having babies. Spengler illustrates his point with UN statistics, showing a 40% or more population decrease projected for Georgia, Ukraine, Moldova and Belarus.
Russia is facing a demographic challenge as well, but, Spengler notes, "[w]hether Russia survives or not, it still will be a power in 2050 when the Ukraine and Georgia will exist only as obscure PhD topics in linguistics."
He concludes:
I hope that Russia will become a liberal democracy resembling the United States and that it will dispense with men like Vladimir Putin in the future. For it to become a liberal democracy, however, first it must survive, and most Russians today believe that they must be led by hard men to survive. This is not only unpleasant, but tragic.
To influence Russia for the better would take subtlety, skill, as well as good faith; sadly, America has displayed none of these.
Subtlety? Skill? Good faith? An Empire needs not such things, right?
Friday, September 05, 2008
Discovering Jeff Huber
One thing I've been talking about a lot lately is that the Empire is all about perception management: it doesn't matter what happens in actuality, but how it's perceived by the media. If one believes this, then no wonder one can believe the Empire "creates" reality with its will, while the "reality-based community" merely studies perceptions. Talk about misunderstanding Plato...
But I'll spare you an essay about this - mostly because it's already been written by a gentleman (and former Navy officer) named Jeff Huber. I've only discovered him very recently, and only read a couple of articles, but what I have read made me want to read more. It's sharp, to the point, and funny in a very serious way.
How can you not like the guy who uses phrases like "wedding bombing policy" and metaphors like "irony clawing at its coffin lid"?
I look forward to reading more.
But I'll spare you an essay about this - mostly because it's already been written by a gentleman (and former Navy officer) named Jeff Huber. I've only discovered him very recently, and only read a couple of articles, but what I have read made me want to read more. It's sharp, to the point, and funny in a very serious way.
How can you not like the guy who uses phrases like "wedding bombing policy" and metaphors like "irony clawing at its coffin lid"?
I look forward to reading more.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
The Strong and the Weak
In my column on Antiwar.com today, I argue that:
The best proof for my claim came from Daniel Fried, a high-ranking U.S. "diplomat" in charge of relations with Russia. Fried has fabricated reality before, in regard to Kosovo. Now he's at it again, telling today's Washington Post that "being angry and seeking revanchist victory" is a sign of a weak nation. Right, Russia is weak for slapping around an American client state that thought it could provoke it with impunity?
There's rich, there's utter nonsense, and then there's Daniel Fried.
Fried whitewashes a decade of abuse - pillaging of the country by American "transition" experts and domestic oligarchs; propping a corrupt Yeltsin regime; expanding NATO; sponsoring "democratic revolutions" in Georgia, Ukraine and Belarus (failed); even trying to organize a quisling opposition in Russia itself ("Other Russia") - as an effort to "encourage Russia's integration with the wider world." He says "This is a good thing. It was the right set of policies." Tens of millions of Russians beg to differ.
In the words of the WaPo reporter, "Fried said the administration is determined to prevent Russia from claiming a new sphere of influence in the Caucasus." Right, because Russia has no right to influence anywhere, especially not on its borders. But the U.S. can invade countries halfway across the world, because the U.S. "sphere of influence" is the world. Does he seriously think anyone outside the NATOsphere will buy this nonsense? Do his bosses?
This sort of drivel is proof positive that Washington simply doesn't get it. The U.S. didn't "win" the Cold War so much as the USSR lost it. In 1991, there was a golden opportunity to actually walk the walk, to show the world that "freedom" and "democracy" weren't just a guise for the latest round of power politics. Instead, people like Fried, Albright and Holbrooke got drunk on power and decided to rule the world. Their Bushean successors went a step further and declared it was their divine right to do so.
They may all still believe every lie they've told their nation (and themselves), but there are facts that no amount of wishful thinking can change. It isn't Russia that's in trouble, it's the United States.
It is difficult, perhaps even impossible, to communicate with someone so obsessed with managing the perceptions of reality that they've become incapable of recognizing reality altogether. In the Bizarro World of the Atlantic Empire, the bombing of Serbia was humanitarian, the invasion of Iraq was defensive, the occupation of Afghanistan was democratic, and the separation of Kosovo was legal – while the Russian intervention to neutralize the Georgian army and save the Ossetians from ethnic cleansing was "aggression" befitting Hitler or Stalin.
...[to Emperors current and potential] it doesn't actually matter what Russia does – whatever anyone but America (and its "allies") does is by definition evil.
One wonders if they quite understand this in Moscow. And what will happen once they do.
The best proof for my claim came from Daniel Fried, a high-ranking U.S. "diplomat" in charge of relations with Russia. Fried has fabricated reality before, in regard to Kosovo. Now he's at it again, telling today's Washington Post that "being angry and seeking revanchist victory" is a sign of a weak nation. Right, Russia is weak for slapping around an American client state that thought it could provoke it with impunity?
There's rich, there's utter nonsense, and then there's Daniel Fried.
Fried whitewashes a decade of abuse - pillaging of the country by American "transition" experts and domestic oligarchs; propping a corrupt Yeltsin regime; expanding NATO; sponsoring "democratic revolutions" in Georgia, Ukraine and Belarus (failed); even trying to organize a quisling opposition in Russia itself ("Other Russia") - as an effort to "encourage Russia's integration with the wider world." He says "This is a good thing. It was the right set of policies." Tens of millions of Russians beg to differ.
In the words of the WaPo reporter, "Fried said the administration is determined to prevent Russia from claiming a new sphere of influence in the Caucasus." Right, because Russia has no right to influence anywhere, especially not on its borders. But the U.S. can invade countries halfway across the world, because the U.S. "sphere of influence" is the world. Does he seriously think anyone outside the NATOsphere will buy this nonsense? Do his bosses?
This sort of drivel is proof positive that Washington simply doesn't get it. The U.S. didn't "win" the Cold War so much as the USSR lost it. In 1991, there was a golden opportunity to actually walk the walk, to show the world that "freedom" and "democracy" weren't just a guise for the latest round of power politics. Instead, people like Fried, Albright and Holbrooke got drunk on power and decided to rule the world. Their Bushean successors went a step further and declared it was their divine right to do so.
They may all still believe every lie they've told their nation (and themselves), but there are facts that no amount of wishful thinking can change. It isn't Russia that's in trouble, it's the United States.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Collision Course
So, Russia has decided to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia, as expected. Also as expected, the Empire is screaming bloody murder, threatening to use its veto in the UN, calling it "unacceptable" and claiming it's illegal.
Except neither Washington, nor London, nor Moscow, nor the OSCE gave a damn six months ago, when they created the "Independent state of Kosova." Was that illegal? Damn right it was. Was it a direct violation of Serbia's sovereignty, explicitly guaranteed by the UN, the Helsinki Final Act and just about any other law? Sure was. And yet the self-proclaimed "international community" simply bypassed the UN, ignored Russian objections (and those of some 150-odd countries) and declared occupied Kosovo to be a "special case" and "unique." Because they thought they could.
More than anything, the reaction from the West over Georgia reveals the utter hypocrisy and complete moral bankruptcy of the self-appointed rulers of humanity. To them, there are no absolutes except their own will. Sovereignty, democracy, legitimacy, legality - they all mean whatever they declare them to mean, subject to revision at their whim. We thought the Communists were bad, but they at least recognized their limits. For the Empire, there are no limits. Until they run up against reality, anyway.
Just because they keep telling themselves and the rest of the world that there is no wall there won't make it hurt any less when they smash into it face-first.
But wait, what about the Russians? Aren't they hypocrites for supporting the integrity of Serbia, but dismembering Georgia, just because one country is their ally, and the other is a client of the U.S.?
Actually, Serbia isn't a Russian ally at all. It's got more formal ties with NATO and the EU than with Russia. And the quisling Serbian government is certainly more inclined to Brussels and Washington than to Moscow.
That aside, I don't think Russia's policy is hypocritical, no. Georgia never actually controlled Abkhazia and Ossetia (since declaring independence), and clearly violated the 1992 armistice it pledged to uphold, and which Russia was a guarantor of. If Georgian actions in Ossetia before the Russian counterstrike don't qualify as "severe violations of human rights," I don't know what does. And shall we note that Georgian authorities never really bothered to invoke international law in their efforts to seize those territories? They simply assumed that military conquest - with the full backing of the Empire - was law enough. Sort of like what the Empire did in Kosovo, actually.
Now, if Moscow tries to argue that its recognition of Abkhazia and Ossetia is legitimate because the Empire carved out Kosovo from Serbia, thus implicitly recognizing that act, then yes, I would consider it a cheap trick.
Keep in mind, though, that most Kosovo comparisons are coming from the West, and that Russians are generally staying clear of them. Russians aren't using Kosovo as an argument/excuse for intervening in Georgia; they are using it to point out that the West has no moral right to protest their intervention. That argument doesn't have much traction in the West not because it's false, but because the Empire doesn't recognize the notion of objective truth. If "we" did it, it must be right. If "they" do it, it's clearly evil. It's impossible to reason with that sort of "logic."
Then again, one doesn't have to. That wall is getting very close now, and the impact of face on hard surface seems imminent.
Except neither Washington, nor London, nor Moscow, nor the OSCE gave a damn six months ago, when they created the "Independent state of Kosova." Was that illegal? Damn right it was. Was it a direct violation of Serbia's sovereignty, explicitly guaranteed by the UN, the Helsinki Final Act and just about any other law? Sure was. And yet the self-proclaimed "international community" simply bypassed the UN, ignored Russian objections (and those of some 150-odd countries) and declared occupied Kosovo to be a "special case" and "unique." Because they thought they could.
More than anything, the reaction from the West over Georgia reveals the utter hypocrisy and complete moral bankruptcy of the self-appointed rulers of humanity. To them, there are no absolutes except their own will. Sovereignty, democracy, legitimacy, legality - they all mean whatever they declare them to mean, subject to revision at their whim. We thought the Communists were bad, but they at least recognized their limits. For the Empire, there are no limits. Until they run up against reality, anyway.
Just because they keep telling themselves and the rest of the world that there is no wall there won't make it hurt any less when they smash into it face-first.
But wait, what about the Russians? Aren't they hypocrites for supporting the integrity of Serbia, but dismembering Georgia, just because one country is their ally, and the other is a client of the U.S.?
Actually, Serbia isn't a Russian ally at all. It's got more formal ties with NATO and the EU than with Russia. And the quisling Serbian government is certainly more inclined to Brussels and Washington than to Moscow.
That aside, I don't think Russia's policy is hypocritical, no. Georgia never actually controlled Abkhazia and Ossetia (since declaring independence), and clearly violated the 1992 armistice it pledged to uphold, and which Russia was a guarantor of. If Georgian actions in Ossetia before the Russian counterstrike don't qualify as "severe violations of human rights," I don't know what does. And shall we note that Georgian authorities never really bothered to invoke international law in their efforts to seize those territories? They simply assumed that military conquest - with the full backing of the Empire - was law enough. Sort of like what the Empire did in Kosovo, actually.
Now, if Moscow tries to argue that its recognition of Abkhazia and Ossetia is legitimate because the Empire carved out Kosovo from Serbia, thus implicitly recognizing that act, then yes, I would consider it a cheap trick.
Keep in mind, though, that most Kosovo comparisons are coming from the West, and that Russians are generally staying clear of them. Russians aren't using Kosovo as an argument/excuse for intervening in Georgia; they are using it to point out that the West has no moral right to protest their intervention. That argument doesn't have much traction in the West not because it's false, but because the Empire doesn't recognize the notion of objective truth. If "we" did it, it must be right. If "they" do it, it's clearly evil. It's impossible to reason with that sort of "logic."
Then again, one doesn't have to. That wall is getting very close now, and the impact of face on hard surface seems imminent.
Monday, August 25, 2008
A view from Poland
Ignacy Nowopolski, editor of Polska Panorama, sent a comment the other day asking me to publish one of his essays here.
Now, as a general rule, I don't run "guest essays." I do post translations if I think they are relevant to the Anglophone audience, and I do on occasion quote other authors, sometimes extensively. But I publish things that reflect my own views and understanding of the world, and when I quote something it's either to criticize it ruthlessly or express my agreement.
I've read Mr. Nowopolski's piece, and it doesn't quite fit either category. But it is thought-provoking, and it comes from an interesting angle: He argues for a "Centroslavia" as a way to thwart both Russian, German/EU and American hegemony (not to mention safeguard the people of these countries from Islamic conquest).
Read it, and make up your own mind. Either way, I thank Mr. Nowopolski for reaching out. The internet is truly a wonderful thing.
Now, as a general rule, I don't run "guest essays." I do post translations if I think they are relevant to the Anglophone audience, and I do on occasion quote other authors, sometimes extensively. But I publish things that reflect my own views and understanding of the world, and when I quote something it's either to criticize it ruthlessly or express my agreement.
I've read Mr. Nowopolski's piece, and it doesn't quite fit either category. But it is thought-provoking, and it comes from an interesting angle: He argues for a "Centroslavia" as a way to thwart both Russian, German/EU and American hegemony (not to mention safeguard the people of these countries from Islamic conquest).
Read it, and make up your own mind. Either way, I thank Mr. Nowopolski for reaching out. The internet is truly a wonderful thing.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
None of the Above
I haven't written a whole lot about the upcoming elections for the Emperor, partly because I believe their outcome won't matter a whole lot (I'll explain in a minute) and partly because the candidates don't inspire optimism.
What, say you? How can I doubt St. Barack of the Change? Easily. Does he have a foreign policy team full of rabid imperialists from the Clinton era? He does. Is his running mate an obnoxious Senator from Delaware in love with the sound of his own voice, who was also an enthusiastic supporter of Clinton the Emperor? Check. What "change" exactly are we talking about?
I don't particularly care about John "KLA" McCain either, given that he'll be the Nero to Bush the Lesser's Caligula.
So, what did I mean about the insignificance of the election?
Look, the Empire is failing. It should be intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer. The crumbling economy, the increasingly worthless currency based on nothing, the much-touted military bogged down in wars it cannot win, the "diplomacy" gone berserk, the sheer stupidity of public officials (examples are too many; just open your local paper and laugh)... what more evidence do you want? I just hope the loss of Empire doesn't translate into America's self-destruction, but that's up to Americans themselves. Me, not being one, am going to politely stand aside and let them sort it out. Kind of like what they should have done with hundreds of other disputes throughout the world, instead of intervening and making them worse.
History isn't over. There is no such thing as Pax Americana. There was a historical chance in 1991 to make the world a little bit better; instead, the imperialists wanted power. Well, they got power. And they lost it - as it usually happens. So sometime in January next year, either Mad Mac or Barry Change will find themselves in charge of a bankrupt country with a Potemkin military, facing a very angry and resentful rest of the world. Good luck there.
To those who still think their participation in a meaningless ritual this November will make a difference, I'll only say: the only real choice is "None of the Above." Which is why you aren't allowed to make it.
What, say you? How can I doubt St. Barack of the Change? Easily. Does he have a foreign policy team full of rabid imperialists from the Clinton era? He does. Is his running mate an obnoxious Senator from Delaware in love with the sound of his own voice, who was also an enthusiastic supporter of Clinton the Emperor? Check. What "change" exactly are we talking about?
I don't particularly care about John "KLA" McCain either, given that he'll be the Nero to Bush the Lesser's Caligula.
So, what did I mean about the insignificance of the election?
Look, the Empire is failing. It should be intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer. The crumbling economy, the increasingly worthless currency based on nothing, the much-touted military bogged down in wars it cannot win, the "diplomacy" gone berserk, the sheer stupidity of public officials (examples are too many; just open your local paper and laugh)... what more evidence do you want? I just hope the loss of Empire doesn't translate into America's self-destruction, but that's up to Americans themselves. Me, not being one, am going to politely stand aside and let them sort it out. Kind of like what they should have done with hundreds of other disputes throughout the world, instead of intervening and making them worse.
History isn't over. There is no such thing as Pax Americana. There was a historical chance in 1991 to make the world a little bit better; instead, the imperialists wanted power. Well, they got power. And they lost it - as it usually happens. So sometime in January next year, either Mad Mac or Barry Change will find themselves in charge of a bankrupt country with a Potemkin military, facing a very angry and resentful rest of the world. Good luck there.
To those who still think their participation in a meaningless ritual this November will make a difference, I'll only say: the only real choice is "None of the Above." Which is why you aren't allowed to make it.
Friday, August 15, 2008
Can you handle the truth?
Well, can you? Or are you happy to listen to the insipid drivel served to you by the mass media on government orders? If you want to believe that Saddam Hussein was involved with 9/11, that there were WMDs in Iraq, that there was a genocide in Kosovo, and that Russia was the aggressor in Georgia... why the hell are you here, reading this blog?
But if you are here, and you've been reading, you know that fighting the lies is a full-time job. I do it in my spare time, as much as I can. These guys do it 24/7/365.
Now sure, I write a column for the site. Been doing so for almost eight years now. I do it because I believe in truth, justice and liberty. If you do as well, vote with your wallet and help out Antiwar.com today. It's the best choice you will make this year.
But if you are here, and you've been reading, you know that fighting the lies is a full-time job. I do it in my spare time, as much as I can. These guys do it 24/7/365.
Now sure, I write a column for the site. Been doing so for almost eight years now. I do it because I believe in truth, justice and liberty. If you do as well, vote with your wallet and help out Antiwar.com today. It's the best choice you will make this year.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Whose Demise?
The Washington Post can always be counted on to provide all the necessary calories in a balanced Russophobe's diet; nothing coming from this paper concerning Russia (or Serbia, for that matter, which WaPo sees as "Russia Lite") should come as a surprise by now.
Life is full of surprises, though. Consider today's op-ed by one Eugene Rumer, "senior fellow at National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies." It is a most curious essay. Rumer argues that the very signs of Russia's power and strength are in fact proof it's heading for a collapse!
Sure, the West needs Russia to "feed our oil addiction, to help us cut a deal with Iran and to go on buying our currency to keep its value from sliding further." He himself claims that "Moscow may have more billionaires than other European capitals," while its GDP has "increased from $200 billion in 1999 to $1.2 trillion in 2007. Moscow has more money from oil and gas exports than it knows what to do with." But then he turns around and says that none of this is relevant, because the Soviet Union looked powerful in 1979, and now it's no more.
"...who is to say that Russia's victory in Georgia will not lead to another disaster in a few years?" he asks.
Allow me. As Rumer himself points out, Russia has more money than ever. He doesn't say that it's got almost no government debt (unlike the U.S., which is choking on hundreds of trillions, and showing no sign of stopping). Russian economy is not only far different from its Soviet days, it's also more free than those of Europe or the U.S. (see John Laughland's income tax rate comparison for just one example). The life expectancy of Russians, bad as it is now, is already increasing as medical care ruined by Communism and Yeltsin-era pillaging improves. And while the demographic decline of the Russian nation is regrettable, is that really worse than the demographic trend in the West of displacement by Third World immigration?
So, let's leave Rumer's fantasies of a world in which "North Caucasus break[s] out of Moscow's grip" and "the Far East turn[s] into a Chinese colony" to hack writers of chauvinist technoporn where they rightfully belong. If Rumer thinks Russia is in trouble, what should he say about a country that is worse than broke, short of oil and gas, has already outsourced its industry, its only growth is government, and it can't defeat any enemies, even as it exponentially generates them around the globe?
Both he and WaPo ought to be concerned with America's hard landing. But projecting one's own fears and prejudice onto a manufactured enemy is much more fun. While it lasts.
Life is full of surprises, though. Consider today's op-ed by one Eugene Rumer, "senior fellow at National Defense University's Institute for National Strategic Studies." It is a most curious essay. Rumer argues that the very signs of Russia's power and strength are in fact proof it's heading for a collapse!
Sure, the West needs Russia to "feed our oil addiction, to help us cut a deal with Iran and to go on buying our currency to keep its value from sliding further." He himself claims that "Moscow may have more billionaires than other European capitals," while its GDP has "increased from $200 billion in 1999 to $1.2 trillion in 2007. Moscow has more money from oil and gas exports than it knows what to do with." But then he turns around and says that none of this is relevant, because the Soviet Union looked powerful in 1979, and now it's no more.
"...who is to say that Russia's victory in Georgia will not lead to another disaster in a few years?" he asks.
Allow me. As Rumer himself points out, Russia has more money than ever. He doesn't say that it's got almost no government debt (unlike the U.S., which is choking on hundreds of trillions, and showing no sign of stopping). Russian economy is not only far different from its Soviet days, it's also more free than those of Europe or the U.S. (see John Laughland's income tax rate comparison for just one example). The life expectancy of Russians, bad as it is now, is already increasing as medical care ruined by Communism and Yeltsin-era pillaging improves. And while the demographic decline of the Russian nation is regrettable, is that really worse than the demographic trend in the West of displacement by Third World immigration?
So, let's leave Rumer's fantasies of a world in which "North Caucasus break[s] out of Moscow's grip" and "the Far East turn[s] into a Chinese colony" to hack writers of chauvinist technoporn where they rightfully belong. If Rumer thinks Russia is in trouble, what should he say about a country that is worse than broke, short of oil and gas, has already outsourced its industry, its only growth is government, and it can't defeat any enemies, even as it exponentially generates them around the globe?
Both he and WaPo ought to be concerned with America's hard landing. But projecting one's own fears and prejudice onto a manufactured enemy is much more fun. While it lasts.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Oh Please!
Carl Bildt, ex-viceroy of Bosnia and currently the Swedish FM, writes on his blog that the Georgian affair is "about principles fundamental to the peace and stability of all of Europe."
He also claims that the war was provoked by the Ossetians, that Russia is engaged in a "large-scale aggressive action" and that "no state has the right to unilaterally intervene military in another state with the pretext of protecting its citizens."
Let's start from that last one. Ever heard of the United States of America?
Moving along, then. One has to be either stupid or harbor malicious intent to call the Russian action "aggressive" when it was clearly a response to the Georgian attack on South Ossetia. Russia is a guarantor of the truce that froze the conflict in the early 1990s when Ossetia and Abkhazia seceded from Tbilisi; as such, it certainly had the right and one might even argue duty to intervene when the truce was violated by, say, the Georgian army invading Ossetia wholesale.
Of course, Tbilisi claims that Ossetians attacked first. Just like Poland. Why would the Ossetians provoke the war? They had de facto independence, Russian citizenship, and could wait the Georgians out pretty much indefinitely. One could argue that it would be in Russia's long-term interest to remove an American client regime from Tbilisi, but why now? And remember, it is Washington, and not Moscow, that's been going around the world installing puppet governments.
Even if he were right on any of his points - and he is not - Bildt was a participant in the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, the Bosnian protectorate, and the occupation of Kosovo. That means he's got no credibility to talk about principles or international law, or peace, or stability. None.
But his sort of "analysis" is the one you'll find common in the West: Evil Russia manipulates, provokes, attacks, threatens. Yeah, right.
It's called projection. Look it up.
He also claims that the war was provoked by the Ossetians, that Russia is engaged in a "large-scale aggressive action" and that "no state has the right to unilaterally intervene military in another state with the pretext of protecting its citizens."
Let's start from that last one. Ever heard of the United States of America?
Moving along, then. One has to be either stupid or harbor malicious intent to call the Russian action "aggressive" when it was clearly a response to the Georgian attack on South Ossetia. Russia is a guarantor of the truce that froze the conflict in the early 1990s when Ossetia and Abkhazia seceded from Tbilisi; as such, it certainly had the right and one might even argue duty to intervene when the truce was violated by, say, the Georgian army invading Ossetia wholesale.
Of course, Tbilisi claims that Ossetians attacked first. Just like Poland. Why would the Ossetians provoke the war? They had de facto independence, Russian citizenship, and could wait the Georgians out pretty much indefinitely. One could argue that it would be in Russia's long-term interest to remove an American client regime from Tbilisi, but why now? And remember, it is Washington, and not Moscow, that's been going around the world installing puppet governments.
Even if he were right on any of his points - and he is not - Bildt was a participant in the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, the Bosnian protectorate, and the occupation of Kosovo. That means he's got no credibility to talk about principles or international law, or peace, or stability. None.
But his sort of "analysis" is the one you'll find common in the West: Evil Russia manipulates, provokes, attacks, threatens. Yeah, right.
It's called projection. Look it up.
Friday, August 08, 2008
Second Time As Farce
I planned to post a semi-humorous piece about the Olympics, given as how they started today. Even had the perfect setup for it, with this Reuters piece about three Brit athletes who posed in the buff to promote a beverage.
But the Emperor's Georgian proxies just had to start a war.
Reading the wire dispatches (like this one here, or here), I can't help but be transported back to August 1995.
After four years of buildup, with the overt involvement of Washington, the Croatian government launched a massive military operation against the Serb-populated areas that seceded from it in 1991. Attacked from all sides, outnumbered and outgunned, the Serbs were wiped out. The government in Belgrade, supposed to be the guarantor of the truce, stood by and did absolutely nothing. Many Serbians actually groused about "those damned refugees" ruining their summer vacations. Having thus "reintegrated" the territories it claimed, sans the population, Croatia has been celebrating the largest single act of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans as "Homeland Thanksgiving Day" ever since.
But what does any of this have to do with the homeland of Stalin? Maybe everything. The regime of Michael Saakashvili is an American client, much more so than Franjo Tudjman's ever was. Saakashvili himself spent a long time in the US, and was installed in power by a US-organized "Rose revolution" in 2003 (using the same template that was tested in 2000 in Serbia and later applied in Ukraine).
Here's the trouble: two regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, refuse to be ruled by Tbilisi. Their inhabitants are not ethnic Georgians. Russian troops have been stationed in both regions. Saakashvili's regime views this as "Russian aggression" - but of course, the Abkhaz and the Ossetians see the Russians as the only thing between them and the kind of "reintegration" that Croats imposed on the Krajina Serbs in 1995.
Saakashvili may think what worked for Franjo Tudjman in 1995 could work for him. After all, he serves the same master. Speculation by Reuters suggests that the regime in Tbilisi is hoping to "reintegrate" Abkhazia before the Russians respond. Except that Dmitry Medvedev is not Slobodan Milosevic, and Russia of 2008 is not Serbia of 1995.
Update:
Reuters now quotes Saakashvili begging for American help:
Pathetic.
But the Emperor's Georgian proxies just had to start a war.
Reading the wire dispatches (like this one here, or here), I can't help but be transported back to August 1995.
After four years of buildup, with the overt involvement of Washington, the Croatian government launched a massive military operation against the Serb-populated areas that seceded from it in 1991. Attacked from all sides, outnumbered and outgunned, the Serbs were wiped out. The government in Belgrade, supposed to be the guarantor of the truce, stood by and did absolutely nothing. Many Serbians actually groused about "those damned refugees" ruining their summer vacations. Having thus "reintegrated" the territories it claimed, sans the population, Croatia has been celebrating the largest single act of ethnic cleansing in the Balkans as "Homeland Thanksgiving Day" ever since.
But what does any of this have to do with the homeland of Stalin? Maybe everything. The regime of Michael Saakashvili is an American client, much more so than Franjo Tudjman's ever was. Saakashvili himself spent a long time in the US, and was installed in power by a US-organized "Rose revolution" in 2003 (using the same template that was tested in 2000 in Serbia and later applied in Ukraine).
Here's the trouble: two regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, refuse to be ruled by Tbilisi. Their inhabitants are not ethnic Georgians. Russian troops have been stationed in both regions. Saakashvili's regime views this as "Russian aggression" - but of course, the Abkhaz and the Ossetians see the Russians as the only thing between them and the kind of "reintegration" that Croats imposed on the Krajina Serbs in 1995.
Saakashvili may think what worked for Franjo Tudjman in 1995 could work for him. After all, he serves the same master. Speculation by Reuters suggests that the regime in Tbilisi is hoping to "reintegrate" Abkhazia before the Russians respond. Except that Dmitry Medvedev is not Slobodan Milosevic, and Russia of 2008 is not Serbia of 1995.
Update:
Reuters now quotes Saakashvili begging for American help:
"This was a very blunt Russian aggression. ... We are right now suffering because we want to be free and we want to be a multiethnic democracy," Saakashvili said in the interview.
Saakashvili, whose country is pushing to join NATO, said the conflict "is not about Georgia anymore. It's about America, its values."
"I ... thought that America stands up for those freedom-loving nations and supports them. That's what America is all about. That's why we look with hope at every American," the U.S.-educated president said.
(emphasis added)
Pathetic.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
"Just like in Bosnia"
Just the other day I quoted Brendan O'Neill about how the hysterical Imperial propaganda about Bosnia fueled the jihad. Today I present the following video as an exhibit.
Egyptian preacher Amr Khaled's argument is simple. There are 20-30 million Muslims in Europe, and they are having babies. Europeans are not. So Muslims will become a majority "within 20 years". In order to prevent this (natural and desirable, by implication) course of events, the evil, ignorant infidels of Europe are out to "provoke" the Muslims, so they could have a pretext for ethnically cleansing them.
"...like they had in Bosnia."
See the video:
Egyptian preacher Amr Khaled's argument is simple. There are 20-30 million Muslims in Europe, and they are having babies. Europeans are not. So Muslims will become a majority "within 20 years". In order to prevent this (natural and desirable, by implication) course of events, the evil, ignorant infidels of Europe are out to "provoke" the Muslims, so they could have a pretext for ethnically cleansing them.
"...like they had in Bosnia."
See the video:
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
More Myths from the NY Times
"Hero to Some, Butcher to Others" is how New York Times' Dan Bilefsky describes Gen. Ratko Mladic. Good versus evil, black-and-white, typical for coverage of Bosnia (and the Balkans in general).
Here is just an example of the banality of journalistic evil:
The numbers given here are about as reliable as the "250,000 dead" canard repeated for so many years. The mosque claim is patently false. The part about Serbs shelling Sarajevo leaves out the part where Muslims shot up the Serb parts of the city. Honestly, the biggest surprise for me is the admission that "thousands of Serbs also died" in the war. That's more than the mainstream media ever dared admit before. Even so, it's an afterthought, and presented in passive voice, as if no one actually killed (or beheaded, burned, impaled or mutilated) those Serbs.
Bilefsky's "understanding" of Yugoslavia's collapse is equally facile:
Uh, what? Milosevic did not "win control" of Yugoslavia, he became president of one of its republics. And since when is teaching army officers to defend their country "indoctrination"?! To Bilefsky, a 45-year-old country may be "old," but I bet he would not describe the United States as "old federation" in an article about the misnamed Civil War, now would he? And the U.S. was 74 or 85 years old at the time, depending on whether we count from 1776 or 1787 (when the Constitution was adopted). Finally, wasn't Yugoslavia, in fact, disintegrating? And wasn't the army's job to, you know, prevent that?
Here's another sample of Bilefsky's turgid prose:
What "schemes" are these, precisely? And what "dominance"? If being derided as "bourgeois oppressors", divided between four republics, having several new "nations" (like "Montenegrins") carved out of them and being the only component of the federation sub-partitioned with autonomous provinces (Vojvodina and Kosovo, the latter being under Albanian domination for decades) qualifies as "dominance", I'd hate to see what subjugation would look like.
But the reason I decided to even bother writing about this is that Bilefsky included a juicy quote about Mladic hating "the West, Albanian nationalism, and Muslims" from "Seki Radoncic, a leading Bosnian investigative journalist."
Now that's just laugh-out-loud funny. Go Google "Seki Radoncic." He wrote a screenplay for a 2006 movie, a book about Muslims in Montenegro, and another book or two about police in Montenegro. The propaganda outfit IWPR describes him as "investigative journalist from Montenegro currently living in Bosnia." Stipulating he is, in fact, an investigative journalist (as opposed to, say, a tabloid muckraker - and those are a dime a dozen over there), he's not "Bosnian" and all, and much less "leading."
The biggest media empire in Bosnia is owned by one Fahrudin Radoncic. He is also a Montenegrin Muslim - or, as the Bosnian Muslims call them derisively, Sandzaklija - who rose from obscurity as the propaganda chief for the Izetbegovic regime. What are the odds that Seki and Fahrudin are related, and that this is the secret of Seki's success?
Either way, that Bilefsky quotes Radoncic as a "leading Bosnian investigative journalist" suggests that he's being fed "information" by the other Radoncic. Thus the New York Times becomes an outlet for Radoncic's Avaz, a government-subsidized daily blending tabloid journalism with vitriolic propaganda. Not that this is by any means hard.
Maybe the NYT should re-hire Jayson Blair. That way we'd get testimonies from "Srebrenica genocide" survivors, leading experts on Balkans politics, and even secret supporters of Ratko Mladic, all without the author ever leaving his New York cubicle. Saves the expense of a plane ticket, and is just about as credible, or truthful.
Here is just an example of the banality of journalistic evil:
On May 2, 1992, one month after the Bosnian Republic‘s declaration of independence, Mr. Mladic’s forces blockaded Sarajevo. They shelled the city and destroyed its mosques.
More than 10,000 people died in Sarajevo during the siege, including about 1,500 children. Thousands of Serbs also died in the Bosnian conflict.
The numbers given here are about as reliable as the "250,000 dead" canard repeated for so many years. The mosque claim is patently false. The part about Serbs shelling Sarajevo leaves out the part where Muslims shot up the Serb parts of the city. Honestly, the biggest surprise for me is the admission that "thousands of Serbs also died" in the war. That's more than the mainstream media ever dared admit before. Even so, it's an afterthought, and presented in passive voice, as if no one actually killed (or beheaded, burned, impaled or mutilated) those Serbs.
Bilefsky's "understanding" of Yugoslavia's collapse is equally facile:
When Slobodan Milosevic played on Serbian grievances to win control of Yugoslavia in the late 1980s, he also appealed to army officers, indoctrinated to maintain the old Yugoslav federation, that they had to act to prevent its dissolution.
Uh, what? Milosevic did not "win control" of Yugoslavia, he became president of one of its republics. And since when is teaching army officers to defend their country "indoctrination"?! To Bilefsky, a 45-year-old country may be "old," but I bet he would not describe the United States as "old federation" in an article about the misnamed Civil War, now would he? And the U.S. was 74 or 85 years old at the time, depending on whether we count from 1776 or 1787 (when the Constitution was adopted). Finally, wasn't Yugoslavia, in fact, disintegrating? And wasn't the army's job to, you know, prevent that?
Here's another sample of Bilefsky's turgid prose:
"...as Yugoslavia began to disintegrate in 1991, Mr. Mladic was ready to do his part in the schemes devised by Mr. Milosevic in the name of protecting and assuring the dominance of the Serbs, the largest ethnic group."
What "schemes" are these, precisely? And what "dominance"? If being derided as "bourgeois oppressors", divided between four republics, having several new "nations" (like "Montenegrins") carved out of them and being the only component of the federation sub-partitioned with autonomous provinces (Vojvodina and Kosovo, the latter being under Albanian domination for decades) qualifies as "dominance", I'd hate to see what subjugation would look like.
But the reason I decided to even bother writing about this is that Bilefsky included a juicy quote about Mladic hating "the West, Albanian nationalism, and Muslims" from "Seki Radoncic, a leading Bosnian investigative journalist."
Now that's just laugh-out-loud funny. Go Google "Seki Radoncic." He wrote a screenplay for a 2006 movie, a book about Muslims in Montenegro, and another book or two about police in Montenegro. The propaganda outfit IWPR describes him as "investigative journalist from Montenegro currently living in Bosnia." Stipulating he is, in fact, an investigative journalist (as opposed to, say, a tabloid muckraker - and those are a dime a dozen over there), he's not "Bosnian" and all, and much less "leading."
The biggest media empire in Bosnia is owned by one Fahrudin Radoncic. He is also a Montenegrin Muslim - or, as the Bosnian Muslims call them derisively, Sandzaklija - who rose from obscurity as the propaganda chief for the Izetbegovic regime. What are the odds that Seki and Fahrudin are related, and that this is the secret of Seki's success?
Either way, that Bilefsky quotes Radoncic as a "leading Bosnian investigative journalist" suggests that he's being fed "information" by the other Radoncic. Thus the New York Times becomes an outlet for Radoncic's Avaz, a government-subsidized daily blending tabloid journalism with vitriolic propaganda. Not that this is by any means hard.
Maybe the NYT should re-hire Jayson Blair. That way we'd get testimonies from "Srebrenica genocide" survivors, leading experts on Balkans politics, and even secret supporters of Ratko Mladic, all without the author ever leaving his New York cubicle. Saves the expense of a plane ticket, and is just about as credible, or truthful.
Monday, August 04, 2008
Turning Point
Legendary Soviet dissident and exile, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, died on August 3 in Moscow. He was 89.
Solzhenitsyn is best known for his Nobel Prize-winning "Gulag Archipelago," a three-volume novel/testimony about the Soviet prison camps. He spent eight years in the camps, a decade in internal exile, and 20 years of exile in the West, 1974-1994.
I would like to quote a portion of an interview he gave to the German magazine Der Spiegel, in July 2007; asked about the difficulties in relations between the West and modern Russia, he replied:
Another shock to the Russians came when the Yeltsin government fell for NATO's bluff in June 1999 and betrayed Belgrade. Russian generals bypassed the Kremlin to try and salvage the shameful "peace" (which NATO interpreted as surrender, and acted accordingly), but their gambit ultimately failed when Washington was able to prevent additional troops and material from being flown in.
But by subjugating Serbia, the Empire "lost" Russia. Just six months later, Yeltsin was out, and Vladimir Putin was in. A strange coincidence? Solzhenitsyn did not seem to think so. He knew both Russia and the West all too well. I tend to believe him.
Solzhenitsyn is best known for his Nobel Prize-winning "Gulag Archipelago," a three-volume novel/testimony about the Soviet prison camps. He spent eight years in the camps, a decade in internal exile, and 20 years of exile in the West, 1974-1994.
I would like to quote a portion of an interview he gave to the German magazine Der Spiegel, in July 2007; asked about the difficulties in relations between the West and modern Russia, he replied:
"I can name many reasons, but the most interesting ones are psychological, i.e. the clash of illusory hopes against reality. This happened both in Russia and in West. When I returned to Russia in 1994, the Western world and its states were practically being worshipped. Admittedly, this was caused not so much by real knowledge or a conscious choice, but by the natural disgust with the Bolshevik regime and its anti-Western propaganda.
This mood started changing with the cruel NATO bombings of Serbia. It’s fair to say that all layers of Russian society were deeply and indelibly shocked by those bombings. The situation then became worse when NATO started to spread its influence and draw the ex-Soviet republics into its structure. This was especially painful in the case of Ukraine, a country whose closeness to Russia is defined by literally millions of family ties among our peoples, relatives living on different sides of the national border. At one fell stroke, these families could be torn apart by a new dividing line, the border of a military bloc.
So, the perception of the West as mostly a "knight of democracy" has been replaced with the disappointed belief that pragmatism, often cynical and selfish, lies at the core of Western policies. For many Russians it was a grave disillusion, a crushing of ideals.
At the same time the West was enjoying its victory after the exhausting Cold War, and observing the 15-year-long anarchy under Gorbachev and Yeltsin. In this context it was easy to get accustomed to the idea that Russia had become almost a Third World country and would remain so forever. When Russia started to regain some of its strength as an economy and as a state, the West’s reaction - perhaps a subconscious one, based on erstwhile fears - was panic. (emphasis added)
Another shock to the Russians came when the Yeltsin government fell for NATO's bluff in June 1999 and betrayed Belgrade. Russian generals bypassed the Kremlin to try and salvage the shameful "peace" (which NATO interpreted as surrender, and acted accordingly), but their gambit ultimately failed when Washington was able to prevent additional troops and material from being flown in.
But by subjugating Serbia, the Empire "lost" Russia. Just six months later, Yeltsin was out, and Vladimir Putin was in. A strange coincidence? Solzhenitsyn did not seem to think so. He knew both Russia and the West all too well. I tend to believe him.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)