Karadzic and the dogs of war

In July 2008, after the arrest of Radovan Karadzic, Brendan O'Neill wrote an article that provided the crucial missing piece to the puzzle of how the Atlantic Empire has interacted with jihadists: Bosnia.

Pointing out that America armed and trained a military machine that was using Mujahideen as "shock troops," O'Neill reminds us of the striking parallels between the positions of Al-Qaeda militants and "liberal hawks in newsrooms across America and Europe":

Indeed, many of the Mujahideen who fought in Bosnia were inspired to do so by simplistic media coverage of the sort written by liberal-left journalists in the West. Many of the testimonies made by Arab fighters reveal that they first ventured to Bosnia because they "saw US media reports on rape camps" or read about the "genocide" in Bosnia and the "camps used by Serb soldiers systematically to rape thousands of Muslim women." Holy warriors seem to have been moved to action by some of the more shrill and unsubstantiated coverage of the war in Bosnia.

Both Western liberals and the Mujahideen ventured to Bosnia in response to their own crises of legitimacy, and in search of a sense of purpose, O'Neill argues, citing a number of sources. The Serbs provided a convenient enemy to project all their pent-up frustration, anger and hatred onto.

"For both Western liberals (governments and thinkers) and the Mujahideen, Bosnia became a refuge from these harsh realities, a place where they could fight fantasy battles against evil to make themselves feel dynamic and heroic instead of having to face up to the real problems in their movements and in politics more broadly."

Both Western imperialists and Islamic jihadists became "super-moralized, militarized, internationalized" in Bosnia, as a result of their struggle against the "evil Serbs." Today, the Empire and its allies accuse Russia of "revisionism" but it was they who chose to trample international law and the existing order by inventing "humanitarian" wars and "responsibility to protect," reviving "coalitions of the willing" 200 years after Napoleon.

As for the Islamists, they went internationalist, spreading the message of jihad everywhere - fueled by Washington's wars, no less - from Kenya and Tanzania embassy bombings to 9/11 and Brussels just this week.

O'Neill says Karadzic has much to answer for. I'll accept that. But he also says that the demonization of Karadzic and the Serbs, and the resulting "rehabilitation of both Western militarism and Islamic radicalism, has also done a great deal to destabilize international affairs and destroy entire communities." Just ask the Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Libyans, Egyptians, Kurds...

Which brings me to a point I've been making here for years. I find it utterly disgusting that the same people who howl in outrage over the "genocide in Srebrenica" never seem to realize - or perhaps don't care - that "Srebrenica" has been used to justify the deaths of a million Muslims, and maybe more, in Western "humanitarian interventions" since 9/11. 

The Karadzic "conviction"

The more astute readers of this blog will remember that I have written and spoken against the so-called Hague Tribunal for years. It is a pretend-court that simply has zero legitimacy to begin with - regardless of its actions - since the UN Security Council cannot delegate (judicial) powers it does not possess. So, it is not meritorious to pass judgment on anyone.

Officials of the Atlantic Empire have outright bragged about creating the Tribunal for their own ends, writing its laws and procedures to ensure the desired outcome. "Sentence first - verdict afterwards," as Lewis Carroll so memorably put it.

The sham court was created to delegitimize the Serbs' right to exist, while legitimizing the aggression of the Empire and its clients. Pure and simple. Even if it were not founded on lies, even if its practices weren't sketchy and sleazy, its own presiding "judge" betrayed the truth behind the curtain when he treated the Big Lie as fact in pursuit of his mission.

Today, that "court" declared Radovan Karadžić guilty of "genocide" they had to rape reality to define as such - and on the anniversary of the NATO attack on Serbia, no less. It is no accident; the sham court has shown before that it chooses its timing with great precision.

Regardless of what he did, or did not do, they had to convict him. That was their mission from the Empire, their entire raison d'etre. But if you really want to know why, read Julia Gorin's excellent breakdown here.

All I have to say is that, if they think their dominion over this world is eternal and unquestionable... they clearly haven't been paying attention. 

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.

Another Show Trial

On Monday, I was at the Russia Today studio in Washington, as part of their extensive coverage of the Karadžić trial. They've transcribed some key points of my interview, and the video is available on the site as well.

Now, whether Radovan Karadžić can get a fair trial at the ICTY is really the wrong question to ask. Nobody can. The ICTY is a political institution, established illegitimately, with the sole purpose of manufacturing a "war crimes" justification for American military involvement in the civil wars that broke out following the EU "murder by recognition" of Yugoslavia.

Everything at the ICTY - which I call the Hague Inquisition - is subordinated to the goal of proving the existence of a great conspiracy ("joint criminal enterprise") involving the entire Serb political and military leadership. There is no evidence such a conspiracy ever existed - in fact, there's much evidence proving it did not. However, to justify its own existence and expense, the Tribunal needs to conjure this conspiracy into being.

They tried doing this with Milošević, and failed. When he destroyed their indictment, they tried to sideline him with imposed counsel. He thwarted that too. Just as they were in a completely untenable position to convict him based on nothing more than the necessity of convicting him for political reasons, Milošević died under mysterious circumstances. The ICTY poured many a crocodile tear, but in fact was relieved that their botched show trial ended in such a manner. This way, they could act as if Milošević had actually been convicted, but for the actual formality of the verdict. Now they are trying the same thing with Karadžić.

Note that no one gets a fair trial at the Tribunal. Both Naser Orić, the warlord of Srebrenica, and KLA terrorist Ramush Haradinaj got show trials, after which they were acquitted and greeted as heroes by the Bosnian Muslims and Kosovo Albanians respectively. Was this justice for the people they killed? Hardly. Did it promote reconciliation, as the ICTY supposedly claims to be doing? Not in the least. Their trials and acquittals were a seal of approval on the policies they represented, which even today fuel the hatred and violence in Bosnia and the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo.

Rendition

Officially, Radovan Karadzic was arrested on Monday, July 21. Except there are multiple reports indicating the arrest actually took place on Friday, July 18. Furthermore, Serbian police was specifically said not to have taken place in the arrest. So, who did actually arrest Karadzic? The Tadic government isn't telling.

Now, Serbian law doesn't recognize habeas corpus, but I'm pretty sure one's not supposed to be subject to arrest by someone other than police, or held for several days before being brought before a judge. But hey, he's a "war criminal," right? Who cares? Not like he's a mujahedin fighting to "stay home," or he'd get sympathy from the West...

Now, Serbian constitution does not allow for extradition of citizens - except to the Inquisition. Currently, Serbian authorities are refusing to extradite Miladin Kovacevic to the United States. Kovacevic is accused to severely beating another college student in a bar fight in upstate New York. So, illegal rendition of former presidents, generals and government officials to a self-appointed, illegitimate quasi-court is perfectly all right, but extraditing someone who almost killed someone else in a bar fight? Oh no, can't do that...

Wait, illegal rendition?!

Absolutely.

See, to have a proper extradition, you have to at least have an extradition hearing. There are all these judicial procedures. Neither Slobodan Milosevic (who was arrested on completely different charges - and never prosecuted! - before being rendered to the Inquisition) nor Radovan Karadzic ever got a hearing in court. They were simply packed into a van, then into a helicopter, and shipped off to a foreign country, where their chances of getting a fair trial are less than zero.

(If you're arguing that the ICTY has actually acquitted people - like Ramush Haradinaj or Naser Oric, think again. Those people they could acquit without bringing their own existence into question. Acquitting a Serb leader? No way. Without the alleged Serb "joint criminal enterprise", the whole Tribunal is pointless.)

Under Serbian law, Karadzic also had the right to appeal his arrest. His lawyer said he had mailed the appeal on Friday. Somehow, the all-efficient (ha!) Serbian Postal Service said on Monday that no such appeal has been mailed. So, as thousands of people demonstrated in downtown Belgrade, under the truncheons of riot police, Karadzic was packed off into a police van and shipped out of the country.

Now, Imperial satrap Boris the False and his followers love to talk about the Tribunal as "Serbia's international obligation." They are always big on obligations, somehow forgetting their job isn't to fulfill foreigners' demands, but to protect Serbian interests. And that would include, one supposes, upholding the law, from the Constitution on down. Of course, as that would require actually defending Kosovo, giving people they arrest a fair hearing, or not sending riot police to beat up people they don't like, it's too much of a hassle. They'd rather democratically democratize democracy the entire democratic day.

What happened to Karadzic is merely a symptom of a sycophantic, collaborationist regime gone mad. There hasn't been law in Serbia for a very long time. Since 1944, some say (or rather, 1941). Even the "evil Milosevic" still paid lip service to law, however. That's more than his "democratic" successors have done since 2000, embracing rather the all-trumping "convenience." The true purpose of the law, however, was never to bind criminals (they disobey it by definition), but to constrain the government from abusing the innocent-until-proven-guilty. So much for that, then.

For the second time after the October 2000 coup, the government, the media, and the "non-governmental sector" are all under firm control of the same (foreign) interests. The first time was during the martial law in the spring of 2003. Now the boot is treading a bit more softly, but it is still the same boot. And it is still stomping on the human face, forever.

Combo #2, with extra cheese

While I'm pretty sure the BBC employs a political (correctness) commissar, it definitely does not employ fact-checkers. I know, I know, big surprise. But if they did, they would avoid such whoppers as:

"Mr Karadzic declared independence for Bosnian Serbs in 1991..."

Huh? The "Serb Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina" (later renamed just Serb Republic, Republika Srpska) was established in January 1992, following an illegal decision by Muslim and Croat delegates to hold a referendum on "Bosnian" independence. Isn't it great how the BBC puts the cart before the horse?

Oh, but it gets better. Ever since Izetbegovic adopted the name "Bosniak" for people who were previously known as Muslims (in Izetbegovic's youth they were "Croats of Islamic faith," and in the days of his grandfather, "Turks"), foreign journalists have been thoroughly confused.

What's the difference between "Bosnian" and "Bosniak"? To them, none - they've used both terms interchangeably since the war. And hey, if the reporters can't tell the difference, and most of their audience can't tell Bosnia from Botswana, no wonder the ploy to establish Bosnia as the homeland of "Bosniaks" (with Serbs and Croats as vile interlopers) seems to have succeeded.

So what is one to think of this line, used by BBC to describe what Karadzic is wanted for:

He has been indicted for crimes against humanity and genocide over the massacre of up to 8,000 mainly-Muslim Bosniaks at Srebrenica in 1995. (emphasis added)

What in the name of Political Correctness is "mainly-Muslim"? Is that like "a little bit British" or maybe "somewhat-American"?

So, let's see... I'll have a Serbophobia Special, extra cheese. Ultra-size it, BBC, and don't worry about the facts. Not like your audience gives a damn.

Self-righteous phonies

Day three of the propaganda orgy following the arrest of Radovan Karadzic saw the publication of Roger Cohen's diatribe in the International Herald Tribune. It wasn't about Karadzic, or Bosnia, but mostly about Roger Cohen.

Look at this turgid prose: "sharp burst of Serbian violence that opened the war and 'cleansed' wide swathes of the country of non-Serbs, many processed through murderous concentration camps. Pits of bones form the bitter harvest of this genocidal Serbian season."

Oh Roger, not even the authors of the "concentration camp" hoax bother to repeat it any more. But no, there you go, ranting about "pits of bones" and "genocidal Serbian season."

He writes about the "stubbornness of love" he learned from an actor who lost his legs; of "fierceness of moral clarity" he learned from a "beautiful" Muslim woman who saw the world in black and white (with her, of course, as white); and the "quietness of courage" from a Muslim paraplegic who insisted he would always be morally better than the Serb who shot him. All these people exist to teach one Roger Cohen how to be an "advocacy journalist," eschewing objectivity for the sake of passionate reporting "from the heart" and being a "single dissenting voice."

Uh, excuse me? Roger Cohen was never a single, dissenting voice, but rather a part of a thundering chorus of career and aspiring journalists, scribblers, stringers, has-been and wannabe celebrities and various others who saw the tragedy of Bosnia as a way to wealth and fame.

So, what did Roger Cohen do to help Nermin Tulic after his injury? Did he perhaps organize a fundraiser to buy him a powered wheelchair? Or did he note how the Muslim authorities in Sarajevo almost kicked Tulic out on the street? No, because he doesn't really care about Nermin Tulic, unless he can use him to make a point.

How do I know about Tulic? Easy. He was my neighbor, barely a block away. I am from Sarajevo, born and raised. My family has lived in the city for generations. I was there during the war, too. Unlike Roger Cohen, I wasn't there as a tourist or adventurer. While he made fame for himself by peddling propaganda for the "Bosniak cause" I would starve and freeze and dodge bullets. And I would remember things.

I remember seeing Muslim artillery dug in around a playground - only to later hear of children who had played there getting killed after Serb guns returned fire. No one reported that.

I saw the Muslim authorities stealing 3/4 of people's food rations, and warehouses filled with aid from the world over that were set aside for black markets (controlled by the government) and the use of government officials, who dined on roasted lamb while the besieged citizens were starving. No one reported that.

I sat in meetings between Muslim officials and UN officers discussing utility repairs, and heard Muslims refuse to open water and gas valves to their own people as that would look bad on CNN. Roger Cohen didn't report that either. None of his colleagues ever did. And they knew damn well about all of this.

So forgive me if I have little respect for Roger Cohen and his colleagues, who dwell on their self-righteousness against "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide" but who really treat the people who suffered in the war as nothing more than props. They declare themselves the conscience of the world, and then manufacture a twisted reality in which murderers, thieves, terrorists and liars are idolized as "fathers of the nation" or "defenders of multicultural democracy." They talk about justice, but then provide alibis for mass murderers. They can't sleep when they think about Bosnia? Could it be that what's left of their conscience won't let them, because some part of them still knows the sheer wrongness of what they have done?

I don't know. But this kind of sanctimonious bullshit from Roger Cohen and other presstitutes who profited on our pain makes me sick. And sure I hope they all meet the kind of justice they proclaim to believe in.

An Orgy of Lies

The arrest of Radovan Karadzic yesterday (or Friday, as some reports indicate) occasioned an orgy of Serbophobia in the Western press, as wire services, newspapers and TV networks competed in who would trot out more rancid propaganda to "spice up" otherwise factually sparse reports about Karadzic's capture.

Karadzic was thus described as minion of Milosevic (false), a "key organizer" of the Bosnian war (also false), the "Butcher of Bosnia" (that one's new), an architect of "genocide" in Srebrenica (wasn't that supposed to be Mladic?) etc. Dozens of reports I've read have repeated the baseless assertion that Karadzic had disguised himself as an Orthodox priest and hid in monasteries - a claim calculated to defame the Serbian Orthodox Church.

To describe the war itself, the media dug up every trope and cliche from their old clipboards: "Europe's most murderous conflict since the end of World War II" is just one example. Similarly, the siege of Sarajevo was alleged to have killed 12,000 (only if one counts the military fatalities, and then on both sides, could this number possibly be true), and the Bosnian war a "quarter-million" people. I mean, come on, that crap again?

I could also dwell on the lazy (or malicious? you decide) description of what supposedly happened in Srebrenica; to hear the mainstream media say it, Serb forces stormed the unprotected, disarmed civilian town, seized 8,000 men and shot them on the spot. Except none of this - none - is actually true.

It's revolting. It's disgusting. It's normal for the folks that brought us "Kuwaiti incubator babies" and "Saddam's weapons of mass destruction" and God knows how many other lies invented and disseminated to justify the Empire and its wars of conquest.

My next column on Antiwar.com will deal with the Karadzic affair, but I just wanted to express my intense revulsion with this obscene orgy of lies. I've actually survived the war in Bosnia, inside Sarajevo no less. It was terrible enough without presstitutes, pseudo-diplomats and NGO scum making up preposterous stories, as they have for the past 16 years. Everyone claims to be championing the "victims," but they don't; they use the victims to achieve their own ends, be that greater circulation/ratings/awards, conquest and domination, or simply money.

Now, if you want some actual facts about Radovan Karadzic and his role in the Bosnian war, I direct you to an excellent essay by Srdja Trifkovic posted earlier today. But if you are happy to feed on the offal poured down your trough by the mainstream media, what the hell are you doing reading this blog anyway?