At the Movies

Apropos my comment yesterday concerning a German Haguesploitation film, reader Deucaon asks:

Back to Bosnia
Beautiful People
Behind Enemy Lines
The Enclave
Grbavica
The Hunting Party
Life Is a Miracle
No Man's Land
Pretty Village, Pretty Flame
Savior
Shot Through the Heart
Warriors
Welcome to Sarajevo

Have you seen these films? Are any of them accurate (in any regard) in your opinion?

I have to admit, this is the first time I've heard about some of them. So let's take them in order.

"Beautiful People" - Never seen it, but this review suggests it's not ham-fisted manichean propaganda. As for authenticity, I've heard of plenty of refugees from different ethnic groups getting into fights in their adoptive homelands, and the heroin addict kind of sounds like the author of "My war gone by, I miss it so". Other things, like the rape story or the reporter's "Bosnia syndrome" may be exaggerated for dramatic effect, but they are there for symbolism.

"Behind Enemy Lines" - Utter rubbish. The only American pilot ever shot down over Bosnia was Lt. Scott O'Grady, and he flew a single-seater Air Force F-16. He spent several days in the forests of western Bosnia until the Marines located him and airlifted him out, without any interference by the Bosnian Serbs. In the movie, however, it's a Navy plane, the pilot dies, and the navigator survives to avoid deadly pursuit by rabid Serbs so he can deliver proof of an atrocity patterned after the Srebrenica story. I'm not going to waste words on such rubbish except to note the sheer idiocy of it.

"The Enclave" - Dutch miniseries spinning the story of Srebrenica from the standpoint of Official Truth. If the Dutch want to embrace the myth that casts them as evil enablers of genocide, who am I to stop them? Though judging by the troops that volunteered to testify for Karadzic's defense, maybe they've finally had enough.

"Grbavica" - Even if Jasmila Zbanic made a very artistic film, there is no denying that its main function is propaganda. Zbanic herself spoke about "raising awareness" and spearheaded an effort to get government subsidies for women who claimed to be rape victims.

As a sidebar: The whole "systematic rape" story, exploited endlessly by peddlers of atrocity porn, has never been substantiated. Of course there were rapes; no one denies there were rapes, or that this is repugnant. But organized on a large scale? Balkans wars were fought in an atmosphere of near-complete breakdown of society, closely resembling the Hobbesian "state of nature." Obviously, people capable of murdering their neighbors with glee, slitting throats, slicing off body parts and burning villages would not shirk from non-consensual sex. It would be interesting, however, to compare the supposed "mass rapes" of Bosnia with the numbers of women sexually assaulted by U.S. troops in Iraq - or, say, Okinawa (where there has been no war for almost 54 years).

Another issue are the "rape children." Bosnia was a very secularized place. Generations that had grown up in Communist schools were socialized in Communist morals - where abortion wasn't dirty or sinful, but practical. Only the very old were religiously observant, until the war and its aftermath (no atheists in foxholes, etc.). So I find it exceptionally hard to believe that many women would actually choose to keep rape-conceived children. Especially if they went to the West as refugees (see "Beautiful People," above). Perhaps that may have happened in some cases, for whatever reason, but as a widespread phenomenon it is simply unlikely. If someone has actual data to the contrary, I am prepared to revise my opinion, though.

Continuing on...

"The Hunting Party" - A horrid flop no one watched, and with good reason. Every time Hollywood tries to do a Bosnia story, it takes the already incredulous reality and makes it less believable by exaggerating it and changing it to seem more real.

"Life is a miracle" - Any Kusturica film is an exercise in "magical realism," where reality is just a convenient starting point for art and storytelling. However, there were more than a few inter-ethnic love stories (and even more inter-ethnic breakups) to base this on.

"No man's land" - This would have been a fantastic stage piece. Every time the film dwells on the two soldiers - the Serb and the Muslim trapped in the booby-trapped trench - you can feel the drama and the energy. Every time it tries to look like a Hollywood production - with the hapless Western journalist, the checkpoints, the clueless UN and the video clips of "news" - it goes off into hack territory. It's almost as if Tanovic made a tasty anti-war drama cake, then ruined it with the clumsy frosting of Muslim propaganda.

"Pretty village..." - If anything, this film is too realistic. Dust, mud, blood, rain, twitchy lighting of rural Eastern Bosnia, they are all here. Some characters may feel stereotypical, but they capture the archetypes (the mad machine-gunner, the slutty nurses, the "peace" protesters, the Army officer) that were all too real. It may simplify certain things, and contrive others for the purposes of storytelling, but for all its flaws it is still the most "accurate" of the lot.

"Savior" - Again, filled with contrivances, from the American protagonist to the events he encounters on his journey. And yet it depicts the Bosnian war with brutal honesty: Serbs rape Muslim women, Muslims rape Serb women, both sides kill children with impunity. Villainy is all around. That is enough for some to dismiss it as "Serb propaganda" (Serb director and actors, but American writer and producer - Oliver Stone, no less), but that's what happens when one strays from the manichean formula of "Serbs evil/Muslims good." I also want to point out that even though this film features a "rape baby" as the pivotal plot device, the circumstances of her birth and her fate actually make sense both within the context of the story and within the context of the war at large.

"Shot Through the Heart" - Based on a supposedly true story of two friends (a Serb and a Muslim) who end up as opposing snipers in Sarajevo, this HBO production is remarkable insofar as it admits there actually were Muslim snipers. Then again, it presents the Muslim as a marksman who merely fights the evil Serb, who is "terrorizing" the city by killing women and children. If you really want to watch a Hollywoodized sniper movie, go see "Enemy at the Gates."

"Warriors" - I was unfamiliar with this BBC series. Apparently, it focuses on the British peacekeepers caught in the middle of a nasty war between Muslims and Croats in central Bosnia. I have no idea how accurate it may have been.

"Welcome to Sarajevo" - This was actually the first movie about Bosnia to be filmed on location, and just after the war ended. Unfortunately, while locations may have been somewhat authentic, the story was not. There really was a journalist who tried to help some orphans, and managed to evacuate one in particular - but the orphanage was nowhere near the front line, and the orphan in question was a Serb (in the movie, she's a Muslim; can't have your victims mixed up, right?). The filmmakers ruined a perfectly good story of genuine humanitarianism by bending it to fit the incongruous "Serbs evil, Muslims good" dogma. Typical.

Hague Goes Hollywood

Couple of years back, the Berlin film festival went crazy over Jasmila Zbanic's "Grbavica", a propaganda flick about the Bosnian war that harped on the theme of (alleged, fictitious) mass rapes of Muslim women. This year, a German director is tapping into the Bosnian atrocity porn, with a film described as "critical" of the Hague Inquistion (ICTY), but in fact another exercise in mendacity and propaganda.

Reuters reports: "German Bosnia film takes critical view of tribunal." Sounds intriguing, right? Except the story is described as one of a "determined prosecutor....struggling against time pressure and Serb nationalists." Huh? But wait, there's more:

In "Storm," the prosecutor's investigation of rape and murder charges is hindered by a powerful network of nationalist Serbs and then foiled by her own poorly prepared case. But just before it collapses, a witness to the rapes comes forward.

The trial is short-circuited by a behind-the-scenes deal involving the judge, the Serb's defense counsel and the prosecutor's pragmatic boss.

Let me see if I get this. The heroic Prosecutor knows that these evil Serbs (is there another kind?) are guilty of horrible murders and systematic mass rapes, but there's just no darn evidence for it. I mean, why else would the case be "poorly prepared"? Does that imply she's incompetent? Oh no, no, the heroic Tribunal is probably just short of money, or something, and you know, having to actually prove these charges is just so damned inconvenient... And then, of course, there's a "powerful network of nationalist Serbs" - which is probably based on the equally chimeric "joint criminal enterprise to create an ethnically pure Greater Serbia". That would be the alleged grand conspiracy every single Serb politician, soldier, policeman and whoever else they finger is automatically guilty of until proven innocent, never mind that it actually doesn't exist.

But never fear! For our heroine will be saved by the Last Minute Miraculous Plot Device (i.e. the witness)! And then, just to be properly postmodern and angsty (it is, after all, a German movie - so optimism is verboten), the righteous victory is thwarted at its moment of triumph by Lawyer Show Trope #37, the "pragmatic boss" making a deal with a wicked defense counsel.

The director, Hans-Christian Schmid, said "his film was fiction but was based on elements of cases he studied." Oh it's fiction, all right. Because none of these elements bear any resemblance to anything that's happened at the Inquisition.

So, again, how is any of this actually critical of the ICTY? Oh sure, right, the incompetent (kind of?) prosecutor we're supposed to root for, and the evil "pragmatic" boss who cuts deals with war criminals. Right. Except, you know, the deal-making boss is a complete and utter fabrication, as are the Serb lawyers and the "nationalist network." The only thing that even remotely rings true is the "poorly prepared" indictment - but even then that's supposed to be a charming character flaw of the woman we're supposed to like.

This isn't art, this is propaganda. The "criticism" amounts to accusing the Tribunal of not persecuting (not a typo) the Serbs hard enough - an accusation anyone even casually familiar with the Inquisition's opus over the past decade and a half would find utterly absurd.

Almost every single Serb who was seized ended up convicted, bullied into false confessions, or dead. Meanwhile, "commanders" of the terrorist KLA are acquitted, as are Muslim warlords who've openly boasted of their butchery to the cheering Western press.

Of course, had he tried to make a movie about the ICTY's epic failure to convict Albanian or Muslim warlords, Schmid wouldn't have received any funding. Had he somehow completed the movie anyway, it would have gone straight to DVD, rather than garner attention and praise at film festivals. But that's somewhat of a moot point, because it didn't even cross Schmid's mind to try, now did it? Everybody knows only the evil Serbs are criminals. And besides, note how the case at hand is about mass rape? Mass rape always gets media attention. Bleeding-heart interventionists in the West really love themselves some mass rape to get them in the proper mood of righteous indignation. Never mind that it's fiction, it's good fiction. In their minds, it should be true, and therefore it is. Kind of like Schmid's flick.

But for all the shlock, tropes, cliches, racist stereotypes resurrected from Nazi propaganda and pure old horse manure, this little piece of Tribunal propaganda just had to go that extra inch, and add insult to injury by adopting the very name of a Croatian military operation that ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Serbs in 1995.

I understand the Germans have a vested interest in declaring the Serbs genocidal; they probably think having someone else labeled that way would somehow water down the stain on their character that remains from WW2. And it would also provide a handy justification for German crimes against the Serbs back then, just in case the Serbs ever bring them up. But even so, this Scheisse is just too much.

Whither America?

Igor Panarin believes that the United States is doomed. Within the next two years, he says, this country will cease to exist, much like the USSR. Is this ex-KGB analyst, dean of the Moscow Academy of Diplomacy and a guest of the Davos economic forum a prophet, or a crank? His predictions attracted attention of the Wall Street Journal, which reported on them with marked incredulity. Other commentators, such as Doug Bandow, also gave Panarin little credence.

Now, it is entirely possible Panarin is engaging in projection. Having witnessed the dissolution of the USSR, he sees parallels in the current U.S. situation that might not really be there. For that matter, I have been viewing the situation in the U.S. through the prism of my experience with the end of Yugoslavia, and the Bosnian War. Fractured society, a credit-fueled boom that turned into a disaster when the bills came due, the same "it can't happen here" conviction that blindsided many Bosnians... do I see them here? Absolutely. This is why I tend to take Panarin a bit more seriously than most people. If current trends continue, then I really do think this country is headed to perdition. I am far less certain of what shape that perdition might take than Igor Panarin, however. It is one thing to posit likelihoods, and quite another to speak of exact timelines and even territorial divisions.

In a recent exclusive interview with the premier Serbian weekly NIN on the day of Barack Obama's inauguration, Panarin compared the new president to the last leader of the USSR (translations mine):

The new American president is a very good speaker, and reminds me a lot of Gorbachev. His role is very similar, to soften the dissolution of the USA as much as possible. If the attempt to rescue the financial system fails, he can be the scapegoat: it's his lack of experience, etc. It would be USSR-like scenario, except it took us six years to collapse, and the USA will do it in 18 months. Things move faster these days...
He impressed me, too, in the beginning: he spoke well, and very reasonably. But I kept watching and he kept repeating the same things. He offered nothing new. He kept reminding me of Gorbachev. When Gorbachev came to power, many thought it a good thing - myself included. But after just six months, it became obvious that the words were all well and good, but the actual effect was the country's collapse.

He went on to explain how the USSR fell apart because Gorbachev had racked up foreign debt and bankrupted the state. (Yeltsin's henchman Yegor Geidar explained this in some detail in a paper he wrote for the American Enterprise Institute a couple years back.) So, in his mind, the crushing government debt will destroy the U.S. analogously.

The wrinkle here is that American debt is held in American-printed dollars; so long as the rest of the world maintains the dollar as the global reserve currency, the Fed will be able to print money and "create wealth" out of thin air with impunity. Where do you think those billions for the so-called "stimulus" are coming from? But if Washington keeps printing money, sooner or later it will reduce its worth below the level acceptable to foreign buyers. I don't know what that level might be; it depends on a variety of facts and perceptions and is essentially subjective. But any economic theory says that such a point must exist. And once it's reached, the U.S. dollar will be worth about as much as its Zimbabwean namesake.

One of the things Panarin only mentions in passing, but which I consider crucial, is the Americans' mental state. Modern politicians are fond of invoking the line about how "all men are created equal" from the Declaration of Independence, forgetting that the rest of that sentence, lifted almost entirely out of Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government, talks about the "unalienable Rights...[of] Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" (or, as Locke put it, property). Whereas European governments of the time were still built around the medieval concept of a monarch being in charge of the landed gentry that lorded over the serfs, with some free citizenry thrown in, America was supposed to be the land of the free - i.e. those who owned property and did not depend on laboring for someone else. (Obviously, the whole slavery thing was a glaring fly in the ointment, but keep in mind that the Founders by and large considered the slaves less than fully human). Even if one was reduced to what Marx would call a proletarian - with no property but himself - the "American dream" was always to save up enough to buy one's own farm or shop, to be one's own boss.

Most people in today's America work for someone else, though. Most productive assets are owned by big businesses, which became big by collaborating with an ever-expanding government. And the government regulates and taxes everything to a degree where no one is actually free, and people in effect live and work at the government's sufferance. Now I know many will disagree with this assessment; small business owners who have to spend time and money making sure they are in compliance with the ever-expanding body of regulations and tax codes, however, know exactly what I mean.

So, from a country of free farmers and small businessmen, America has become a nation of regulated wage slaves. Worse yet, this economic transformation has gone hand in hand with a cultural and societal change. The growth of cities and the development of suburbs and highways has fractured and scattered families. In many places across the U.S. there is no longer a sense of community. Even regional identities have suffered due to migration patterns. Racial and linguistic identity politics aren't helping, either. And while this social atomization may seem like a fine thing to the government, as it promotes conflict and therefore enables control and encourages dependence (on the government, as the "solution"), it sows the seeds of misfortune for when the government eventually goes under.

Do Americans even have shared values anymore? What might those be? Self-reliance? Individualism? Liberty? Hardly, anymore. It seems that pursuit of money and the belief in government omnipotence are the only things America's diverse inhabitants have in common. That's a mighty thin fabric for a nation. Once money evaporates in a cloud of inflation and the government is shown to be impotent, what's left?

When someone asked me, a couple years back, whether I thought U.S. would have another civil war, I replied, "If and when it happens, there won't be anything civil about it." Yes, it's a pun. And yes, it's gallows humor. But look at it from my perspective: the American equivalent of what happened to Bosnia - and that's under the charitable assumption that things here would not turn out far worse - would be 150 million refugees and 6 million dead. I don't want to see that happen. No one in their right mind would.

And that is why I take Panarin's predictions seriously, if with a chunk of salt. While it may not happen as soon as he thinks, or in the manner he laid out, the end of the U.S. is both possible and increasingly likely. If and when it happens, I pray only that it resembles the Czech/Slovak "velvet divorce," or even the relatively bloodless Soviet model (where conflicts were confined to the periphery), rather than the bloody and tragic demise of Yugoslavia. I've lived through that already. Once was enough.

Continuity, Confirmed

The title says it all: "Obama the Imperialist," writes Richard Seymour in The Guardian.

I couldn't have written it better myself, though I've tried.

Hide! They are "Helping" Again!

Being in the U.S. myself, I can't watch Voice of America news. You see, VOA is official Washington propaganda directed to the outside world, so it can't be shown to Americans. Might interfere with all the brainwashing done by PBS, CNN, Fox and so on, somehow, I guess.

So I could not verify for myself what Serbian agencies reported today, about what Ambassador Robert Gelbard told Voice of America. But I'll take their word that Gelbard said that "Washington must help Serbia progress and consolidate democracy and stability."

Gee, Bob, hasn't America "helped" enough? First it helped destroy the country built on the blood of over 2 million Serbs, while making a million Serbs into refugees or second-class citizens. A part of Serbia has been occupied and declared an "independent state," following an illegal war of aggression undertaken by NATO at Washington's orders. Then Washington used Serbia as a Petri dish for testing the formula of "popular revolution" that was later deployed in Georgia, Ukraine, and (without success) Belarus. In its efforts to "help" Serbia, Washington has not only supported the very people Bob Gelbard has called terrorists, it has also funded the very worst quisling scum, both within the government and the so-called "civil society."

“The Balkans are a very important region and the United States of America should closely cooperate with the European Union and Russia in order to preserve the progress made in the last decade,” Gelbard is said to have told VOA.

Progress? Yeah, the nightmare I just described above is considered "progress" in Washington. Through a combination of aggression and Trojan takeover, Washington is finally completely in control of "the most important country in the Balkans that has an influence on the whole region” (Gelbard to VOA, as quoted). And just to be on the safe side, it will grind it down to a more manageable size soon.

Once a Balkans envoy until his candid remark about the KLA got him exiled to Indonesia, Gelbard is now a member of Obama's policymaking posse, and in that capacity he criticized the freshly departed Emperor, who "completely ignored the Balkans in the first four years" and then focused solely on Kosovo thereafter.

But hey, according to both Washington policymakers and their paid presstitutes in Serbia itself, carving out Kosovo was supposed to help Serbia overcome the handicaps of having a culture, history and heritage that were holding it back from become a proper member of the "international community" - you know, a lobotomized postmodern society that obeys Imperial commands unconditionally. So you see, Bush the Lesser was actually helping Serbia, just like Clinton before him bombed it, with nothing but the best of intentions in mind.

In their minds, maybe. I'm aware that sarcasm isn't readily apparent in writing, so I'm laying it on with a trowel here; if you really believe this garbage, I've got a sweet coastal property in Kansas for you...

Now, where was I? Oh yes. Gelbard also praised "a very good authority there with President Boris Tadic at its head." He probably said a good government, but thanks to the idiot who translated the interview we got "authority." Whatever. The point is, Gelbard and his people like Tadic. And why shouldn't they? He's doing their bidding to the letter, while pretending to care about the country and people of Serbia. He's selling them down the river with a song in his heart. Who in Washington wouldn't be proud of such a creature?

So chin up, Serbians - Uncle Barack is coming to "help," just like George and Bill before him. Between the brotherly affections of the American people (as represented by the enlightened policies of their democratically elected government) and the sheer brilliance, competence and honesty of your own elected officials, a brighter future of prosperity and democracy is just around the corner. Any day now. Soon. Real soon. Almost there.

Now, about that beachfront property in Kansas...

Pathetic Plavsic

In 1990, Biljana Plavsic was elected into the 7-member Presidency of what was then still the Socialist Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, part of the Yugoslav federation. She was still in her home in downtown Sarajevo when war broke out in April 1992 (so much for the whole "conspiracy of Serbian aggressors" theory); I remember watching the footage of her being evacuated from the city in an armored car.

In 1996, Plavsic allied with Bosnia's NATO overlords in an effort to destroy the power base of her former political party. She also helped the "reforms" that had started to modify the Dayton peace agreement from its original form into the "living document" it is now. Plavsic and her Prime Minister, Milorad Dodik, were seen as American puppets, and lost the 1998 elections due to a backlash from their excessive servility. (Dodik is now being attacked as "nationalist" by those very same Americans that ran him a decade ago, just because he's refusing to dismantle the Serb Republic and lead his people meekly into a Muslim-dominated centralized state.)

Having outlived her usefulness in Bosnian politics, Plavsic could do one more thing for the Empire, though. In 2000, she was accused of war crimes by the Hague Inquisition. She turned herself in, and in 2002 agreed to plead guilty.

Googling the news from back then, I found this description by Australian radio's Michael Brissenden that's pretty typical of the Western media coverage of Bosnia, Plavsic, and the Serbs in general:

She was one of those most driven by the racist dream of an ethnically pure Serb nation. Many who covered the war remember her as one of the true ideologues.

She spoke often and with considerable passion to the international media. She advocated the division of the Bosnian state and the Bosnian capital, Sarajevo, along ethnic lines and by her own admission, she was part of a political leadership that collaborated closely with the former Yugoslav leader, Slobodan Milosevic in the conception and execution of the objective of ethnic separation by force.

Now she's the first senior Serb leader to admit guilt for the crimes and atrocities committed in Bosnia and she's told the final hearing of her trial that the leadership of which she was a part led an effort that victimised countless innocent people.

There was never a "racist dream of an ethnically pure Serbian nation" - except in the sick minds of Serbophobes. If this were true, how does one explain the fact that Serbia is the most ethnically diverse part of the former Yugoslavia today, and all those poor victimized "democracies" such as Croatia, Slovenia, "Independent state of Kosovo" and parts of Bosnia dominated by the Muslims are over 90% ethnically homogeneous? Besides, the Bosnian Serb leadership did not take orders from Milosevic; Richard Holbrooke went through a lot of trouble to force Milosevic to negotiate on behalf of the Bosnian Serbs, because Washington found them unwilling to bend to its will. And Plavsic was rather inconsequential in wartime Serb politics; it was the media and the Inquisition that declared her an ideologue and a policymaker, because for the whole setup to be effective, they needed her to be.

Plavsic's miserable attempt to save her own skin by damning her people failed. At age 72, Plavsic was sentenced to 11 years in prison and sent to Sweden. Her "confession" had some limited propaganda value at the time, but she later lapsed into oblivion. Bitter at the Inquisition, she refused to testify in any other trials, and was left to rot in the Swedish lockup.

Now she has given an interview to a Swedish magazine, saying she wanted to retract her confession, and that it was just an effort to save her skin. Ironically, even this is being used to further anti-Serb propaganda, providing yet another occasion for old tropes about systematic killings of non-Serbs and genocide. The magazine even makes the absurd allegation that Plavsic "has been accused of playing a key role in the massacre at Srebrenica in 1995, where at least 8000 Muslims were killed."

As a Christian, I believe in redemption of just about everyone. Even those who shamefully betray their people to say their own skin (and don't even manage to do that, because the Empire went back on its word. Shocked? Just ask the American Indians). But it would be a lot easier to pity Plavsic were it not for the example of Slobodan Milosevic.

Whatever one may think of his conduct while in power, once he was rendered to the Inquisition in 2001, Milosevic fought tooth and nail - not to save himself, because the outcome of his show trial was a foregone conclusion, but to defend his country and his people from accusations of war crimes, atrocities and genocide. The Inquisition was used to breaking its victims easily; Milosevic not only refused to bend, he destroyed their case in court. When everyone else lawyered up and bargained for the most lenient sentence, Milosevic actually fought back and challenged the Inquisition to prove their case. Which they manifestly could not.

The contrast between Milosevic and Plavsic is just overwhelming.

Biljana Plavsic is now 79, well beyond the average Bosnian's life expectancy. Perhaps she believes in God, and hopes He will forgive her for the things she has said and done in life. He might. Her people? Don't bet on it.

Sic Transit 2008

As I wrote last week on Antiwar.com, this was a year in which the Empire won a victory in the Balkans, but lost just about everywhere else. And though I understand the argument for "the worse, the better" in theory, I certainly took no joy in watching everything that's good and decent, both in the Balkans and here in America, sink ever lower into the cesspit of politics and violence.

The economic meltdown isn't over. The Empire wants to escalate the Afghan war, and is preparing to go back to the Balkans, probably figuring it the most likely venue for a short, victorious butt-kicking that would improve morale at home and divert attention from widespread system failure. Provided it's a victory - which is by no means guaranteed.

I have no doubt that things will continue to get worse in 2009. Perhaps at some point it will get so bad that things will turn around and both the Imperialists and their local quislings will get their comeuppance. I have no illusions that this will be without painful consequences for everyone else trapped in this malignant matrix. Whether we want to snap out of it or not, however, entropy will have its own. There is only so much denial and wishful thinking can do, and we're long past the point of diminishing returns on both.

I won't wish you a happy 2009, as that would be a lie. The best I can do is wish we all live through it. And God help us.

Irrelevant Roots

As soon as I heard that Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was indicted on corruption charges, I knew that the media would inevitably bring up his Serbian roots. I'm just surprised it took days, as opposed to hours, or minutes.

In this era of political correctness and mandatory "diversity," there are still groups (entire nations, really) one is allowed, supposed, or even required to hate. Serbs are one of those groups.

As M. Pejakovich of SerbBlog points out, did anyone make a fuss over ex-governor Ryan's Irish ancestry? Of course not.

Yet, the media just can't seem to get enough of rubbing everyone's nose in Rod Blagojevich's "ethnic roots" -- even going so far as to publish quotes from the Blagojevic family in Europe for their reaction to the cousin that they've never met, and quoting headlines from German and Soros owned newspapers from Eastern Europe.

Others went to his local boyhood church for reactions from parishioners. Rod Blagojevich is 52 years old and hasn't gone there in 30 years. What's this got to do with anything?

Although some people in Serbia may have felt a misplaced sense of national pride that one of "their own" made it to the Illinois governor's mansion, what the hack journalists and tabloids that harp on this neglect to mention is that Blagojevich renounced his heritage decades ago.

Perhaps he felt he had to; being a Serb, or even half-Serb, is a liability in American politics. Ohio Senator George Voinovich has also denied his Serbian roots (he actually claimed to be Slovenian at one time). Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.), who never hid her Serbian roots, was viciously attacked by a Republican candidate because she opposed the "independence" of the Albanian-occupied Kosovo. Steve Greenberg claimed that Bean favored "interests of radical foreign nations above the interests of freedom and democracy," a travesty of logic if ever there was one.

Yet for all this, somehow I don't think there was anything reluctant in Blagojevich's rejection of his Serbian heritage. Everything known about him indicates that he did it consciously, deliberately, in pursuit of power and money. He isn't the first man who did so, nor will he be the last, sadly. Which brings us to Pejakovich's second point:

Rod Blagojevich's "ethnicity" is American and his religion is "corrupt politician". That should have been plain for all to see when back in 1999, he supported the twisted and corrupt NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, using the same hateful anti-Serb rhetoric as the rest of his twisted fellow corrupt politicians.

The man not only abandoned his heritage, he betrayed it. To try and blame his Serbian roots for his American behavior is disingenuous, and perhaps even deliberately misleading.

Missing the Point, Again

It has been almost ten years since I started publishing commentary on-line, and it never ceases to amaze me that people seem to possess a remarkable capacity of completely missing the point of entire articles to zero in on one particular sentence or phrase and make a huge deal of it.

My piece on Antiwar.com last week was inspired by a posting here, in which I challenged Pat Buchanan's interpretation of the 1914 Sarajevo assassination. In the column, titled "Triumph of Tragedy," I wrote:

In the Yugoslavian pot, the Serbian identity had melted away, while people who used to consider themselves Serbs (or Turks, Croats, or Bulgarians) became "Montenegrins" or "Macedonians" or "Bosnians." When all the consequences of Yugoslavia's creation are added up, it is easily a worse historical disaster for the Serbs than the Ottoman conquest.

This was obviously toned down from what I said in "Missing the Point":

Furthermore, in 1918 there was no such nation as "Bosnians," or Montenegrins, or Macedonians. People in what are today Bosnia, Montenegro and Macedonia considered themselves Serbs, Croats, Turks, even Bulgarians. It was Communist social engineering and propaganda that manufactured them into distinct "nations" - while destroying the Serbian sense of nationhood in general.

Now, I may have oversimplified things somewhat. Certainly there were at least some who considered themselves other things. However, even a cursory glance at contemporary sources would reveal that my claim here is factual.

The Montenegrin identity had been inseparable from Serbian until the end of the Great War, when some supporters of the Petrovic dynasty resented the merger with Serbia. Communists exploited this divide and worked for decades to create a "Montenegrin nation"; the pinnacle of this project is today's independent Montenegro, whose rulers are building a national identity on a foundation of Serbophobia.

Austria-Hungary attempted to create a "Bosniak" nation during its occupation mandate, without much success. Bosnian Muslims identified themselves as Turks, or - following the Great War - as Serbs or Croats with a distinct religion. It was Tito's Yugoslavia that incubated their nationhood, trying to use them as a counterbalance to Serbs and Croats. And a fine job that turned out to be, if the 100,000 dead and the smoldering ruins of Bosnia are anything to judge by.

Now as for Macedonia... Google "Antiwar.com" and "Macedonia" and see how many hits you get for my columns on the subject, and what I wrote therein. At the time when damn near no one in the West objected to the KLA's butchering of that country, I wrote about the murder of Macedonia and the futile surrender of its leaders to Imperial demands. But I dare argue that only under Tito did the Macedonian national movement actually succeed in creating a nation, and all of a sudden I'm a villain?

Look, I'm routinely attacked by Albanians because I'm a Serb (it doesn't matter what I say, really - unless I endorse the KLA somehow; then I'm a poster child for what needs to be done). I get grief from Greeks, because I dare say "Macedonia" instead of FYROM or what have you (look, Alexander was a barbarian, OK? Just because he embraced the culture of Hellas and spread it around the known world doesn't make him any more Greek than my Orthodox faith makes me one).

And now I'm marked for malice by Macedonians for daring to point out that hey, today's Macedonia exists within the boundaries of the territory liberated from the Ottoman Empire by the Kingdom of Serbia. What about the areas controlled by Bulgaria and Greece? How come we never hear about them? Also, am I wrong in saying that most people in that area at that time considered themselves Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians or even Turks, since the whole concept of the Macedonian nation was in its infancy? I doubt it. Find me some contemporary sources that argue otherwise and I'd be willing to change my mind.

While you're at it, can you give me a publication date for the first dictionary and grammar of the distinct Macedonian language? Also, please explain how come that many residents of northern Macedonia have distinctly Serbian names, except they've been "Macedonized"? And finally, that whole talk about modern Macedonians being descendants of Alexander's folk? About as plausible as the "bogomil Bosnians" or "Albanians as Illyrians" arguments. Spare me.

Bulgarians and Greeks spend decades denying that Macedonians even exist. As a result, they get to keep the territories gained in the Balkans Wars. Serbs go along with emancipating Macedonians as a nation, and they lose the territories, and get accused of being hostile to Macedonia and Macedonians! Not exactly an argument for tolerance or open-mindedness, is it?

I've told my Macedonian friends before, and I'll say it again: the real danger to your continued existence, let alone prosperity, isn't from the north. The Serbs have accepted Macedonia and Macedonians, and all the questions that I raise here are merely historical nitpicking. An attempt to teach my own people an important lesson, as the case may be. Meanwhile, Bulgarians are issuing dual citizenships, Greeks insist there is no such country, and Albanians are taking the land. And this Serb is one of the few people in the world pointing that out and disagreeing with it.

Down to One Question

One can write a dozen essays and argue oneself hoarse over the merits of market economy and still get the ignorant response typical of most people, that governments need to "regulate" the market else it "fails."

I can't count the number of such situations I've found myself in over the past decade or so, and I wish I had this pearl from William Norman Grigg (Pro Libertate), published today on LRC:

Obama is a reasonably bright fellow. Somebody he respects – assuming there is any great enough to command his attention and rebuke his errors – needs to ask him this question, and compel him to answer:

"If the key to prosperity is a centrally planned economy fueled by fiat currency, why isn’t Zimbabwe the wealthiest nation in history?"

Yes, indeed, why not?

Missing the Point

Pat Buchanan opens his analysis of the Mumbai attacks today by describing the 1914 Sarajevo assassination as "arguably the most successful act of revolutionary terror."

I don't disagree with Buchanan's main argument - that the goal of the Mumbai terrorists was to provoke a war between India and Pakistan - as much as his callous characterization of Princip, and putting him in the same category as the Mumbai attackers and the 9/11 jihadists.

Was Princip really a terrorist? Take just this common-sense definition of terrorism from Wikipedia:

Most common definitions of terrorism include only those acts which are intended to create fear (terror), are perpetrated for an ideological goal (as opposed to a lone attack), and deliberately target or disregard the safety of non-combatants.

By these standards, the Sarajevo attack was terrorism only if we stretch the definition. Its purpose was to influence policy through violence, yes - Austria had been occupying Bosnia-Herzegovina against the will of most of its population for almost 40 years at that point, and had illegally annexed it in 1908. But fear didn't enter the picture. The group Princip belonged to ("Young Bosnia") wasn't firebombing schools or buses or marketplaces; they targeted the Austrian military, in the persons of its inspector-general, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and Bosnia's military governor, Oskar Potiorek, who rode in the car with him. The civilian death - Ferdinand's wife, Countess Sophie Chotek - was entirely accidental; Princip was aiming for Potiorek, but he was a lousy shot.

Murderer he may be, but Princip is not a terrorist.

Buchanan also errs by claiming that, by provoking the war that destroyed Austria-Hungary, the assassination "succeeded beyond the wildest dreams" of its plotters. But all evidence points to this being a completely unintended consequence.

First a little historical background here. Bosnia and Herzegovina were two provinces of the Ottoman Empire (with a majority Christian population) that were placed under Austro-Hungarian occupation at the 1878 Congress of Berlin. Contrary to the provisions of that Congress and against commonly accepted law of nations at the time, Austria annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908, and administered them directly as crown lands. Obviously, this was not well received by a large Serb population, which wanted to unite with the independent kingdom of Serbia to the east.

"Young Bosnia," the organization to which Gavrilo Princip belonged, was a revolutionary society dedicated to freeing Bosnia-Herzegovina from Austrian rule and the unification of South Slavs with Serbia into a common state (following the models of Germany and Italy from the latter part of the 19th century). One of their sponsors was the "Black Hand", also known as "Union or Death," a secret society of Serbian army officers first involved in assassinating the last Obrenović king in 1903. As is obvious from their name, they also wanted the unification of South Slavs.

Now, there's a clear difference between advocating national liberation and wishing to destroy the empire that's holding one's compatriots in thralldom. The Balkans Alliance (Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Greece) that successfully defeated the Ottoman Empire in 1912 did not seek to destroy the said empire - merely to liberate the lands and peoples in the Balkans they claimed as their own. Similarly, the Black Hand or Young Bosnia - and especially the Serbian government - never thought of destroying Austria-Hungary. They were certainly interested in liberating the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes who lived under its rule. Whether the Croats and Slovenes actually wanted to be liberated is another story.

Considering that Serbia has just emerged from two years of war, it is downright foolish to assume its government was eager to fight Austria. On the other hand, elements of Austrian establishment (such Conrad von Hoetzendorf) wanted a war with Serbia rather badly, and were prepared to seize upon any pretext. They found the death of Ferdinand, who had actually kept them in check, extremely useful.

Citing Buchanan again:

"While Serbia suffered per capita losses as great as any other nation, she ended the Great War as the lead nation in a Kingdom of the South Slavs embracing Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians, Albanians, Montenegrins, Macedonians, and Hungarians. The Habsburg Empire at which Princip had struck had vanished."

Serbia lost over half of its male population to the war. One might even argue its losses per capita were greater than any other participant in the war. And while it emerged as the dominant force in the new kingdom (soon renamed Yugoslavia) after the war, that was far from a triumph. Within just a few years, Croats began to resent being removed from the Habsburg orbit. This resentment resulted in a crippling political conflict within Yugoslavia, and led to the horrific genocide perpetrated by the pro-Nazi regime of Ante Pavelić between 1941 and 1945.

Furthermore, in 1918 there was no such nation as "Bosnians," or Montenegrins, or Macedonians. People in what are today Bosnia, Montenegro and Macedonia considered themselves Serbs, Croats, Turks, even Bulgarians. It was Communist social engineering and propaganda that manufactured them into distinct "nations" - while destroying the Serbian sense of nationhood in general. I've argued elsewhere that the creation of Yugoslavia was the greatest disaster that befell the Serbs in their history, worse even than the Ottoman conquest. I shan't elaborate on that here and now, but it needs to be noted for the sake of context.

So, the event that Mr. Buchanan claims was in the same category as the 9/11 or the Mumbai attacks wasn't actually terrorism; its consequences were unintended; and it did not profit its organizers anywhere near what is commonly believed. For what it's worth, I'd appreciate historians and commentators like Buchanan not to mislabel and misinterpret it.

The Choice That Actually Counts

It is now obvious the "change" we were promised will be a trip back to 1999. I don't see how even the most ardent mob of Obama-worshippers, the one likely to go after me with torches and pitchforks for even daring to question their secular saint, could argue otherwise if and when Hillary Clinton takes over Foggy Bottom from Condi Rice.

So, now we know the "change" we're actually going to see is a n application of lipstick on the imperial pig, rather than translating the whole bloated monster into some tasty chops and sausage. What are you planning to do about it?

I didn't know about Antiwar.com when I first came to the U.S., back in 1996. I was a good little liberal-democrat leftist mainstream-media reader. Over the years, between them and LewRockwell.com, I've learned that being a patriotic American means opposing the Empire, not enabling it. Unlike some sites and magazines, Antiwar.com has been a consistent critic of Empire itself, rather than Democrats or Republicans that took turns at its helm. It should be intuitively obvious even to the most casual observer that the Empire is a bipartisan effort, and that opposing it isn't a matter of criticizing William J. Clinton, George W. Bush or Barack H. Obama personally, but as men who were elected to be chief magistrates of a confederated republic yet crowned themselves Emperors of the known universe instead.

Needless to say, serving the Empire is much more profitable in material terms than opposing it. But while American citizens and residents have no choice in giving up a portion of their earnings to the Leviathan, they do have a choice when it comes to supporting Antiwar.com. With the failing Empire trying to bolster its image (but not mend its ways) by crowning Obama, it's clear that the fight to save the American Republic is nowhere near over.

If you are true American patriots, if you believe in your country as "well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all" but "champion and vindicator only of her own," a country that "goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy" but "will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example," then I urge you to contribute to Antiwar.com today and thus make a real choice for actual change.

Full disclosure: While I am a columnist for Antiwar.com, and they do pay me for it, this isn't about me. I would just as gladly write for free (and have in the past), because I believe in the ideas of liberty and justice.

Return to 1999

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.

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.

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?

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:

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?

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.

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:

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.

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.

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:

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?

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.

The Strong and the Weak

In my column on Antiwar.com today, I argue that:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

"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.

"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: