The first time I've ever disavowed myself

I tend to stand by what I have written as a matter of principle, and never delete things because that would be altering the record. As someone trained in history, that's unacceptable behavior. Yet today I find myself hovering over the "delete post" button when it comes to this September 2006 post, in which I praise Keith Olbermann's vitriolic rant about George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. 

I haven't changed a whole lot since then - I was a critic of Bush the Lesser and the Iraq War then, and I remain one now. As it turns out, neither has Olbermann: his rant did not come from principle, but from partisanship. He was a deranged Democrat then, and is one still. It just didn't become apparent until the Trump Derangement Syndrome hit and people like him openly lost their minds.

While I think I will keep that post, it will get a big fat asterisk from the future, as proof that even a hopelessly broken clock could be right twice a day. I hereby disavow any interpretation thereof that could be construed as an endorsement of Keith Olbermann, his positions or his character. I hope he gets the professional help he appears to need. 

Remember Ukraine?

In the hubbub about the Syrian crisis - on which I will post some thoughts in the next couple of days - the world seems to have forgotten about the fiasco that is Ukraine.

Fortunately, CrossTalk host Peter Lavelle has not - and he was joined by Mark Sleboda, Alexander Mercouris and yours truly to discuss what is going on in Washington's dysfunctional satrapy on the Dnieper.

I'm not sure either that the intent of Minsk was to buy time until the Kiev regime inevitably self-destructed, but that sure seems to be how it worked out in practice. Any sort of progress towards a real solution can only be made after the political spectrum in the US puppet state of Ukropia stops being limited to fifty flavors of fascist.

That may seem like a long ways away... but winter is coming.

CrossTalk: Kiev's cul-de-sac

In which Patrick Smith, Marcus Papadopoulos, and yours truly discuss how Congress admitted there were Nazis in Ukraine, whether the US is seeking a way to back out of Banderastan, and if Washington's behavior is an expression of strength, or desperation.

Big thanks to Marcus for pointing out that the West destroyed its own world order by murdering Yugoslavia, a crime it has ever since pretended never happened.

Air date: June 24, 2015

Nazis and Countries That Back Them

After Canada, USA and Ukraine were the only countries that voted "No" in the UN General Assembly to a resolution proposed by Russia condemning the glorification of Nazis, Peter Lavelle had Alexander Mercouris, Dimitri Babich and I over to discuss the meaning of that on CrossTalk.


(or watch on YouTube)

As you can see, I agree with the other two guests on almost everything - except for their assertion that Washington has ever actually regretted the consequences of its misdeeds. From where I stand, the Empire is not only absolutely unrepentant, it declares its wrongdoing to be right and just!

I mean, the New York Times of all media recently published an admission that a thousand (at least!) actual German Nazis still receive Social Security. How many thousands were brought over after WW2, and how many were propped up in Europe to "fight Communism"? And that's not counting the seven decades of collaborating with Nazis from the so-called "captive nations" (the Baltics, Ukraine, Croatia, etc), documented in The Nation (again, of all places). So it's fine that Croatians are sieg-heiling at fooball games while Kyevite militias are flying swastikas, since that represents "democracy and European future" merely defending themselves against "Serbian and Russian aggression" (see here, for example).

Another thing we didn't get a chance to mention is that all of the EU - and its hangers-on - abstained from voting. The sole European country that supported the resolution was Serbia. Personally, I'm shocked the quisling regime in Belgrade dared oppose Brussels and Washington on this, considering their absolute willingness to cut Serbia's throat on every other issue. Perhaps even they draw the line at backing Nazis, for what it's worth.

The show aired on Wednesday before Thanksgiving, and was recorded the day prior. Thus there was no time to fix the error in the titles identifying me as director of the Reiss Institute (I resigned earlier this month. It was a personal decision - nothing against the Institute, and I wish it all the best in future endeavors.)

RT vs the Western "Media"

Since last November, I have made so many appearances on RT, I've had people ask me if I work for them. I wish! In actuality, I am a guest commentator, who just happens to get re-invited a ton. Maube because I am right more often than not? Certainly not because I'm telegenic...

On Tuesday I was a guest on the episode of CrossTalk about the elections in the Ukraine, which aired today. Three days prior, I chimed in about V. V. Putin's remarks at the Valdai Club forum in Sochi. He identified the Empire-possessed U.S. (and its EU appendage) as the source of instability, violence and chaos in the world. I've said as much myself back in February, so it's no wonder I concur.

The Anglosphere media, predictably, did not. For example, the Guardian's obnoxious (and clueless) Shaun Walker described Putin's remarks as "railing" against the West. Good thing the full transcript of the remarks (in English too) is available via the alternate media.

But something in Walker's piece particularly rankled:

Putin did not face many tough questions from the assembled audience. Peter Lavelle, a presenter on the Kremlin’s Russia Today television channel took the opportunity to tell the president that he is “the most popular man in modern history” and in much of the world is “looked upon as a saviour of sorts”.

I've addressed here before the whole "RT is Kremlin propaganda" nonsense. Walker is simply trying to disqualify RT and Lavelle with a drive-by ad hominem. Worse, though, in this passage he is lying by omission: Lavelle did say the words quoted above, but as part of a question about the Western media's demonization of Putin. Watch and listen for yourselves. Putin's reply, too, for good measure.

Now tell me again why you or anyone else ought to think the Western media is fair, objective, accurate and decent, while "Kremlin's Russia Today" is nothing but evil lies and propaganda. Rubbish.

Skewering the Liars

A satirical German TV show "Die Anstalt" (The Institution) has aired a segment on September 25 mocking the Western coverage of the conflict in the Ukraine.

Someone was kind enough to post it with English subtitles. Watch and enjoy:

"Every 30-50 Years, The West Invades Us"

Following the parade of captured Nazis, on August 24, leader of the Donetsk Republic gave a press conference. The fantastic volunteer translators, editors and bloggers at Vineyard of the Saker have uploaded a video of it, and provided transcripts in multiple languages.

As the transcripts are raw text files, I have taken the liberty of reproducing the English text here, with the timestamps removed for ease of reading and minor grammatical edits. I have also emphasized the parts I consider of particular importance.  ~ Gray Falcon

V. P. Kononov (left) and A.V. Zakharchenko (right), August 24, 2014

[Alexander V. Zakharchenko, Chairman of The Council of Ministers of The Donetsk National Republic]  As you all know, a week ago we announced our plan to attack. We started it yesterday. Until yesterday we have been preparing for the attack, examining trophy equipment, arming the crews, and testing communication between different military formations.

I can now proudly announce that we formed 2 tank battalions, 2 full artillery brigades, 2 Grad divisons, 1 mechanized infantry battalion, 3 infantry brigades and a special purpose assault airborne brigade. All these units have now received Army numbers. The communication system have been regularized and 2 field hospitals and 1 maintenance brigade have been formed.

The Empire of Stupid: Old Map Hoax Taken Seriously

When the tabloid media in Serbia - controlled by foreign conglomerates or oligarchs loyal to whatever quisling government happens to be in charge (since every parliamentary party has been suborned, it doesn't make much difference) - print unverified rumors and fanciful flights of wishful thinking, that's par for the course. A group of satirists even mocked this a few years back, by planting patently false stories written in such a way that they sounded plausible (think The Onion here), but wouldn't hold up to elementary fact-checking. But whether due to laziness or wishful thinking, the press never bothered to check, running the stories because they fit their confirmation bias.

So it says volumes about Foreign Policy - very much a voice of the DC establishment - that it chose to run a serious analysis of a complete and utter hoax, and a stale one at that. On June 4, FP contributor Frank Jacobs wrote about "what Russia could look like in 2035 if Putin gets his wish," referring to a map of Europe allegedly created by "Russian experts."

There is just one tiny little problem: the whole thing is a fabrication. Moreover, it's an old one: the story of it broke in Serbia in January 2013 (here is the state television, taking it at face value), and the map itself appeared in the summer of 2012 in the Russian tabloid "Express Gazeta." But that is not where it originated.

Far from being an actual analysis of the GRU or the KGB or some top-level Moscow institute or even Putin himself (because "everybody knows" Vladimir Vladimirovich is a superhuman mastermind who personally does everything in a country of some 150 million, right?), the map was produced by a Ukrainian web magazine "Obozrevatel", with the author identified as "Pavlo Nikonenko."

Of Quislings and Censorship

An old Serbian folk tale tells of a peasant who served a Turkish judge (qadi) as a cowherd. He had one cow of his own, which he shepherded along with the qadi's herd. One time, the cows got into an altercation, and the peasant's cow gored the qadi's.
So the peasant hastens into town, and tells the qadi: "Effendi, your cow gored mine!"
"Whose fault was it, did someone make them?" asks the qadi.
"No, effendi, they fought among themselves," answers the peasant.
"Well, then. Can't put cattle on trial," says the qadi.
"But effendi, did you hear what I said? My cow gored yours!" the peasant says.
"What? Wait, then, I must look at the law," exclaims the qadi and reaches for the book.
The peasant grabs his arm and says: "By God and God's faith you won't! If you didn't look at the law for mine, you won't look at the law for yours either."

Contrast that to the Roman expression "Quod licet Iovi, non licet bovi" - what Jove may, the ox may not. While the Serbian cowherd insists on equality of justice, the Romans enshrine a double standard. One of the greatest accomplishments - perhaps the only one - of the Enlightenment was the notion that "all men are equal" before the law. That is, that a law is the same for rich and poor alike, for both Jove and the ox.

What if the ox is Jove? (source)

A sea of ink would run dry before one could describe all the instances of double standards and gross violations of this principle just in the case of the country that was once Yugoslavia. And this week there was another.

Statism at its "finest"

You can read through volumes of political theory, philosophy and analysis to understand the basic libertarian argument against government - as a tyrannical force routinely initiating aggression against people's lives and property. Or you could take one look at this video, put together by the Danish government, as an inducement to vote in the upcoming European Parliament elections.


Why in the blazes would any government, much less a transnational bunch of busybodies, legislate the amount of cinnamon on a bun? But you're not supposed to ponder that question. Yours is to vote (for whatever's on offer) or else. And by "else" this Danish government-funded video means getting decapitated, roughed up or defenestrated (after a home invasion), by "Voteman."

Forget "civic duty" or "representative government" or "subsidiarity" or any of the fine vestments devises to cover up the force and fraud. This is what they mean by democracy, folks. This is distilled statism. 

Residual Lies

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

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

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

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

Empire's War on Reality

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

WHY? - a RT Documentary

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

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

From the film's description:

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

Watch "WHY?" on RT.

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

Four (Not So) Easy Pieces

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Handling Harridans

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

To which Churkin replied:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now how do you like them apples?

In the Media

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enough with the NYTimesians

I was going to dissect here an op-ed that appeared in today's New York Times, penned by one of the usual suspects.

I wanted to explain how half the stuff in the piece is outright made up, and the rest is twisted half-truths, combined with the author's self-serving projections. Such as when he called the Bosnian Serb Republic a "crucible of imagined victimhood" - on par with other big lies that have just kept coming for the past 22-plus years.

I felt an urge to try and correct idiotic assertions such as that "young people" emigrate so "they could be plain 'Bosnians,' not some ethnic subgroup", or that "young people" (again) who supposedly protested supposed Serb racism last month "wanted to to be Bosnians — not Bosniaks, or Serbs or Croats." Because no actual people, young or otherwise, said that. Ever. And because, whether one likes it or not, there is no such thing as a "Bosnian" identity, divorced from group identities defined by religious legacies of foreign conquest.

I also wanted to challenge the moronic attempt to blame a 2011 jihadist attack on the U.S. Embassy on the lack of centralized police command. It wouldn't be the first political abuse of that incident, after all.

Most of all, I wanted to vent my disgust at a shill who pretends to care about phantasmal "Bosnians" while in actuality shilling for one particular "subgroup" (hint: change one letter), as he has for the past two decades.

But then I realized something. People who complain about articles in the New York Times are under the mistaken impression that the New York Times still matters.

So I wrote this post instead.

On internet culture, or lack thereof

Earlier this month, I came upon a blog post (via GLPiggy) that was meant as a year-in-review essay, but actually contained more than a few interesting observations on how people act on the internet. I recommend reading it in full, and also checking out Matt Inman's (The Oatmeal) take on the topic.

Here are some of my thoughts, for what it's worth, below some of Baldur Bjarnason's points.

3. Best case scenario for doing stuff online is that people will start knocking on your door, asking you to work for free, never offering to give anything in return.  

While price isn't the same as value (only a proximate metric thereof, in a map/territory kind of way), it is often treated as such. It next to impossible to ask for a payment for something, having previously given it away. People value things they expend effort or resources to obtain more than things they get for free.

8. There is little to no discourse online. What you get are dug in factions and people’s opinion on you are based solely on whether your argument supports what they have chosen to be ‘their team’. If you try and stick to facts and logic, most factions will reject you. It’s ideological trench warfare and the best you can hope for is that the machine-gun nests don’t notice you.

Very true. However, some writers have realized this from the beginning, and the very purpose of their blogs (such as this one, for example) has been to smash up some of those trenches and machine-gun nests. And one doesn't do that with pikes and swords, but with tanks and artillery. There is nothing intrinsically dishonorable in using rhetoric (in addition to facts and logic, not to the exclusion thereof) as a weapon. It is incredibly effective in demolishing the trenches and machine-guns made out of pure rhetoric.

10. Writing isn’t highly regarded by anybody, even in publishing. There’s a lot of romanticism and inane adolescent fantasy about being a writer, but little to no follow-through by anybody, especially not those who call themselves writers.

Considering the adolescent fantasies that pass for writing these days, it's just as well I don't call myself a writer any more than I'd call myself a journalist.

12. People love to send you argumentative, angry, or otherwise negative emails. That is, if they aren’t asking you to work for free.

The key here is motivation. Dissent is a stronger motivator than consent. Words that validate people's views are expected and normal; words that rock the boat are cause for action. Successful rhetoric first gets the audience angry, then directs that anger at the desired target. 

14. Praise is generally only handed out on disposable media, like Twitter, and rarely anywhere where it counts (like blogs, reviews, or other writing), unless you pay for it... The end result is that positive feedback is ephemeral while negative feedback gets preserved forever on angry blogs, comments and forums.

In addition, praise is rarely constructive or cogent. It's not that I don't enjoy getting comments of the "Good job" kind, but it is far more useful when feedback elaborates a point I've made, or asks about something I may have missed. Paying for praise may produce some results in the short run, but there has to be substance behind the buzz, or the bump in interest will fade away fast.

15. People will always prefer you to state the obvious and spout common sense. If you say anything that requires a bit of thinking, or that would require them to learn new skills or ideas, your audience will evaporate into nothing, no matter how important those new things are. (Also see point 8 above.) You can trust that ideas that are new and unfamiliar to an audience will be either ignored or met with anger.

But anger is better than being ignored. Anger can at least be leveraged sometimes, while ambivalence cannot.

16. Nobody cares when you’re right but a lot of people really enjoy it when you’re wrong. They will rub it in your face.

Mistakes are inevitable. Which is why the best course of action when one occurs is to own up to it, make it a teachable moment by explaining why the mistake was made, and do one's level best to not make the same mistake again.

20. The only thing people like more than a post that states the obvious is an angry post that states the obvious. Angry and unreasonable will easily get ten times the attention of even-handed and rational.

See above under 12. Again, motivation. But this works both ways. If everyone is always talking and always shouting, the usually silent person who finally speaks up, in a normal voice, gets a lot of attention. However, that attention quickly evaporates if one has nothing to say.

21. Communities get the discourse they deserve. When either the inane and obvious, or frothing lunacy are all that get attention, then that’s all you end up getting. Moreover, it’s your own damn fault. People may well instapaper the good stuff fully intending to read it at some point in the future (hah!), but bile is the stuff they actually read and it certainly is the only thing they respond to.

It is tempting to "give the people what they want." But everyone else is already doing that. If one is targeting the disappointed, who are looking for a fresh perspective, then give them what they need.

The reason I prefer blogging over Facebook posts, forum posts and tweets is persistence. Today's world is a maelstrom of ephemera and emotions. History is an anchor. This is why I keep linking to things I've written previously, because I'm adding layers to what I've already built, not reinventing the wheel. Continuity helps with credibility - and credibility is the actual currency of the blogosphere, not the number of trolls or sycophants.

Vampire Journalism

No sooner had Ratko Mladic's "trial" before the Hague Inquisition opened today, reports began appearing in the press of his "taunting the victims". Supposedly, Mladic motioned towards the "Mothers of Srebrenica" sitting in the observation gallery with a throat-slitting gesture.

The claim accompanied the descriptions of Mladic as the organizer of the "murder of 8,000 unarmed men and boys" in Srebrenica, which was of course the "worst massacre in Europe since World War Two," easily inducing the casual observer to instantly dislike Mladic.

The problems with this "trial" are many, from the ICTY lacking legitimacy to try anyone, the fact that it writes its own ex posto facto laws and rules, has standards of evidence that would be laughed out of any legitimate courtroom, to the consideration that the people brought before it have already been lynched in the court of public opinion, and therefore cannot have a fair trial even if the Tribunal itself weren't a travesty.

But the story of the taunting throat-slitting gesture is a prime example of journalistic misconduct when it comes to the Balkans, a case of not just gilding the lily, but of actually reversing the facts of the case.

You see, the throat-slitting gesture was first mentioned in June last year, when it supposedly took place at Mladic's "status conference" hearing. News agencies and papers relying on their feeds reported that the general had taunted his (alleged) victims with a throat-slitting gesture. However, some careful research by an observant reader quickly produced the actual story:

Kada Hotic, who has relatives who were killed at Srebrenica, said Mladic taunted her when she threatened him.
“I told him he will pay the price for murdering my son,” she said, adding that she drew her finger across her throat. Mladic could not hear her, but she said he gestured back, holding his thumb and forefinger close together to indicate she was insignificant. (emphasis added)

So, the gesture did happen. But it wasn't Mladic who made it, but a Muslim observer! She admitted to it, proudly - and the only interpretation of Mladic's finger gesture is hers, too. Now, it is obvious why the AP would mis-report that Mladic had made the motion - it makes the designated villain look properly villainous, and fits the propaganda narrative. But how dare they, when it was so obviously not true? Did they think they wouldn't get caught?

Apparently so. Until someone did catch them, and informed blogger Julia Gorin. She then sent letters to the offending agencies and newspapers, pointing out the problem. Finally, on September 30, 2011, the Toronto Star - one of the papers that ran AP's story on July 4, issued the following correction:

"Online News Correction for September 30
Published On Fri Sep 30 2011
A July 4 article about the war crimes tribunal of Gen. Ratko Mladic incorrectly stated that Mladic drew his finger across his throat while looking at the public gallery. In fact, a person in the gallery made the threatening gesture to Mladic." (emphasis added)

The Star's correction prompted a chain reaction of retractions by other papers, and the AP itself. Gorin's blog entry provides a complete list and many details of the case.

Of course, the retraction got very little attention, while the lie of Mladic threatening the women in the gallery got spotlight treatment. And now the story has been raised from the dead, reported in the exact same words - again, with no visual evidence to back it up, no indication that it refers to an event from last year, or that it was originally mis-reported in a manner that merited an official retraction!

There you have it, folks: vampire journalism, courtesy of your mainstream media. Ready the garlic and the stakes.

The Goebbels Gambit

This is a tale of two experiments, one deliberate, and one incidental - but both quite interesting.

Photo: onizive.wordpress.com

Back in February, two Serbian artists decided to mock the political establishment (both the regime and the "opposition"). They did so by joining the Democrats, Serbian Democrats, Progressives, Socalists, Liberal Democrats, United Regions and another, minor party - all at the same time! To all these parties, they offered a "marketing program" which was entirely plagiarized from a 1928 treatise by Joseph Goebbels, called "Knowledge and Propaganda". Until the duo made their deception public, no one had figured out the Goebbels connection, nor did they realize these "bright young things" were prostituting themselves to a half-dozen parties all at once.

That in itself is quite a story, demonstrating empirically that Serbia's mainstream political parties are callous as well as clueless, obsessed with gaining power at all cost. I'm not really surprised that nobody recognized the Goebbels treatise, though. Few know much about Hitler's chief propagandist save for the fact that he was the Reich's minister of propaganda, and fewer still have read any of his work. Furthermore, a lot of the manipulation techniques he wrote about and used are still in use around the world, because they are effective. Sad but true. Also, expecting the Serbs to remember history - which has been systematically corrupted by a succession of regimes over the past 70 years, if not more - is a tall order these days. Even Americans routinely fail the Hitler test.

But the way this story ended up being reported is an experiment as well - one that concerns journalism, rather than politics. Imperial propaganda mills such as RFE and B92 set the tone, suggesting that Serbs like Nazi ideas. Inter Press Service actually headlined its story "Nazi Propaganda Gets a Makeover in Serbia." While technically true, it misses the point, doesn't it? Instead of the story being how two young artists pranked the mainstream political establishment, it ends up tarring the Serbs (yet again) with the Nazi brush.

Left out of the story was the notable fact that nearly all the parties that got pranked are part of the establishment created by the October 2000 coup, which was organized, financed and managed from Washington. This includes the Socialists, who in 2008 accepted Imperial dominance and signed a pact with the Democrats. The Progressives came into being when a former Radical leader defected to the "Empire is great" camp. One would think it might prove embarrassing for the Empire if its "democratic progressive social liberal democrats" turned out to be Nazi sympathizers, if unwittingly. Then again, maybe not.

The one exception are the Serbian Democrats - a party whose leader once fronted the 2000 coup, but which has opposed the Empire ever since. While they don't take marching orders from the U.S. Embassy like everyone else, they haven't been terribly effective, either - preferring to strategically withdraw from confrontations and more given to sulking than leading. Their leader translated the Federalist Papers, so they should have known better than to like the disguised Goebbels tract.

Finally, note that two parties that don't take orders from Washington are absent from this list: the Radicals and Dveri. Ironically, it is these two that get labeled (unfairly and inaccurately) as "clerical fascists", "hardline ultranationalists" and "right-wing extremists", by both the Western and the Empire-controlled Serbian media - while it is Empire's favorite Serbs who express enthusiasm for Nazi techniques repackaged as "democracy".

So you see, it's a bit more complicated than both the pranksters and the presstitutes would have you believe. But that's hardly "news," is it?