Donald Trump should un-recognize 'Kosovo'

 (Originally published March 24, 2019, on Rt.com)

Here is one simple trick US President Donald Trump could pull right now to bolster the rules-based world order, decisively derail Russian criticism of US foreign policy, and stick it to his domestic critics in the process.

All Trump has to do is withdraw the US recognition of ‘Kosovo’, the fake state established as a result of an illegal occupation, following a war that began exactly 20 years ago.

Confused? Unaware? Let me explain. Claiming the government of what was then Yugoslavia was conducting a genocidal campaign against ethnic Albanians in its province of Kosovo (it wasn’t), President Bill Clinton launched what would become a 78-day NATO air campaign to “end human rights abuses” there. What it actually did was displace hundreds of thousands of people – including ethnic Albanians, who even got bombed by NATO on occasion – and turn the province into a NATO protectorate. In 2008, the “Kosovians” declared independence, and have been recognized by around half the UN since then. The other half includes Russia, China, India and – thus far, anyway – Serbia.

But wait, why un-recognize it, then? Wouldn’t that be siding with “adversaries”? Proof of “collusion” with the Kremlin? In a word, no. Correcting this historic mistake would actually disarm the critics of Washington, who currently – and rightly so – point out the US hypocrisy, double standards and selective reasoning.

(Wrong) Message to Russia

In the minds of the architects of the 1999 war, Serbia and Yugoslavia served as a proxy for Russia, a way to send a message to Moscow that “resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform” would not be tolerated by the West. That, by the way, was the argument laid out by John Norris, former aide to the State Department’s topmost Russia hand Strobe Talbott, in a 2005 book, complete with the quote from its preface.

Russia got the message all right: that the West was a duplicitous enemy that could not be trusted. Russian disillusionment with the West can be traced to 1999, and the anger at their government’s surrender to NATO in Yugoslavia, at least to some extent, paved the way for Yeltsin’s surprise resignation and the takeover by one Vladimir Putin.

Putin actually brings up 1999 and Yugoslavia almost every time when he talks about the West, using it as an example of arbitrary and lawless behavior by the US even as Washington talks the talk about the “rules-based world order” supposedly threatened by Russia and China. Speaking of which, Beijing is also nursing a grudge from that war, because its embassy in Belgrade was destroyed by a NATO strike in May 1999. By “mistake,” supposedly.

Fast-forward to 2014, when Crimea rebelled against a US-backed government in Kiev and voted to rejoin Russia. When the US howled in protest, Putin merely said that people who seized Kosovo from Serbia in an illegal war had no leg to stand on:

“It’s beyond double standards. It’s a kind of baffling, primitive and blatant cynicism. One can’t just twist things to fit his interests, to call something white on one day and black on the next one.”

In response, President Barack Obama invented a referendum in Kosovo to justify US actions. Eagle-eyed fact-checkers in the Western media gave him a pass. Don’t you hate when that happens?

Snubbing the Clintons

But wait, there’s more. Back in 2009, Bill Clinton personally unveiled a gilded statue to himself on the central square of the “Kosovian” capital. Three years later, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called independence of Kosovo a “personal” issue to her and her family. A city in Albania actually erected a monument to her in 2016, anticipating her presidential triumph. Emoluments much, anyone?

Senator Bernie Sanders supported the ‘99 war too, prompting one of his senior staffers to resign in protest. Former senator and VP Joe Biden was also a big Kosovo War backer. Meanwhile, Trump was actually critical of the war, if his 1999 interview to Larry King is anything to go by. He hasn’t said much about it since, though.

These days, when Trump talks about “sovereignty” and denounces globalism, Russia responds that maybe the US should respect the sovereignty of others – and brings up Kosovo. Awkward. 

Meanwhile, both liberal and conservative think-tanks in Washington constantly fret over “Russian malign influence” in the Balkans – specifically Serbia – which always amounts to Moscow simply voicing support for UNSCR 1244 and Serbia’s claim to Kosovo. Frustrating!

Values and principles

Critics of the Trump administration, who accuse him of failing to uphold American values abroad, would have to admit it’s virtuous to stop propping up a place that engages in “endemic government corruption; crimes involving violence or threats of violence against journalists; and attacks against members of ethnic minorities or other marginalized communities” per the State Department’s most recent human rights report.

With all that in mind, it becomes obvious that un-recognizing Kosovo would make US foreign policy great again. In one simple step, Trump can demolish Russia’s argument that Washington is cynically applying double standards, and show that no, the US does believe in rules – “and how about that Crimea now, Putin?”

Postscript: 

When I wrote this, five years ago, I accurately predicted such a development was not actually going to happen, because Trump had “turned over foreign policy to warmongers interested only in perpetuating the American Empire the Clintons established in the 1990s by any means necessary.”

But it's a new day. With new opportunities. 

Kosovo: Still an Evil Little War

March 24, 1999 is a date that rightly lives in infamy. On that day, NATO launched an unprovoked war of naked aggression, violating its own charter and international law, while claiming to be on a "humanitarian" mission.

For 78 days, the outnumbered and outgunned Yugoslavia (which would later be split into Serbia and Montenegro) resisted, turning back ground attacks from Albania, capturing a trio of US soldiers, and even shooting down a F-117 "stealth" bomber. In the end, abandoned by all and threatened with carpet bombing, the government in Belgrade accepted a compromise armistice - which NATO immediately tore up, letting the Albanian separatists terrorize the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo.

Thousands died in the war. Tens of thousands have died since, from cancers caused by depleted uranium dust. Most non-Albanians were ethnically cleansed from Kosovo, and the province turned over to warlords and organized crime. In 2008, the province illegally declared independence, which is not yet recognized by the UN.

Thanks to the shameless propaganda and spin, the Kosovo War is considered by most American politicians to be a great success and even a shining example of virtue in the "liberal world order" the US is upholding through its military might. Only one candidate in the 2016 election dared disagree with that conventional wisdom even a little; once elected, he ended up sticking with the inertia of US policy, delivering a pointless "normalization agreement" that did something Israel, a bit for the "personal project" of the Clintons, and nothing at all for the US. He was then replaced by an establishment warmonger.

 

Since the war, Serbia has served as the test bed for the first "color revolution" (October 5, 2000) and turned into a failed state ruled by a succession of servile slugs, each worse than the one before. The Atlantic Empire continued to enable Albanian aggression, in hopes of rekindling its romance with dar-al-Islam even as it bombed and invaded Iraq, Libya and Syria and fomented revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere that claimed even more Muslim lives.

Yet the Kosovo War served as a wake-up call for Russia, which had until then lionized the West even as it was being robbed blind and buried alive by Western "democratizers" and their domestic helpers. Within six months of NATO's land grab, Vladimir Putin was at the helm in the Kremlin. The rest, as they say, is history.

🔻#OTD in 1⃣9⃣9⃣9⃣ @NATO started bombing #Yugoslavia. For the first time since #WWII an aggression was committed against a sovereign European nation, an active participant in the anti-Hitler coalition, one of the @UN founders.
🔻https://t.co/EZqgWPmryq pic.twitter.com/fdPjy0eFz6

— Russian Embassy in USA 🇷🇺 (@RusEmbUSA) March 24, 2021

It is tempting to declare the saga of Kosovo over, 21 years after the war, as the quisling regime in Belgrade is busily recognizing the Albanian land grab. But the Atlantic Empire wouldn't be the first to write the Serbs off and declare them conquered and beaten, only to see them rise again. 

Next year in Prizren. The East Remembers.

(If this sounds familiar, it's because you may have read an earlier version here)

A tale of two civilizations, or why there is hope

Last month, after the coronavirus-delayed Victory Parade in Moscow marking the 75th anniversary of the triumph over Nazi Germany, Russian President Vladimir Putin traveled to nearby Rzhev to unveil a new monument.

The 25-meter memorial pays homage to uncounted Soviet soldiers who perished in the Rzhev salient between 1941 and 1943, in bitter fighting described as a "meat grinder." The monument was reportedly entirely crowdfunded, designed by young architects, and depicts a soldier turning into a flock of cranes.

Cranes have a powerful symbolism in Soviet and Russian memory of WW2. A 1957 film about the suffering of civilians is named "The cranes are flying," and the flock of birds seen in the sky bookends the plot. A decade later, Dagestani poet Rasul Gamzatov will write "Cranes," a heart-rending poem about fallen soldiers turning into white cranes. It was set to music in 1969, and recorded by actor and singer Mark Bernes shortly before he died of cancer. Hence the cranes, you see.

Shortly before the Rzhev monument opened, Putin also unveiled the grand cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, at the heart of a new WW2 museum outside Moscow.

It's interesting to observe the contrast between the West and Russia recently. As the West has been dismantling its monuments, Russia has been erecting massive Orthodox churches, like the new Armed Forces Cathedral, and WWII memorials, like the one of Rzhev, in this month alone. pic.twitter.com/jNyNqCIuBK

— Nina ☦️ Byzantina (@NinaByzantina) June 30, 2020

Meanwhile, the "greatest country in the world" that is fond of deriding Russia as a "gas station with missiles" is undergoing a Cultural Revolution-style purge of monuments, revision of history and destruction of memory. 

It may have started with century-dead Confederate generals, but quickly escalated to Union generals, Catholic saints, Christopher Columbus, and even the founding fathers of the American republic. Absolutely nothing is sacred, and everything must be torn down in the name of intersectional social justice or something. 

This is what a dying civilization looks like. https://t.co/HQeeixN68z

— John Daniel Davidson (@johnddavidson) July 1, 2020

The irony is that, insofar as the monument-toppling revolutionaries have an articulated agenda beyond destruction, it's race-based Communism. Russia went through that starting a century ago, and though it took a while, it has obviously recovered rather well, as physical evidence shows. So, there is hope. Nothing is inevitable. One just has to be willing to learn from the mistakes of others, lest they be repeated. 

On 'historical grievances,' or how to ask the wrong questions

My latest commentary piece for RT (I have my own page there now, you should check it out) tries to explain why the rift between Poland and Russia over recent history is insurmountable. It's not about the history itself, but how the two countries approach it - from two completely different perspectives that are mutually exclusive.

‘While Russia has chosen to regard its #WWII experience in the traditional terms of heroism and sacrifice, Poland has opted for a very postmodern angle of victimhood’

- Nebojsa Malic (@NebojsaMalic)https://t.co/vSjcWu2JSE

— RT (@RT_com) May 23, 2020

I'd like to add some context to what I said there, not because it's necessary for the argument I made - because it stands just fine on its own - but because I know it will reflexively be denounced as "Russian propaganda" because of where it was published.

My own people, the Serbs, have grappled with both sides of this discussion. For instance, the argument how "May 1945 wasn't liberation but the beginning of Communist occupation" has been persuasively made by many a Serb. I explored the reasoning behind it here, back in 2012. But there are important distinctions to be made here.

First of all, the only people in Eastern Europe who can plausibly make the claim that they did not deserve "Communist occupation" are those who did not join the Axis or contribute volunteers to the SS - so basically, Czechs, Poles and Serbs. That said, those three may want to reassess to which extent their plight resulted from trusting Britain, and maybe readjust their blame scale accordingly.

Even the rabidly anti-Communist Serbs don't have the kind of visceral hostility towards Russia displayed today in Czechia or Poland, because they understand that a) Russia is not the Soviet Union, b) ethnic Russians were among the most numerous victims of Communism and c) the USSR had at best a marginal role in bringing Communists to power in Yugoslavia. That last point is obviously not applicable to Czechs and Poles, but it matters.

Much is being made of Soviet "brutality" during the Cold War. Tell me, however, did the Czechs or Poles end up converting the script in which they write, or butchering their languages? Were they partitioned into new and hostile nations, with cultures and values intrinsically opposite to their own? Because that's literally what happened to the Serbs. Did the Soviets cover up the Nazi atrocities against Poles or Czechs, the way Tito minimized the Croatian genocide of Serbs? Even Katyn, the mass execution of captured Polish officers by Stalin's secret police, is nowhere close to the absolute or relative numbers of Serbs killed in the process of imposing Communism on them.

As I hope I've made clear, we'd have a quite a bit of "victim points" in the metaphorical bank. But the postmodern Western narrative in which being a victim is the fountainhead of virtue is alien to us, so we haven't rewritten our history around it.

Meanwhile, the Czechs and Poles were so eager for "freedom" that they rushed into the arms of the EU and NATO. That's not freedom or independence, that's just switching masters. The great irony is that the EU and NATO actually practice nation-destroying cultural, societal and linguistic engineering, the scale and scope of which would make the Soviets blush.

Let's not even get into the sheer hypocrisy of joining NATO in March 1999, even as it had the Luftwaffe launch its first bombing raids since WW2. You really don't want to have that discussion with me.

As for the Russians, I keep hearing from them the same kind of talk that has bedeviled the Serbs for decades, which can be best summed up as "What do we need to do for Them to stop hating us?" To which I try to explain that there is no right answer to what amounts to being the wrong question.

Even if it were somehow conceivable for a self-respecting Russian state to renounces the Soviet heroes of WW2 - which it absolutely should not - it will gain nothing by doing so. The "West" has a problem not with Communism or the Soviet Union, but with Russia itself.

Oh sure, Washington and Brussels talk about democracy, rule of law, freedom of the press, human rights, etc. But one, they don't actually practice any of that at home (and that's an argument I'd enjoy explaining in detail), and two, none of those existed in Russia of the 1990s, when President Boris Yeltsin literally sent tanks to bomb the parliament. Yet Yeltsin was beloved in the West, as was the weak, lawless, subservient Russia of his time. If that doesn't tell you something, I'll just be wasting time drawing you a picture. 

Kosovo is Serbia

March 24 will mark the 21st anniversary of NATO’s occupation of Serbia’s Kosovo province, and so we reaffirm: Kosovo is Serbia. Serbia does not and will not ever recognize Kosovo’s claims of sovereignty. We call on NATO to end its occupation of Kosovo.

NATO’s occupation of Kosovo and its increasing militarization of the province is a threat to the world’s common security. Albanian occupation authorities continue their assault on human rights and fundamental freedoms, brutally silencing critics in civil society and the media, and curtailing religious freedom. Hundreds of individuals from Kosovo, including members of the Serb community, have been imprisoned by NATO-backed ethnic Albanian authorities – and some subjected to torture – for peaceful opposition to the occupation.

Members of the Serb community continue to experience unjustified raids on their homes and churches, surveillance and intimidation by occupation authorities, restrictions on cultural events, and the criminalization of their representatives. Occupation authorities severely limit religious freedom, target religious believers with bogus terrorism charges, and destroy Orthodox Church shrines. Serbia calls on the United States to free all Serbs wrongfully imprisoned in Kosovo in retaliation for their peaceful dissent and to end Albanian abuses of fundamental freedoms in Kosovo.

Twenty one years on, the US and NATO continue to rely on lies and disinformation in their failed attempt to legitimize the illegitimate. Their efforts are doomed to failure. The world will never forget NATO’s unprovoked invasion of Serbia. We condemn NATO’s illegal actions in Kosovo and its continued aggressive actions against Serbia, and will maintain sanctions against the US until NATO returns control of Kosovo to Serbia and fully implements its commitments under UN Security Council Resolution 1244.

(Inspired by this. Only the names were changed. See if you can spot the raging hypocrisy.)

Vucic might be setting up Putin to take the fall on Kosovo

"Once bitten, twice shy" goes the old saying, and Serbs have been bitten a few more times besides. While the Empire is renewing interest in "finishing the job" in the Balkans, Russia is relying on Empire-made Aleksandar Vucic to be the patriot. What could go wrong?

While Moscow treats President Vucic as a credible partner, he reportedly said he was “satisfied” with the Atlantic Council’s proposals and wished they would become official US policy. Having previously conducted an “internal dialogue” with himself on the topic of surrendering the Serbian claim to Kosovo ‒ in the pages of Western-owned newspapers, no less ‒ he now says he’d be happy to hand the issue over to Russia for mediation.

Read the rest in my latest piece on RT. God help us all.

No, THIS is what meddling in elections looks like

What began as isolated cases of Putin Derangement Syndrome years ago morphed into full-blown hysteria in 2016, when the Clinton campaign and its media enablers latched onto the accusations of "Russian hacking" to explain the humiliating disclosure of their plots and operations via internal emails from the DNC and John Podesta's private Gmail account.

On Friday, January 6, the Director of National Intelligence published a "report" basically asserting the Clintonites were right, and that Putin Himself ordered "interference" in US elections through, um... RT? The lion's share of this amateurish collection of "we assess" and "we believe" was devoted to RT, inexplicably relying on a primer produced in 2012 (so, there goes the argument the current conflict is due to 2014 "Russian aggression" in Ukraine...). The report, however, does say that "Disclosures through WikiLeaks did not contain any evident forgeries"  - meaning that the Clintonites lied when they said the purloined emails were being tampered with.

My assessment is that talk of "Russian hacking" is a desperate ploy to argue that Trump's victory was somehow the fault of malicious external forces, rather than Clintonite detachment from reality, logic and the American people. To borrow the Bard's description: A tale told by snarky idiots, full of sound and fury, but signifying nothing.

Now if you want to hear a story of how a country's democracy was actually meddled with... stay awhile and listen.

Turning points

"Things will never be the same as they were just a year ago. For any of us," I wrote this time last year.

I was almost right. For while 2016 was the year of major changes - Brexit, Trump and the victory in Aleppo being the three I would dub the most important - in one corner of the world the Atlantic Empire still reigns supreme.

Serbia is still in thrall of a regime determined to redefine the depths of servility. Its history is still being written by its enemies and kangaroo courts determined to trample all decency in their crusade for global dominion. The Empire has even stretched out its hand to Montenegro, wanting to complete the conquest of the Adriatic.

In that path of that conquest they ran into Russia, which refuses to dishonor its WW2 dead. Moscow seems to have learned the lessons of Yugoslavia, even if Serbia itself has not.

Of course, everything the Empire touches turns to rot, but why worry? It is the natives that suffer all the consequences, and the Imperial leadership that gets all the worshipful attention. Or so the thinking went, until someone appeared to skewer the sacred cow by proposing to restore the Republic.

Those absolutely convinced it was their destiny to rule the Empire refused to learn anything, and kept wallowing in evil in order to maintain the chaos they called order, the desert they called peace. They were so convinced their triumph was ordained in the stars.

They failed. Oh, how they failed. First the British, then the Americans took the off-ramp from ruin that history seldom offers. Now the Imperial elites are flailing about in panic, shrieking conspiracy theories and hatching hapless plots, while Russia holds the high ground.

It is Christmas in Aleppo now, and everywhere the blood-dimmed tide of Empire is receding.

Wake up, my people. We have work to do.

What Putin really said about Trump, Reagan and the DNC

The Atlantic Imperialists really dislike Vladimir Putin. They dislike Russia in principle, as the ultimate "other" - a large, European civilization separate from the post-Roman West. As usual, the Economist is completely wrong: It is really the Empire that sees Russia as an existential threat, because its resurgence provided proof positive that the Western "end of history" paradigm was even desirable, much less inevitable. As for the validity of Western models... how are those working out these days?

Vladimir Putin's goal is to undermine Western democracies whose models present an existential threat to his rule https://t.co/6JUXNKgkTI

— The Economist (@TheEconomist) December 24, 2016

Much has been made of Putin's supposed trolling of the Democrats for being sore losers at the December 23 press conference at the Kremlin. This comes from the same media that kept assuring everyone that Hillary Clinton's presidency was inevitable, so forgive me if I am inclined to take it with a grain of salt. Especially since the actual transcript of Putin's remarks at the marathon year-end press conference paints a different picture (all emphasis mine):

Vladimir Putin: I have commented on this issue on a number of occasions. If you want to hear it one more time, I can say it again. The current US Administration and leaders of the Democratic Party are trying to blame all their failures on outside factors. I have questions and some thoughts in this regard.

We know that not only did the Democratic Party lose the presidential election, but also the Senate, where the Republicans have the majority, and Congress, where the Republicans are also in control. Did we, or I also do that? We may have celebrated this on the “vestiges of a 17th century chapel,” but were we the ones who destroyed the chapel, as the saying goes? This is not the way things really are. All this goes to show that the current administration faces system-wide issues, as I have said at a Valdai Club meeting.

It seems to me there is a gap between the elite’s vision of what is good and bad and that of what in earlier times we would have called the broad popular masses. I do not take support for the Russian President among a large part of Republican voters as support for me personally, but rather see it in this case as an indication that a substantial part of the American people share similar views with us on the world’s organisation, what we ought to be doing, and the common threats and challenges we are facing. It is good that there are people who sympathise with our views on traditional values because this forms a good foundation on which to build relations between two such powerful countries as Russia and the United States, build them on the basis of our peoples’ mutual sympathy.

They would be better off not taking the names of their earlier statesmen in vain, of course. I’m not so sure who might be turning in their grave right now. It seems to me that Reagan would be happy to see his party’s people winning everywhere, and would welcome the victory of the newly elected President so adept at catching the public mood, and who took precisely this direction and pressed onwards to the very end, even when no one except us believed he could win.

The outstanding Democrats in American history would probably be turning in their graves though. Roosevelt certainly would be because he was an exceptional statesman in American and world history, who knew how to unite the nation even during the Great Depression’s bleakest years, in the late 1930s, and during World War II. Today’s administration, however, is very clearly dividing the nation. The call for the electors not to vote for either candidate, in this case, not to vote for the President-elect, was quite simply a step towards dividing the nation. Two electors did decide not to vote for Trump, and four for Clinton, and here too they lost. They are losing on all fronts and looking for scapegoats on whom to lay the blame. I think that this is an affront to their own dignity. It is important to know how to lose gracefully.

But my real hope is for us to build business-like and constructive relations with the new President and with the future Democratic Party leaders as well, because this is in the interests of both countries and peoples.

Deir ez-Zor was no accident

I'm going out on a limb with this - and note that this in no way represents anything but my own, personal opinion - but today's airstrike that killed 62 and injured 100 Syrian soldiers outside of Deir ez-Zor was not an accident. Here's why.

First, the US-led "international coalition" has not previously operated in this area. Though the city is under siege by Islamic State (ISIS), it's an enclave held by the Syrian Arab Army (aka "Assad regime forces" for you mainstream media viewers). There are no US-backed "moderate rebels" anywhere near.

Secondly, the US reaction. The official line is that this was "unintentional." I may have bought that if the strike was conducted solely by F-16s flying at a high altitude, but A-10s are ground-attack planes that can get in low and close. They should have known they were striking a Syrian Army base - especially if they had intelligence on the area, which they say they did.

Now, note the Central Command statement on the incident:

“Syria is a complex situation with various military forces and militias in close proximity, but [the] coalition would not intentionally strike a known Syrian military unit.” 

Not only does the excuse not apply to this particular area, but "would not" does not mean "did not."  

A somber reminder

Last month, I wrote about NATO's takeover of Montenegro as part of the alliance's moves to encircle Russia, arguing that the logical end of this sort of behavior was a "Barbarossa II" invasion. Well, today is the 75th anniversary of the original "Barbarossa,"  which - while spearheaded by Nazi Germany - involved legions of their European "allies and partners."

If that sounds familiar, that's because it is.

Phantom dangers, imperial networks: How Pentagon sees the world (Op-Edge by @NebojsaMalic) https://t.co/7OzqSAOR7p pic.twitter.com/KDkbpnBLZg

— RT (@RT_com) June 22, 2016

Let's not mince words here, folks. In the West - well, the US, specifically - 75 years is a long time and war has become something that happens elsewhere, to other people. Sure, some American soldiers get killed or maimed or driven insane, but those are "heroes defending our freedoms and way of life" and hey, what's Kim Kardashian doing today?

In Russia, there is no family that was not touched by the war that began with an invasion of their country 75 years ago this day, and went on for 1,418 days to claim the lives of 26.6 million. No wonder the Russians remember.

There is a Russian saying, attributed to Prince Aleksander Nevsky of Novgorod: "Whoever comes to us with a sword, will perish by the sword." He put those words in practice in 1242, defeating the Teutonic Knights in the Battle on the Ice.

Many have since tried taking Russia at sword- and gun-point - the Swedish Empire, Grand Duchy Poland-Lithuania, Napoleon's Grande Armee and Hitler's "Anti-Bolshevik Coalition" are just a few examples. All of them not only failed, but their empires perished in the attempt.

There's a lesson there, for those willing and able to learn.

Montenegro, NATO and 'Barbarossa II'

#NATO in Montenegro: Securing the rear before Barbarossa II? (Op-Edge) https://t.co/cQAgqbvZMI pic.twitter.com/7lbFHZLPy6

— RT (@RT_com) May 26, 2016

Yugoslavia was literally decimated, and the USSR lost almost 27 million people fighting the Nazis, only for the modern map of Europe to look eerily like it did in 1942. Many of Hitler’s allies then are NATO members now, and German troops are once again in artillery range of Leningrad (now called St. Petersburg). Having secured Montenegro and expecting no resistance from “softly” occupied Serbia, NATO may be emboldened to act even more aggressively towards Russia. This is madness, of course, but there is an alarming lack of sanity in Brussels and Washington these days.

That is why Montenegro matters.

Read the rest at RT

The next step in fighting "color revolutions"

Ростислав Ищенко: Девять тезисов о войне, которую мы ведемhttps://t.co/mrxM8N0Fa3 pic.twitter.com/5YZOhK6sIU

— Русский новостной (@ZaGraniu) April 29, 2016

I'm highlighting one of nine points from a presentation by political analyst Rostislav Ishchenko (Ростислав Ищенко) at the Russian Defense Ministry's conference on security, April 27-28, on the topic of "color revolutions" (via The Saker, Russian original here). The readers of this blog will quickly understand why.

"This leads us to thesis eight. Color coup can be stopped neither by consolidation of the national elite (it would simply progress to the next scenario), nor by preparedness of its military to fight (it will eventually be exhausted), nor by effective work of the national media (they will be overwhelmed by the technological capabilities of the aggressor).

The preparedness of the victim-state to resist is a necessary, but not sufficient condition to block the mechanisms of the color coup.

Only the support of the legitimate authorities of the victim-country by another superpower able to confront the aggressor-country with equal force in any way with any means can stop color aggression."

This is obviously based on the Syrian example, as Ishchenko himself notes earlier in his presentation. Now that it's clear that Moscow is aware of the key factor in resisting regime change via "color revolution" in the attempt, I'm curious whether Russian policymakers also have plans for rolling back color revolutions that have already taken place, with catastrophic consequences.

Does the superpower have a role to play in that, too, or would the near-impossible task of curing themselves of the Imperial plague be entirely up to the victims?

2015: The year everything changed

Let's start with the obvious and personal: this is the year I found my home as a writer at RT. That has meant more work behind the cameras, rather than in front - though I've had a few of those as well - and a lot more focus on US and world stories, rather than my usual Balkans beat. Between that and the disclaimer on top of the page, that accounts for the relative scarcity of blog posts.

The Balkans has been the sole exception to the year of change. Though the peace in Bosnia has formally turned 20, the quiet, dirty war continues apace, with no end in sight. In Serbia, the quisling regime has continued the policy absolute surrender to the Empire, however gradual (see "frog, boiling of"). Everywhere else, NATO and the Atlantic Empire have reign supreme.

Until the end of September in Syria.

Just days before, Vladimir Putin thundered from the UN General Assembly dais, asking the arrogant Imperials, "Do you even realize what you have done?" The wreckage of Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen testified to the "great success" of Empire's jihad against secular Arab regimes and for Saudi and Turkish interests across the Middle East and Europe.

Then, in just a month, a handful of Russian bombers did more to fight the so-called "Islamic State" than the US-led "coalition" has done in a year. Shamed into actually fighting the terrorists they were hoping to use as proxies, the Imperials still dragged their feet - and had no trouble claiming credit for Russian victories, whether in cutting off the "living pipeline" across the Syrian desert or claiming they were the ones "bringing peace and security to Syria."

The desperate Empire even tried shooting down Russian planes, with Sultan Erdogan clutching NATO's skirts immediately afterwards. The Russian response was polite but firm: air defense systems that have kept the "coalition" mostly out of the Syrian sky, and trade embargoes that have hurt Erdogan's wallet far worse than his pride. If anyone in the Middle East will "have to go," it will be that wannabe-Suleiman, not the Lion of Damascus.

Let it also be said that Erdogan was the one that launched the Great Migration in late 2015, using the trek field-tested by Kosovo Albanians in February. After Angela Merkel of Germany singlehandedly revoked the EU's visa policy, the human wave was all too happy to set off from the squalid Turkish camps towards the promise of German and Scandinavian welfare. The Hungarian fence only diverted them a bit, and temporarily. Along with the Syrians came others, mostly from places where Empire's endless benevolence had established progressive liberal democracy (meaning, feudal oligarchy) through "humanitarian bombing."

With anyone who merely objected to the mass influx was demonized as a bigot, hateful hater, xenophobe or Nazi, the Europeans - and some Americans, too - began to wonder whether they were allowed to have their own countries at all. And so the seeds of the rebellion against the transnational oligarchy were sown, and began to sprout.

Regardless how any of these processes unfold, things will never be the same as they were just a year ago. For any of us.

(again, see the Disclaimer at the top right)

The Essential Saker - now available on Amazon

One of my long-time readers, the Saker soared into prominence last year following the Maidan putsch in Kiev, cutting through the smokescreen of lies about Russia and the Ukraine with his incisive analysis. He has not always been right, but he has been consistently straightforward about his opinions, and that's a rare quality in a blogger these days.

He has also accomplished something that I have only thought about doing, and collected his most important articles into a book. "The essential Saker: From the trenches of the emerging multipolar world" came out yesterday, on Kindle and in hardcover. I would go so far as to describe it as an essential resource for understanding the conflict between the Atlantic Empire and Russia.

I'll strive to post a proper review once I've read through the 600+ pages of the volume, but I confess to skipping ahead to the latter chapters, when he puts the events of Yugoslavia's demise into the context of Empire's war on dissenters. If the Saker's explanation of how the Empire has used Islam and Muslims as a weapon (always to their detriment) is the only thing you take away from the book, it will make a big difference in your understanding of the world today. 

Remember Ukraine?

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

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

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

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

Mad about Serbia

Seeing as it's the anniversary of the 1999 armistice that ended NATO's aggression, and began the Alliance's occupation of Kosovo, I wanted to comment on a recent attempt to force Russia into the US narrative about the Balkans.

Shocking, I know.

A few weeks back (May 22, to be precise), the Washington Times ran an opinion piece by L. Todd Wood about why the Russians love Putin regardless of Western propaganda, sanctions, etc. Wood's explanation is that Putin restored Russia's honor by confronting NATO, "mad" (angry, not crazy) over the 1999 war on Serbia.

Left to right: KLA terror boss Hashim Thaci; NATO viceroy Bernard Kouchner; UK general Michael Jackson
KLA "general" Agim Ceku; US general Wesley Clark. Occupied Kosovo, 1999.

Way to discover the obvious! I've said as much a year ago, and Putin has indeed mentioned 1999's evil little war (seriously, read that) time and again. But Wood appears to be so devoted to the mainstream Western narrative about Russia - and Serbia - that he turns Russia's justified anger over NATO's illegal, illegitimate aggression into some kind of proof that Putin is a fascist.

I'm not using that word lightly, either. Wood literally writes: "Russians would much rather have a leader who makes the trains run on time and can stand up to perceived Western aggression." The particular phrase I italicized up there has been commonly used to describe Benito Mussolini, the father of actual fascism.

The other propaganda trick in that sentence is describing Western behavior as "perceived aggression." Yeah, because when Washington backs an illegal coup and endorses a Russian-hating regime dead-set on glorifying its Nazi ancestors - and proceeds to gruesomely murder anyone who objects - everything's just peachy and any idea this might be wrong or objectionable is entirely in Vladimir Putin's head. Right?

Then there is Wood's description of Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic (my take on him here):

"[Milosevic] presided over a reign of terror in several of the Yugoslav provinces; that is a fact. He used mass media to delegitimize certain ethnic groups and accused them of fascist tendencies, setting up justification for military action. Sound familiar? He turned a blind eye to genocide, especially in Kosovo, and supported ethnic cleansing of Kosovo for Serbia." 

One sentence at a time, shall we?

He did not; this is not a fact, it's pure fiction. What some Serbian media (others were paid by the West and actually defended any and all Serb-killing) pointed out were not "fascist tendencies" but actual fascism (see here, and here, and here). This only "sounds familiar" because Wood is trying to shoehorn Putin into the "mythical Milosevic" mold. That last sentence doesn't even make sense; for years the West accused Milosevic of committing "genocide," and now he's merely supposed to have looked the other way? Well, which is it? Plus, the phrase "ethnic cleansing" actually originated from an Albanian appalled by Albanian efforts to expel or kill the Serbs in the 1980s - efforts that eventually succeeded only thanks to NATO's aggression and the subsequent trampling of the 1999 armistice.

Wood also mentions that Milosevic died in a holding cell while being on trial for genocide by the ICTY. That "court" has been a bonfire of absurdities since its very beginning, but its greatest "accomplishment" surely has to be using third-hand perjured hearsay to accuse the Serbs of genocide by invoking a Nazi Croatian plot to genocide the Serbs. Enough said.

Anyway, in Wood's telling, Putin is as bad as the Very Evil Milosevic, and Russia is just like Serbia only (a lot) bigger. While he doesn't actually follow through to the natural conclusion of that "logic", I have to: therefore, the West (meaning the US, really) must do to Russia what they have done unto Serbia.

Just to be clear, the mainstream Western narrative is that Serbia was "liberated" in October 2000, when a popular revolution (albeit assisted with "suitcases of cash" and overseen by the National Endowment for Democracy and a series of US ambassadors) overthrew the Very Evil Milosevic and introduced the country to progressive liberal democracy and human rights. Naturally, it took several election cycles to "filter out" the "recidivists" until the country could get its Most Progressive Government Ever.

Washington isn't even bothering to hide that the ultimate objective of the sanctions and the propaganda is "regime change" in Moscow. What they want is a return to the 1990s, when Russia was systematically looted by a cabal of US "advisers", while its president was a drunken puppet who shelled the parliament and stole at least one election.

That's the real reason the noun "democracy" and the adjective "liberal" are considered insults in modern Russian, right there on par with "fascist."

(see the Disclaimer at top right of page)

Minsk

Will the new ceasefire bring peace to Ukraine? I think not.

Reading through the points of the agreement reached this morning in Minsk, I am trying to figure out why it took a marathon, all-night session to essentially resurrect the September ceasefire. Aside from some slightly stronger language and specific timelines, to me this looks basically like the same paper. And the only part of "Minsk 1" ever implemented was the OSCE monitoring mission, which has been worse than useless.

Alexander Mercouris believes that the talks were a Franco-German effort to halt the fighting before the Kiev junta suffered a catastrophic defeat; that would have given Washington a pretext to send weapons to the junta, which in turn would have caused a Russian response - and WW3. Fair enough.

(from Colonel Cassad)

Here's a problem, though: as Andrew Korybko points out, Washington wasn't at the talks. While Mercouris thinks that Merkel and Hollande have kept the Atlantic Empire in the loop, this does not mean Washington is bound by the terms of the paper. Then again, the Empire has a history of oath-breaking, so that's a moot point.

It is important to note, as Mercouris has, that this is not a political settlement - not a peace treaty, then. At best, it's a ceasefire with theoretical potential to grow into an armistice. If Kiev abides by it, within a month we should see some steps towards a political settlement. But honestly, what are the odds of that?

I told you so...

It is that time of the year, when one draws the line and tallies up everything that's happened. My overview of 2014 is up today on Antiwar.com.

While I really don't have a habit of saying "I told you so," or even self-promoting much, this passage from last January leaped out at me in the process of writing that article:

As philosopher Alfred Korzybski famously noted, the map is not the territory. Yet both Imperial and EU officials and their regional clients firmly believe that they can magically alter territory by making alterations on the map. Sooner or later, something will put that belief to the test. It may even happen this year.

I would argue this is precisely what the current conflict is all about. The Atlantic Empire asserts it has the sole right to determine reality, right and wrong, virtue and vice, and impose that on the entire world - because of the divine right of "democracy." Russia - and many others - think this is absurd, unacceptable and perhaps even outright evil.

Until now, nobody who wasn't directly under attack made too much of an effort to resist; nobody wanted to become another Serbia, Libya, Iraq, Syria, or any country "improved" by a "color revolution" or two. But now that Russia is under attack, it has no choice but to resist. And others are coming to the realization that "hoping the Empire eats me last" isn't a strategy, but an absence of one.

And when delusions of omnipotence meet the wall of reality, who do you think is going to win? 

The Goal Is Still Regime Change

Last week, when the story came out of USAID's failed “color revolution” in Cuba - using “Serbian music promoters” no less - I thought its airing was just another effort at perception management. For one thing, it was an old story: the initial revelations were made in April. Then there was the fact that everyone was talking about the CIA torture report, so airing this was the perfect way to deflect attention from it, while also ensuring that nobody will pay too much attention to the Cuba fiasco as well.

Instead, the story was a trial balloon for Wednesday's announcement that Washington would lift the embargo on Cuba first imposed during the Kennedy administration.

That's good, right? Uh, not so fast. Consider the phrasing of Obama's announcement: “We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interest.”

Outdated? Why, then, is Washington using the very same approach against Russia, Iran, and other places? Because the US policymakers believe that in those cases, the “sanctions” are working. Just look at the maniacal glee with which Russophobes in the US media are cackling over the manipulated oil price and the equally orchestrated attack on the ruble. Which is, by the way, still a fundamentally stronger currency than the dollar.

So, the blockade wasn't lifted on grounds of the tactic being morally unacceptable for Washington, but because it didn't achieve the desired result (“failed to advance our interest”). That result, however, hasn't changed a bit: it's still “regime change” - in Cuba, in Russia, in any country that continues to believe it is sovereign, free and independent of Washington's commands.

If this all sounds too much like the attitude of the Hunger Games' Capitol towards the rebellious and disenfranchised Districts... well, decide for yourselves whether the resemblance is purely accidental.