Eppur si muove

I chose not to write a special essay on the anniversary of 9/11. What would be the point?

I've said everything I've cared to say over the past thirteen years - how one cannot fight terrorism and support it at the same time, how there are no "good" terrorists just because they currently serve one's agenda, how it's madness to appease jihadists in hopes of earning their gratitude, etc. etc. Go through the posts tagged 9/11 if you wish, and see for yourselves whether the questions I've posed are not just as relevant today as a year ago, or five, or ten.

And I stand by my contention that there was never any war on terror(ism): the grand crusade was all about power. Don't believe me? Listen to the Emperor's speech declaring war on ISIS.

Proving that the brevity of Twitter can be the soul of wit, someone named "Stalingrad & Poorski" summarized the speech thus:

POTUS Summary: We'll be bombing a sovereign nation (Syria) We'll be arming terrorist groups while fighting them. #Ref Economy is Great
— Stalingrad & Poorski (@Stalingrad_Poor) September 11, 2014

Justin Raimondo rightly called the speech a "dreary peroration exuding a skunk-like aura of insincerity" and correctly identifies it as a back-door attempt to effect "regime change" in Syria. Make no mistake, that is what "assistance to the Syrian opposition" really means. By the by, the mythical "Syrian opposition" is basically an adjunct of ISIS!

Jan Oberg dubbed the speech a "record low in terms of moral and intellectual analysis," and dwelt on the last two minutes of "everything is fine" (continuing the theme of protesting too much): "A combination of unbearable self-praise, slight megalomania and denial of the changing U.S. role in our changing world."

It's like watching the coyote from the old cartoons, chasing the road-runner bird over a chasm. Once he realizes he's running on air - but not a moment sooner - he immediately plummets to the ground. It now appears as if the Imperial government has convinced itself that so long as it pays no attention to the chasm, the law of gravity does not apply.

Newsflash: it does. 

The Emperor Doth Protest Too Much

His Most Elevated Majesty, Barack the Blessed, gave a speech in Talinn (Estonia) on Wednesday, filled with words such as "freedom" and "democracy" and "real progress" - whatever that means.

I'll deal with it in more detail in my Antiwar.com piece tomorrow (update: here's a link). For now, though, just some thoughts.

photo via RT

C-Span has the 30-minute video. The White House has a transcript.

Listen to it. Compare what he says to be the truth, with actual truth. Compare the actions of his own government, his own officials, his own troops - to his platitudes about "big bullying the small" and "dignity" and "independence". I dare you to listen with a straight face to his words about freedom of press and thought, what with Anglosphere media marching in absolute lockstep and every dissent dismissed as "propaganda."

Listen to his soothing platitudes about how NATO isn't aimed against anyone - the blood of Serbs, Iraqis, Afghans and Libyans begs to differ. Listen to his lies about how there were no Nazis in the Maidan, or how there was no coup in Kiev. "These are facts, provable, not subject to dispute" - except they are not.

And the "currents of history... flow towards freedom"? Who wrote this speech, Citizen Kang?

All this talk of the inevitable triumph of freedom, democracy, "real progress" (whatever that is) - methinks that's just His Imperial Majesty protesting too much. He is trying too hard to persuade his "allies" (i.e. clients) that he is still the most powerful, still the strongest, still the richest, that End of History is just around the corner.

Not everything in the speech was a lie. Moral strength is more powerful than tanks. People generally do wish to be free from bullying, and be independent. Might indeed does not make right.

So why is his country and his own government using tanks (or planes, or missiles)? Why does he bully other countries into making only the "choices" his government dictates, under threat of "kinetic military action" or "color revolution"? Why is it the core belief of the current government of the United States of America that might does make right?

He lies about motes in the eyes of others, while failing to see the beam in his own.

A Tale of Two Letters

Who would know better about the lies and fabrications of spies than people who used to be spies themselves? A group of ex-intelligence officials, called Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), has spoken out against Imperial madness for some time now. On August 30, they sent an open letter to German Kanzlerin Angela Merkel, warning her about falsified claims of "Russian invasion". From the letter:

Obama, however, has only tenuous control over the policymakers in his administration – who, sadly, lack much sense of history, know little of war, and substitute anti-Russian invective for a policy.
[...]
Largely because of the growing prominence of, and apparent reliance on, intelligence we believe to be spurious, we think the possibility of hostilities escalating beyond the borders of Ukraine has increased significantly over the past several days.
[...]
Photos can be worth a thousand words; they can also deceive. We have considerable experience collecting, analyzing, and reporting on all kinds of satellite and other imagery, as well as other kinds of intelligence.  Suffice it to say that the images released by NATO on Aug. 28 provide a very flimsy basis on which to charge Russia with invading Ukraine. Sadly, they bear a strong resemblance to the images shown by Colin Powell at the UN on Feb. 5, 2003, that, likewise, proved nothing.
[...]
the government army that was starting to take heavy casualties and lose ground, largely because of ineptitude and poor leadership. Ten days later, as they became encircled and/or retreated, a ready-made excuse for this was to be found in the “Russian invasion.” That is precisely when the fuzzy photos were released by NATO and reporters like the New York Times’ Michael Gordon were set loose to spread the word that “the Russians are coming.” (Michael Gordon was one of the most egregious propagandists promoting the war on Iraq.)

One doesn't have to be an intelligence professional, of course, to realize the timing of the "invasion" propaganda was conspicuously coincidental with Kiev's crushing defeat. In resorting to such transparent lies, the Empire and its mainstream media betray a belief that their citizenry are idiots.

Beslan Remembered

September 1, 2004: first day of school in Beslan, in the Russian Federation's Republic of North Ossetia. Hundreds of children, parents and teachers were trapped by Western-backed jihadists in Elementary School #1, stripped to their underwear, and held hostage for almost three days.

When Russian security forces attempted to rescue the hostages, the terrorists began the killing they had planned all along: 334 hostages were killed, including 186 children. Only one of the terrorists was captured alive; he is serving a life sentence in a Russian prison, unrepentant.

"Memory Wall" at the School Number One (source)

Beslan was the beginning of the end for jihadists in Chechnya. One by one, jihadists leaders were hunted down and killed: Shamil Basayev, who ordered the attack, died in an explosion in 2006. Today, Chechens under Ramzan Kadyrov are some of the most fiercely loyal Russian citizens.

But those who backed the Chechen jihad have neither been forgotten, nor forgiven.

The East Remembers.

Empire's "Fascist Freedom Fighters"

This is what madness of the West looks like:

(click image to enlarge)

This is a screenshot of an article that appeared in Foreign Policy, August 30, 2014. (h/t Mark Sleboda)

As to why they did not opt for the alliterative "fascist freedom fighters," the answer is simple: they had to put "defenders" in there somewhere, so as to reinforce the lie of "Russian aggression." 

Novorussian Dawn

Yesterday I posted a photo of the Donetsk flag over the monument to Soviet heroes at Saur-Mogila, demolished by the spiteful Banderists as their rout began.

Here is a follow-up image, which I like to call "Novorussian Dawn":

via Colonel Cassad

Flag Over Saur-Mogila

Some photos of flags are destined to become iconic. Think Mt. Suribachi. Think the Reichstag. And now, perhaps, the Donetsk Republic flag flying on the ruins of Saur-Mogila:

via Vineyard of the Saker

This used to be a monument to heroic Soviet servicemen of WW2, who fought bitterly against the Nazis for control of the strategic hill, finally liberating it in August 1943. 

Though heavily damaged in the fighting between the Donetsk Republic forces and troops loyal to the coup regime in Kiev, the monument still stood until last week - when the retreating junta troops demolished it out of spite. 

"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.

CrossTalk: Russia's Worldview

Ray McGovern, Martin McCauley and I try to explain what's going on between Russia and the West.

CrossTalk, aired August 25, 2014:

Of Serbs and Symbolism

Having exhausted the excuse of "Russian invasion" to explain the setbacks in its "punitive expedition", the Kiev junta and its Western backers have seized upon another: it's the Serbs!

Balkan Insight, a propaganda outfit funded by the UK Foreign Office and the US State Department, reported last week on a group of Serb fighters bolstering the ranks of Novorussian militia - going on to praise the regime of Aleksandar Vučić for "neutrality" in Ukraine and commitment to obeying the orders from Brussels and Washington.

Serbian "Chetnik" volunteers in Novorussia (via Facebook)

While Vučić told BI that "dozens of Serbs can be seen fighting for both sides," those rumored to be fighting for Kiev junta (as no photos, names, or other evidence has ever been presented) are said to be mercenaries. Those who joined the Novorussian forces, however, have spoken out over social media - an accepted standard of evidence, according to the State Department - claiming that they fight out of principle, not for money.

Though the BI report mentions fourteen Serbs, social media sources claim the Serb fighters are numerous enough to have established their own unit, named "Yovan Shevich" (Јован Шевић), after a 18th-century Serbian cavalry officer from the Austrian Military Frontier who emigrated to Russia rather than convert to Catholicism. Officials of the government in Belgrade were apparently ignorant of Shevich, telling the local media they would issue a warrant for his arrest if he ever returned to Serbia (!).

Why such a fuss about these Serbs? Whether they number 14 or 140, there just isn't enough of them to turn the tide of battle - though the Novorussian forces seem to be doing just that right now - so it has to be something else. Could it be symbolism?

Serbia is supposed to be a conquered province, its "resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform" (Norris, 2005) crushed through an unprecedented UN blockade, NATO bombing and finally a prototype "color revolution" and electoral engineering, that have ensured the government in Belgrade always served its foreign masters first, and its people never.

Serbs are supposed to be a broken people, who see resistance and pointless and know they are conquered: at the end of July, U.S. Ambassador to Serbia Michael Kirby gave an interview to the local media demanding the Vučić government explicitly support Ukraine's unity, including the Crimea (which Vučić dutifully did a few days later). Kirby also mentioned the "problem" of Serb volunteers - while demanding an investigation into the deaths of several American Albanians who died as members of the "Kosovo Liberation Army" back in 1999. So, it's OK for Americans (of the Albanian kind) to volunteer for wars elsewhere, but not Serbs? Conquerors and conquered, you see - different rules.

Symbolism also helps explain why Brussels and Washington are so insistent on Serbia not exporting food to Russia at the moment. Hard-hit by the flooding this spring, Serbia is hardly in position to spare any food for export. Empire's demands, therefore, are intended to reinforce the established pattern of dominance and submission: Brussels and Washington order, Serbia obeys.

This would also have the benefit of giving the Empire's brute force a faux veneer of morality: see, if Serbia thinks sanctions against Russia are proper - the very Serbia that's Orthodox and harbors kinship with Russia, while it has been sanctioned, bombed and occupied by the West - then surely the West must be right and Russia is wrong.

And they would have gotten away with it, too, were it not for a handful of stubborn Serbs and the ghost of an 18th-century hussar.

Russian Statement on the Aid Convoy

The following is the statement by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, document 
1956-22-08-2014 (source), dated August 22, 2014, announcing the crossing of the humanitarian convoy into Lugansk and Donetsk regions of the Ukraine. (h/t Vineyard of the Saker)

The endless delays hampering the initial deliveries of the Russian humanitarian relief aid to southeastern Ukraine have become intolerable.

A lorry convoy with many hundreds of tonnes of humanitarian relief aid, urgently needed by the people in these regions, has been standing idle for a week now on the Russian-Ukrainian border. Over this period, the Russian side has made unprecedented efforts in all areas and at all levels in order to complete the required formalities. We have met all conceivable and inconceivable demands of the Ukrainian side and have submitted to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) exhaustive lists of food, drinking water, medications, essential items and diesel generators due to be delivered to Lugansk, where they are urgently needed by women, children and the elderly. These people are experiencing the horrors of daily artillery attacks and air strikes that have resulted in an increasing number of killed and wounded and destroyed the entire vital infrastructure in the area.

Time and again, we met requests to check and recheck the shipment route, to coordinate procedures for the shipment’s delivery, and have signed the required documents with the ICRC. We have provided all essential security guarantees and have ensured similar guarantees on the part of the self-defense forces. These guarantees apply to the Russian convoy as well as other humanitarian relief aid being sent to Lugansk by the Kiev authorities.

At the same time, Kiev has delayed granting its formal consent required by the ICRC for several days, while repeatedly inventing new pretexts and stepping up attacks on Lugansk and Donetsk that involve military aircraft and heavy-duty armored vehicles, targeting residential areas and other civilian facilities. Over the past few days, the Ukrainian side has been launching ballistic missiles, including the deadly Tochka-U missiles, ever more frequently.

On 21 August, the situation appeared to have been resolved when the Ukrainian authorities finally informed the ICRC of their readiness to start clearing humanitarian shipments for prompt delivery to Lugansk. The Ukrainian side officially confirmed its unconditional consent for the convoy to start moving during a phone conversation between the Foreign Affairs Ministers of Russia and Ukraine. On 20 August, customs clearance and border control procedures were launched at the Donetsk checkpoint. On 21 August, however, this process was stopped, with officials citing much more intensive bombardment of Lugansk. In other words, the Ukrainian authorities are bombing the destination and are using this as a pretext to stop the delivery of humanitarian relief aid.

It appears that Kiev has set out to complete its “cleansing” of Lugansk and Donetsk in time for the 24 August Independence Day celebrations. It seems increasingly credible that the incumbent Ukrainian leadership is deliberately delaying the delivery of the humanitarian relief aid until there is nobody left to deliver this aid to. Quite possibly, they hope to achieve this result prior to the planned 26 August meetings in Minsk.

Russia is outraged by the blatant external manipulation of the international experts involved in preparing this operation. An endless succession of contradictory and mutually exclusive signals and messages we have been receiving is a true indication of behind the scenes games for purposes that have nothing to do with accomplishing a set humanitarian objective. Those who are holding the reins and hampering efforts to save human lives, to mitigate the suffering of sick and wounded people neglect the basic principles of society. We have called on the UN Security Council to promptly declare a humanitarian armistice, but these proposals are being invariably blocked by those who pay lip service to universal human values. Last time, this happened on 20 August, when the United States and some Western members of the UNSC declined to issue a statement in support of a ceasefire during the delivery of humanitarian relief aid to Lugansk by Russian and Ukrainian convoys.

We hereby state once again: All the required security guarantees regarding the passage of the humanitarian convoy have been provided. The ICRC has officially recognised these guarantees. The delivery routes are known, and they have been checked by an ICRC mission. The documents have been drawn up. The shipments have long been ready for inspection by Ukrainian border guards and customs officers who have been waiting at the Donetsk checkpoint in the Rostov Region for a week now. The capitals that display heightened concern for the situation in southeastern Ukraine are well aware of this. The endless artificial demands and pretexts have become unconscionable.

It is no longer possible to tolerate this lawlessness, outright lies and inability to reach agreements. All pretexts for delaying the delivery of aid to people in the humanitarian disaster zone have been depleted. The Russian side has decided to act. Our humanitarian relief convoy is setting out towards Lugansk. Naturally, we are ready to allow ICRC officials to escort the convoy and to take part in distributing aid. We hope that representatives of the Russian Red Cross Society will also be able to take part in this mission.

We are warning against any attempts to thwart this purely humanitarian mission which took a long time to prepare in conditions of complete transparency and cooperation with the Ukrainian side and the ICRC. Those who are ready to continue sacrificing human lives to their own ambitions and geopolitical designs and who are rudely trampling on the norms and principles of international humanitarian law will assume complete responsibility for the possible consequences of provocations against the humanitarian relief convoy.

We are once again calling on the Ukrainian leadership, as well as the United States and the European Union, which are exerting their influence on Kiev, to promptly launch negotiations in southeastern Ukraine and start complying with the accords formalised in the 17 April 2014 Geneva Statement by Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the EU on stopping the use of force, mitigating the humanitarian situation and immediately launching nationwide dialogue that would involve all Ukrainian regions.

Convoys

Just how many convoys are there in Novorossia (or "Eastern Ukraine", if you swing that way)? It reads as a riddle, but the punchline is death.

There is the Russian EMERCOM convoy, white trucks bearing humanitarian aid for the beleaguered civilians of Donetsk and Lugansk regions - declared "terrorists" by the junta in Kiev and subjected to airstrikes, artillery, and deliberate destruction of utilities.

Then there is the phantom "Russian armored convoy" that Kiev and two British reporters claimed - but with zero evidence - had crossed over into Ukraine. Moreover, the Banderites then claimed they'd destroyed the said convoy. Offering no evidence, of course. Because there was none: no such convoy ever existed. In this age of ubiquitous cell phones (and their cameras), does anyone seriously think a mere assertion will suffice?

And then there was the convoy of refugees, allegedly hit by rocket fire on Monday. Kiev claims the separatists launched the strike that killed "dozens of people including women and children", but even Reuters has felt the need to add "it has yet to provide visual evidence."

Another Reuters report quotes a Ukie military spokesman who placed the strike "near the area of Khryashchuvatye and Novosvitlivka." That would be the two suburbs of Lugansk that recently came under attack by junta forces. Take a look at this map:

(via Colonel Cassad)

This is a detail from a bigger map of military activities in the region, between August 10-18, 2014. In case you do not read Cyrillic, allow me to explain: blue lines and arrows are Kiev troops. Red lines and arrows are the Donetsk self-defense forces ("separatists"). The blue bubble below Lugansk (ЛУГАНСК) is the airport pocket, where the 80th Brigade and "Aydar" Nazi Guard battallions have been surrounded for weeks.

At some point last week, the junta troops - probably somewhat resupplied from the air - struck at the village of Novosvetlovka (Новосветловка), cutting the road between Lugansk and Krasnodon (bottom right, near the circled "4"), and onward to Izvarino. This was done to block the Russian aid convoy from reaching Lugansk.

Now, pay attention to the blue arrow labeled 14.08 (for August 14), the red X marked 16.08, and the dotted blue arrow retreating to circled "9". This was the junta attack from Novosvetlovka to Khrashchevatoe, which failed.

So, what happened here? Could Kiev be trying to pass their own military casualties as civilians? Is the junta using captured civilians as human shields? Could this be the phantom "Russian column" that Kiev claimed to have destroyed - and is now spinning as "rebels killed civilians" instead? The most unlikely scenario is that this was an actual convoy of civilian refugees, attempting against all logic to drive through a combat zone.

The Kiev junta's Western backers have a history of targeting civilians and refugees. Recall the NATO terror-bombing of Serbian infrastructure in 1999, for example. Or, for that matter, targeting refugee columns: on at least two occasions, NATO planes hit the columns of ethnic Albanian refugees, claiming they were "Serbian army convoys". When confronted with evidence conclusively proving otherwise, NATO replied "Oops!" - and continued bombing.

I'll say one thing, though: if the junta has to resort to desperate lies such as "they are killing civilians" (when it's the junta troops that have been doing so from the start), it is far from winning the war, but rather desperately trying to postpone defeat. 

Whatever Happened to MH17?

Notice how it's been two weeks since we've heard anything about the Malaysian Airlines plane?

For two weeks it was a media frenzy: "PUTIN DID IT", "PUTIN'S MISSILE", "PUTIN KILLED MY SON"? And then - nothing.

When MH370 disappeared, the families of those aboard were a constant fixture on the screens. With MH17, they've been kept away. Perhaps so they couldn't ask uncomfortable questions, such as, "Why are you lying?"

(hat tip: The Saker)

Oh, and here is another thing that flew under the radar:

"Ukrainian Attorney General's office spokesperson Yuri Bojchenko confirmed that a non-disclosure agreement was signed on August 8, 2014 between the Netherlands, Belgium, Australia and Ukraine regarding any results of Malaysian Airlines Boeing 777 ‪#‎MH17‬ flight crash investigation." (source)

Can one even sign a non-disclosure agreement about evidence in a criminal investigation? And why would they - unless they were trying to hide it? As a reminder, all the data from the Air Traffic Control facilities that tracked MH17 was seized by the Kiev junta. The "black boxes" - flight data and voice recorders - recovered from the crash site were turned over to the Malaysians, who gave them to the Dutch, who promptly turned them over to the British! 

And while Washington claimed to have conclusive evidence the airliner was shot down by the Novorossians, it never produced any - aside from some Tweets and a couple faked YouTube videos.

The junta was the one with the means, motive and opportunity to shoot down the airliner. It is trying to hide the evidence. After the initial frenzy of blaming the Russians with absolutely no evidence whatsoever, the Western media have stopped talking about the plane entirely.

The truth points to itself.

Criminal Thanksgiving Day

It has been nineteen years since the Empire's "junkyard dogs" committed the biggest act of ethnic cleansing to date: Operation Storm.

What the Catholic Nazis of the 1941-45 Independent State of Croatia could not achieve with Hitler's help, their heirs of 1991-95 did with the funding, training, propaganda and material support of the Atlantic Empire. Of the Orthodox Serbs that have lived in Dalmatia and along the old Hapsburg Military Frontier for centuries, only traces remain - and even they are being destroyed on a daily basis.

Shameless in their bigotry and projection, the Croatian authorities celebrate "Homeland Thanksgiving Day" every August. But it is no victory, only a crime.

And the East remembers.

Together... For the Peace to Come

(or watch on YouTube)

Injustice Corrected

Speech of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, President of the Russian Federation, on Monument Hill, Moscow, August 1, 2014 (source)

WW1 Memorial at Poklonnaya Gora, Moscow (source: Kremlin.ru)

Friends,

A century ago on this day, Russia found itself obliged to enter World War I. Today, we are unveiling this monument to its heroes – Russian soldiers and officers. We are unveiling the monument here on Poklonnaya Gora, a site that preserves our grateful memory of Russian military glory and of those who at various moments in our country’s history have defended its independence, dignity and freedom.

The World War I soldier and his comrades in arms have their place of honour here too. It was the fate of many of them to later fight again on the frontlines in the Great Patriotic War. These experienced veterans inspired and brought out the best in the young soldiers and passed on to them the traditions of military comradeship and brotherhood and the traditions of military honour.
The Russian army’s great values and the heroic experience of the generation who fought in World War I played a big part in our people’s spiritual and moral upsurge at that moment. This was a generation that was fated to go through not just the difficult trials of the first global world war, but also the revolutionary upheaval and fratricidal civil war that split our country and changed its destiny.

But their feats and their sacrifices in Russia’s name were forgotten for long years. World War I itself, which the rest of the world calls the Great War, was erased from our country’s history and was labelled simply ‘imperialist’.

Today, we are restoring the historical truth about World War I and are discovering countless examples of personal courage and military skill, and the true patriotism of Russia’s soldiers and officers and the whole of Russian society. We are discovering the role Russia played in that difficult and epoch-changing time for the world, especially in the pre-war years. And what we see reflects very clearly the defining features of our country and our people.

The Hundred-Year Haunting

Yesterday - not a month earlier - was the true anniversary of the "Great War" - July 28, the day when the Royal and Imperial government of Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia. The declaration was preceded by an ultimatum designed to be rejected (weeks prior, in fact), and war followed despite Serbia's willingness to bend over backwards without compromising its sovereignty.

Austria-Hungary wanted Serbia wiped off the map, and its leaders thought this would be a quick and easy victory, and that Russia would either stay out of it, or be handled by Germany. None of that proved to be the case. Instead, Europe - and the world - plunged into unprecedented slaughter that would go on till 11/11 1918.

Gavrilo Princip - the student whose bullet struck Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28 - did not live to see the end of the war. He died in April 1918 in Terezin, a Czech fortress that would later be used by the Nazis as a way station for Jews destined for death camps. Deprived of books and paper, Princip reportedly scratched on the walls of his cell the following epigram: "Our shadows shall wander Vienna, haunting the court, frightening the lords."

A year and a half ago, Sara Hoyt argued that the present-day nihilism of the West can be traced to the trauma of the Great War:

...we’ve thrown the baby out with the bath water. We’ve thrown out the idea of honor, even when honor means “looking after yourself and those who depend on you.” We’ve thrown out the confidence in our own culture. We went looking for some mythical noble savage who was never there...

... we've fallen into the rabbit hole of this sort of anti-hierarchy hierarchy, where greater power is given to those who claim (even while making d*mn sure no one unseats them) to want to “smash the establishment” and where greatest honor is given to those who hate their own culture and who glorify some mythical “other” who will never come close to their imagined greatness. Power is attained by claiming a wish to commit cultural suicide.And the sad thing is that some of these people actually mean it.

The story has come unmoored and is flapping in the wind, like a shroud. The specter of WWI is haunting western civilization. It’s time to lay the ghost to rest.

To the extent that the few in the West recognize and regret this, most fall into the trap of blaming the Orthodox Other - Serbia, but also Russia (!) - for allegedly starting it all. Because in this post-post-postmodernist mess that passes for "Western civilization" today, there are different kinds of Other: the mythical perfect Good ones (victims, martyrs, the oppressed, etc.) and the mythical perfectly Evil ones - the "oppressors", "enemies of progress" and "reactionaries", among other things. And who fits where isn't based on any semblance of logic, or reason, or facts, but on the current feelings of the person doing the sorting.

How did it come to this?

MH17 and Some Basic Police Work

The U.S. government and media have accused Russia of being behind the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 (July 17, 2014), either directly (for which zero evidence has been offered) or indirectly, via "pro-Russian rebels", for which all the evidence offered has been outright falsified - from "audio intercepts" (here) to "videos" (here and here) to interviews doctored to sound as if the "rebels" had Buk launchers. All of it taken at face value by the Western media, and even amplified by misrepresentations of photos.

Conspicuously absent from any coverage has been the thought of the Kiev junta shooting the airplane down. Yet the junta fits the classic police trifecta of means, motive and opportunity perfectly.

Means: the Ukrainian armed forces possess multiple Buk launchers in working order, over a dozen of which were deployed in the region at the time.

Motive: Blame Russia and the "rebels", which Kiev has been doing for months anyway, but especially at the moment when four of their brigades had just been cut to pieces by the "rebels" in the Marinovka/Saur-Mogila "cauldron" along the southern border.

Opportunity: MH17 was diverted from the regular flight path, and directed to a lower altitude, by the Dnepropetrovsk Air Traffic Control (ATC), i.e. officials loyal to the Kiev regime. Its normal flight path would have taken it nowhere near the war zone.

Then there was the immediate attempt to pin this on Russia and the rebels, through doctored "audio intercepts" and YouTube videos.

Yet the U.S. government continues to insist that Russia is to blame, based on super-double-secret "intelligence" it refuses to show, or "social media" - and deliberately ignores the factual evidence pointing to its clients in Kiev.

On July 3, 1988 the missile cruiser USS Vincennes shot down IranAir Flight 655 over the Persian Gulf, killing 290 civilians on board. When denial didn't work, Washington shrugged it off and apologized... not.

The question now is, who do you think is credible here, and who is lying through their nose?

Bring Psaki Back

Marie Harf of the State Department, being "impartial" and "objective" (photo via Ron Paul Institute)

From the State Department press briefing, July 21, 2014; Marie Harf (A) responding to questions from Matt Lee of AP (Q). Original transcript here.

Q: Well, I mean, again, you might be right, but I don’t see how you can say that everything we say is right and everything the Russians say is a lie.
A: That’s not what I said.
Q: That’s exactly what you just said right now.
A: That’s not what I said. I said I would say that we are not two credible, equally credible parties when it comes to what we say publicly about the conflict in Ukraine.
Q: And your argument would be that the U.S. is more credible than the Russians are, right? Is that what you’re –
A: I’m not even dignifying that question with a response.
Q: But you’re leaving that impression, Marie.
A: That we’re more credible? Yes. We don’t put out mass amounts of propaganda. We don’t put out misinformation about what’s happening there repeatedly over the course of this conflict, which I've spoken about from this podium day after day. Absolutely.

Who are you going to believe, Marie Harf, or your own lying eyes?

Where do they find these people? Barf, indeed.

Hat tip: Niqnaq.

Rebuilding Besenovo

The Serbian Orthodox Church has begun a campaign to rebuild Besenovo (Бешеново) monastery on Fruška Gora in northern Serbia, the 13th-century legacy of King Dragutin, destroyed in 1944. See here for the instructions on how you can help the rebuilding effort. And here is what the abbot of the monastery says about its remarkable history:

According to oral tradition, the Monastery was built by King Dragutin Nemanjić, who was the ruler of Srem. He placed the monastery on one of main springs that provided water for the old Syrmium, today’s Sremska Mitrovica. The cross of the Monastery of Bešenovo was mentioned already in 1292, that is, during Dragutin’s rule.

The written traces of the Monastery date back to the 15th century. The Monastery played an important role in the cultural and spiritual life of the Orthodox people. The Turks pillaged the Monastery on several occasions, chasing away the monks, and the Hapsburg Monarchy, also, was not positively inclined toward it. Wise Metropolitan Pavle Nenadović, who was well-aware of its spiritual and national importance, played an important role in the restoration of the Monastery in the time of the Habsburg Monarchy.

An Afghan in Donbass

Here is something one does not see every day: an Afghan Muslim, who came to Novorossia to fight for his Russian brethren. He talks of "whole family of tribes" fighting against the junta forces, who "know not what they do", and points to the Empire as the force that destroyed Afghanistan, and is now targeting the Russians:

"With Slavs, they will do much worse. Slavs, they have their own civilization, their own cultural code. And at its root, that code is contrary to all this business, to all this world domination. They don't want Slavs, you understand? They don't want their spirit... That's how it is."

You can also watch on YouTube,

Of Geopolitics and Emotions

A video posted over at Vineyard of the Saker (and on YouTube) schools the "Runet patriots" - what we'd call "laptop bombardiers" in the U.S. - about geopolitics and emotions:

In other words, if you want war so much, go fight it. Howling on Twitter for Putin to "send in the troops" is not only counterproductive, but facetious to boot.

Haters of Decency

Although Novak Djokovic won the title at Wimbledon yesterday, and with it the world number one ranking (which he had conceded last fall to Rafael Nadal), the crowd at Centre Court was rooting for his opponent. Today Max Davidson of the Daily Telegraph gushes over the "demi-god" Roger Federer "who deserves all the adulation he gets."

Why, exactly? Davidson himself is at a loss to explain, aside from the fact that Federer is "a paid-up fashionista" who hobnobs with the rich and snooty. As an example, he mentions that Federer flaunts his Wimbledon titles, wearing sneakers emblazoned with the number (seven), and had a pair with the number 8 ready. Such grace! Such humility!

On the other side of the court was Novak Djokovic. No gloating sneakers for him, or smarmy smiles. When Djokovic mingles with celebrities, they let their hair down and kick their shoes off.
He treats ball-boys as fellow human beings, not as staff:



Clearly unforgivable.

Djokovic also loves his country and people, another unforgivable sin in the eyes of the transnational "elites":

"Novak Djokovic has donated his entire prize money for winning the Internazionali BNL d'Italia title in Rome to his foundation to help the flood relief efforts in Serbia.
Heavy rainfall in Bosnia and Serbia from 14-16 May has affected more than 1.6 million people, with at least 48 people dying as a result of the flooding."
(ATP, May 21 2014)

He... donated his winnings? How dare he!

But it gets worse. In what was called "a show of sportsmanship rarely seen at the professional level, especially at a crucial moment in one of sports' biggest events," earlier on during the tournament at Wimbledon, Djokovic conceded a critical point to his opponent. He literally gave Radek Stepanek a point that could have cost him the match and the tournament - because he wanted to win fair and square. And so he did.

All three are examples of what Djokovic's ancestors called "choistvo" - human decency towards the other.

The Telegraph's Davidson attributes the elitist snobs' adulation of Federer to the "charismatic genius of one man," yet notes in the very same sentence that the crowd was cheering just as much for Andy Murray last year. Murray may have been a Brit, but his opponent was Novak Djokovic.

I don't think the disrespect for Djokovic is entirely due to him being a Serb - a nation so demonized in the Western mainstream media, the vile bigotry has become the assumed background noise - though I imagine it certainly plays a part to some extent. More likely, the celebrity tranzis resent Djokovic's human decency, since it might raise the inconvenient question of their own conspicuous lack of it.

Much easier to gush over Federer's fancy footwear.

Fourth of July

On this day in 1776, representatives of 13 American colonies declared independence from Britain, citing a "train of abuses and usurpations" starting with unjust taxation and getting worse from there.

I urge you to read the actual text of the Declaration; it's very instructive.

Thing is... the taxes that caused the colonies to rebel were nothing in comparison with what Americans pay today. The government in Washington treats its citizens worse than George III treated his subjects. And America's foreign policy is that of the British Empire: invade, divide and rule, lie and deceive, betray and corrupt - all the while claiming to be a force for good (then it was "civilization," now it's "democracy," in both cases stripped of all meaning).

And the worst thing? Most Americans either don't realize this... or if they do, they don't care. Today is for grilling, beer and fireworks - all fine things, mind you, of which I myself intend to partake. But while I do so, a part of my mind will continue to wonder: is this really what the Founders had in mind when they invoked "the protection of divine Providence" and pledged to each other "our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor"?

Vienna's Big Lie

From Tim Butcher's June 28 article in the Daily Telegraph (emphasis added):

Princip was caught within seconds of firing his pistol, his bid for martyrdom doomed when the dose of cyanide he stuffed down his throat failed to kill him.

Two weeks short of his 20th birthday, Princip was too young to be executed as Austro-Hungarian law said the death sentence could only be given to criminals aged 20 or more. Instead, he was jailed, sentenced to 20 years solitary confinement with the condition that one day a month he was to receive no food. He died in a prison hospital on April 28 1918, his body so badly ravaged by skeletal tuberculosis that his right arm had had to be amputated.

Over the last century his voice has rarely been heard, drowned out by more powerful forces, not least Vienna which was desperate to use the assassination as a pretext to attack its small and potentially troublesome neighbour, Serbia. For this to work, Austria-Hungary worked to represent Princip and the assassination plot as the work of the Serbian government. And this alone is perhaps the greatest misrepresentation of the truth about Gavrilo Princip, with the historical record containing no convincing evidence to support the claim.

Wilfred Owen wrote of the patriotic invocation dulce et decorum est pro patria mori as "the old lie'', but I have come to see an even greater lie at the founding moment of the First World War. It is the lie used by Vienna in its deliberate misrepresentation of the Sarajevo assassination. On its hundredth anniversary, now is high time to straighten the record.

Butcher is the author of "The Trigger: Hunting the Assassin Who Brought the World to War", published June 3 by Grove Press. 

Deutschlandlied in Sarajevo

I used to enjoy the Vienna Philharmonic's New Year's Concerts. Having been raised in an atheist society, I never stopped to wonder why a traditional concert in the capital of a staunchly Catholic thousand-year empire was held on January 1, rather than, say, Christmas Day. Then I found out the tradition was established in 1938, by none other than Josef Goebbels.

Another revelation came last year: a Bosnian-born journalist tracked down the photograph showing Adolf Hitler gazing at the marble plaque honoring Gavrilo Princip - the Bosnian Serb who assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914 in Sarajevo. A modest monument, funded privately, the plaque had been put up in 1930. Within days of the Nazi occupation in 1941, the plaque was taken down and presented to Hitler as a birthday present. He had it displayed at the same museum as the railway car from Compiegne in which Germany had signed the armistice in 1918 - and where he insisted the French sign their surrender in 1940.

(Heinrich Hoffmann/Bayerische Staatsbibliothek München/Bildarchiv)

In 1914, warmongers in Vienna used the assassination (ironically, it was the Archduke who had kept them in check) to launch a war of extermination against Serbia, which eventually destroyed the Hapsburg empire instead. Attempts have been made to blame the Serbs and Serbia for the Great War ever since.

The latest round of revisionism came as the centenary of the war approached. On June 28, mainstream media throughout the West carried stories about the "Serbian" assassin of the Archduke and his wife (Sophie Chotek was killed accidentally; Princip was aiming at General Potiorek, the hated military governor of Bosnia) and the assassination treated as the actual cause - and beginning - of the war. This fits the current narrative of (Western) European unity - under the Atlantic Empire - fighting the "evil" Russians and "troublemaker" Serbs, but it has little to do with the truth.

Ukraine: Behind the Ceasefire

What's behind the Kiev junta's offer of "ceasefire" and "talks" with the two regions in the East? A genuine effort to achieve peace, or a smokescreen for another attempt to subjugate all of Ukraine to the pro-Imperial, Nazi-dominated regime?

I was one of the guests debating this in today's CrossTalk, with Eric Kraus in Moscow and John B. Quigley in Columbus, Ohio. The embedded video is not yet available, but you can watch the show at the link above.

Between the knowledge that "Ukraine" is about to sign a treaty with the EU (which the EU itself doesn't want, but is being made to sign by guess who), and the fact that events in that country are being directed using the same script created by the West for Yugoslavia, I get the feeling that the ceasefire was a trick. Especially since it didn't hold.

I would not be the slightest bit surprised if the EU put forth a motion to deploy an "international presence" in the East, disarm the rebels (but not the Nazi Guard or oligarchs' militias, as those would become "legal government troops") and buy the Kiev regime some time to get money and weapons from the Empire, in hopes of staging something like "Flash" or "Storm." Sure, Poroshenko and the Nazis aren't thinking long-term, but the people they are taking orders from do. Meanwhile, the media are already claiming Russia has "blinked" and "capitulated" by not sending in the troops - when they aren't lying about Russia having sent troops, that is.

There is something Eric Kraus said that we didn't have time to discuss, but it's very interesting. Namely, the EU treaty would destroy the industry in the East and force Russia to seal the border. While Kraus thinks this will hurt the Ukrainian economy - and he's not wrong - the junta doesn't care about that. It doesn't even care that by strangling the East it's destroying the very tax base that has enabled the west - the stronghold of Banderist and Russophobic "Ukrainianism" - to survive. Had economic considerations been factoring into any of their actions, they wouldn't have staged a coup in February, or started a civil war later.

There is no solidarity among the oligarchs. At best, they prop up one another for short-term gain, but always ready to devour the power and money of whichever one of them falters (e.g. Yanukovich). To me, the EU deal is a tool to bankrupt the East (never mind that the rest of the country would follow) and force it into submission, counting on Russia having to seal off the border to avoid the flood of duty-free EU goods - and then blaming that for the ensuing economic hardship in Kiev-controlled territories.

Problem is, by doing this they've left the people of the East with nothing to lose. Even if Kiev offered them federalization - which it won't - why would they take it? There is nothing for them in a Ukraine that just became a strip-mine colony for the EU. Conversely, independence or union with Russia becomes that much more appealing. 

The Desperate Smearbund

Could it be an indicator of the Empire's desperation that they are now trying to "Serb" Vladimir Putin, resurrecting the Serbophobic propaganda of the 1990s to smear the Russians as "aggressors" while whitewashing the Ukrainian (and Croatian) Nazis?

What else is one to think of this June 19 article in The New Republic, by Vera Mironova and Maria Snegovaya, a combination of gross journalistic incompetence and Holocaust denial?

I have written up a reaction over at the Reiss Institute, which Julia Gorin has reposted and accompanied with further helpful links and research.

Don't let this filth go unanswered.

Screenshot of the TNR article whitewashing the Ukrainian and Croatian Nazis,
while blaming the Russians and the Serbs as "occupiers"

Operation Bagration

On June 22, 1944, three years to the day since Axis forces invaded the Soviet Union, the Red Army launched the biggest counterattack of the war, crushing the German Army Group Center.

The offensive was named after prince Pyotr Ivanovich Bagration, hero of Borodino.

Failure to Communicate

I attended the US-Russia Forum in Washington, DC earlier this week, and came away with mixed impressions. On one hand, almost everyone involved was trying to improve relations between Russia and the U.S. On the other, entirely too many Americans involved continue to believe that the problem here isn't the Atlantic Empire's abuse, but some phantom Russian intransigence, "revisionism" or "retrenchment."

(inspired by commenter "bearspaw" below; as seen on Facebook)

I've offered up my overview of the conference in a column over at Antiwar.com. To sum it up here, the presenters had a very real diversity of opinion, rather than being "Putin apologists" as presstwats predictably claimed. Leonid Gozman, for example, openly backed the Kiev junta, illustrating the typical position of what passes for "liberals" in Russia (and explaining why their support runs into low single digits). There were speakers blaming the EU (which has shown its utter inability to do anything but obey Washington), or even asserted that Russia's reaction in the Crimea endangered nuclear nonproliferation talks - without stopping to think it's the Imperial pattern of aggression that's compelling countries to seek nuclear insurance in the first place.

For their part, I don't think the Russians fully understand this, either. It's only normal for everyone to interpret the behavior of others through the prism of their own; so Americans always see others as aggressors, invaders, liars, murderers and terrorists. The latest example of this "flipping the script" is a New Republic feature comparing Putin to Milosevic. In reality, it is the West acting towards Russia the same way they acted towards the Serbs two decades ago. I've argued before that Putin is aware of this, though the Russian public and media in general may not be. The Russians tend to see Americans as rational actors, playing the game of politics by the rules. Perhaps they ought to watch (or better yet, read) some Game of Thrones, lest they end up like the Starks to the Anglo Lannisters.

To borrow a movie quote, what we have here is a failure to communicate. And that's not just depressing, but in the present situation, downright dangerous.

Parsing Putin's Popularity

Here is a handy graphic that explains why Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin's approval ratings are north of 80% these days.

"How has Russia changed in 15 years of Vladimir Putin's governance?" (e.g. between 1999 and 2013)

GDP went from $195 billion (1999) to $2,113 billion in 2013.

Per-capita GDP went from $1,320 to $14,800.

Inflation went from 36,5% to 6.5%.

Gold reserves went from $12,6 billion to $511 billion.

Government debt went from 78% of the GDP to 8% of the GDP.

Average monthly pension went from 499 rubles to 10,000 rubles.

Average monthly wage went from 1522 rubles to 29,940 rubles.

Ah, but Putin put an end to the raping and looting of Russia by Western "reformers" and their pet oligarchs, and stood up to the Atlantic Empire's reign of chaos. Can't have that. So the Western media calls him an "autocrat" (though he obeys the letter of the law punctiliously), but lavishes praise on the ruler that shrugs laws off in favor of "a pen and a phone."

No wonder no one has put together a chart like this for the United States. Those numbers must be terrifying... 

FIFA Upholds Sieg-heiling Conviction

In November last year, when Croatia's soccer team managed to win passage to the 2014 World Cup by the skin of their teeth, one of the players sieg-heiled with the crowd in triumph. While Nazi displays in Croatia - from soccer stadiums to symbols of state - have been ignored for over two decades, FIFA couldn't let this one go. "Crazy Joe" Šimunić was fined and suspended for 10 games - starting with the World Cup.

At the end of April, a Croatian web magazine (billing itself as "one of the world’s leading portals") quoted Šimunić's lawyer Davor Prtenjača, who was optimistic that the decision would be overturned on appeal. Citing the speed of the hearing - just a month after the appeal was filed - as cause for hope, Prtenjača added that "FIFA had given up on the assertion that “Za dom – spremni” was purely a fascist salute, but still claim Šimunić had provoked racial hated at Maksimir stadium."

Both the salute and the shield have been symbols of the Croatian Nazis (Ustasha), who committed genocidal atrocities against Serbs and Jews and Roma so vicious, even some Nazis were appalled. Yet the defense is now that the salute - the Croatian equivalent of the German sieg-heil - was "not purely fascist"? Same with the checkerboard shield, which the Croats claim is an ancient symbol of their people. So? The swastika is an ancient Hindu symbol, yet it's been banned throughout much of the world because of its association with Hitler.

But even allowing for all that, for the sake of argument, what explains this?

Široki Brijeg, Herzegovina, November 2010 (source)

This photo is from a November 2010 game in the overwhelmingly Croat Široki Brijeg, in Herzegovina, where fans of the local team waved around both the actual Nazi flag and that of the Vatican - because the Church of Rome was a major backer of the Croatian Nazis, in WW2 and thereafter.

In any case, the "not solely fascist" defense didn't work. Šimunić lost his appeal on May 13, and the only way he will be involved with the World Cup - which begins this afternoon - is as a spectator. 

Western Economy, Explained

And this is why I enjoy reading Karl Denninger's The Market Ticker:

Oh boy, the imagery this conjures up....

"Just when the European recovery story looked played out, the European Central Bank sent out a new mating call to equity investors with a major policy package that included rate cuts."

You're going to get mated with all right.

The problem is that it's going to be in one of the holes that does not offer the prospect of reproduction.

Today's Western economy, in a nutshell.

This is why I think all the recent protestations of power are just a bunch of hot air. 

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."

Empire's White-Knighting Explained

In an article published in Counterpunch on Friday, Diana Johnstone pulls back the curtain on the Ukraine crisis:

"In September 2013, one of Ukraine’s richest oligarchs, Viktor Pinchuk, paid for an elite strategic conference on Ukraine’s future that was held in the same Palace in Yalta, Crimea, where Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill met to decide the future of Europe in 1945. The Economist, one of the elite media reporting on what it called a “display of fierce diplomacy”, stated that: “The future of Ukraine, a country of 48m people, and of Europe was being decided in real time.” The participants included Bill and Hillary Clinton, former CIA head General David Petraeus, former U.S. Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, former World Bank head Robert Zoellick, Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt, Shimon Peres, Tony Blair, Gerhard Schröder, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Mario Monti, Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaite, and Poland’s influential foreign minister Radek Sikorski. Both President Viktor Yanukovych, deposed five months later, and his recently elected successor Petro Poroshenko were present. Former U.S. energy secretary Bill Richardson was there to talk about the shale-gas revolution which the United States hopes to use to weaken Russia by substituting fracking for Russia’s natural gas reserves." 

Ah yes, the shale gas canard that's physically and mathematically impossible: the U.S. simply does not have the shipping and processing capabilities to meet Europe's gas needs - nor is there nearly as much shale gas in the fracking wells as originally estimated. Doesn't stop the world's biggest conmen from trying, though.

"U.S. policy, already evident at the September 2013 Yalta meeting, was carried out on the ground by Victoria Nuland, former advisor to Dick Cheney, deputy ambassador to NATO, spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton, wife of neocon theorist Robert Kagan. Her leading role in the Ukraine events proves that the neo-con influence in the State Department, established under Bush II, was retained by Obama, whose only visible contribution to foreign policy change has been the presence of a man of African descent in the presidency, calculated to impress the world with U.S. multicultural virtue. Like most other recent presidents, Obama is there as a temporary salesman for policies made and executed by others."

The truth hurts. But it's blindingly obvious.

Seven Decades Hence

"The world is Hades for me now
and all men in it hellish spirits."
- The Mountain Wreath

Seventy years ago, on June 6 1944, the Western Allies launched the largest amphibious operation in history, landing hundreds of thousands of men and tanks onto the beaches of Normandy. Were they fighting and dying for an American Empire, or the world democratic revolution? The Emperor now says so.

Did those men fight so their country could pick up Hitler's torch 50 years later, back his allies, pursue his policies? With the Luftwaffe bombing Belgrade again, German boots on Serbian soil, SS marches in Latvia, and Banderist torchlight parades in Ukraine, Anglo-American boasting of how they won in 1945 are at best hypocritical and hollow. At worst, a cruel jest.

Bandera supporters march in Lwow, January 2013 (via "Kyiv Post")

The "Greatest Generation" is spinning in their graves. Hitler's ghost cackles with glee.

But the East remembers.

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.

Fear and Loathing at the New York Times

An autocrat

A toxic mixture of arrogance and stupidity haunts the establishment class of the Atlantic Empire. They really believe they can create reality through willpower alone (as Karl Rove told Ron Suskind back in 2004), that America is the "indispensable country" (M. Albright), and that God - or whatever they believe in these days - has given them the world to do with as they please.

I'm not talking about the Emperor's West Point speech, however deluded it may have been, but about the hysterical reaction of the chattering classes to it, best exemplified by the New York Times' "conservative" columnist David Brooks.

Alarmed that His Most Elevated Imperial Majesty may have had a stray thought or two about - gasp! - restraint, Brooks upbraids Barack Obama for insufficient imperialism. Sure, Obama "argued persuasively" for the need to "mobilize democracies", and his UN envoy Samantha Power gave a "great" (i.e. fiery) speech to the new generation of Harvard drones, but let's remember that World War Two was the fault of America failing at its duty to rule the world.

Er, what? No, really. Brooks actually wrote that:

"In the 1920s and ’30s, for example, Americans were in a retrenching mood, like today. The result was a leaderless world, the gradual decay of the world order and eventually World War II."