Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Waiting for Stalingrad

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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