Brexit

As I process the news coming out of the UK, I can't help but think of 25 years ago, when my own country was dismembered as a ritual sacrifice to help summon the EU into existence.

More specifically, Germany demanded of other EEC members to recognize the independence of Slovenia and Croatia - which had been declared unilaterally, illegally, and without consideration of the population that wished to remain in Yugoslavia - in exchange for backing the Maastricht Treaty that would convert the European Economic Community into a political union:

“From a position where the EC members were 11-to-1 in favor of maintaining the unity of Yugoslavia, Germany succeeded at 4 a.m. in forcing approval  for the recognition of Croatia and Slovenia as independent states.” (see here)

While I do wish the people of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all the best, and hope that their divorce from the EU (and maybe each other?) goes more smoothly and peacefully than what happened in Yugoslavia... turnabout is fair play.

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. 

Bildt's Tweets, Real and Fake

Nils Daniel Carl Bildt is currently the Foreign Minister of Sweden, and a longtime operative for the Transnational Progressivist establishment (e.g. the first Viceroy of Bosnia). He is also on Twitter.

Last week, some online outlets in Serbia reported that Bildt had tweeted: "the biggest mistake of the modern Russian government and Vladimir Putin was the return to Orthodoxy, which is worse than the Islamic terrorism that appears in the east."

Now, anyone even remotely acquainted with Twitter would have realized this could not have been accurate - not because Bildt doesn't dislike Russia or Orthodoxy (more on that in a second), but because the alleged statement is too long for a 140-character tweet. Moreover, a proper Tranzi like Bildt would have never used the phrase "Islamic terrorism" or referred to Islam in anything but properly submissive terms. Especially in Sweden, which has just about criminalized criticism of Islam. But the legacy media - controlled by foreign interests or the puppet government - did not bother to mention any of this, while the blogosphere took 'Bildt's" words and ran with them, because the made-up quote fit in with his other views on Russia and the EU/US policy in the Ukrainian meltdown.

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. 

Do Try This at Home

To Doris Pack, MEP:

It has come to my attention that you have praised the so-called "citizen plenums" in Bosnia, calling them a "good idea" and urging people to "take to the streets and take control of their own destiny."

Noble words. But this is what that looks like in practice:

(AP, via Daily Telegraph)

How about this, Doris: you do that, in your native Schiffweiler, first.

Don't bother letting me know how it turns out. I honestly don't give a damn.

A Telling Slip

Here is a still from the minute-long propaganda video by "Fatherland" party of Ukrainian "Prime Minister" Yahtzee, following his trip to Brussels:

Notice anything? Right between Italy and Romania? Instead of the shards of Yugoslavia, there is now just one country: Croatia.

Is this ignorance of geography, as some have suggested, or perhaps outdated maps? I doubt it. Unlike Americans, the rest of the world actually bothers studying geography, and while I can imagine getting some frontiers wrong, erasing half a dozen countries is still a bit much.

Nor is this a pre-1991 map, as Germany is united, while Czechs and Slovaks are separated. Also note that Cyprus (a tiny speck of blue disappearing off the southeastern edge of the picture) is correctly noted as an EU member.

Far be it from me to suggest that this map betrays a delusion of the Empire that some day all of what was once Yugoslavia would be "Croatia" - though I am kind of curious what Slovenians, "Bosnians," "Montenegrians", Macedonians and "Kosovians" think of that. And I can't shake off the feeling the Serbs are being systematically bullied and brainwashed to that very end.

No Idle Comparison

It is generally a good thing to be mindful of Godwin's Law in political discussion, though I haven't noticed it stopping many people of describing those they disagree with as "fascist" or "racist" even if they stop short of Nazi (without even knowing what any those words mean). But what happens in instances where one is dealing with, well, actual Nazis? People parading in SS uniforms, giving Nazi salutes, using Nazi language, and generally bring back the "glory days" of the "thousand-year Reich" (actual duration: 12 years)?

Yesterday, my friend Nikola Tanasic tweeted this cartoon:

self-explanatory

with the following comment: "The EU is showing once again where it got the notion of the 'great European family of nations'."

He is referring to a German propaganda poster from WW2, describing "What will happen once National-Socialism triumphs". It was featured in a 2002 study, "German Propaganda Posters in Serbia, 1941-1944" (Немачки ратни плакат у Србији, 1941-44) by historian Kosta Nikolic. Here is a low-resolution picture of the poster in question:

If you read Serbian, you can take a look at a slightly higher-resolution picture here, in the scanned version of the book (see page 102). There are other posters with similar rhetoric - on pages 41 and 46, respectively.

Here is the translation of the text on the right, extolling the Nazi new world:

The Serbian people will become a member of the great European family. Serbia will no longer be the petty change, to be used in bargains between world powers. There will be no fear of future wars, and the people will devote themselves to their own and general well-being, supported by the united Europe. Labor will become the only true value. Spiritual heritage, faith, family, all the cultural heritage and private property - the real engine of prosperity - will be protected and secured. A new, better life will begin. In the blood of Europe's finest sons, a new era will dawn for Serbia as well - an era of peace and prosperity for the people.

Lest one be tempted to nod along with some of these arguments, remember that as they were preaching this, the Germans were sponsoring a genocide of Serbs in "Independent State of Croatia," and executing 100 Serb civilian hostages for every one of their soldiers killed (and 50 for every wounded) in battles against the Serb freedom fighters. 

Is it surprising that the EU would use Nazi propaganda imagery and phrases? It really shouldn't be.

Woefully Unfit, Indeed

Reuters "reports" on the crisis in Bosnia today, including this bit of editorial guidance:

It [the Dayton peace agreement] has created a highly-decentralized and dysfunctional system of power-sharing woefully unfit to steer Bosnia through economic transition or the process of integration with the European Union, to many their best hope of prosperity.

Ignore for the moment that the riots in (part of) Bosnia just coincidentally flared up during the lull in the Ukrainian drama, and petered out just in time for the predicted coup of "Maydanist" stooges this past weekend. For that matter, ignore the incongruity of EU being the "best hope of prosperity" for the unnamed "many"; to which the best response would be to list countries improved by their EU "integration": Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovenia... should I go on?

(photo: Antonio Bronic/Reuters)

No, I'd like to draw your attention to the "woefully unfit" language of the paragraph, implying - falsely - that the Dayton Accords are to blame for the malfunctioning of Bosnia as a whole, rather than - factually - that the problem lies in the corruption, bad faith and lack of responsibility in one part of Bosnia, the Federation. If there is a "dysfunctional system", it is the Federation, and that arrangement has nothing to do with Dayton (read for yourself), and everything to do with a wartime alliance set up by Washington in 1994.

While changing the Constitution of Bosnia would literally require rewriting a portion (Annex IV) of the peace agreement - and once that is done, the whole thing might well unravel - amending the Federation's constitution is far less of a chore. But it would require responsibility, a modicum of good will, and - perhaps most importantly - for Muslims and Croats to stop blaming the Serbs for all their problems and put their house in order.

Far easier to shift blame and demand Imperial intervention, through staged riots, arson, and "activist journalism" of the kind quoted above. 

Jelko's Confession

MEP and EU's commissar for Serbia Jelko Kacin (of Slovenia) is prone to running his mouth, so I try to tune out his frequent Serbophobic rants. However, given the events of the past two days in Ukraine, something he said in an interview to a Sarajevo TV station on February 10 sounds like a threat, admission and portent all at once:

"If you follow the developments in the Ukraine, you will see in a week or two how we treat the irresponsible political elite."

Here is the full video of the interview. 

And we're supposed to believe the EU and the US are not meddling in Ukraine, and that the "peaceful protesters" have quite spontaneously decided to storm government buildings and open fire on the police... why exactly? 

Tea and Biscuits in Kiev

Tuesday night I got another call from RT, to comment (video) on the situation in Kiev as the police moved to dismantle the "opposition" barricades.

Ukraine's government is in a difficult position. If it allows the protesters to blockade downtown Kiev, it appears powerless. If it breaks them up, and there is blood, it appears brutal. Thing is, all of this is in Gene Sharp's playbook, developed into the manual for "color revolutions." The motley coalition of marginal political parties (including Nazi apologists)? Check. A charismatic leader that's all style by no substance? Check. Meaningless acts of media posturing? Check. Celebrity endorsements instead of an actual program? Check.

Now the top "diplomats" from Brussels and Washington are hobnobbing with the would-be revolutionaries, stirring the pot. But if the EU couldn't secure Ukraine's submission with financial incentives (or - and here's a discomforting thought for many a EUrocrat - couldn't afford to), what makes them think Baroness Upholland showing up for tea, or Victoria Nuland giving away biscuits, would work any better?

cartoon by V. Kremlov, RT

The revolutionaries' script is both their greatest strength and their greatest weakness. Strength, because it has been developed to maximally use human psychology. Weakness, because if the other side can somehow disrupt the protesters' OODA loop, get them off the script, the "revolution" fails. Moscow and Minsk have done it.

Another thing to keep in mind is that neither official Kiev, nor Moscow, nor RT - routinely demonized in the West as "Russian propaganda" - are challenging the underlying illusions peddled by the EU and the Empire: that the EU equals Europe, and that "European values" are justice, order, and prosperity, when they are manifestly none of those things. Perception management is as deadly in politics as it is on the battlefield. Letting the other side frame the debate is tantamount to losing in advance.

Yet even with all their advantages in perception management, it is the Empire and the EU that are losing. Already, the fickle attention of the Western media is shifting onto the Emperor's "selfies" at the funeral of their secular saint.

Because even the best-conjured illusions only go so far, for so long. 

A Rotten Orange

I was on RT this morning, commenting on the events in Ukraine.

Honestly, I don't understand how anyone can believe the utter rubbish coming out of the EU and peddled by the mainstream Western media these days. Srdja Trifkovic explains the whole thing pretty clearly here, but let me try summing it up even further.

Brussels did not offer Kiev a "deal" - they demanded unconditional surrender. Current trade arrangements with Russia, far more favorable to Ukraine than what the EU offers, would have ended - yet Kiev would have nothing to show for it but promises of eventual EU "aid."

Think of it this way: someone offers you a "deal" to quit your job, and in return he'll move into your house, take all your possessions (to do with them as he pleases) while you go beg on the street to make rent (because you have to support him living in your house now), all for a promise that in a decade or so, he might give you some money. Maybe. If he's not broke by then.

Would you do such a thing? No? Then why would Ukraine?

Ah, but the "evil Russians" this and that. Nonsense. Moscow is all about commerce, while Brussels and Washington are all about coercion. It isn't Moscow's (phantom) operatives staging "revolutions" and promoting "regime change" around the world, but "activists" funded by EU and US governments - even as EU and US citizens sink into poverty themselves, bled dry to support an Empire.

The EU is not some mythical land of plenty, with rainbows and unicorns and manna from heaven. It is the hungry of Greece, the robbed of Cyprus, the debtors of Ireland, the corruption of Italy, the ghost cities of Spain and the destitute of Portugal. It's the "guest workers" of Poland, the starving Bulgarian potato-diggers, and the Nazis of Croatia.

And EU's support for the rioters in Kiev basically means that "democracy" is whatever they say it is, and violence is perfectly acceptable if it's for the "proper" (that is, EU) cause. You'd think people who lived under such "logic" for 70 years, and profess to despise it, would recognize it when it's shoved in their faces.

I understand the Galicians wanting to rejoin Austria-Hungary (not that they'd be any happier there, but whatever). I even understand Vitaly Klitschko; he did take a lot of blows to the head. But what's everyone else's excuse? 

Treason

After a ten-round circus in Brussels, on April 19 the quisling regime administering Serbia on behalf of the Empire said it was ready to declare Serbia's rape consensual.

To hear them say it, they did this to "save" the Serbs who remain in the occupied territories (recognized by the Empire as the "Republic of Kosovo") from another pogrom. This is cynicism at its worst, because the "deal" turns those very Serbs over to the tender mercies of the Albanians and NATO - the very parties responsible for the peril of pogrom to begin with.

NATO is supposed to "protect" the Serbs, much as it has "protected" their brethren living in the ghettos elsewhere in the occupied province. Much as it has "protected" them during the actual 2004 pogrom. No, the tanks and bullets of the barricades showdown are more likely to be the NATO response.

Treaties with the Empire aren't worth the paper they are printed on. Whatever "guarantees", safeguards and privileges this "agreement" offers the Serbs on paper will vanish with the first KLA boot on the ground, or the first NATO tank. Just as it happened in 1999, and has been happening ever since.

In recognizing the statehood of "Kosovia," submitting to the EU and Imperial demands, selling out its citizens - both in the occupied territories and the rest of Serbia - the quisling government in Belgrade has trampled the Serbian constitution, and committed high treason.

Whatever legitimacy it could claim to have, it has now lost. Entirely.

As of April 19, 2013, the President and government of Serbia stepped outside the law. On Friday, April 26, the parliament of Serbia did the same.

Make of that what you will.

Life Imitating Art

HBO's recent comedy hit Veep was inspired - well, adapted from - a fantastic British comedy called  The Thick of It, which shows politics from the (sordid, self-serving, incompetent) inside. The creator of both shows is Armando Ianucci, who was recently honored with the OBE (in a funny twist, this prompted a Twitter war with Blair spin doctor Alastair Campbell, who is generally assumed to be the inspiration for the character of Malcolm Tucker on the show).

Showing just how accurately Ianucci's comedy skewers British politicians is a video of actual events that was uploaded to YouTube yesterday, and has since gone viral. It shows the EU commissar for foreign relations, Baroness Ashton, panicking before meeting the new president of Serbia (who visited Brussels last week), because she doesn't know what he looks like!

Fellow Brit Robert Cooper, Ashton's envoy for the "talks" between Serbia and the self-proclaimed "Republic of Kosovo", is no help. "Neither do I," he responds to Ashton's request. Fortunately, an aide has a picture, and Ashton is soon happily grinning next to the visiting Serb.

The ignorance is particularly embarrassing considering that Nikolić had been a presidential candidate in 2004 and 2008, narrowly losing to EU's preferred quisling Boris Tadić; upon winning this time, he was criticized by numerous EU officials for his "nationalism" and statements challenging the Official Truth about the Yugoslav Wars. And they don't even know what he looks like!

Yes, they really are that incompetent. And far less powerful than they seem.

New Boss, Same as Old Boss

New face, same promises: Nikolic in Brussels

Though the jury was out on it for a few weeks, it is now apparent that the election of Tomislav Nikolic to Serbian presidency was leveraged into a victory of the Empire. Nikolic has just returned from Brussels professing undying devotion to the EU, which means he intends to continue Tadic's suicidal course.

On the other hand, the Imperial media are using his election as the opportunity to demonize Serbia once more (not that they need much of an excuse). In turn, Nikolic's handlers are invoking this to tell the confused Serbs, "Look, he's a nationalist! He's not actually a quisling! He's just pretending to be a quisling so he can fool the Empire. Trust him!"

If that's an act, give the man an Oscar right now.

Meanwhile, the cabinet talks are still ongoing. Yesterday a tabloid owned by the Democrats (most of them are) claimed that an agreement was reached for a grand coalition of the Democrats, Socialists, Liberal-Democrats and United Regions (reference my handy guide to Serbian politics if this is confusing). The rumor was never confirmed, but it spread through Serbia like wildfire. Meanwhile, the Progressives are talking to the Socialists and, well, whoever.

No doubt there will be someone from the previous government in the new one, making Serbian politics much like those of the Bosnian Federation. In other words, even if someone had in mind to reform the system, there's no way that can be done in a precarious coalition with a partner that benefited from that system. Vojislav Kostunica and Zlatko Lagumdzija have had to learn this the hard way. I doubt Nikolic is even interested in trying.

Until a prime minister is appointed, however, Serbia's day-to-day affairs are run by the previous cabinet - only now the ministers have even less responsibility for their actions, because they are lame ducks. Whose policies are they actually implementing? The ones in effect before the May 6 general election? Those of their respective party leaderships? Those of the new President? Well, hardly, because the president isn't supposed to make policy. One can forgive the confusion of people who didn't know this, since all they've had to go on is Tadic, who notoriously violated that principle by staying the boss of the Democratic Party while holding the office of President, and essentially ran the country as an autocrat - albeit one teleoperated from Brussels and Washington.

Nikolic and the Progressives have shown nothing to indicate they had any sort of vision for Serbia, or even how they intend to do things differently. In the current vacuum, the Empire and the old regime are doing their best to ensure that even if they decided to try and untangle Serbia from the web of servitude to the Empire, they would never get a chance.

No wonder that a country where politics comes down to parties calling themselves Democrats, Socialists and Progressives is in such horrible shape. I don't know what sort of reaction might emerge to Serbia's corrupt, quisling oligarchy, but I wouldn't be the least surprised if it turned out to be decidedly non-political.

Thanks, Angie

It just occurred to me that I haven't posted anything here since mid-November; I've been entirely too preoccupied with my other blog, Antiwar.com, and travel.

So, to recap: the Kosovo Serbs' citizenship gambit failed, when Moscow refused them on a technicality. The barricades remain, however, in spite of all the attempts to get them dismantled. Speaking of which, the German and Austrian complaints about the "violence" - when it was their fully armed and armored troops that initiated violence against the Serb civilians - has to be the pinnacle of cynicism.

It did Belgrade no good to make yet another set of capitulations to the KLA "state" Saturday night; the EU decided to put its candidacy on ice until the formal recognition of "Kosovia", and whatever new demands they come up with thereafter. In a way - and quite unintentionally I'm sure - the Austro-German axis running the show is actually doing the Serbs a favor: had the quisling regime's obsequiousness been rewarded by a candidacy, meaningless and symbolic as it is, they'd have smooth sailing till the April elections regardless of their manifest ineptitude, and the Serb resistance in Kosovo would have been undermined. As it is, the EUrocrats are sabotaging the very people working to please them. Well, no one said they were logical...

So, German Chancellor Angela Merkel deserves a thank-you note for what she did, however inadvertently, to keep Serbia out of EU bondage. I'm sure once the Serbs sort out their politics, that note will be forthcoming in some shape or form.

I'm not so sure about Angelina Jolie, though. Her directorial debut, "In the Land of Blood and Honey" is yet another take on a real-life romance between a Serb and a Muslim during the Bosnian War. Judging from the trailer and the few snippets of footage floating around, it's a derivative and disappointing bit of chetnixploitation, borrowing heavily from movies about the Holocaust. While Bosnia was a nasty (un)civil war, comparing it to the Holocaust is in horrifically poor taste at the very least, if not an outright insult to Holocaust victims.

There have been many films dealing with the Balkans wars in the past twenty years, but none of them have done any good financially. One would think Hollywood would have got the point by now.

In other news, the EU is coming apart at the seams, the Empire is trying to engineer a color revolution in Russia, the Iranians claim to have shot down a U.S. drone, and Pakistan is bolstering air defenses after "NATO" aircraft mauled two dozen of their troops last week. None of that is likely to turn out very well.

Third Time A Charm?

“Germany should now, as it has become peaceful and reasonable, get all that Europe and the whole world has refused in two gigantic wars, a sort of smooth hegemony over Europe.”
- Joschka Fischer, former German Foreign Secretary

It sure seems today, 72 years after its start, that it was Germany that had actually won World War Two. Overlay the map of the EU with that of the German Reich at the height of its power. Look how Yugoslavia was "wiped off the map" once again - this time by decree, and only then by bombs and boots on the ground. Behold, the same ethnic groups that once allied with Hitler find themselves the most enthusiastic "allies" of Berlin - or rather, its patron, the Atlantic Empire. That partnership probably goes a long way to explain the success of Germany's latest drive for European hegemony.

Julia Gorin just did a write-up about a presentation by Rodney Atkinson - former British Ministerial Adviser, author, and lecturer at University of Mainz in Germany - made in February 2008 (coincidentally, when German-supported Albanians declared the "Independent state of Kosova" in the occupied Serbian province) at the British House of Commons. The above quote is mentioned at the very end of Atkinson's presentation, the transcript of which can be found on Gorin's blog. The arguments presented there are culled from two books that Atkinson had written by then about the EU's roots in German designs for European hegemony.

Far-fetched? Not at all. Several years ago, one Serbian blogger tracked down several Nazi propaganda posters from the 1940s that extolled the virtues of National-Socialism and promised the Serbs an idyllic future in the "European family of nations" if only they'd just roll over and serve the Fuehrer. The similarity with pronouncements and promises from Brussels - often parroted by the sycophantic Serbian politicians - was uncanny. That is, until Atkinson pointed out the direct connection between Brussels and the 1940s Berlin. If the shoe fits...

The Germans certainly have perseverance. One would think that, failing to conquer Europe twice, in a spectacular and bloody fashion and at great cost to themselves (and others), they'd stop trying. It appears, however, they are still at it. Both times prior, their plans ran afoul of the Serbs and their stubborn resistance. That helps explain the present hostility for Belgrade and Berlin's support for its "legacy" allies in the region.

Thing is, Germans aren't the only people capable of holding a grudge, or soldiering on against the odds. I'm not sure about the Brits, or the rest of Europe, but somehow I don't quite think Serbia is as defeated as its enemies believe. And I doubt the third time will be a charm for Fritz.

Still a Believer

After lengthy negotiations with his captors, Russian television channel RT successfully obtained a written interview with former Bosnian Serb president Radovan Karadžić. (They also had me as a guest in their studio on Friday evening, to comment on the case; see YouTube clip here.)

To me, the issue of whether Richard Holbrooke and the Empire promised Karadžić immunity isn't all that interesting. Empire going back on deals? Um, that's what they do. Let's see here: the Vance Plan, the UN arms embargo, the Dayton agreement, the Kumanovo Military-Technical agreement, the UNSCR 1244... Not to mention the NATO Charter and the U.S. Constitution. There isn't an official piece of paper that the Empire hasn't violated in the Balkans, often with a contemptuous "So what?".

I am not entirely certain that Dr. Karadžić is fully aware of this, though. His RT interview has some worthwhile insights. He's entirely correct, for example - though way too polite - when he compares NATO to "an old tool that is more trouble to keep than it is worth to maintain."

And he is absolutely on target when he claims that:

Serbs and Serbia are not really an objective of Western imperial intentions and we should not over-estimate our own significance. But this crisis has served as preparation for the forthcoming events. Serbia and the Republika Srpska were a sort of voodoo doll for Russia.

Here is what I simply don't understand. Even though the EU has been one of Empire's principal tools in grinding the Serbs into dust, Karadžić still has a soft spot for "Europe". Even though at one point he describes the EU as "a dormitory of retired people, students, and unemployed," he still argues that "Serbia should join Europe immediately"!

"There are many contradictions in Serbia's relations with EU countries, but that has not hindered integration with Europe," he says, adding:

It would be great if we joined Europe without these kinds of humiliations, bombardments, blackmails and finally attempts to impose the unacceptable price of giving up Kosovo. Otherwise, we share all European values and it would not be difficult for us to get along with Europe. Serbian people living throughout Europe are very integrated without any cultural problems, and they are very prominent in their own professions.

What values are those? Omnipotent government, gay "rights", political correctness, Islamophilia, cultural Marxism? That's the Europe of today, the Europe Karadžić hasn't seen in the two decades he spent first fighting a war, then living as a faith healer in Belgrade. To say that it would be "great" if only Europe weren't the way it is... that's just naive. And kind of sad, too.

Even though he was a psychiatrist by training, Karadžić was also a poet. And he has always thought more like a poet. He never understood how the propaganda in the West cast the Serbs as the new Nazis and twisted all the facts to fit that predetermined perception. Nor did he understand the mind of Alija Izetbegović, who was willing to sacrifice as many lives as it took for his dream of a Muslim Bosnia.

Karadžić is a man that very "Europe" (and the US) has cast as the principal villain of the Balkans Wars (having been unable to do so to Slobodan Milošević), and he's still dreaming of a Europe that has not existed in years. He doesn't understand that the Europe he speaks of has been methodically dismantled, with malice aforethought, just like his former country (Yugoslavia) - and by the same people, too.

Milošević figured this out eventually - too late to make a difference in Serbia, but just in time to destroy the Inquisition's show trial. Only time will tell if Karadžić will manage to do the same.

On Victims and Visas

On July 15, the EU proposed the lifting of visa restrictions on Serbia, Montenegro and Macedonia (FYROM).

The quisling regime in Belgrade has been promising its manipulated subjects the so-called "White Schengen" for years. Never mind that, thanks to the government's slavish obedience to the Empire, the people don't have jobs or can't afford food, and their country is being slowly dismembered - they'll be able to travel again! This is essentially a "let them eat cake" policy.

It is also a way to recognize the "independent state of Kosova" in a roundabout way, since the new visa regime won't apply to "Kosovians." Those Brussels commissars sure are clever, aren't they?

As for Montenegro and Macedonia (FYROM), they are EU protectorates in all but name. And I have a hunch the latter was included to provide a loophole for the Albanians, who have been moving freely between Albania, "Kosovia" and FYROM since oh, 2001 or so.

None of this matters overmuch to the Bosnian Muslims, or their partisans in Brussels and Strasbourg. They met the EU's decision with howls of protest and cries of "unfair", claiming it was discrimination against "victims of genocide" (themselves) and the "executioners" (the Serbs).

One typical example of this was an article in Turkey's daily Zaman, which accused the EU of "discriminating" against countries "with a Muslim-majority population" such as Bosnia (!), Albania and "newly independent Kosovo."

Though I'm sure the Turks - and many "Bosniaks" - love to believe Bosnia is a Muslim-majority country, that wasn't true in 1991 (Muslims were less than 50% of the population), and is probably not true today, either (because the Muslims are blocking a census to check the actual population numbers).

Wishful thinking is one thing; deliberate distortions of reality, though, are quite another. In its diatribe against the EU, Zaman reaches for the old myth about how "heavily armed Serbs butchered almost 250,000 Bosniaks" and the "EU refused to intervene to stop the massacre."

Reality check: the total number of war dead was estimated at 100,000,, and the final officially recognized figure was 97,000. Of that, some 29,000 were Serbs. That doesn't quite sound like a "massacre" of the innocent unarmed. Also, the EU (just established) was involved from the get-go, recognizing the jihadist regime of Alija Izetbegovic and saving it from defeat repeatedly. It's just that they refused to provide unconditional political and military support to Izetbegovic's jihad. That's apparently equal to "standing idly by" for militant Muslims; no surprise there.

Here's another bit of fiction posing as fact. Zaman claims that the EU is "punishing Bosnians [sic] because of the Bosnian Serbs and Croats' refusal to grant the right of issuing passports to the federal government."

By "federal" I assume they mean "state" here (in Bosnia, the Federation is one of the components of the joint state, in case you weren't sufficiently confused already). Either way, for a while after the peace agreement it was the entities, the Federation and the Serb Republic, that issued passports. But this has not been the case for years now.

I would venture a guess that the real problem with putting Bosnia on the "White Schengen" list is that many Bosnian passports are in the hands of... interesting people, for example, some of Osama Bin Laden's followers. Check any report about a captured Islamic terrorist, and odds are he will have the "Bosnian jihad" on his resume.

Most of the grist for Zaman's mill was provided ever so helpfully by Daniel Cohn-Bendit, a French "Green" (known as "Danny the Red" not so long ago) member of the European Parliament and an outspoken champion of intervention in Bosnia in the 1990s. What a shock. Somehow I think this visa fuss has less to do with the "poor victimized Bosnians" and more with Mr. Cohn-Bendit's shameless self-promotion - and the wishful thinking of some Turks to see the Ottoman times make a comeback.

Better late than never

Eight-plus years after his overthrow and three years after his mysterious death in the Hague dungeons, Slobodan Milosevic is finally getting some credit. Writes Slobodan Antonic (Serbian original here, all emphasis mine):

Slobodan Milosevic has made many mistakes in his time. But his legacy to Serbia comprises at least three things:

1. the Dayton Agreement, guaranteeing the existence of the Bosnian Serb Republic;
2. UNSCR 1244, as proof of Serbia's ownership of Kosovo, and
3. Constitutional defeat of separatism and restored Serbian sovereignty in Srem, Banat and Backa [i.e. "Vojvodina"].

While the first two are under assault by powerful foreign factors, with Serbia able to defend them only to a limited extent, the third is being undermined primarily from within, by Serbian political forces. Most incongruously, one of these forces is the provincial leadership of Milosevic's own Socialist Party!

It is a historical irony that Milosevic's own party has embraced EUphoria, championed the [separatist] Vojvodina Statute, and joined Canak, Jelko Kacin and other true "Serbian friends" to hammer the last nail into the coffin of Milosevic's national legacy. We can criticize that legacy for the things it wasted and the potential it failed to live up to. It could have been, and perhaps should have been, far greater. But it is what it is. It is what we have today, and what we must defend. However minuscule, it is still far greater than anything Serbian leaders have done after 2000. And far greater than anything the Socialists have done after Milosevic.

Speaking of 2000, I remember a speech Milosevic gave on the eve of the CIA/NED "revolution" that deposed him. October 2, 2000 it was, when he spoke on Serbian television, warning about the quisling character of DOS:

Its boss is the president of the Democratic Party. For years he has collaborated with the military alliance that attacked our country. He could not even hide his collaboration. In fact, our entire public knows that he appealed to NATO to bomb Serbia for as many weeks as necessary to break its resistance.

So the 'democratic' grouping organized for these elections represents the armies and governments which recently waged war against Yugoslavia.

At the behest of these foreign powers our 'democrats' told the people that they would make Yugoslavia be free of war and violence, that Yugoslavia would prosper, the living standard would improve visibly and fast, that Yugoslavia would rejoin international institutions, and on and on.

Honored citizens,

It is my duty to warn you publicly, while there is time, that these promises are false.

He may have been wrong about other things, but about this, he was right.

Kudos to the Irish

As they shoot down the EU Constitution crudely disguised as the "Lisbon Treaty."

After the original Constitution was staked through the heart by Dutch and French voters in 2005, the EUrocrats decided to get sneaky (after all, that's always worked far better than open collectivization), change some wording, stop calling it a Constitution and make it a "treaty" instead. This way, they figured, no referenda would be necessary and they could simply ratify it in parliaments.

Except the Irish law mandated a referendum. And that was a problem. Because, you see, the Irish had already told the EUSSR to shove it back in 2001, rejecting the Treaty of Nice. That was fixed by holding another referendum the following year; no doubt there would have been another yet, had the voters not "seen reason" and "made the right choice" (i.e. voted as their lords and masters in Brussels told them to). Still, the Irish had a history of being... difficult.

So this time, there was an enormous amount of pressure put on Ireland to shut the hell up and obey, from the EUrocracy and the commentariat alike (covered in a lot of detail by Brendan O'Neill). And the Irish still said "no."

Now, the naive might think the EUSSR will just melt away like the Wicked Witch when doused with water. No such luck. Too much power and Other People's Money is at stake for the EUrocrats to just give up. I'm guessing there will be enormous political, media and economic pressure on Ireland to annul the vote, or vote again (and again, and again, until the "right" result is achieved). Or the EUSSR might suspend Ireland's membership, thus enabling the "Treaty" to come into effect on schedule and unhindered. Laws and rules aren't going to stop the people who've already said that legal is whatever they decide is legal (e.g. the Kosovo declaration of "independence").

The Irish rejection, however, could encourage other EU countries to, um, re-evaluate their relationship with Brussels. Not likely, I know, but at least it keeps the EUrocrats from sleeping well at night. In this bleak world of deceit and violence, one should cherish any victory, no matter how small or temporary - while hoping, of course, and working so it becomes sweeping and permanent.

Go raibh maith agat, Eire.