Comprehending The Absurd: The U.S. Balkan Policy

Over the past two decades the decisionmakers in Washington have acquired and internalized a bias in Balkan affairs that falls outside the parameters of rational debate. As Doug Bandow of the Cato Institute has noted, such policy is not as inconsistent as it seems: “Time after time the U.S. policy makers would ask what is it that the Serbs want, they would think about it for about five seconds, and reply that it is totally unacceptable.”

Such consistency has had grim results. Their mendacity, as displayed at Rambouillet in February 1999, was on par with the farce of Munich in 1938. In Kosovo their bombs led to a violent secession by an ethnic minority which, in the fullness of time, may render many European borders tentative. In Bosnia-Herzegovina they helped ignite the war in the spring of 1992, notably with U.S. Ambassador Warren Zimmermann’s now notorious mission to Sarajevo. They kept it going in 1993 by torpedoing the European-led peace initiatives. They engineered an outcome in 1995 that could have been obtained in 1992 without a single shot. In Croatia, in August 1995, they aided and abetted the biggest act of ethnic cleansing in post-1945 Europe.

The puzzling question remains: why did America get involved in Balkan affairs, which bear no relationship to U.S. security, involving herself in long-standing and perhaps incurable national conflicts, and consistently acting in bad faith at that?

THE BURDEN OF HISTORY—The U.S. policy in the Balkans made its debut near the end of the First World War. President Wilson, while advocating the creation of Yugoslavia in 1918, did not realize that the unification of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes was at least half-century overdue: the process of separate cultural development and the emergence of mutually incompatible national identities among the South Slavs had been completed. But being a liberal, Wilson did not allow Balkan realities to get in the way of his vision. He blended the Puritan self-righteous zeal with the Progressive Era’s belief in the power of politics to change the world for the better. His concepts of “self-determination,” “enlarging democracy” and “collective security” signaled the birth of a view of America’s role in world affairs which has created—and is still creating—endless problems for America and for the world.

After 1948 Tito came to be perceived as an asset by the U.S. Money, weapons, and warm welcome were soon to follow and continued until the end of the dictator’s life in 1980. Fixated on “Tito’s Yugoslavia” as a factor of Cold War stability, key American leaders disregarded—a decade later—the fact that Tito’s internal boundaries between the federal republics were the root cause of the looming conflict. Arbitrarily designed by the communist winners in the civil war in 1945, they left a third of all Serbs outside Serbia-proper, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Montenegro. For good measure two “autonomous provinces” were carved out of Serbia, one of which—Kosovo—is an almost Serbenfrei quasi-state today.

For as long as Yugoslavia existed the Serbs could nevertheless derive some comfort from the existence of a common Federal framework: it appeared to promise them a measure of security from the repetition of the nightmare of 1941-45. When Yugoslavia started unraveling, however, in 1991-92, they were determined to resist any attempt by the breakaway republics to force millions of Serbs to become insecure and disliked minorities in their own land.

POLITICAL ESSENCE OF THE WARS—In Croatia in 1991 and in Bosnia in 1992 the Serbs reacted in the same manner as the Americans of Texas, Arizona or New Mexico may react—10 or 20 years from now—if they are outvoted by a Latino majority demanding that those states be reabsorbed into Mexico, or into a contrived “Republic of the North.” For those who discount such outcomes, let us remember history. For example, the Protestant Ulstermen fought, demanded, and were given the right to stay in the United Kingdom when the Irish nationalists opted for secession in 1921. A second poignant illustration is the creation of the State of West Virginia in 1863 when—during the Civil War—the Union annexed the counties of the Commonwealth of Virginia that rejected secession. When comparing the paradigms, the Loyalists of Ulster and the Unionists of West Virginia were just as guilty of a “Joint Criminal Enterprise” to break up Ireland, or the Old Dominion, as were the Serbs of Bosnia-Herzegovina who did not want to be dragged into secession by the Muslim plurality.

Yugoslavia was a flawed polity, and in principle there should have been no objection to the striving of Croats or Bosnian Muslims to create their own nation-states. But equally there could have been no justification for forcing over two million Serbs west of the Drina River to be incorporated into those states against their will. Yugoslavia came together in 1918 as a union of South Slav peoples, and not as a federation of states or territorial units. Its divorce, once it became inevitable, should have proceeded on the same basis. This has been the key foundation of the Yugoslav conflict ever since the first shots were fired in May 1991.

The political essence of the wars of Yugoslav disintegration has been systematically hidden or distorted in the Western mainstream media, academia, and political forums, behind the portrayal of the Serbs as primitive ultranationalists who seek to conquer other peoples’ lands by violent means. The demonization of the Serbs was an exercise in social constructivism, depressingly effective in its crude simplicity. As early as 1992 the media pack equated the brutalities of the Balkans with the Holocaust. Once the paradigm matured with the myth of the “Srebrenica Genocide,” and once any doubters were equated with holocaust deniers, the possibilities for mendacity were limitless. Its fruits will be with us for decades to come.

UNDERSTANDING THE ABSURD—At the level of institutionalized corruption which passes for the political process in Washington D.C. the Yugoslav policy was the end-result of the interaction of pressure groups within the power structure: finding a new role for NATO, earning points in the Muslim world, caving in to ethnic lobbying, pandering to the military-industrial complex, isolating Russia, controlling strategic routes between Europe and the Middle East, and above all cementing American global hegemony. The influence of organized political lobbies in Washington was not decisive, but it should not be underestimated. Anti-Serb lobbies, notably Albanian-Americans, have been well-funded and well-placed for decades, while today (as in the past) the “Serbian lobby” does not exist. As James Jatras has noted, well before the outbreak of hostilities in 1991, the Serbs had already been branded the bad guys. Combined with media reinforcement, much false information was and still is accepted as unquestionable fact.

The Bosnian war transformed NATO into a tool of U.S. hegemony and it opened the door to the renewal of American dominance in European affairs to an extent not seen since Kennedy. As the late Richard Holbrooke put it, Dayton demonstrated that Europeans were not capable of resolving their own problems and that America was still the “indispensable nation.” He boasted, a year later, “We are re-engaged in the world, and Bosnia was the test.”

It is undeniable that geopolitical-strategic factors have played a role in defining the Balkan policy in Washington. Such “rational” reasons are not sufficient, however, to explain the zeal of successive administrations in pursuing a premeditatedly duplicitous anti-Serb policy. The clue is not in the realm of tangible strategic benefits and geopolitical assets, of transit corridors, oil and gas pipelines, lignite and zinc reserves, or military bases such as Camp Bondsteel. The key is in the desire of the Western elite class to use the Balkans as a testing ground for their emerging postmodernist, postnational project. They know that Kosovo is more than a piece of real estate, that it is to the Serbs what Alamo is to Texans or Jerusalem to Jews, that taking it away and letting its churches and monasteries be demolished is an unprecedented exercise in ethnocide. They condoned the Albanian barbarity because they saw the demolition of a small nation steeped in tradition of heroism and martyrdom—the Kosovo saga embodies it perfectly—as a step in the direction of a U.S.-dominated post-national world based on propositional abstractions.

This is the cue to the treatment of the Serbs by the U.S. political and media decision-makers over the past two decades. On the ruins of real nations, the rhetoric of “universal human rights” is imposed as the new basis for law and morality. The Serbs were merely a litmus test. The slogan of choice is multicultural democracy, irrespective of the wishes of the citizens of the particular territory involved—unless it is Serbs who wish to maintain a multi-ethnic state, in which case secession is the West’s preferred policy.

PANDERING TO ISLAMIC MILITANTS—In 1980 the U.S. supported hard-core Islamists in the insurgency against the Soviets in Afghanistan. That decision was a strategic mistake of the highest order: it prompted the release of the Jihadist genie from a bottle that had remained sealed for almost three centuries after the siege of Vienna. Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski’s “brilliant idea”—as he called the Afghan covert action almost two decades after the event—meant that hundreds of millions, and eventually billions of dollars were poured into the coffers and arsenals of people who openly stated their intention to rebuild an early-medieval theocracy in Afghanistan.

The fruits went beyond the jihadists’ wildest dreams. Brzezinski will go down in history as the man who did for Bin Laden what the Kaiser did for Lenin by providing him with that sealed train in 1917. Two “liberal” interventions on the side of the Balkan Muslims, in Bosnia and Kosovo, ensued in the 1990s. The most tangible result of promoting “common ideals and interests in this globalized world” by NATO bombs is the existence of a vibrant, hard-core jihadist base in the heart of Europe that has had a connection with every major terrorist attack in the past decade. Even 9/11 itself had a Bosnian Connection: Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, who planned the 9/11 attacks, was a seasoned veteran of the Bosnian jihad, as were two of the hijackers.

In spite of all other unresolved domestic and foreign issues, at a time when the U.S. power and authority are challenged around the world, key players in President Obama’s team still look upon the Balkans as the last geopolitically significant area where they can assert their “credibility” by postulating a maximalist set of objectives as the only outcome acceptable to the United States, and duly insisting on their fulfillment. We have already seen this pattern with Kosovo, and we’ve seen an attempt to stage its replay in Bosnia under the ongoing demand for unitarization.

The U.S. policy in the Balkans—just like its policy in Libya last year and in Syria today –facilitates the jihadist agenda. American goals paradoxically coincide with the regional objectives of those same Islamists who confront America in other parts of the world. Far from enhancing peace and regional stability, such policies continue to encourage pan-Islamic agitation for the completion of an uninterrupted Green Corridor in the Balkans by linking its as yet unconnected segments. It destabilizes Bosnia by encouraging constant Muslim demands for the abolition of the Republika Srpska, and it destabilizes Serbia in the Raska region (“Sanjak”). It encourages greater-Albanian aspirations against Macedonia, Montenegro, Greece, and Serbia. It encourages escalation of Turkey’s neo-Ottoman ambitions in the region. It is destructive and harmful.

In all cases the immediate bill will be paid by the people of the Balkans, as it is already being paid by Kosovo’s disappearing Serbs; but long-term costs of the U.S. policy in the Balkans will haunt the West. By encouraging its Albanian clients to proclaim independence, the U.S. administration has made a massive leap into the unknown, potentially on par with Austria’s July 1914 ultimatum to Serbia. The fruits will be equally bitter. In the fullness of time both America and Europe will come to regret the criminal folly of their current leaders. Remarkably, the continuing automatic-pilot policy directed against the Serbs is taking place without any serious debate in Washington on the ends and uses of American power, in the Balkans or anywhere else. Obama’s and Bush’s rhetoric differ, but they are one regime, identical in substance and consequence. Its leading lights will go on disputing the validity of the emerging balance-of-power system because they reject the legitimacy of any power in the world other than that of the United States, controlled and exercised by themselves. Theirs is, indeed, the global equivalent of the Brezhnev Doctrine.

The quest for hegemony leads to a counter-coalition which defeats it. The proponents of American exceptionalism nevertheless scoff at history’s warnings provided by Napoleon’s defeat in 1815, the Kaiser’s in 1918, or Hitler’s in 1945, as inapplicable in the post-history that they seek to construct. They confront the argument that no vital American interest worthy of risking a major war is involved in Georgia, or Syria, or the Balkans, with the claim that the whole world is America’s near-abroad. It is therefore essential for the emerging powers to refuse in principle to accept the validity of Washington’s ideological assumptions and the legitimacy of its associated geopolitical claims. At the same time, the key “liberal hawks” in the Obama Administration remain anchored in Madeleine Albright’s hubris: “If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall.”

The premises of an imperial presidency—which in world affairs translates into the quest for dominance and justification for interventionism—remain unchallenged, as we are witnessing in Syria today and as we shall witness in Iran tomorrow. (We are witnessing it in America, too, with Obama’s unrestrained use of the Presidential executive order—an extreme emergency measure—as a tool for overriding the will of the Legislative branch.) American meddling in the Balkans has been paradigmatic of the problem. It remains unaffected by the ongoing financial crisis manifest in a 16-trillion public debt, just as Moscow’s late-Cold War adventurism—so tragically manifested in Afghanistan—was enhanced, rather than curtailed, by the evident shortcomings of the Soviet political and economic system.

[Excerpts from Dr. Trifkovic’s paper presented in Belgrade at The Gorchakov Foundation conference European Security: The Balkan Angle on June 27, 2012.]

The Saga of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and Wikileaks

“Defense lawyers say Manning was clearly a troubled young soldier whom the Army should never have deployed to Iraq or given access to classified material while he was stationed there … They say he was in emotional turmoil, partly because he was a gay soldier at a time when homosexuals were barred from serving openly in the U.S. armed forces.” (Associated Press, February 3)

It’s unfortunate and disturbing that Bradley Manning’s attorneys have chosen to consistently base his legal defense upon the premise that personal problems and shortcomings are what motivated the young man to turn over hundreds of thousands of classified government files to Wikileaks. They should not be presenting him that way any more than Bradley should be tried as a criminal or traitor. He should be hailed as a national hero. Yes, even when the lawyers are talking to the military mind. May as well try to penetrate that mind and find the freest and best person living there. Bradley also wears a military uniform.

Here are Manning’s own words from an online chat: “If you had free reign over classified networks … and you saw incredible things, awful things … things that belonged in the public domain, and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC … what would you do? … God knows what happens now. Hopefully worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms. … I want people to see the truth … because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public.”

Is the world to believe that these are the words of a disturbed and irrational person? Do not the Nuremberg Tribunal and the Geneva Conventions speak of a higher duty than blind loyalty to one’s government, a duty to report the war crimes of that government?

Below is a listing of some of the things revealed in the State Department cables and Defense Department files and videos. For exposing such embarrassing and less-than-honorable behavior, Bradley Manning of the United States Army and Julian Assange of Wikileaks may spend most of their remaining days in a modern dungeon, much of it while undergoing that particular form of torture known as “solitary confinement”. Indeed, it has been suggested that the mistreatment of Manning has been for the purpose of making him testify against and implicating Assange. Dozens of members of the American media and public officials have called for Julian Assange’s execution or assassination. Under the new National Defense Authorization Act, Assange could well be kidnaped or assassinated. What century are we living in? What world?

It was after seeing American war crimes such as those depicted in the video “Collateral Murder” and documented in the “Iraq War Logs,” made public by Manning and Wikileaks, that the Iraqis refused to exempt US forces from prosecution for future crimes. The video depicts an American helicopter indiscriminately murdering several non-combatants in addition to two Reuters journalists, and the wounding of two little children, while the helicopter pilots cheer the attacks in a Baghdad suburb like it was the Army-Navy game in Philadelphia.

The insistence of the Iraqi government on legal jurisdiction over American soldiers for violations of Iraqi law — something the United States rarely, if ever, accepts in any of the many countries where its military is stationed — forced the Obama administration to pull the remaining American troops from the country.

If Manning had committed war crimes in Iraq instead of exposing them, he would be a free man today, as are the many hundreds/thousands of American soldiers guilty of truly loathsome crimes in cities like Haditha, Fallujah, and other places whose names will live in infamy in the land of ancient Mesopotamia.

Besides playing a role in writing finis to the awful Iraq war, the Wikileaks disclosures helped to spark the Arab Spring, beginning in Tunisia.

When people in Tunisia read or heard of US Embassy cables revealing the extensive corruption and decadence of the extended ruling family there — one long and detailed cable being titled: “CORRUPTION IN TUNISIA: WHAT’S YOURS IS MINE” — how Washington’s support of Tunisian President Ben Ali was not really strong, and that the US would not support the regime in the event of a popular uprising, they took to the streets.

Here is a sample of some of the other Wikileaks revelations that make the people of the world wiser:

• In 2009 Japanese diplomat Yukiya Amano became the new head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which plays the leading role in the investigation of whether Iran is developing nuclear weapons or is working only on peaceful civilian nuclear energy projects. A US embassy cable of October 2009 said Amano “took pains to emphasize his support for U.S. strategic objectives for the Agency. Amano reminded the [American] ambassador on several occasions that … he was solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons program.”
• Russia refuted US claims that Iran has missiles that could target Europe.
• The British government’s official inquiry into how it got involved in the Iraq War was deeply compromised by the government’s pledge to protect the Bush administration in the course of the inquiry.
• A discussion between Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh and American Gen. David H. Petraeus in which Saleh indicated he would cover up the US role in missile strikes against al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen. “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours,” Saleh told Petraeus.
• The US embassy in Madrid has had serious points of friction with the Spanish government and civil society: a) trying to get the criminal case dropped against three US soldiers accused of killing a Spanish television cameraman in Baghdad during a 2003 unprovoked US tank shelling of the hotel where he and other journalists were staying; b )torture cases brought by a Spanish NGO against six senior Bush administration officials, including former attorney general Alberto Gonzales; c) a Spanish government investigation into the torture of Spanish subjects held at Guantánamo; d) a probe by a Spanish court into the use of Spanish bases and airfields for American extraordinary rendition (= torture) flights; e )continual criticism of the Iraq war by Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero, who eventually withdrew Spanish troops.
• State Department officials at the United Nations, as well as US diplomats in various embassies, were assigned to gather as much of the following information as possible about UN officials, including Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon, permanent security council representatives, senior UN staff, and foreign diplomats: e-mail and website addresses, internet user names and passwords, personal encryption keys, credit card numbers, frequent flyer account numbers, work schedules, and biometric data. US diplomats at the embassy in Asunción, Paraguay were asked to obtain dates, times and telephone numbers of calls received and placed by foreign diplomats from China, Iran and the Latin American leftist states of Cuba, Venezuela and Bolivia. US diplomats in Romania, Hungary and Slovenia were instructed to provide biometric information on “current and emerging leaders and advisers” as well as information about “corruption” and information about leaders’ health and “vulnerability”. The UN directive also specifically asked for “biometric information on ranking North Korean diplomats”. A similar cable to embassies in the Great Lakes region of Africa said biometric data included DNA, as well as iris scans and fingerprints.
• A special “Iran observer” in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku reported on a dispute that played out during a meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council. An enraged Revolutionary Guard Chief of Staff, Mohammed Ali Jafari, allegedly got into a heated argument with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and slapped him in the face because the generally conservative president had, surprisingly, advocated freedom of the press.
• The State Department, virtually alone in the Western Hemisphere, did not unequivocally condemn a June 28, 2009 military coup in Honduras, even though an embassy cable declared: “there is no doubt that the military, Supreme Court and National Congress conspired on June 28 in what constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup against the Executive Branch”. US support of the coup government has been unwavering ever since.
• The leadership of the Swedish Social Democratic Party — neutral, pacifist, and liberal Sweden, so the long-standing myth goes — visited the US embassy in Stockholm and asked for advice on how best to sell the war in Afghanistan to a skeptical Swedish public, asking if the US could arrange for a member of the Afghan government to come visit Sweden and talk up NATO’s humanitarian efforts on behalf of Afghan children, and so forth. [For some years now Sweden has been, in all but name, a member of NATO and the persecutor of Julian Assange, the latter to please a certain Western power.]
• The US pushed to influence Swedish wiretapping laws so communication passing through the Scandinavian country could be intercepted. The American interest was clear: Eighty per cent of all the internet traffic from Russia travels through Sweden.
• President of the European Council Herman Van Rompuy told US embassy officials in Brussels in January 2010 that no one in Europe believed in Afghanistan anymore. He said Europe was going along in deference to the United States and that there must be results in 2010, or “Afghanistan is over for Europe.”
• Iraqi officials saw Saudi Arabia, not Iran, as the biggest threat to the integrity and cohesion of their fledgling democratic state. The Iraqi leaders were keen to assure their American patrons that they could easily “manage” the Iranians, who wanted stability; but that the Saudis wanted a “weak and fractured” Iraq, and were even “fomenting terrorism that would destabilize the government”. The Saudi King, moreover, wanted a US military strike on Iran.
• Saudi Arabia in 2007 threatened to pull out of a Texas oil refinery investment unless the US government intervened to stop Saudi Aramco from being sued in US courts for alleged oil price fixing. The deputy Saudi oil minister said that he wanted the US to grant Saudi Arabia sovereign immunity from lawsuits
• Saudi donors were the chief financiers of Sunni militant groups like Al Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, and Lashkar-e-Taiba, which carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
• Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company, hired investigators to unearth evidence of corruption against the Nigerian attorney general in order to persuade him to drop legal action over a controversial 1996 drug trial involving children with meningitis.
• Oil giant Shell claimed to have “inserted staff” and fully infiltrated Nigeria’s government.
• The Obama administration renewed military ties with Indonesia in spite of serious concerns expressed by American diplomats about the Indonesian military’s activities in the province of West Papua, expressing fears that the Indonesian government’s neglect, rampant corruption and human rights abuses were stoking unrest in the region.
• US officials collaborated with Lebanon’s defense minister to spy on, and allow Israel to potentially attack, Hezbollah in the weeks that preceded a violent May 2008 military confrontation in Beirut.
• Gabon president Omar Bongo allegedly pocketed millions in embezzled funds from central African states, channeling some of it to French political parties in support of Nicolas Sarkozy.
• Cables from the US embassy in Caracas in 2006 asked the US Secretary of State to warn President Hugo Chávez against a Venezuelan military intervention to defend the Cuban revolution in the eventuality of an American invasion after Castro’s death.
• The United States was concerned that the leftist Latin American television network, Telesur, headquartered in Venezuela, would collaborate with al Jazeera of Qatar, whose coverage of the Iraq War had gotten under the skin of the Bush administration.
• The Vatican told the United States it wanted to undermine the influence of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez in Latin America because of concerns about the deterioration of Catholic power there. It feared that Chávez was seriously damaging relations between the Catholic church and the state by identifying the church hierarchy in Venezuela as part of the privileged class.
• The Holy See welcomed President Obama’s new outreach to Cuba and hoped for further steps soon, perhaps to include prison visits for the wives of the Cuban Five. Better US-Cuba ties would deprive Hugo Chávez of one of his favorite screeds and could help restrain him in the region.
• The wonderful world of diplomats: In 2010, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown raised with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton the question of visas for two wives of members of the “Cuban Five”. “Brown requested that the wives (who have previously been refused visas to visit the U.S.) be granted visas so that they could visit their husbands in prison. … Our subsequent queries to Number 10 indicate that Brown made this request as a result of a commitment that he had made to UK trade unionists, who form part of the Labour Party’s core constituency. Now that the request has been made, Brown does not intend to pursue this matter further. There is no USG action required.”
• UK Officials concealed from Parliament how the US was allowed to bring cluster bombs onto British soil in defiance of a treaty banning the housing of such weapons.
• A cable was sent by an official at the US Interests Section in Havana in July 2006, during the runup to the Non-Aligned Movement conference. He noted that he was actively looking for “human interest stories and other news that shatters the myth of Cuban medical prowess”. [Presumably to be used to weaken support for Cuba amongst the member nations at the conference.]
• Most of the men sent to Guantánamo prison were innocent people or low-level operatives; many of the innocent individuals were sold to the US for bounty.
• DynCorp, a powerful American defense contracting firm that claims almost $2 billion per year in revenue from US tax dollars, threw a “boy-play” party for Afghan police recruits. (Yes, it’s what you think.)
• Even though the Bush and Obama Administrations repeatedly maintained publicly that there was no official count of civilian casualties, the Iraq and Afghanistan War Logs showed that this claim was untrue.
• Known Egyptian torturers received training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia.
• The United States put great pressure on the Haitian government to not go ahead with various projects, with no regard for the welfare of the Haitian people. A 2005 cable stressed continued US insistence that all efforts must be made to keep former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whom the United States had overthrown the previous year, from returning to Haiti or influencing the political process. In 2006, Washington’s target was President René Préval for his agreeing to a deal with Venezuela to join Caracas’s Caribbean oil alliance, PetroCaribe, under which Haiti would buy oil from Venezuela, paying only 60 percent up front with the remainder payable over twenty-five years at 1 percent interest. And in 2009, the State Department backed American corporate opposition to an increase in the minimum wage for Haitian workers, the poorest paid in the Western Hemisphere.
• The United States used threats, spying, and more to try to get its way at the crucial 2009 climate conference in Copenhagen.
• Mahmoud Abbas, president of The Palestinian National Authority, and head of the Fatah movement, turned to Israel for help in attacking Hamas in Gaza in 2007.
• The British government trained a Bangladeshi paramilitary force condemned by human rights organisations as a “government death squad”.
• A US military order directed American forces not to investigate cases of torture of detainees by Iraqis.
• The US was involved in the Australian government’s 2006 campaign to oust Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare.
• A 2009 US cable said that police brutality in Egypt against common criminals was routine and pervasive, the police using force to extract confessions from criminals on a daily basis.
• US diplomats pressured the German government to stifle the prosecution of CIA operatives who abducted and tortured Khalid El-Masri, a German citizen. [El-Masri was kidnaped by the CIA while on vacation in Macedonia on December 31, 2003. He was flown to a torture center in Afghanistan, where he was beaten, starved, and sodomized. The US government released him on a hilltop in Albania five months later without money or the means to go home.]
• 2005 cable re “widespread severe torture” by India, the widely-renowned “world’s largest democracy”: The International Committee of the Red Cross reported: “The continued ill-treatment of detainees, despite longstanding ICRC-GOI [Government of India] dialogue, have led the ICRC to conclude that New Delhi condones torture.” Washington was briefed on this matter by the ICRC years ago. What did the United States, one of the world’s leading practitioners and teachers of torture in the past century, do about it? American leaders, including the present ones, continued to speak warmly of “the world’s largest democracy”; as if torture and one of the worst rates of poverty and child malnutrition in the world do not contradict the very idea of democracy.
• The United States overturned a ban on training the Indonesian Kopassus army special forces — despite the Kopassus’s long history of arbitrary detention, torture and murder — after the Indonesian President threatened to derail President Obama’s trip to the country in November 2010.
• Since at least 2006 the United States has been funding political opposition groups in Syria, including a satellite TV channel that beams anti-government programming into the country.

Afghanistan – Failed War From A False Empire

What did the last decade accomplish in the occupation of Afghanistan? Other than streamlining the opium shipment trade, what did this foreign expedition achieve?Wikipedia reports, “As of December 29, 2011, there have been 2,765 coalition deaths in Afghanistan as part of ongoing coalition operations (Operation Enduring Freedom and ISAF) since the invasion in 2001.” This may seem a small number by recent loss standards, but the excuse of fighting the CIA invention and bogyman, Al Qaeda is the height of hypocrisy.Not much, comfort for the Pat Tillman family or confidence in the inept cover-up mission to silence would be whistleblowers. The convenient idiot Osama bin Laden overstayed his usefulness. Too bad that Seal Team 6 knew too much to risk their loyalty on future escapades. The sick foreign policy that orders the ritual killings of their own military trained assassins offers up their heroes as necessary sacrifices for the New World Order.

The Insider provides several mainstream media references in the article; CIA created al-Qaeda and gave $3 BILLION to Osama bin Laden. “The US government trained, armed, funded and supported Osama bin Laden and his followers in Afghanistan during the cold war. With a huge investment of $3,000,000,000 (three billion US dollars), the CIA effectively created and nurtured bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network using American tax-payers money.”The definitive source in opposition to the Afghanistan debacle, antiwar.com is invaluable. Back in 2009, Philip Giraldi wrote inThe Cost of War:

“Why are these wars so expensive? The main supply route starts in Karachi, Pakistan, and works its way up through the Khyber Pass, at which point the truck convoys are frequently attacked by insurgents. When a convoy is destroyed the US Army assumes the loss as no one will insure such a perilous enterprise. Sometimes the trucking companies pay off the attackers to be left alone, ironically putting US taxpayer-provided money into the hands of those seeking to kill American soldiers.

The Pentagon estimates that the cost of fuel delivered to the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq averages $45 per gallon, including all expenses but excluding legacy costs like interest on borrowing money to buy the fuel in the first place.

A total of one trillion dollars has been spent already in Iraq and in Afghanistan but legacy costs to include paying off the money that was borrowed and medical care for the many thousands of wounded soldiers and marines will drive the total cost of the war past the $5 trillion dollar mark even if the two wars were to end tomorrow.”

 

Over two years ago, a video entitled, Afghanistan War Is a Failure provided a visual account of the “so called” progress on the ground. The NeoCon “chicken hawks” will dismiss the losses as regrettable but necessary. That is the basic issue. What is essential about keeping foreign legions on distant soils when the cause for such deployment is based upon a false premise? As long as the phony war on terror is used to wage aggressive warfare and maintain a permanent garrison presence, victory will never bring national security.The conflict between using military combat forces and private contractors for implementing search and destroy operations poses a serious issue. While both are voluntary participants, the public would want to deny that each is a mercenary. Separated by the pay scale may seem harsh to many, but the patriotic enlistee is often in training to become a Blackwater thug. Burning Koran’s is just learning the drill before graduating to work for the corporate elite.

Now the Uniform Code of Military Justice is certainly a welcome standard for conduct, but pirate Xe Services armies, are restrained only by their own demons. Such reliance on using private black bag enforcers is hardly consistent with the illusive notion of nation building. Endemic corruption is inevitable when money and brute force controls the border. Paying tribute in order to wage war exemplifies the absurdity of the military machine. Their only fear is the ending of the campaign.

 

The You Tube Blackwater / Xe May Get $1 Billion Afghanistan Training Contract Despite Failure with Border Police video illustrates this sentiment.Aspiring Rambo’s fighting the next Charlie Wilson’s exploit lacks the self-defense excuse of being the victim of First Blood. The Taliban that was shipped stinger missiles to defeat the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan were the product of a policy gone awry. Selig Harrisonfrom the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars states,

“The CIA made a historic mistake in encouraging Islamic groups from all over the world to come to Afghanistan.” The US provided $3 billion for building up these Islamic groups, and it accepted Pakistan’s demand that they should decide how this money should be spent.”

The consequences of this legacy are devastating. The covert army that operates in Afghanistan to engage in Obama’s Wars is a well-known fact. Author of Watergate fame, Bob Woodward reveals in his book, that the C.I.A. has a 3,000 man “covert army” in Afghanistan counterterrorism pursuit teams

Called, “C.T.P.T., mostly Afghans who capture and kill Taliban fighters and seek support in tribal areas. Past news accounts have reported that the C.I.A. has a number of militias, including one trained on one of its compounds, but nothing the size of the covert army.

Mr. Woodward reveals the code name for the C.I.A.’s drone missile campaign in Pakistan, Sylvan Magnolia, and writes that the White House was so enamored of the program that Mr. Emanuel would regularly call the C.I.A. director, Leon E. Panetta, asking, “Who did we get today?”

 

The video 3,000 CIA-trained Afghan assassins in Afghanistan and Pakistan, expands on this operation. Roaming goon squads inflicting increased levels of atrocities is a demented extension of an evil empire.Historically, Afghanistan is probably one of the least desirable locations to carry on maneuvers. However, the imperialist empire must demonstrate its ability to project and drone anyone to death. It seems that all the hard-learned lessons of Viet Nam are lost. The memory banks of the officers that direct and carry out the dictates of a civilian authority, who love to play soldier, pervert their command. Playing video games is not entertainment when human body parts explode from bombs that rain down from the sky.

Standing down and rejecting unlawful orders are the supreme duty that escapes most military careerists. The fear of Courts Martial proceedings 10 U.S.C. § 502 and 5 U.S.C. § 3331 keep the system shouting gung-ho.
 

“It seems appropriate that military members swear to support and defend the Constitution of the United States rather than simply swearing to support and defend the United States simpliciter. This is significant. It means that military members are more than just neutral tools of the political party in power. This oath places an affirmative responsibility on military members to read and understand the Constitution, to recognize the source and limits of the authority they have, and to uphold the specific system of government that the Constitution sets forth.”

The Afghanistan adventure, in now the longest imperium war, that even the mass media laments. ABC news observes,

“Vietnam and Afghanistan do have this much in common: they are distant, profoundly complex, and ill-understood campaigns. Not surprisingly, then, they defy easy resolutions. And, in their own ways, these two wars have tested the mettle and patience of a nation.”

The “mettle and patience” of the military is the real concern. As long as there is no draft, crisis of conscience are confined to those who succumb to obeying illegal orders for trumped up assignments. The American empire is a prime cause and reason for the destruction of the nation. The government is not the country nor is it legitimate when it acts as a belligerent.

The War on Terror is a pseudo fraud. Claims of an existential threat to America are bogus. The despotic War Party regime that fosters continuous international intervention wants a perpetual state of war. The hysteria that keeps citizens in a self-delusional trance pushes the military into uninterrupted carnage.

Alexander the Great discovered the limits of the Macedonian empire in Afghanistan. The English also discovered the hard way. Rudyard Kipling’s poem THE YOUNG BRITISH SOLDIER sums up well.

When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,

And the women come out to cut up what remains,

Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

An’ go to your Gawd like a soldier.

Go, go, go like a soldier,

Go, go, go like a soldier,

Go, go, go like a soldier,

So-oldier ~of~ the Queen!

A CIA report concludes that the lessons learned from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan indicate: “There is no single piece of land in Afghanistan that has not been occupied by a Soviet soldier . . . no single military problem that has arisen and not been solved, and yet there is still no result.” Unfortunately, the most prolific attribute of American foreign policy is stupidity. The palpable explanation is that the best interests of the country are suppressed for the benefits of the ruling global elite. It is time to recognize that ill-placed patriotism is a guarantee for destruction.

Threats & Bribes: Why U.S. Troops Will Never Leave Afghanistan

I read somewhere that if you want your children to do what you tell them to do, there are only two things that actually work:  Threats and bribes.  Well, the same thing should be true with regard to international relations — but it’s not.

Internationally speaking, threats and bribes have obviously gotten American corporatist leaders absolutely nowhere.

After decades and decades of administering extremely serious threats and fantastically huge bribes (involving both Cold Wars and hot), American corporatists still aren’t even close to being obeyed — or even respected — by most other countries on this planet.  American corporatists nowadays are just simply being hated.

Instead of having other countries instantly obey Washington and Wall Street like they were a bunch of obedient and/or traumatized children, all these so-called “kids” obviously have become passive-aggressive haters instead — and sometimes not all that passive as well.

Take Pakistan for instance.  In 1947, shortly after it had become a nation, Pakistan willingly and happily signed on to become one of America’s most important allies in the Great Game.  And now, as of May 2011, diplomatic ties between Pakistan and the U.S. have completely disintegrated — but only after a very long time (60 years-plus) spent with Pakistan being the recipient of a whole laundry list of heavy-duty threats and almost-obscene bribes from American corporatists.

I just got back from a friend’s birthday party — where I received the entire 411 on Pakistan from a Middle East expert standing over by the hors d’oeuvre table.  “When American troops entered Pakistan in [alleged] pursuit of bin Ladin, then Pakistanis considered that as an invasion.”  Okay.  Invasion seems like a rather large threat.

“So now Pakistan has finally stopped being our close ally and, thanks to Washington’s bad timing, has become a rogue state with a nuclear bomb — a loose cannon — instead.”

In the matter of US-Pakistan relations, threats and bribes clearly haven’t worked.  Oops.  Sorry about that.

And then there’s Iran.  Currently, our corporatist-controlled mainstream media is busy spreading erroneous rumors that Iran has a nuclear weapons program — and should be stopped at any cost.  Even Elizabeth Warren, who surely should know better, is swallowing up this falsehood hook, line and sinker.  What nuclear weapons program?  Iranians don’t have one.  But even if they did, who could blame them for wanting one after having spent the past 45 years at the business-end of corporatist America’s threats and bribes.

But we all know that the corporatists’ latest flurry of war-drum-beating is, once again, not about nuclear weapons or other WMDs– it’s all about oil.  But even so, threats and bribes clearly haven’t worked with regard to stealing Iran’s oil either.

Losers.

And then there’s good old Macedonia.  “Huh?” you might shrug.  “What’s Macedonia got to do with all this?”  Well, American corporatists, at considerable expense to us ever-gullible American taxpayers, has just built a HUGE new military complex in Macedonia — because it is within bombing range of the Middle East.  So.  Did you know that American corporatists now have an exciting new vacation home in good old Macedonia?  I thought not.

Plus don’t forget Afghanistan.  According to that expert I met at the birthday party over guacamole and cheese sticks, American corporatists’ interests (as compared to the interests of just poor slobs like you and me, mere voters and taxpayers) will NEVER let U.S. troops leave Afghanistan.  “Why is that?” I asked, while reaching for the Gouda and rye.

“Because of its strategic location, right next door to both Pakistan and Iran — and, of course, to Russia and China.”  Four countries who have the chutzpah to withstand American corporatist takeovers.

So American corporatists now have huge bases in Afghanistan and Macedonia (and don’t forget Israel, Iraq and Kuwait) — whose main purpose seems to be to surround Iran, Pakistan, Russia and China with huge threats.

And there’s one more country that I forgot to mention where corporatist threats and bribes may not be working either — America itself.  Even despite all the recent tear gas in Oakland and New York City and all the happy promises offered by Fox News, Americans are also starting to wise up and act like rebellious children — Hansel and Gretel to be specific.

Carrots and sticks.  Threats and bribes.

However, American corporatists are NOT dealing with little kids here — but rather with adult human beings and sovereign nations.  And so their authoritarian theory of threats and bribes — a theory that appears to work well on easily-cowed kindergarteners — is not doing so good when forced down the throats of grown-up countries like Iran, Pakistan, Russia, China, and even the U.S.

As evidenced by the failure of Washington’s and Wall Street’s multi-trillion-dollar post-WWII foreign policies that have forced the rest of the world’s 99 percent into today’s sorry state of disequilibrium between uber-rich and downtrodden, threats and bribes just don’t work all that well in the sphere of international relations.  Cooperation between nations and peoples works better.

And, come to think of it, encouraging cooperation also works better on real children too!

PS:  The birthday party turned out to be a great success.  A birthday was celebrated, deep ideas were discussed — and there was plenty of food.  And speaking of food, I also talked to an expert on America’s failing food production system.  Apparently our lack of food supply sustainability is gonna screw up America’s future bigtime, happily giving us cancer, among other things.  [Monsanto & Cancer Milk:  Fox News Kills Story and Fires Reporters]

And I also talked to someone who stated that the future of America ultimately depends on the success or failure of its small businesses — not on placating huge greedy corporations who will do anything for money.  “Did you know that WalMart opens approximately 30 big-box stores per month?  And that each one of these monsters causes at least ten small local business to fail because they can’t compete with WalMart’s artificially-lowered prices, sweat-shop imports and tax breaks received for outsourcing?”

He also lamented the fact that, over in Afghanistan, authorities openly ask for baksheesh because baksheesh is an accepted custom, understood for what it is:  A bribe.  “But over here in America, these same bribes are disguised and made legal by being called various fog-enshrouding names such as building permit fees, business licenses, liquor licenses, tax codes requirements, parking charges, payments to for-profit health insurance companies, etc. that nickel-and-dime American small businesses to death.  But baksheesh is baksheesh, no matter what you call it.”

Threats and bribes.  Not working!  Let’s try cooperation instead.

The Menace of Multiculturalism in America, Europe, Canada and Australia

Each week, the media reports racially motivated attacks on different races in America.  Last summer, “flash mobs” leaped into the spotlight in Wisconsin where black youths ran around beating up white people. Also in New Jersey. Mayor Nutter told the flash mobs, “Don’t embarrass your race.”  On the East Coast this week, the FBI arrested four police officers for beating up Hispanic citizens and illegal immigrants.  In Los Angeles, Mexican immigrants form gangs that specifically chase African-Americans out of their neighborhoods according to the late radio talk show host Terry Anderson.   Racial tension surfaces daily across America whether reported upon or lost in the conglomeration of news.  The FBI arrested a Denver, Colorado Muslim immigrant Jamshid Muhtorov (Uzbekistan refugee) this week for supporting the terrorist Islamic Jihad Union in the USA.

Today in America, we suffer from “honor killings”, arranged marriages, female genital mutilation and a host of ongoing rituals such as cock fighting by recent immigrants into the United States.

Nonetheless, politicians like New York Mayor Bloomberg tell us that our diversity and multiculturalism are our strengths and create a more dynamic country.  When in fact, multiculturalism is:

CREATING NATIONAL DISUNITY

The United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and all of Europe suffer from the tentacles of multiculturalism.  In a recent report in Oslo, Norway, where my brother has lived for 30 years, 99 percent of the rapes of Norwegian women came at the hands of Muslim immigrants. Sweden features similar percentages.  In reality, diversity fails on every level.

While our Congress forces multiculturalism down our throats, those members live in gated communities to escape the results. They send their children to private schools.   While high powered movie stars prance and parade with celebration of multiculturalism, they return to their gated and guarded homes in Hollywood for a peaceful night’s rest away from the gunfire in the multicultural streets of Los Angeles.

Multiculturalism discounts and demeans the host country’s culture

In Boulder, Colorado, mothers, driving $40,000 SUVs sporting “Celebrate Multiculturalism” bumper stickers, drive their kids to all white schools or enroll them in private schools so their children escape the poverty, linguistic chaos and tensions in schools like Mapleton Elementary where the illegal aliens’ children dominate classrooms.

Australian writer Cameron McKenzie said, “Multiculturalism is an unsound political theory, advocated by liberals, academics, media personnel, social theorists, government officials and politicians. While it is supported by those people, it is actually opposed by the overall majority of Australians.

“It is a deliberate policy to actively maintain, support and build foreign cultures in Australia, to the direct detriment of the Australian identity, culture and way of life. Instead of allowing immigrants, and their native-born offspring to naturally assimilate into the Australian culture, governments are knowingly creating bases of foreign culture in this country. These deliberately divisive policies are carried out in two areas.”

The United Kingdom, France and Holland find themselves struggling to maintain their own language and cultures.  They’re losing.  The greater numbers of the immigrants the faster host countries lose their language, cultures and cohesiveness.

America and Canada continue on similarly self-destructive paths

First, most American businesses feature a phone recording of press “1” for Spanish and “2” for English.  In Detroit, Michigan, you may press “3” for Arabic. By losing our U.S. language, at some point, we will not maintain our identity as a single people but a polyglot of cultures and languages—all fighting among ourselves.

Secondly, continued mass immigration overwhelms America’s culture and creates “pods” of immigrant cultures that remain alien and antagonistic to America’s equal rights for women, children’s rights, religious rights and free speech.  These new enclaves can be called “mirco-nations” within our own nation.

As the immigrants remain alienated as to language and culture, they form gangs. In Denver, where I live, we house 12,000 gang members that spray paint, ransack, steal, vandalize and run drug rings.  Those ethnic gangs prey on our citizens and their own.

As Australian Professor Blainey stated: “Recent governments emphasize the merits of a multicultural society and ignore the dangers. And yet the evidence is clear that many multicultural societies have failed and that the human cost of the failure has been high. Many of our refugees actually come from multicultural societies that are faltering or in disarray.” Also, Professor Loring Danforth has admitted that, “Ironically, Australia’s own commitment to multiculturalism may also encourage immigrants to involve themselves in the national conflicts of their homelands. This policy of multiculturalism … defines people in ethnic categories and makes it possible for them to maintain their identities as Italians, Greeks, or Macedonians. Multiculturalism, with its emphasis on community languages and ethnic media, promotes the development of these ethnic identities and impedes the development of a strong Australian national identity.”

“We do not need a crystal ball to see where multiculturalism will lead us,” said McKenzie.  “The future will bring a vast amount of inter-ethnic rivalry and resultant clashes, even leading to race riots reminiscent of those clashes in the UK and USA. Australia faces the spectre of being another dis-unified “multicultural” society like Sri Lanka, South Africa, Northern Ireland, Lebanon, the former Yugoslavia, Fiji, etc.; not to mention the USA and the UK, with their continually strained communities, and occasional race riots. The prospects of such a dis-unified nation are appalling.”

What will you do fellow Americans to stop mass immigration and multiculturalism?

Eastern Europe Versus the Open Society

Excerpts from a speech to the H.L. Mencken Club, Baltimore, October 23, 2010

Two weeks ago the first “gay pride parade” was staged in Belgrade. Serbia’s “pro-European” government had been promoting the event as yet another proof that Serbia is fit to join the European Union, that is has overcome the legacy of its dark, intolerant past. Thousands of policemen in full riot gear had to divide their time between protecting a few hundred “LBGT” activists (about half of them imported from Western Europe for the occasion) and battling ten times as many young protesters in the side streets.

The parade, it should be noted, was prominently attended by the U.S. Ambassador in Belgrade Mary Warlick, by the head of the European Commission Office, Vincent Degert of France, and by the head of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Mission in Serbia, Dimitris Kipreos. Needless to say, none of them had attended the enthronment of the new Serbian Patriarch a week earlier. Two days later, Hillary Clinton came to Belgrade and praised the Tadic regime for staging the parade.

Mrs. Clinton et al are enjoying the fruits of one man’s two decades of hard work in Eastern Europe. George Soros can claim, more than any other individual, that his endeavors have helped turn the lands of “Real Socialism” in central and eastern Europe away from their ancestors, their cultural and spiritual roots. The process is far from over, but his Open Society Institute and its extensive network of subsidiaries east of the Trieste-Stettin line have successfully legitimized the notions that only two decades ago would have seemed bizarre, laughable or demonic to the denizens of the eastern half of Europe.

The package was first tested here in America. Through his Open Society Institute and its vast network of affiliates Soros has provided extensive financial and lobbying support here for

• Legalization of hard drugs: We should accept that “substance abuse is endemic in most societies,” he says. Thanks to his intervention the terms “medicalization” and “non-violent drug offender” have entered public discourse, and pro-drug legalization laws were passed in California and Arizona in the 90s.
• Euthanasia: In 1994 Soros—a self-professed atheist—launched his Project Death in America (PDIA) and provided $15 million in its initial funding. (It is noteworthy that his mother, a member of the pro-suicide Hemlock Society, killed herself, and that Soros mentions unsympathetically his dying father’s clinging on to life for too long.) PDIA supports physician-assisted suicide and works “to begin forming a network of doctors that will eventually reach into one-fourth of America’s hospitals” and, in a turn of phrase chillingly worthy of Orwell, lead to “the creation of innovative models of care and the development of new curricula on dying.”
• Population replacement: Soros is an enthusiastic promoter of open immigration and amnesty & special rights for immigrants. He has supported the National Council of La Raza, National Immigration Law Center, National Immigration Forum, and dozens of others. He also promotes expansion of public welfare, and in late 1996 he created the Emma Lazarus Fund that has given millions in grants to nonprofit legal services groups that undermine provisions of the welfare legislation ending immigrant entitlements.

Soros supports programs and organizations that further abortion rights and increased access to birth control devices; advocate ever more stringent gun control; and demand abolition of the death penalty. He supports radical feminists and “gay” activists, same-sex “marriage” naturally included. OSI states innocently enough that its objectives include “the strengthening of civil society; economic reform; education at all levels; human rights; legal reform and public administration; public health; and arts and culture,” but the way it goes about these tasks is not “philanthropy” but political activism in pursuit of all the familiar causes of the radical left—and some additional, distinctly creepy ones such as “Death in America.”

Soros’s “philanthropic” activities in America have been applied on a far grander scale abroad. His many foundations say that they are “dedicated to building and maintaining the infrastructure and institutions of an open society.” What this means in practice? Regarding “Women’s Health” programs in Central and South-Eastern Europe, one will look in vain for breast cancer detection programs, or for prenatal or post-natal care. No, Soros’s main goal is “to improve the quality of abortion services.” Accordingly his Public Health Program has focused on the introduction of easily available abortion all over the region, and the introduction of manual vacuum aspiration (MVA) abortion in Macedonia, Moldova, and Russia. Why is Soros so keen to promote more abortions? Overpopulation cannot be the reason: the region is experiencing a huge demographic collapse and has some of the lowest fertility rates in the world. Unavailability of abortions cannot be the answer either: only five European countries had more abortions than live births in 2000: the Russian Federation, Bulgaria, Belarus, Romania and Ukraine. The only answer is that Soros wants as few little European Orthodox Christians born into this world as possible.

Soros’s Public Health Programs additionally “support initiatives focusing on the specific health needs of several marginalized communities,” such as “gays” and AIDS sufferers, and promote “harm reduction” focusing on needle/syringe exchange and supply of methadone to adicts. His outfits lobby governments to scrap “repressive drug policies.” Over the past decade and a half the Soros network has given a kick-start to previously non-existent “gay” activism in almost all of its areas of operation. The campaign for “LGBT Rights” is directed from Budapest, publishing lesbian and gay books in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovenia and Slovakia, opening Gay and Lesbian Centers in Ukraine and Rumania. Its activists routinely attack the Orthodox Church as a key culprit for alleged discrimination of “LGBTs.”

Education is a key pillar of Soros’s activities. His Leitmotif is the dictum that “no-one has a monopoly on the truth” and that “civic education” should replace the old “authoritarian” model. Even under communism Eastern Europe has preserved very high educational standards, but the Soros Foundation seeks to replace the old system with the concept of schools as “exercise grounds” for the “unhindered expression of students’ personalities in the process of equal-footed interaction with the teaching staff, thus overcoming the obsolete concept of authority and discipline rooted in the oppressive legacy of patriarchal past.” The purpose of education is not “acquisition of knowledge”: the teacher is to become the class “designer” and his relationship with students based on “partnership.” Soros’s reformers also insist on an active role of schools in countering the allegedly unhealthy influence of the family on students, which “still carries an imprint of nationalist, sexist, racist, and homophobic prejudices rampant in the society at large.”

“Racism” is Soros’s regular obsession, but he had a problem finding it in racially non-diverse East European countries. This has been resolved by identifying a designated victim group—gypsies (“Roma”). His protégés now come up with policy demands to “protect” this group that could have been written by Rev. Jesse Jackson:

• anti-bias training of teachers and administrators;
• integration of Romani history and culture in the textbooks at all levels;
• legally mandated arffirmative action programs for Roma;
• tax incentives for employers who employ them;
• access to low-interest credit for Roma small family businesses;
• setting aside a percentage of public tenders for Roma firms;
• legislation to fight “racism and discrimination” in housing;
• adoption of “comprehensive anti-discrimination legislation”;
• creation of mechanisms “to monitor implementation of anti-discrimination legislation and assist victims of racial discrimination in seeking remedies”;
• recognition by governments of “the Roma slavery and the Holocaust through public apology along with urgent adoption of a package of reparatory measures.”

A budding race relations industry is already in place, with the self-serving agenda of finding “discrimination” in order to keep itself in place for ever.

To make his agenda appear “normal” to the targeted population, millions of East Europeans are force-fed the daily fare of OSI agitprop by “the Soros media”—the term is by now well established in over a dozen languages—such as the B-92 media conglomerate in Serbia.

The social dynamics Soros uses to penetrate the target countries is interesting. To thousands of young East Europeans to become a “Soroshite” represents today what joining the Party represented to their parents: an alluring opportunity to have a reasonably paid job, to belong to a privileged elite, for many to travel abroad. The few chosen for the future new Nomenklatura go to Soros’s own Central European University in Budapest. In all post-communist countries Soros relies overwhelmingly on the sons and daughters of the old Communist establishment who are less likely to be tainted by any atavistic vestiges of their native soil, culture and tradition. The comparison with the janissary corps of the Ottoman Army is more apt than that with the Communist Party. The new janissaries, just like the old, have to prove their credentials by being more zealous than the Master himself.

The key ideological foundation for Soros’s beliefs is the same: that all countries are basically social arrangements, artificial, temporary and potentially dangerous. A plethora of quotes from his writings will make it clear that he thinks that owing allegiance to any of them is inherently irrational, and attaching one’s personal loyalty to it is absurd. Like Marx’s proletarian, Soros knows of no loyalty to a concrete country. He could serve any—or indeed all—of them, if they can be turned into the tools of his Wille zur Macht. In 1792, it could have been France, in 1917 Russia. Today, the United States is his host organism of choice because it is so powerful, and its media scene is open to penetration by his rabidly anti-traditionalist and deeply anti-American worldview and political agenda.

Textbooks and educational curricular reforms pushed by Soros in Eastern Europe indicate that he is trying to perform crude dumbing down of the young. Within months of coming to power in October 2000 the “reformists” within Serbia and their foreign sponsors insisted that schools—all schools, from kindergarden to universities—must be reformed and turned from “authoritarian” institutions into poligons for the “unhindered expression of students’ personalities in the process of equal-footed interaction with the teaching staff, thus overcoming the obsolete concept of authority and discipline rooted in the opressive legacy of patriarchal past.” They started with primary schools, with a pilot program of “educational workshops” for 7-12 year olds. The accompanying manual, sponsored by UNICEF and financed by the Open Society, denigrades the view that the purpose of education is acquisition of knowledge and insists that the teacher has to become the class “designer” and his relationship with students based on “partnership.”

The reformers devote particular attention to the more active role of schools in countering the allegedly unhealthy influence of the family on students, which “still carries an imprint of nationalist, sexist, [anti-Roma] racist, and homophobic prejudices rampant in the society at large.” The time-honored Balkan tradition of slapping childrens’ bottoms when they exceed limits is now presented in the elementary classroom as a form of criminal abuse that should be reported and acted upon. Traditional gender roles are relativized by “special projects” that entail cross-dressing and temporary adoption of opposite gender names.

Soros’s vision is hostile even to the most benign understanding of national or ethnic coherence. His core belief—that traditional morality, faith, and community based on shared memories are all verboten—is at odds even with the classical “open society” liberalism of Popper and Hayek, by whom he swears. His hatred of religion is the key. He promotes an education system that will neutralize any lingering spiritual yearnings of the young, and promote the loss of a sense of place and history already experienced by millions of Westerners, whether they are aware of that loss or not. Estranged from their parents, ignorant of their culture, ashamed of their history, millions of Westerners are already on the path of alienation that demands every imaginable form of self-indulgence, or else leads to drugs, or suicide, or conversion to Islam or some other cult.

To understand Soros it is necessary to understand globalization as a revolutionary, radical project. In the triumph of liberal capitalism, the enemies of civilization such as Soros have found the seeds of future victory for their paradigm that seeks to eradicate all traditional structures capable of resistance. The revolutionary character of the Open Society project is revealed in its relentless adherence to the mantra of Race, Gender and Sexuality. His goal is a new global imperium based that will be truly totalitarian. But he is making a colossal miscalculation. He does not realize that the unassimilated and unassimilable multitudes do not want to be the tools of his will to power. Illegal aliens in America, Algerians in France, Turks in Germany and Pakistanis in Britain have their own, instinctive scenario, and it does not entail leaving Soros and his ilk in positions of power, or alive.

Turkey is the Key

The Israeli recipe for dealing with the world: “If force does not work, use more force.”

Bombs go off in Turkey — a great spree of terrorist bombings and attacks. Practically every day Turkish soldiers and civilians are being killed. The killings are done ostensibly by the Kurd terrorists of the PKK, but in reality it is a new step in Israel’s warfare against Turkish independence. Encouraged by Israel, the PKK has extended its operations to the Aegean and the Black Sea resorts all the way to Izmir.

Israelis have armed, supplied and trained Kurdish terrorists for many years; they have turned Iraqi Kurdistan into their own territory, with many Israeli businessmen going about their affairs while waiting for Kirkuk oil to flow to Haifa as it did in the days of colonial British rule. The Kurds have remained a hidden tool of Israel in the region for many years; their activation now shows that Israel still wants to teach the Turks a lesson.

The main neocon magazine in the US, frontpagemag.com, has openly called for the Kurds to retaliate for Turkey’s support of Palestine. Another Jewish right-wing think-tank speaks of mobilizing the US Congress to condemn the one-hundred-year-old Armenian tragedy as a means of undermining Turkey.  After many years of siding with Turkey, the Jewish Lobby has now decided to switch sides and support the Armenian claims. So Turkey is now under attack from all sides. This was to be expected, for the popular Israeli slogan says: “If force does not work, use more force.”

This is the explanation of the Flotilla Massacre on May 31, 2010. The Mavi Marmara attack was intended to be a short, sharp shock to the increasingly independent Turks. The Israelis intended to terrify and frighten them into obedience; this is why they ordered a blood bath on board the Mavi Marmara. As we now know, the Israeli commandos began shooting well before encountering any resistance. They were not there to play softball; submission was what they were after. Murder was not a result of being surprised or of miscalculation: it was an open attack on Turkey.

Israel’s conflict with Turkey was not an unfortunate result of the murderous raid. The confrontation between them became acute two weeks before the massacre, on May 17, 2010. Together with Brazil, Turkey had arranged and signed the Tehran Declaration — a nuclear fuel swap deal with beleaguered Iran. This declaration could have derailed the US-Israeli plans of sanctioning Iran to death prior to bombing it.

Israel wants Iran destroyed; as much as she wanted Iraq demolished, Gaza starved and the rest cowed. The swap agreement undermined all the logic behind the sanctions. All the plotting of Israeli lobbyists in the US and Europe was wiped out in an instant. Indeed, as the Muslims say: they plot, but Allah plots better.

Israel received the news of the Turkey-Brazil-Iran agreement as a heavy blow. “We were defeated by the crafty Turks and Iranians,” read the headlines of Israeli newspapers. Not so fast! The US State Department minimized the damage, effectively asking: “Who cares what these lowlifes agree about? If we have decided to bomb somebody, bomb we shall. We shall never allow the facts to confuse us.” Thomas Friedman in the NYT was disappointed that “a Holocaust-denying thug” was being allowed to live.

Brazenly disregarding the agreement, the UN Security Council approved the sanctions on June, 9. Moscow and Beijing were bribed or blackmailed to agree. China preferred to play ball in order to avoid confrontation over North Korea. The story of the sunken South Korean ship had provided a pretext for an attack on North Korea, and such an attack could cause much damage to China. The Chinese are also vulnerable to Western meddling in Xinjiang and Tibet.

The Russians have received some precious gifts: the Ukraine was returned to Russia’s fold, Georgia was marginalized, the new nuclear arms treaty was better for Russia than anything they could have expected. At the same time, Moscow suffered a severe terrorist attack, reminding the Russians of their enemies’ ability to seed trouble. Notwithstanding, Turkey voted against the sanctions, proving its new regional role as a reliable new pivot for the Middle East.

The conflict between Turkey and Israel did not start with the Iran swap: it began earlier, in January 2010, when the Israeli deputy Foreign Minister Dani Ayalon invited the Turkish ambassador and publicly humiliated him. In Oriental fashion, Ambassador Chelikkol was offered a seat on a sofa lower the Ayalon’s armchair. Ayalon refused to shake hands with the ambassador and told journalists in Hebrew while the cameras were rolling: “We would like to show that he takes a lower seat and there is only the Israeli flag on the table”.

Or perhaps the conflict began a year earlier, in January 2009, when the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Erdogan, walked off the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Erdogan was annoyed by the attempt of a Western moderator to cut off his angry response to Israeli president Shimon Peres, who had justified the mass killings in Gaza.

Or perhaps it started in September 2007 when Israeli planes flew over Turkey to bomb Syria without as much as ‘by your leave’.

Perhaps it was even earlier, when Turkey began to assert its independence by discarding its century-old, shop-worn ideology of Kemalism. The secular nationalism of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was a trap for the former Empire. Brutish Kemalist Turkey was necessarily a member of NATO, an enemy to Arabs and Iranians, a docile client of the US, a loyal ally of Israel and a persecutor of the Kurds.

Now is the time to thank the Europeans for doing their bit to reform Turkey. In endless negotiations with Turkey, the European Union demanded a release of the Army’s iron grip on power. Without this gentle prompting from Europe, Turkey would still be ruled by a Zionist general or by a Zionist generals’ appointee. With their people freed from military rule, the Turks ended their violent secularism and regained peace with Islam and with their neighbours.

I visited Turkey last Christmas, and met with the activists who were about to depart for Gaza. Turkey is doing well: no economic crisis, steady growth, peace with the Kurds, a brave attempt to make peace with Armenians, and a perfect balance of religion and freedom. Whoever wishes to may go to a beautifully restored Ottoman mosque and pray, or to a café and drink very good Turkish wine. Girls are forced neither to shed their scarves nor to cover their arms.

“We lost Turkey”, said Robert Gates, the US Secretary of Defense, and blamed the European Union for refusing to accept Turkey. But we have to thank the Europeans for this refusal. We do not want Turkey in the EU; we need Turkey for ourselves, for the region.

There is a great new plan for creating an Eastern Union as a regional equivalent of the European Union. This is the right place for Turkey, at the head of this new formation. In a way, it will be restoration of the Ottoman Empire — to the same extent that the European Union is a restoration of Charlemagne’s empire. The difference is that Europe was fragmented for centuries, while our region was united until 1917. Even if full political union is a distant prospect, this is good start on the way to this worthy goal.

There are already free-trade treaties between Turkey and its Arab neighbours; the spiritual dimension is there, for Istanbul was the last seat of the Caliphate and the see of Constantinople Patriarchate. Now Turkey may establish a regional International Court to deal with regional problems — among others, with Zionist excesses. Europe is still not free from Zionist control and that is why the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court in The Hague are unsuitable places to try Zionist criminals. Moreover, their present location recalls the Eurocentric world of yesterday. A regional court may also convincingly deal with war criminals in occupied Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries. Great lawyers like Richard Falk and Judge Goldstone could be invited to sit in it.

The establishment of the International Court (East) would be a serious and realistic step towards further decolonization of the region and its future unification in an Eastern Union.

However, the Eastern Union will be as different from the Ottoman Empire as the European Union differs from the Third Reich, that previous attempt to unite Europe. It will be a voluntary union of sovereign states, where they all will preserve their unique cultures and traditions, a good neighbour to united Europe, to Russia, Iran and China.

Looking beyond the Middle East

The Union could peacefully spread well beyond the Middle East as well, reuniting its natural territories from Gibraltar to Danube. This natural territory was formed a long time ago, in the fourth century, when the mighty Roman Empire was divided into the Western Empire with its capital in Rome, and the Eastern Empire, or Byzantium, with its capital in Constantinople, as Istanbul was then called. The Byzantine Empire became the Ottoman Empire in 1456. Still, it is the same ‘great space’, the same united large civilization of Muslims and Eastern Christians. People of Turkey and Greece, Serbia and Egypt have the same attitudes, they share their common values, they are more religious than their Western brethren, they object to the Western colonization, American imperialism and Israeli Zionism.

The rising West could not vanquish the united East; so in order to colonize its lands, the West has tempted the nations with a futile dream of independence. This mirage of independence was but a trap: the new “liberated independent” countries became subjects of Western rule. We may compare that with a human body: if our arms and legs will become independent of our mind, they won’t manage well. Indeed all members of the single body, the Ottoman Empire, do not function well after the amputation, or independence, forced upon them.

That was the case with the Arabs during World War I. The Arab Revolt was brought forth by Lawrence of Arabia, a great agent of British intelligence. The Arab lands became much more dependent than they ever were, and now they are ruled by a plethora of sheiks, stooges and dictators. The only democratic regime in the whole Arab world is unhappy, besieged Gaza.

However, the Arabs were not the only victims of these Western policies. The British intrigues had caused Greece’s independence in early 19^th century, and afterwards rivers of blood and transfers had made this separation complete. But Greece is not at home in the EU, just as Greece of old was not at home in the Empire ruled from Rome. The recent financial crisis has proven it again: Greece’s roots and destiny are in the East.

No sane person would suggest that Greece should be incorporated in Turkey. Equally, none would suggest France be incorporated in Germany. However, France joined Germany to form the EU, and Greece may join Turkey to create the Eastern Union, eventually to embrace other Muslim and Orthodox Balkan provinces of the Byzantines, namely Albania and Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro, even Romania and Georgia. All these countries may find the Eastern Union more suitable than the European one.

The Eastern Union may reach other countries and former provinces that were torn away and colonized by the Europeans in the 19^th century. Algeria is a country that needs this reconnection most of all, as this oil-rich land is run by a bunch of secular anti-religious and pro-Western generals just like Turkey was until ten years ago. Morocco with its outdated and unsuccessful monarchy that combines systematic torture of dissidents with abject Zionism, maverick Libya and fragile Tunis also need a broader framework which would not cancel out but instead reinforce their sovereignty.

The Eastern Union could also establish an area of joint interests with the Russians over the Caucasus. Russians have a problem over there: separation of these Russian provinces is too dangerous as it is likely to bring the hostile forces of NATO into Russia’s backyard. Keeping them against the population’s will is an expensive and unpopular policy. A Russian attempt to grant independence in all but name to Chechnya misfired as the small country immediately turned its territory into a base of armed raids into Russia proper. The Eastern Union could put paid to these insurgencies and bring peace and stability to the turbulent Caucasus. In return, the Union may recognize Russian interests in the Christian Orthodox sites.

Palestine will become a crown jewel of the Eastern Union. Demise of colonialism will end Zionism as well, for after all, Zionism would never win ground without European imperialist support. The Christians, Jews and Muslims of Palestine will have equal rights and duties in the Holy Land, forever free from political ambitions and ethnic rivalry.

Shocking Testimonials from the Mavi Marmara survivors. And one Israeli fembot

By Lauren Booth

One of the most striking trends following the flotilla attack has been how quickly Israeli hasbara is being exposed by internet journalists. The doctored IOF audio clips, where amateurs with mock Arab accents hiss ‘Go back to Aushwitz’ to Israeli naval officers. Well they didn’t take long to pull apart did they? Then there are the (so-pathetic-they’re-almost-funny claims the flotilla was linked to Al Quaeda. I laughed out loud to read in an Israeli paper that humanitarian activist (and former US marine) Ken O’Keefe was going to Gaza to; ‘train a commando unit in Hamas.’ I know Ken fairly well. Quite frankly I’m not sure who should be more insulted by this stupidity him or Hamas? Either way flinging the words ‘Hamas’ ‘Jihadists’ and ‘Israel’s security’ around is no longer having the same shock and awe effect on journalists or the public at large.

The internet now shapes the world’s story, not the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

Meanwhile, like a soccer star caught cheating on his wife. Instead of saying ‘ I messed up big time, forgive me’ Israeli government sources and other shysters are screaming; ‘it’s not fair to watch us all the time, that’s mean!’ and ‘this is our business, leave us alone!’ Bad luck for them that as it stands, more of the IDF’s minging dirty washing, is being aired in public than ever before; via facebook and twitter. The Zionists sobs of ‘no faiirrrr!’ are sounding ever more bizarre. But more about the Isra-bots later on.

Israeli Intelligence (some mistake surely?) have been busy since the massacre. Erasing the memory sticks and hard disks of what my premiliminary research estimates to be some 800 video cameras, around 1200 mobiles and 600 lap tops. All items, looted from the passengers of the Freedom Flotilla, whilst they kneeled, handcuffed and in stress positions, on the hot deck of the Mavi Marmara for up to 12 hours after the attack. Before the bots cry ‘why so much money on board, why so many cameraaas!’ Let me explain, the good individuals on board had been raising money for months in the local communities around the world to take useful gifts tot eh people, schools and children of the besieged Gaza Strip. Besides which -the cameras were the only ‘weapons’ those on board had with which to arm themselves in the event of an attack at sea.

Now, evidence is emerging, that having been forced (by Turkish hard line diplomacy) to release all of the kidnapped passengers sooner than it would have liked; Israel is (as usual) taking revenge on the Palestinian relatives of activists onboard. Those who seek to non violently oppose Zionist policies of Apartheid violence are having loved ones interrogated by the Shabak as you read this for merely sailing with the Freedom Flotilla. I am not at liberty to say much more for fear of even further reprisals on innocent people. But as you should by now be aware, the Israeli machine specialises in collective punishment. This week a spokesman in the US said live on air that ‘Children in Gaza were under siege because their parents voted Hamas.’ Too much to say on that, so I’ll leave it hanging for you to take in

Last night in London, as in so many cities this week, Freedom flotilla passengers addressed a packed open meeting. At the Conway Hall in Central London half a dozen British survivors, looked in turns spaced out and hardened by their experience, eleven days ago (is that all it is? How the world turns!).

Jamal El Shayyal, is the Al Jazeera reporter who kept broadcasting as gun shots rang out behind him on the upper decks of the Mavi Marmara. I honestly thought I had heard, read and seen the worst about the Israeli attack on the fleet’s passengers. I hadn’t. Believe me, nor have you. Those three minutes clips, miraculously broadcast live or smuggled out beneath tongues, reveal the merest inkling of the horrors these brave people witnessed. And suffered.

El Shayyal, told an utterly silent audience he ‘had been invited by IHH to film every inch of the ship.’ So he did. From the bowels of the hull to the uppermost decks he filmed.

‘I checked and filmed’ he said ‘there was not 1 weapon onboard. Not one gun. no lethal artillery. The most lethal thing on the ship was fruit and vegetables.’

When the Israeli commandos attack began Jamal was wearing his pyjamas under a life jacket as were so many of the allegedly ‘prepared terrorists on board.’ Helicopters caused a near hurricane on the decks, all satellite phones were jammed (deliberately to stop SOS calls to the rest of the world). And, so the IDF hoped, any factual reports of what was about to occur.

At this point, just after four thirty am, Jamal saw a Turkish passenger shot in the top of his head. He spoke slowly and clearly to make sure he was understood by us all in the hall.

‘No Soldier was on the ship at this time’.

Quickly another passenger removed a white t-shirt from a bag and used it as a white flat of surrender. When gun shots rang out, greater numbers fell. It was clear calls for mercy were to be ignored. That a shoot to kill policy was in place.

An Israeli member of the Knesset and Lubna (an activist who also speaks Hebrew) took turns making announcements over the tannoy in English and then Hebrew. Announcements made atleast 8 times;

‘We have critically injured people here, please can you come and get them. We are NOT armed. We SURRENDER!’

Soon the tannoy connection was cut off.

Sarah Colborne of the PSC and another passenger negotiated with soldiers for the evacuation of some atleast of the mounting injured. Many of the bleeding would not go with the Israeli’s. Fearing they would be less safe getting ‘treatment’ from the troops, than below decks being operated on without anaesthetic.

‘The Israelis were asked for a stretcher’ continued Jamal ‘for a man with severe internal bleeding to be moved. Use a sleeping bag we were told.’ The man was moved in agony on a blanket no doubt increasing his injuries. And his immense pain. Did he survive? We’ll never know.

As the shooting gave way to the enforced imprisonment of the passengers, or, let’s give it its right name – kidnapping, Jamal was pushed to the floor, cuffed and beaten. His posessions taken from him. It was morning on a bright, sunny, summer’s day by now. Hundreds of shocked men were taken on deck, hands bound behind their backs. Three, then four hours passed. Pleas were made to use the toilet. No water was given, they were kicked, spat at and punched by soldiers who passed by every few minutes. Eventually Jamal pursuaded one soldier to let him go to the toilet, ‘with my hands still bound behind my back.’ One man in his eighties trying to get back to his family in Gaza, was jeered by soldiers, in his discomfort. After many hours, he suffered the indignity of urinating on himself, in front of both friends and fiends.

At some point Jamal was taken back downstairs. The area had been thoroughly ransacked.

‘There was no respect for human rights or dignity. Holy books of all faiths had been thrown about, possessions strewn everywhere”.

He remembers one quietly spoken Muslim brother asking soldiers gently several times for his cuffs to be loosened, just slightly. The third time he asked one of them tightened them so much that ‘he gave a scream of agony that made us all feel sick to our stomachs.’

In the afternoon the ship was forced into Ashdod port. Pushed ashore by armed guards Jamal was greeted with the words; ‘Welcome to Israel. Are you enjoying your time here?’

The Al Jazeera journalist wanted us all to understand something very clearly. That the civilian passengers were not ‘detained’ nor ‘arrested.’ They were plainly and in every legal definition of the word ‘Kidnapped, abducted.’

In Beersheva prison, he was placed in a cell, with a leader from the Turkish human rights group, IHH. They had no food for 24 hours, just a few sips of water. They had no idea if the world knew where they were – or what had happened. In other parts of the prison, consular reps from Greece, France, Spain and Macedonia could be heard shouting at the Israeli captors demanding the release of their compatriots. Yelling that rights were not being respected, yelling for food, water, access to legal representation. From the British consul.

Nothing.

Finally when every other consul had visited the abducted civilians, a British rep turned up. Jamal described the obsequious nature of the visit in termas that make one cringe. Bowing and scraping to the Israelis, the British diplomat didn’t even push for the right to see the victims in a private area. A legal imperative for all detainees during such visits. He didn’t demand water, or food, or a release time for those he was supposedly representing. Under the gaze of Israeli soldiers he asked just two questions ; ‘what is your name and what is your home number in the UK.’ Then our citizens were left. Wondering about their fate and that of their comrades; hungry, afraid, shocked, alone.

When the Israeli’s knew the game was up, that the world had indeed seen clips of their murderous attack, the Turkish abductees were given the chance to leave quickly, in an hour.

Did they go? No. They refused point blank to leave ‘before every other nationality has left before us.’ We salute them.

Jamal, Osama, Alexandra, Sarah, Kevin, and four hundred other internationals were released ONLY because of Turkish support for them. Not because the international community stepped in. Not because of action by the UN or (God forbid), the UK government. Because of the Turkey government.

In all his time as a prisoner, some forty hours plus, Jamal, like all the other Brits, had no legal visit, no phone call home and no proper British representation.

Finally at Ben Gurion airport being deported from a place he never wanted to enter in the first place. Jamal was given a piece of paper with a photo of himself on it and Hebrew writing.

His interrogator smirked at him and led him towards the plane ‘Congratulations’ the man said. ‘This is your new passport.’

‘I want my old passport!’ Said Jamal.

‘Sue me!’ Came the reply.

There was more much more from the survivors, which was videotaped and I will post as soon as it comes online. But let’s get back to the Zio-bots now. For alongside Press TV cameras and PSC workers filming the testimonies, there was the compulsory, sulky faced Zionist, shooting footage of the event for some organization opposed to justice, and free speech. Curiously, as the survivors described their horrors in depth, this woman’s camera was aimed NOT at the stage. But at my Press TV colleagues.

I went outside for a cigarette and there she was again. Instantly recognisable as a tight lipped Proto Zionist. She asked if I was with Press TV and would I speak to her for “Israeli TV?” Clearly she was not from any broadcaster – as no valid news channel accepts shaky, amateur hand held footage of the sort she was producing. Curious about her real intentions, I said ‘with pleasure.’

‘So do you think Press TV has done enough to give the Israeli side of events concerning the flotilla?’

Did I pause? It felt like a must have, just to have the time to process that after an hour of harrowing testimony about a massacre, this woman, had heard and felt – nothing.

‘The BBC has given Mark Regev enough space for your cause don’t you think..” I replied

‘Yes but don’t you think Press TV ought to….’ and then it happened. The white rage. I heard children crying in Gaza, saw fishermen being shot along the coast, phosphorous plummeting onto schools and UNWRA food stores. I saw the massacre on the Freedom Fleet, the torture, the needless, avoidable death..

‘Go fuck yourself’ I heard myself saying. And to make sure I couldn’t be misquoted I added.

‘Just fuck off.’

Not Your Father’s Army

Most of us Americans have a deep and abiding respect and admiration for our country’s fighting men who have served–and are serving–within the US Armed Forces. We appreciate their willingness to put themselves in harm’s way for the preservation of our nation’s liberty and independence. We honor their sacrifice. Indeed, many of us share that sacrifice with the deaths, dismemberments, and paralysis of our most cherished loved ones who were killed or injured in the line of duty.

It is time, however, that we awaken to the reality of what our military is becoming and where it is heading. Suffice it to say, this is not your father’s army.

On December 8, 1941, my father, Ed Baldwin–along with his two brothers, Bud and Gene–marched down to a recruiting office in Little Rock, Arkansas, to enlist. The Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor the day before, and no branch of service had to beg people to enlist that day. Bud joined the Navy. Gene joined the Marines. When government officials saw Dad’s resume, they selected him to help construct the atomic bomb. All three brothers served their country with distinction throughout the war.

But what all of us need to realize is, World War II was the last constitutionally fought war in which America has been engaged. The United Nations was created at the end of WWII, and ever since then, our military forces have increasingly become the “peacekeeping” arm of that evil institution.

Since WWII, American forces have fought major wars in South Korea, South Vietnam (including Laos and Cambodia), Kosovo, the Persian Gulf (Kuwait), Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan–all for the benefit of the United Nations. Add to these major wars lesser conflicts (except to those Americans killed or wounded in them) such as Lebanon, Dominican Republic, Congo (Zaire), Iran, El Salvador, Libya, Grenada, Honduras, Chad, Panama, Colombia, Bolivia, Peru, Saudi Arabia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Tanzania, and Somalia. And this does not take into account the countless CIA-sponsored Black Ops missions that have taken place all over the world.

Yes, American forces have been used to both put people in power and take people out of power all over the world. And as often as not, the people we put in power were counted among the “bad guys,” while the people we removed from power were “good guys.” Remember, our own CIA was the organization most responsible for the rise to power of Osama Bin Laden. And it was the US government that surreptitiously set up the murder of Dr. Jonas Savimbi, who was one of the best friends the United States had overseas. Plus, does anyone remember how the US treated our friend, the Shah of Iran? Yes, some of us are old enough to remember when Iran was one of the best friends we had in that region of the world.

But mind you, not one single war in which American forces have been engaged since WWII has been constitutionally fought. Not one!

Ever since the United Nations was created, its interests have dominated the usage of US forces. In fact, our military today is quickly morphing into the tip of the spear for a burgeoning, global New World Order. To those with eyes to see, the evidence is everywhere. It’s not even being hidden anymore. Have you seen that new US Navy television commercial? It boldly proclaims, “The US Navy: A GLOBAL FORCE For Good.” (Emphasis added.)

This politically correct, UN-dominated New World Order has changed (and is changing) our US military right before our eyes. It has taken the greatest and proudest independent fighting force in the world–one created to defend the people and property of the United States–and turned it into a global military policeman for the evil Machiavellians at the UN.

In order to convert the US military into a true “Global Force,” several changes are being forced upon our fighting men.

First, more and more women are entering the US military.

Currently, women comprise about 20% of military personnel. And for the first time in US history, women are actively engaged in combat units in the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The massive integration of women in combat may serve the interests of political correctness, but it does not serve the interests of combat effectiveness. Neither does it serve the interests of family and child rearing. And I don’t care how old fashioned that sounds!

Wives and mothers are the backbone of family nurturing. To willingly take mothers away from their children–and subject both mother and child to the separation and suffering that military life demands–is both unnatural and cruel.

And there is another stark reality that few people want to discuss: the fact that 30% of all women in the US military are raped. Yes, you read it right: 30%.

According to NPR, “In 2003, a survey of female veterans found that 30 percent said they were raped in the military. A 2004 study of veterans who were seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder found that 71 percent of the women said they were sexually assaulted or raped while serving. And a 1995 study of female veterans of the Gulf and earlier wars, found that 90 percent had been sexually harassed.”

See the report at:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103844570

Government and military brass know that the introduction of women into the military environment (especially the combat environment) is reaping problems of epidemic proportions, but they are deliberately ignoring and even covering them up.

For example, does anyone recall the name Jamie Leigh Jones? According to ABC News, “A Houston, Texas woman says she was gang-raped by Halliburton/KBR coworkers in Baghdad, and the company and the U.S. government are covering up the incident.

“Jamie Leigh Jones, now 22, says that after she was raped by multiple men at a KBR camp in the Green Zone, the company put her under guard in a shipping container with a bed and warned her that if she left Iraq for medical treatment, she’d be out of a job.”

See the report at:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3977702&page=1

And this story leads into another phenomenon being created within this New World Order army: the way our government and military are increasing their use of “private” or “independent” contractors. In the past, these people were always known simply as mercenaries. Call them what you will, mercenaries are now a major component of the way our government wages war.

According to Global Research, “The growing use of private armies not only subjects target populations to savage warfare but makes it easier for the White House to subvert domestic public opinion and wage wars.

“Americans are less inclined to oppose a war that is being fought by hired foreign mercenaries, even when their own tax dollars are being squandered to fund it.

“‘The increasing use of contractors, private forces, or, as some would say, “mercenaries,” makes wars easier to begin and to fight–it just takes money and not the citizenry,’ said Michael Ratner, of New York’s Center for Constitutional Rights. ‘To the extent a population is called upon to go to war, there is resistance, a necessary resistance to prevent wars of self-aggrandizement, foolish wars, and, in the case of the United States, hegemonic imperialist wars.’”

See the report at:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=14972

Remember, at any given moment, there might be as many–if not more–mercenaries fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan as there are US military forces. For example, according to the Christian Science Monitor, in early 2008, the number of mercenaries fighting in Iraq numbered more than 190,000. Remember, in addition to the benefit of not drafting US citizens to fight these perpetual wars (and thus avoid incurring the wrath and resistance of the American public), mercenaries enjoy the luxury of not having to comply with the military rules of engagement. And the stories of atrocities committed by US-employed mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan are too numerous to list.

In addition to the Jamie Jones case mentioned above, consider the case where Blackwater (now called Xe) mercenaries mowed down 17 Iraqi citizens in an unprovoked attack. And, of course, no one at Blackwater was held accountable for these murders. Reports of abuse, cruelty, and savagery by mercenaries in Iraq are commonplace. According to the Global Research report, “Many soldiers of fortune on private payrolls previously served dictators in South Africa, Chile, and elsewhere.”

The Washington Post quotes Brigadier General Karl Horst, an advisor to the U.S. Joint Force Command as saying, “These guys [mercenaries] run loose in this country [Iraq] and do stupid stuff. There’s no authority over them, so you can’t come down on them hard when they escalate force . . . They shoot people, and someone else has to deal with the aftermath. It happens all over the place.”

And you wonder why the United States is viewed so negatively around the world?

Granted, there is a place and proper use for mercenaries. Fred E. Foldvary, Senior Editor of The Progress Report, rightly observes, “One alternative to U.S. military action against terrorists who have attacked the U.S. and other countries, and are threatening further attacks, is to enact Letters of Marque and Reprisal. Article I, Section 8, paragraph 11 of the U.S. Constitution authorizes Congress to ‘grant letters of Marque and Reprisal and make rules concerning captures on land and water.’ A ‘reprisal’ means an action taken in return for some injury. A reprisal could be a seizing of property or guilty persons in retaliation for an attack and injury. It could include forces used against the perpetrators for the redress of grievances. A reprisal could even involve killing a terrorist who is threatening further harm and cannot be captured.

“‘Marque’ is related to ‘marching’ and means crossing or marching across a border in order to do a reprisal. So a letter of Marque and Reprisal would authorize a private person, not in the U.S. armed forces, to conduct reprisal operations outside the borders of the U.S.A.

“Such Letters are grantable not just by the U.S. Constitution, but also by international law, which is why it was able to be included in the Constitution. The Letters are grantable whenever the citizens or subjects of one country are injured by those in another country and justice is denied by the government of that country, as happened with the attack by persons who were in Afghanistan.”

See Foldvary’s column at:

http://www.progress.org/fold232.htm

And that is exactly what Congressman Ron Paul attempted to do. He proposed H.R. 3076, the September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001, to authorize the U.S. State Department to issue such Letters. See Dr. Paul’s Press Release at:

http://www.house.gov/paul/press/press2001/pr101101.htm

However, neither the Congress nor the White House–Democrat or Republican–has any intention of following the Constitution; therefore, Letters of Marque and Reprisal were never authorized. As a result, no authority has been granted to these mercenaries to wage war on behalf of anyone, especially not the people of the United States.

But what unauthorized mercenaries do accomplish is to fulfill the demands of internationalists and globalists to use unaccountable and uncontrolled (at least by normal military protocols) private armies for their own personal and nefarious purposes.

The next step for our politically correct “Global Force” is the authorization for homosexuals to serve openly in the US military. This has long been the goal of globalists, and it is now about to happen.

It was globalist President Bill Clinton who introduced the current “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that allows homosexuals to serve in the US armed forces–but not openly. Of course, this was a major departure from US military history. From George Washington’s Continental army until the Clinton administration, homosexuality was deemed “incompatible” with military service. And now globalist Barack Obama is leading Congress to change the policy even further by allowing homosexuals to serve openly in the US military.

However, please consider this: if our governmental and military leaders would cover up the raping of American servicewomen by servicemen, don’t you know that they will cover up the raping of American servicemen by homosexual servicemen? Mark this down: mixing sex (heterosexual or homosexual) and military service is a recipe for disaster. And the potential damage inflicted upon military units (especially combat units) is exacerbated exponentially by the introduction of large numbers of homosexuals and women into those units. (This is the universal sentiment of virtually every active duty or retired serviceman I have ever spoken with.) But it does fit perfectly into the plans of the New World Order architects, who want to use the US military as much for the advancement of their politically correct agenda as they do for any actual military purpose.

Plus, dare I mention how that many violent gangs in North America are encouraging their members to join the US military in order to learn tactics and skills, which enable them to more effectively inflict their criminality upon the American people? Well, it’s true. And our military brass knows it’s true, and yet they still allow these thugs to enter our military. Hispanic gang members, especially, are entering the US military in droves.

According to a report in The American Conservative magazine, “[R]ecent figures indicate that gang membership in the Armed Forces significantly surpasses civilian levels. Stars and Stripes reported that 1 to 2 percent of the military are gang members, compared to 0.02 percent of the general population.”

See the report at:

http://www.amconmag.com/article/2008/may/05/0012/

No, ladies and gentlemen, it is not your father’s army. And, sadly, while many of our fine military leaders (not to mention many of our active duty soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines) see all of this taking place, they are practically powerless to stop it, because political correctness and globalism run rampant in Washington, D.C., including at the Pentagon.

U.S. To Break Up Soon?

According to Macedonian Radio and Television On-line (MRT), a Russian professor predicts the United States will fall apart in July 2010. MRT reports, “‘Mr. Obama is similar to the last Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Gorbachev was also making great promises for the Soviet Union, but the situation was only getting worse,’ he said. By next summer, according to Professor Panarin, the US will disintegrate into six blocs–and everyone will get their piece. ‘The probability that the United States of America fall apart in July 2010 is more than 50 percent,’ said Igor Panarin, Professor at Moscow’s Diplomatic Academy within the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.”

MRT went on to report, “Panarin came up with his grim forecast while analyzing the parallels between the Soviet Union in its final days and the current situation in the United States. ‘American dream ballooned seven times in 11 years. During Gorbachev era, the Soviet dream ballooned five times.’ Americans hope [President] Barack Obama ‘can work miracles,’ he wrote. ‘But when spring comes, it will be clear that there are no miracles.’”

See the MRT report at
http://tinyurl.com/mrt-report

The Drudge Report confirmed the MRT report and added, “Professor Igor Panarin said in an interview with the respected daily IZVESTIA . . . ‘The dollar is not secured by anything. The country’s foreign debt has grown like an avalanche, even though in the early 1980s there was no debt. By 1998, when I first made my prediction, it had exceeded $2 trillion. Now it is more than 11 trillion. This is a pyramid that can only collapse.’”

At least some of what Panarin said back in the fall of 2008 either has taken place or is in the process of taking place. Drudge reported, “When asked when the U.S. economy would collapse, Panarin said: ‘It is already collapsing. Due to the financial crisis, three of the largest and oldest five banks on Wall Street have already ceased to exist, and two are barely surviving. Their losses are the biggest in history. Now what we will see is a change in the regulatory system on a global financial scale: America will no longer be the world’s financial regulator.’”

Drudge continued reporting Panarin as saying that “the U.S. will break up into six parts– the Pacific coast, with its growing Chinese population; the South, with its Hispanics; Texas, where independence movements are on the rise; the Atlantic coast, with its distinct and separate mentality; five of the poorer central states with their large Native American populations; and the northern states, where the influence from Canada is strong.”

Panarin further suggested that Russia might even “claim Alaska.”

See an archived version of Drudge’s report at
http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/readarchive_20090107.html

Reporting on the same story, The Wall Street Journal said, “Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russian relations.”

The WSJ goes on to say that Panarin believes that “mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar.”

See The Wall Street Journal report at
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123051100709638419.html

This is not the first time that Comrade Panarin has made such a prediction. Joseph Farah, editor of World Net Daily, noted in December of 2008 that Panarin has been making similar projections for the past ten years. In a column regarding Panarin’s predictions, Farah wrote, “Until recently, no one took him very seriously. And then came the economic calamity that has rocked Americans and the rest of the world, too. Now, Panarin’s predictions of an end of the United States, due to economic and moral collapse, is being taken seriously by many.”

Read Farah’s column at
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=84884

So, will the United States break up in 2010? Or 2011? Or 2012? Or anytime in the near future, for that matter? If history is any teacher, the chances would seem good that Panarin’s predictions may be closer to reality than anyone would like to admit.

A historian and linguist from South Africa recently wrote me a fascinating letter, in which he chronicled the major world empires of history, dating the time of their rise and fall. Here is what his calculations look like:

Assyria (859-612 B.C.): a 247-year reign.
Persia (538-330 B.C.): a 208-year reign.
Greece (331-100 B.C.): a 231-year reign.
The Roman Republic (260-27 B.C.): a 233-year reign.
The Roman Empire (27 B.C.-180 A.D.): a 207-year reign.
The Arab Empire (634-880 A.D.): a 246-year reign.
The Mameluke Empire (1250-1517 A.D.): a 267-year reign.
The Ottoman Empire (1320-1570 A.D.): a 250-year reign.
Spain (1500-1750 A.D.): a 250-year reign.
Romanov Russia (1682-1916 A.D.): a 234-year reign.
Great Britain (1700-1950 A.D.): a 250-year reign.
The USA (1790-2009 A.D.): 219 years and counting.

My honorable historian-friend calculates America’s reign using its post-Revolutionary War years. He notes that America’s reign is currently at 219 years. He further notes that the average duration of every world superpower listed above is a little over 238 years.

One does not need to be a master mathematician or possess a Ph.D. to realize that America is fast approaching the mark in which every major world power in history has either collapsed or, at a minimum, lost its world leadership and power.

My friend also reminded me of his homeland’s (South Africa’s) demise. He told me that he noticed the handwriting on the wall in time to relocate his family to a more peaceful and stable European country. Many of his friends and countrymen were not so fortunate, however, and thousands were killed and their properties confiscated. He then warned me, “The period of Grace is closing, in what is your homeland.”

In addition, serious students of Holy Writ are also struck with the similarities between societal conditions in America and those of Old Testament Israel (as well as with Gentile nations) at those times of divine judgment and retribution. As someone trenchantly said, “If God spares the United States, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah.”

Will the Russian analyst’s prophecies come true in 2010? Probably not. Does that mean that America is impervious to some sort of national demise? Not at all. Is America already in serious trouble? You bet. Could there be some sort of break-up within the United States in the near future? In my opinion, that is a very realistic probability. If this happens, will freedom suffer? Almost certainly. Will those with tyrannical tendencies use the opportunity of any national disaster to try and enslave us? They already do. I personally do not believe that there is any “If” to the question. The only questions are, “When?” and “To what degree?”

And, of course, there is another question: “When the break-up comes, how many Americans understand the principles of liberty enough, and are personally prepared enough, and are willing enough to resist whatever power it may be that seeks to place us under the thumb of oppression and fight for the same protections and vanguards of liberty that first established this land?” Obviously, the answer to that question is yet to be determined, isn’t it?

AF-PAK War And The Battle For Oil

WHEN ANNOUNCING HIS NEW AFGHANISTAN AND PAKISTAN POLICY on March 27, 2009, Obama vowed “to disrupt and dismantle” the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan and to “prevent their return to either country in the future.” But who are the Taliban? Any Afghan or Pakistani who resists the US-led occupation.

Obama takes a huge leap beyond Bush’s Afghanistan policy in naming the issue “Af-Pak” — that is, widening the carnage in Afghanistan into Pakistan by moving US troops and launching deadly drones across the Pashtun-populated border.

Although Zionist Jews and imperialist war hawks applaud Obama for his new “Af-Pak” approach to his unwinnable war, others contend that he should have renamed the imperialist war, “Pak-Af,” to emphasize that from the perspective of US interests, the heart of the problem lies in Pakistan. Why?

Harvard professor of International Affairs, Graham Allison, argues: “We must insure that developments in Afghanistan would not undermine Pakistan’s assistance in eliminating al Qaeda — and that Pakistan’s arsenal of nuclear weapons would not fall into the hands of terrorists such as Osama bin Laden.” (Sorry, Graham – al Qaeda does not exist and Osama bin Laden is dead for over four years.)

The question must be asked: What vital national interest does the US have in the region? Bush stated that America’s goal was “to defend the freedom of the Afghans to raise their children free from fear.”

But after subjecting Afghan children to the mortal “fear” of US bombs being rained on them daily, Bush changed America’s goal in his February 2003 speech to the neocon Jews of the American Enterprise Institute to: “building a nation that could stand as a model of democracy in the Muslim world.” And thus, the Zionist-inspired Bush Doctrine was born.

IRAN & PAKISTAN SIGN PIPE LINE DEAL

IN A SECRET MEETING SEQUESTERED from the Jewish-controlled press, Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad and Pakistani President Ali Zardari signed a pipeline deal on May 24, 2009 during a summit in Tehran in which Afghan President Hamid Karzai participated. The two countries plan to connect their economies via exported Iranian gas flowing to Pakistan daily. Construction of the pipeline is due to start in September 2009.

Discussions began in 1993 between Pakistan and Iran for the pipeline which Iran later proposed extending into India. Dubbed the “peace pipeline,” the Iran–Pakistan–India pipeline (IPI) would traverse from Iran’s gas fields through the Pakistani city of Khuzdar. By expanding into India, Pakistan would amass huge transit fees.

The Zionist-controlled West sees the deal as having adverse implications for their global petropolicy. For Moscow, the Zionist West’s nemesis, is eager to join the Iran-Pakistan project in a dominant role. Gazprom is offering to act both as the construction contractor and as the pipeline operator after its completion.

While for Zionist-controlled America the IPI pipeline is an anathema, for Russia it is an opportunity. Moscow has been concerned that Iranian gas might compete with Russian exports on the European market. A constituency within the European Union that seeks to lessen its dependence on Russia has been advocating the construction of the Nabucco pipeline to pump Caspian Sea gas to Europe which would bypass Russia.

It is therefore in Russia’s interest to derail the Nabucco Project by diverting Iran’s gas away from Europe and locking it through IPI to the Asian market which for Russia is secondary (80% of Gazprom’s export profits come from the Western European market). To this end, Gazprom is keen to participate in the Iran-Pakistan pipeline project. View Entire Story Here, Here & Here.

AMERICA DUPED BY PUTIN

COINING THE TERM “PIPELINEISTAN” to describe the vast network of pipelines in oil-rich Central Asia, the Asia Times sees the Af-Pak conflict “at the core of “Pipelineistan.” As the Asia Times points out: it’s no coincidence that the map of terror in Central Asia is practically interchangeable with the map of oil.

How could Russia, the chief energy-player in Eurasia, not interpret the invasions of Afghanistan and Pakistan as a straightforward war for “Pipelineistan?” For plans to destroy the Taliban for opposing the American pipeline Unocal, was decided long before 9/11.

Obama and his war handlers, (David Rockefeller, Brzezinski, Gates, Jones), are scrambling to find “pipeline” alternatives besides the stalled Nabucco Project. Here are the options:

Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India Pipeline – TAPI would carry natural gas from Turkmenistan via Kandahar in Afghanistan to central Pakistan and on to India. Purpose – to usurp Russia’s energy hold on Europe by diverting Iran’s energy for European consumption. Still in its planning stages, Af-Pak instability and Russia’s bagging of Turkmenistan energy undermine the pipeline’s viability.

Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corporation Pipeline – AMBO would bring oil from the Caspian basin (mainly Azerbaijan) through Georgia, Bulgaria, then through so-named ‘Macedonia’ and finally to Albania. Purpose – to usurp Russia’s energy hold on Europe. The US-funded AMBO has been held up since 1994 as high financial losses and regional conflicts undermine the pipeline’s viability.

Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan Pipeline – BTCP would bring oil from the Caspian coast of Baku in Azerbaijan to the Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, through Georgia and then Turkey. Purpose – to usurp Russia’s energy hold on Europe. Sabotage by Turkish militants and the Georgian debacle undermine the pipeline’s viability.

WHEN NATO RESUMED HIGH LEVEL CONTACTS with Russia in early March this year, US Secretary of State Clinton stated before NATO officials that the US intends “to cooperate with Russia” on Afghanistan. During the same ceremony, however, Dmitri Rogozin, Russia’s envoy to NATO, stated confidently how Russia after the crisis in Georgia “negotiates from a position of strength.”

While applauding the re-opening of the Kyrgyzstan Manas Airbase for US transits into Afghanistan, little did the Zionist West know that it was Putin who convinced the Kyrgyz Republic to expel the US from the base in February of 2009 and then bring them back again. At the same time, Putin offered transit rights to the US through Russian airspace. What’s the upshot? Putin makes the continuation of the Afghan mission dependent on his good will.

Beginning in 2007, and crystallizing after Obama took office, Putin has cancelled Afghanistan’s Soviet-era debt and has pursued diplomatic exchanges with Kabul. Recently, an Afghan delegation was invited to Russia to develop a “strategic dialogue between Moscow and Kabul.” In other words, Putin is posturing Russia to have a strong influence over Afghanistan’s domestic politics in the post-election scenario. View Entire Story Here.

Thus, the Zionist West will soon be moaning over the terms of Russia’s “cooperation” which suggest nothing less than that the US is being duped…

http://www.realzionistnews.com/?p=428

The Price of Hillary

No secretary of state will come to that office with stronger pro-Israel credentials or closer ties to the Jewish community than Sen. Hillary Clinton, Douglas Bloomfield assures his readers in The Jerusalem Post. Good for them; but for the rest of us, Mrs. Clinton’s appointment as the third woman U.S. Secretary of State is hugely problematic. It heralds “the end of the world as we know it,” in many ways, although neither she nor her coterie necessarily know what they are doing. That dumb bliss may be their sole saving grace.

At the technical level, Hillary Clinton is likely to deepen the chronic crisis of the once-venerable institution at Washington’s Foggy Bottom, to which her two female predecessors have contributed in two different ways.

Madeleine Albright was an activist who will be remembered for her hubris (“If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall. We see further into the future.”), coupled with studied callousness. Asked on “60 Minutes” about the death of a half-million Iraqi children due to sanctions, she promptly responded, “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price is worth it.” Her crowning glory was her premeditated 1999 war in the Balkans, prior to which she said that “the Serbs need a little bombing.” Her State Department contributed to the formulation, as well as execution, of Bill Clinton’s doctrine of “humanitarian intervention.”

Condoleezza Rice, less evil and more obtuse, will be remembered for nothing. She was an auxilliary tool of the Bush-Cheney team, with all key decisions made elsewhere.

Mrs. Clinton will try to rebuild the relative importance of the Department of State, which will become her personal fiefdom, but her labors will not be for the better. Her appointment, the most significant among several major figures from the Clinton era, belies Obama’s rhetoric of “change” when it comes to foreign affairs. There will be tectonic shifts, cultural and moral, at home. The established premises of an imperial presidency – which in world affairs inevitably translates into the quest for dominance and justification for global interventionism – will not be challenged, however.

Once it is accepted that Obama’s primary interest lies in an irreversible redistribution of power and money at home, it ceases to be surprising that he chose Hillary Clinton as his chief diplomat. Allowing her to indulge in some global grandstanding is acceptable to him, if that means the Clintons will not stand in the way of his domestic agenda. They are both revolutionaries, after all: that Mrs. Clinton is instinctively opposed to any traditional understanding of diplomacy became obvious during the primary campaign, when she accused Obama of “naivete” for saying he was willing to meet leaders of Iran, Syria and North Korea.

With Robert Gates staying at the Pentagon and Jim Jones as Obama’s national security adviser, there will be a lot of continuity in the U.S. foreign policy, not only with the 1990s but also with recent years. In Mrs. Clinton’s case there will be more lies, the hallmark of the family. During the primaries she listed a number of foreign policy accomplishments based on her husband’s legacy. She claimed that in 1999 she “negotiated open borders” in Macedonia to Albanian refugees from Kosovo, although the crossings were opened days before her arrival. She had repeatedly invoked her “dangerous” trip to Bosnia in 1996, including alleged snipers at Tuzla airport, whereas the Bosnian war had ended six months earlier and video footage shows smiling schoolchildren greeting her in Tuzla. (She later admitted “misspeaking” over sniper claims.)

In the same spirit Mrs. Clinton declared, in late 2002,

“Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological weapons stock, his missile-delivery capability and his nuclear program. He has also given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists, including al-Qaida members. I want to insure that Saddam Hussein makes no mistake about our national unity and for our support for the president’s efforts to wage America’s war against terrorists and weapons of mass destruction.”

Hillary Clinton says that she has had second thoughts since that time, and a year ago she declared in Foreign Affairs magazine that “US troops should be brought home.” During the primary campaign, however, she was markedly less willing than Obama to commit to a withdrawal timetable. The woman who voted to authorize the Iraq war, and who parroted lies used to justify it, cannot be expected to clean up the mess created by that war. It is more likely that she will advocate a downsized, rebranded, and effectively open-ended U.S. occupation of Iraq for which the military has been preparing ever since the “Surge.”

In Afghanistan, far from disengaging, Mrs. Clinton will advocate greater troop deployments and an escalation of military activity. On Iran, during the primaries she sounded like John McCain: “I want the Iranians to know that if I’m the president, we will attack Iran” if it attacks Israel, she declared last April: “In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them.” She will negotiate with the mullahs, however, if Tehran’s tacit support is considered necessary for the achievement of her major ambition: a breakthrough in the Middle East.

Bill Clinton came closer than any U.S. president to brokering Arab-Israeli peace in the final year of his presidency, and insiders say that Hillary will place this issue at the top of her agenda. She is a favourite of the pro-Israel lobby, however, and it is unclear what she can offer, or do, in 2009-2010 that was not offered or tried at Camp David a decade earlier.

A Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank in return for recognition of Israel’s right to exist, security guarantees, and diplomatic recognition, is all fine but distinctly déjà vu. She will need to present a fresh formula, but to make it viable she will have to start by rephrasing her stated support for “undivided” Jerusalem. Considering the realities of American politics, she may find it harder to do so than Ehud Olmert, the city’s former mayor and – until recently – Israel’s prime minister.

The misnamed war on terrorism is the weakest spot in Barack Hussein Obama’s global agenda, and Hillary Clinton will do nothing to rectify the problem. Alone among leading contenders of either party, she has no section devoted to fighting terrorism on her website and had very little to say on it during the campaign. “We know we need global coalitions to tackle global problems like climate change, poverty, AIDS, and terrorism,” she declared, hinting at her priorities.

To confuse natural phenomena, human condition, and a lifestyle-inflicted disease with the most tangible real and present threat to Western civilization would be remarkable in any prominent public figure. In view of Mrs. Clinton’s appointment it is alarming.

That she does not understand the phenomenon of Jihad was evident during her U.S. Senate campaign, in the course of which on at least two occasions she hosted receptions organized by the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a group that has promoted the activities of Hamas, Turkey’s fundamentalist Welfare Party, and the Muslim Brotherhood. Mrs. Clinton had to return $50,000 received from MPAC—the Jewish vote in New York was at risk!—but she justified her contacts by claiming that she was trying “to promote a framework for peace,” that included “lines of communication to many different groups and many different individuals.”

Her “framework for peace” in the Balkans is the same as her husband’s: unqualified support for Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo against their Christian neighbors. In her book Hillary’s Choice, Gail Sheehy recalls that she pressed Bill to start the Kosovo war in 1999. When he expressed concern that bombing could have undesirable effects, including the prospect of rising civilian casualties, Hillary persisted: “I urged him to bomb. You cannot let this go on at the end of a century that has seen the major holocaust of our time. What do we have NATO for if not to defend our way of life?”

There had never been a “holocaust” in Kosovo, of course, but to this day she sees the U.S.-led NATO aggression against Serbia as a good war. In her Senate speech before the Iraq war vote she pointed approvingly to her husband’s decision and drew parallels to the Bush administration’s rationale for removing Saddam from power.

On the slender plus side, Hillary Clinton appears to be less Russophobic than some of Obama’s advisors, notably Zbigniew and Mark Brzezinski. She has criticized the Bush administration’s “obsessive” focus on “expensive and unproven missile defense technology,” the deployment of which in Poland and the Czech Republic is a key point of contention between Washington and Moscow. She favors further reducing both sides’ nuclear arsenals, and also supports U.S. Senate approval of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. On the key issue of further NATO enlargement, however, both she and Obama will continue the Bush administration’s flawed policy of seeking membership for Ukraine and Georgia.

That Obama’s foreign policy may follow the neoliberal-hawkish Democratic tradition became apparent with the selection of Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate, and soon after the election with the appointment of Rep. Rahm Emanuel as his chief of staff. It is not incidental that both were enthusiastic supporters of Clinton’s war against Yugoslavia in 1999, which marked a significant turning point not only for America and NATO but also for the West as a whole. It was the first time in American history that the principle of state sovereignty, and of the rule of law itself, were subverted in the name of an allegedly humanitarian ideology of velvet-totalitarianism.

The Clintons’ disregard for old international norms and mechanisms for the protection of national liberties, or their misuse as tools of their destruction, was as revolutionary on the global scene as Obama’s presidency will be domestically. In that sense Hillary Clinton’s appointment may reflect Obama’s understanding that they are partners in the same project of transforming reality to fit their ideological preferences. At a less lofty level this decision may nevertheless prove to be his first major blunder. It is difficult to imagine Obama – or anyone else – keeping the Clintons under control for an extended period of time. He has made himself hostage not only to Hillary’s inevitable games and whims, but also to the future conduct of her husband.

Bill Clinton made his comeback in September 2005, when he assembled 800 prime ministers, kings and other worthies to launch the Clinton Global Initiative to address „poverty, global warming, religious conflict and better governance.” He has gone far since. There are 208,000 donors to the William J. Clinton Foundation, which covers the Global Initiative as well as his presidential library. The list includes controversial associates like Frank Giustra, the Canadian billionaire who went with Bill Clinton to Kazakhstan and subsequently obtained a $425m mining contract there. Even as his wife was negotiating the Cabinet deal with Obama in late November, Clinton was in Kuwait giving a half-million-dollar speech on the global financial crisis, compliments of the host country’s National Bank. The potential for scandal is considerable.

Hillary’s ambition is another ticking bomb. She is presenting a smiling face now, but she detests the man who stole the nomination she regarded as rightfully hers. There will never be a relationship of trust and confidence between them.

“Two of the nation’s greatest secretaries of state in the modern period, Dean Acheson and Henry Kissinger, were not personally close but were intellectually bonded to their presidents,” notes Walter Isaacson, the co-author of “The Wise Men,” a book about America’s postwar foreign policy establishment. The comparison is not apt. Neither Acheson nor Kissinger were presidential hopefuls. Hillary Clinton, by contrast, sees herself as destined to be the first woman president. If the attainment of that goal demands contradicting, undermining, or otherwise betraying the first black president, she will do it.

With Obama at the Oval Office and Hillary Clinton at State, America is less likely than ever to rediscover a world in which she will be secure and free, and will not threaten security and freedom of others. Those goals are inseparable from the preservation of our identity and our liberty at home. They are unattainable because this country’s domestic liberty and identity are at greater peril than ever.

This government cannot articulate foreign policy strategies founded upon the notion of America as a real, completed nation, because the chief executive wants to turn it into a very different nation.

The United States could have and should have rediscovered the definable American Interest, and proclaimed it to be the foundation of its diplomacy, as befits a coherent and harmonious polity.

It was not to be, alas. May God help us all: Kyrie eleison.

Dr. Srdja Trifkovic is a regular columnist for Novakeo.com

Dr. Trifkovic is Foreign Affairs Editor of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, published by The Rockford Institute, and Director of the Institute’s Center for International Affairs. He has a BA (Hon) in international relations from the University of Sussex (UK), a BA in political science from the University of Zagreb (Croatia), and a PhD in history from the University of Southampton (UK).
www.trifkovic.mysite.com

Putin’s Winning Hand

Once the Atlantic Alliance is shattered, America’s lifeline to the world is kaput…

There are no military installations in the city of Tskhinvali. In fact, there are no military targets at all. It is an industrial center consisting of lumber mills, manufacturing plants and residential areas. It is also the home to 30,000 South Ossetians. When Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ordered the city to be bombed by warplanes and shelled by heavy artillery last Thursday, he knew that he would be killing hundreds of civilians in their homes and neighborhoods. But he ordered the bombing anyway.

There was no “Battle of Tskhinvali”; that’s another fiction. A battle implies that there is an opposing force that is resisting or fighting back. That’s not the case here. The Georgian army entered the city unopposed; after all, how can unarmed civilians stop armed units. Most of the townspeople had already fled across the border into Russia or hid in their basements while the tanks and armored vehicles rumbled bye firing at anything that moved.

What took place in South Ossetia last Thursday, was not an invasion or a siege; it was a massacre. The people had no way to defend themselves against a fully-equipped modern army. It was a war crime.

In less than 24 hours, the Russian army was deployed to the war zone where it chased the Georgian army away without a fight. Journalist Michael Binyon put it like this, “The attack was short, sharp and deadly—enough to send the Georgians fleeing in humiliating panic.” Indeed, the Georgians left in such haste that many of their weapons were left behind. It was a complete rout; another black-eye for the US and Israeli advisers who trained the clatter of thugs they call the Georgian army. Soon vendors on the streets of Tskhinvali will be hawking weapons that were left behind with a mocking sign: “Georgia Army M-16; Never used, dropped once.”

By the time the army was driven out, the downtown area was in engulfed in flames and the bodies of those who had been killed by sniper-fire were strewn along the streets and sidewalks. Many of people who stayed behind were simply too old or infirm to leave. Instead, they huddled in their basements waiting for the shelling to stop. It was a bloodbath. The city’s only hospital was deliberately targeted and destroyed; another war crime. By day’s end, over 2,000 people were killed in an operation that was clearly engineered with the assistance of the Bush White House. Bush regards Saakashvilli as his main client in the region; they are friends. He is America’s cat’s paw in the Caucasus. Saakashvilli’s assignment is to try to get Putin to overreact militarily and demonstrate to European allies that Russia still poses a threat to their national security. Fortunately, many Europeans see through the ruse and know that the trouble originates in Washington.

For the most part, Americans are still in the dark about what really happened last weekend. There’s a great video circulating on the Internet by a Russian citizen that has been living in USA for the last 10 years. He sums up the role of the US media with great precision. He says, “The western media–especially CNN–is feeding you complete horseshit. Russia did not invade Georgia first.” The youtube can be seen here.

The coverage of the western media has been abysmal. Nearly every article and TV news segment begins with accusations of Russian aggression concealing the fact that the Georgian Army bombarded and invaded the capital of South Ossetia one full day before the first Russian even tank crossed the border. By the time the Russians arrived, the city was already in a shambles and thousands were dead.

These facts are not in dispute by those who followed the developments as they took place. Now the media is revising the facts to manage public perceptions, just as they did with the fictional WMD in Iraq. Many people think that the media learned its lesson after they were exposed for using bogus information in the lead up to the war in Iraq. But that is not true. The corporate media–especially FOX News, CNN and PBS (the smug, liberal-sounding channel)—continue to operate like the propaganda arm of the Pentagon. Its disgraceful.

In a 2006 referendum, 99% of South Ossetians said they supported independence from Georgia. The voter turnout was 95% and the balloting was monitored by 34 international observers from the west. No one has challenged the results. The province has been under the protection of Russian and Georgian peacekeepers since 1992 and has been a de facto independent state ever since. If Putin applied the same standard as Bush did in Kosovo, he would unilaterally declare South Ossetia independent from Georgia and then thumb his nose at the UN. (Sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander) But Putin and newly-elected Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have taken a conciliatory attitude towards the international community and tried to resolve the issue through diplomatic channels. So far, they have conducted themselves with restraint and avoided any confrontation.

Still, Russia’s operation in South Ossetia has ignited a firestorm in the US political establishment and Democrats and Republicans alike are demanding that Russia be “taught a lesson”. Condoleeza Rice flew to Tbilisi on Friday and ordered Russian combat troops to withdraw from Georgia immediately. Saakashvili topped off Rice’s comments by saying that the Russian troops were “cold-blooded killers” and “barbarians”. So much for reconciliation.

Saakashvili’s hyperbolic rhetoric was followed by a surprise announcement from Poland that they had approved Bush’s plans for deploying the Missile Defense Shield in Eastern Europe. The system is supposed to defend Europe from the possibility of attacks from so-called “rogue states” like Iran, but the Kremlin knows that it is intended to neutralize their nuclear arsenal. Political analyst William Engdahl explains the importance of the proposed system in his recent article, “Missile Defense: Washington and Poland just moved the World closer to War”:

“The signing now insures an escalation of tensions between Russia and NATO and a new Cold War arms race in full force. It is important for readers to understand…the ability of one of two opposing sides to put anti-missile missiles to within 90 miles of the territory of the other in even a primitive first-generation anti-missile missile array gives that side virtual victory in a nuclear balance of power and forces the other to consider unconditional surrender or to pre-emptively react by launching its nuclear strike before 2012.”

The new “shield” will be integrated into the larger US nuclear weapons system placing the world’s most lethal weapons just a few hundred miles from Russia’s capital. It is a clear threat to Russia’s national security and it must be opposed at all cost. It is no different than nuclear weapons in Cuba. The timing of the announcement is particularly troubling as it only adds to the tensions between the two superpowers.

President Medvedev made this statement after hearing of Poland’s decision: “This decision clearly demonstrates everything we have said recently. The deployment of new anti-missile forces in Europe is aimed at the Russian Federation.”

It was President Ronald Reagan, the darling of the neoconservatives, who decided to remove short-range nuclear weapons from the European theater. Now, ironically, it is his ideological heir, George W. Bush, who is on track to restart the Cold War by putting a high-tech nuclear system on Russia’s perimeter. The younger Bush has already broken his father’s commitment to Mikail Gorbachev to never expand NATO beyond Germany. Presently, Bush is pushing to gain NATO membership for two former-Soviet states; Ukraine and Georgia. If they are approved, then any future dispute with Russia will pit the United States and Europe against Moscow. It’s no wonder Putin is trying to derail the process.

The Bush administration has been planning for a confrontation with Russia for more than a year. In fact, Raw Story reported on operations that were conducted by the military on July 14, 2008 which were probably a dress rehearsal for the current conflict. According to Raw Story:

“US troops on Monday (July 14) began military exercises near the Russian border in ex-Soviet Ukraine and were poised to launch them in Georgia, amid tense relations between Moscow and Washington. A ceremony inaugurating the Sea Breeze-2008 NATO exercise was held off Ukraine’s Black Sea coast against anti-NATO protests and a hostile reaction from officials in Russia. Sea Breeze-2008…includes forces from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Macedonia and Turkey…’The US-Georgia joint exercises will be held at the Vaziani military base’ less than 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the Russian border with a total of 1,650 servicemen taking part.”

So, it appears the Bush administration, working in conjunction with the Pentagon, did have contingency plans for dealing with a flare-up with Georgia. The real question is whether or not they planned to initiate those hostilities to advance their own regional agenda? No one knows for sure.

Now that Georgia’s American-trained army has been humiliated in front of the world, Bush is trying desperately to save face by demanding that Russia allow the US Air force to deliver humanitarian aid via C-17 military aircraft to the tens of thousands of Georgians who were displaced in the fighting. It is worth noting that, as yet, Bush has never delivered as much as a bag of rice to the 2 million Iraqi refugees living in Jordan and Syria due to his war in Iraq. Bush’s magnanimity is not only suspect, it also creates real problems for Putin who will have to decide whether the offer is sincere or just a ploy to open up the ports and airfields so that more weaponry and ordnance can be delivered. As Barry Grey suggests in his article “Bush Dispatches US Military forces to Georgia” the humanitarian operation could be a scam:

“This is a formula for an injection of US military and naval forces into Georgia of indeterminate scope and duration. It will certainly involve the presence of hundreds if not thousands of uniformed US military personnel on the ground, and a substantial number of warships in the region. The US is introducing this military force into a situation that remains highly unstable and combustible, raising the possibility of a direct military clash between the United States and Russia.”

Grey is right, but what choice does Putin have? His task is to avoid a military confrontation with the United States while demonstrating to his European partners that their future lies with Russia not America. That’s the real goal. To achieve that, he needs to expose Bush as reckless, petulant, and incapable of being a responsible steward of the global system. Maybe Putin will have to back-down at some point and swallow his pride; it makes no difference. What matters, is the endgame; showing that Russia is strong and dependable and will provide its European allies with oil and natural gas in a businesslike manner. That’s the winning hand. Meanwhile, the United States will be forced to take a long-overdue look in the mirror and revisit its strategy for perennial war. Unfortunately, once the Atlantic Alliance is shattered; America’s lifeline to the world is kaput.

Mike Whitney is a regular columnist for Novakeo.com
Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com

Socialists and Democrats will rule Serbia

The political situation in Serbia is both unprecedented and unexpected. No analyst had predicted, three or four months ago, that the election on May 11 would result in such impressive gains by the Democratic Party (Demokratska stranka, DS)—which won over 38 percent of the vote—and in a relative defeat for the Radicals (Srpska radikalna stranka, SRS), which polled 29 percent. The most surprising feature of Serbia’s post-election scene in the formation of the new governing coalition, based on an alliance between the “pro-Western, reformist” Democrats and the Socialists (Socijalisticka partija Srbije, SPS), the party of the late President Slobodan Milosevic.

For the past almost eight years since the fall of Milosevic, the Democrats and their allies have been demonizing the Socialist Party as an ugly relic of the past, the party that provided the political backbone to Milosevic and his regime, the obedient mechanism for all of his misguided and possibly criminal policies in the 1990s. One of the members of the present DS-led coalition, a separatist from Vojvodina by the name of Nenad Canak, has even advocated a formal ban on the Socialist Party.

But the Democrats have made a complete U-turn since May 11, having realized that they need the Socialists—who together with their smaller allies have 20 deputies—in order to stay in power. Over the past six weeks some extensive horse-trading followed that realization. Legitimizing the Socialists, proclaiming them to be a modern, decent, pro-European center-left party, fit for membership in the Socialist International, is merely one part of the package offered by the DS. Overall, the coalition agreement is the fruit of a massive exercise in political corruption, the like of which has never been seen in Serbia’s long and turbulent history.

TYCOONS AND DIPLOMATS—The ability of the Democratic Party to come on top is nevertheless difficult to explain unless we consider the impact of an important pressure group helping the DS. This group’s influence was not unknown, but it had never before pulled the strings so blatantly. It is the oligarchy. Now at last we know the full extent to which Belgrade’s leading tycoons—their fortunes often harking back to the days of Milosevic—control the political scene from the shadows. About a dozen men who hold all key levers of financial and economic power in the country are overwhelmingly supportive of Tadic’s Democrats. They are well aware that under the Yellow-Red Coalition (DS-SPS) their lucrative practices will continue unhindered. On the other hand, they were scared stiff of the Radicals, because the SRS had made the struggle against corruption a key element of its election campaign. In addition, the Radicals have amassed a lot of compromising information about some key oligarchs and their political associates in the DS camp, and they were determined to pursue prosecutions if they came to power. Knowing this, the tycoons had an additional motive to contribute lavishly to a clandestine slush fund that the DS used to woo Ivica Dacic, the Socialists leader, and his junior partners. Tadic’s emissaries have done their work on the Socialist Party Main Board so thoroughly, that even this bulwark of Milosevic’s reliable cadres from the 1990s overwhelmingly voted to support the coalition of their party with the DS.

While the exact magnitude of illicit transactions is unknown for the time being, Belgrade is a relatively small place in which nothing political remains unknown for long. In Serbia’s politics, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. It is also noteworthy that the oligarchs enjoy the support of some Western diplomats in Belgrade—specifically the U.S. and British Ambassadors—in their self-appropriated role of king-makers, which provides a vivid example of the EU-NATO support for democracy in the Balkans.

COMMIES OLD AND NEW—That so many old Milosevic loyalists, who presumably have good reasons to despise and dislike Tadic’s people, have changed their minds so swiftly, is a sad testimony to the condition of a shattered nation. The SPS U-turn does not concern the legacy of Milosevic alone. Having profiled themselves for years as a patriotic force determined to defend Serbia’s rights in Kosovo come what may, the Socialists are about to join forces with the party obviously reconciled to giving up on Serbia’s southern province after some decent interval, while pretending all along not to be doing so.

The readiness to treat vital national interests as disposable commodities indicates that the DS-SPS tandem is less surprising than it looks. The differences between the new partners may not be so deep after all. The leading lights of both parties have their ideological roots in the old, long-defunct League of Communists of Yugoslavia. A cynic would say that we are witnessing the creation of a coalition between Serbia’s “reformist” communists—such as Dragoljub Micunovic—who have morphed into Tadic’s Europhile social-democrats, and some seriously hard-line doctrinaires—such as Milutin Mrkonjic—who still remain faithful to Milosevic’s legacy. It has been noted that we are now witnessing the coalition of two opposite factions from the Eight Session of the Communist party of Serbia in September 1987, which propelled Milosevic to power. The reformist, social-democratic wing was defeated at that time, while Milosevic’s wing was triumphant. Over the past eight years the roles have been reversed. After an estrangement lasting two decades, the two factions are coming back together again.

Some Serbian patriots console themselves with the view that this coalition cannot last for long. They are wrong: this coalition is likely to stay in power longer than its predecessors because its partners will have no motive to rock the boat. The Socialists have obtained the best deal they could hope for, and they have an incentive to maintain the new status quo as long as possible. Their leader Ivica Dacic probably realizes that the party will disappear from the political scene at the next election: SPS rank-and-file will never forgive him the deal with Tadic, and this is the one shot at power, money and influence that he will ever have.

The Democrats cannot afford to risk another election, because they have reached the zenith of their likely electoral success, with just under forty percent of the vote and over a hundred deputies. They are loath to risk their current dominant position, especially if the country’s financial and economic situation starts to unravel. Serbia is effectively bankrupt. It owes over $20 billion to foreign creditors, but in spite of heavy borrowing the neoliberals who run the showt have not succeeded in quick-starting the economy. Public spending in particular is not supported by the economy. After the final round of privatization, public spending may have to be financed either by inflationary means, or else by a new round of borrowing.

OPPOSITION IN CRISIS—On the other hand, the opposition to the DS-led government has to devise a long-term strategy which it does not have at the moment. In the short term it will be hard for the leading opposition parties, the Serbian Radical Party (SRS) and the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS), to come up with a program of action that could undermine the emerging coalition. The DSS of the outgoing Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica is entering a period of decline. It is having difficulty in retaining loyalty of any significant segment of the electorate. Having failed on two important occasions (after the elections of December of 2004 and January of 2007) to put together stable coalitions, it is paying the price of joining forces with the DS last year. The ensuing tensions and almost schizoid bipolarity between Tadic’s Europhiles and Kostunica’s moderate patriots have harmed the latter disproportionately. The latter is now paying the price of not entering a coalition with the Radical Party when he could do so from the position of strength.

The Radicals also are entering a period of crisis. For many years they have been building up their support and developing their base, in the confident expectation that the ruling parties’ failures over Kosovo will work to their advantage. This is not the case, however. The Democrats have succeeded in presenting Kosovo as fait accompli to the Serbian public, and they keep pointing at some elusive “European integrations” as a substitute. The Radicals, on the other hand, have failed to articulate a message that is both correct and inspiring. The Serbs are tired of economic deprivation, and many of them are willing to be duped with Euro-talk. They are still listening to the rosy stories of the open EU path, which with the defeat of the Lisbon Treaty at the Irish referendum is in fact closed. There will be no enlargement of the EU for a many years to come.

SERBIA AND THE E.U.—Serbia’s Euro-fanatics, led by President Boris Tadic, will admit no such thing, however. In an interview on June 29, Tadic stated two priorities of the new government: to ratify the Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU as soon as possible, and to “complete” cooperation with the Hague Tribunal. But Tadic’s haste makes no sense. Even if the Serbian Assembly ratifies it, that gesture will be meaningless. The EU has already decided that the Agreement is suspended until General Mladic and Dr. Karadzic are arrested and delivered to the Hague Tribunal—and that will not happen. Had the Serbian government had the wherewithal to deliver them, it would have done so log time ago. Even if the Serbian Assembly ratifies the SAA, it will remain inoperative for as long as Brussels remains unconvinced that Serbia has fully complied with its imposed obligation to cooperate with The Hague Tribunal—and yet such compliance is impossible for as long as Karadzic and Mladic are at large; it’s a classic Catch 22. In addition, even if the SAA were to become operative, it would not mean that Serbia is any closer to joining the EU. With the outcome of the Irish referendum the Lisbon Treaty is effectively dead. The Treaty, had it passed, would have provided the mechanism for further enlargement. Now the EU has to fall back on the Nice Treaty, signed in December 2000, that came into force in February 2003. It specifically limits the size of the EU to 28 members, which means that Croatia may be admitted next year, and that’s the end: after that, for maybe 10 to 15 years the enlargement process will be over. It is interesting, however, that in Serbia nobody seems to be willing to spell this simple fact aloud. The enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn keeps saying that the door is still open to new members, but he is not telling the truth. He is paid to say so. In reality, in Brussels the EU bureaucrats are knowingly nodding to each other that it is over: neither Serbia, nor Macedonia, nor Bosnia-Herzegovina, let alone Turkey, will be members of the EU for at least two decades.

AS FOR KOSOVO…—Commenting on possible replacement of UNMIK by EULEX in Kosovo, Tadic repeated on June 29 that no transformation of UN’s mission would be acceptable based on the initiative of the UN Secretary General alone, and that a Security Council decision would be needed. His statement was apparently calculated to prepare the ground for Serbia’s gradual admission that Kosovo is a lost cause. Tadic pretends to resist such outcome, but in practice he is not taking any steps that would make the position of the secessionists more difficult. Belgrade’s trade with Kosovo continues unabated, Kosovo Albanians’ transit through the territory of Serbia is unhindered, Serbian electricity keeps Kosovo’s derelict grid functioning.

Tadic seems to be implying that Serbia will accept the EU’s EULEX mission, illegal as it is, provided it gets a fig leaf of legality from the UN Security Council. At the UN SC the only barrier is the opposition of Russia. Russia is not going to continue opposing Western policies, however, if Serbia herself is reconciled to the loss of the southern province. We are already witnessing gradual distancing of the Russian diplomacy from the Kosovo issue. It is only a matter of time till the new government in Belgrade signals to Moscow that Serbia is perfectly willing to see Russia removing its objections to the transformation of the UN mission into an EU mission. If and when that happens, it will mark de facto acceptance of Kosovo’s independence by Belgrade.

The chief losers, in the short term, will be the remaining Serbs of Kosovo. Their lot is fatally dependent upon the posture of the government in Belgrade, politically, financially, and morally. Their ability to resist forced integration into an independent Kosovo is dependent on what happens in the Serbian capital. With the new coalition, they can no longer count on any serious support from Belgrade and most certainly they can no longer take it for granted. The previous coalition had an important ministry, the Ministry for Kosovo and Metohija, which was ably handled by the Democratic Party of Serbia and one of its leading lights, Prof. Slobodan Samardzic, as Minister. They were able to devise a whole series of projects that helped the Serbian community in Kosovo feel that it is not abandoned and that its members can count on support from Belgrade. With the new government this will no longer be the case.

It is tempting to conclude that Serbia will have an unpatriotic government for the next few years. This conclusion depends on one’s definition of “patriotism,” of course, and Tadic would claim that his striving to join “Europe” at any price—Kosovo implicitly included—is somehow “patriotic.” Tadic’s and his cohorts’ understanding of Serbdom means turning Serbia into just another post-modern European nation that has given up on the legacy of its culture, tradition, and faith, just another nation that measures its successes solely in terms of dollars or euros per capita.

Dr. Srdja Trifkovic is a regular columnist for Novakeo.com

Dr. Trifkovic is Foreign Affairs Editor of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, published by The Rockford Institute, and Director of the Institute’s Center for International Affairs. He has a BA (Hon) in international relations from the University of Sussex (UK), a BA in political science from the University of Zagreb (Croatia), and a PhD in history from the University of Southampton (UK).
www.trifkovic.mysite.com

Yeti Riots

The Chinese authorities did their civic duty by forcibly suppressing the pogroms in Tibet, for the “Tibetan protests and demonstrations” were essentially just pogroms of immigrants, mainly but not exclusively Han Chinese and Uygur Muslims. Some two dozen persons (the Chinese immigrants, Tibetan rioters and security forces) had lost their lives; five immigrants were gruesomely burned alive in their shop. More people would die but for decisiveness of the Chinese commanders.

The Tibetan case is not without merit. Tibetans want to preserve their unique culture: so do people of France and Sweden, of Palestine and Iraq. So probably did Yeti, the true aborigines of Tibet. We all are threatened by globalizing forces that obliterate the beautiful variety of the world. The Dalai Lama called this process “cultural genocide”. Welcome to planet Earth, Your Holiness. Indeed, every McDonalds, every Starbucks is a part of the “cultural genocide” we live through. Still, we do not grill Americans alive. Immigrant-bashing is equally unacceptable in far-away Lhasa, in Toulouse or Liverpool.

The native people of Tibet have equal rights with other peoples of China. If they want to have all of Tibet for themselves, sorry, it does not work this way. Whether we like it or not, we have to share our land with those who came before and later. Likewise, Indians, Nepalese and Chinese share their cities and villages with the Tibetan immigrants without complaining too much.

The case of Tibet is much overstated for Tibet is hardly unique: it is a region of special character related to China like Bretagne to France; like Wales to Britain, like Catalonia to Spain, like Sicily to Italy, like Dixie to the US. In all these places, local patriots may dream of more autonomy or even independence, they may resent influx of strangers. Bretons may hate the Parisians, the Welsh snarl at the English who buy their homes, the Alabamans could dislike New York Jews who dictate to them the rules of the game – even before they object to immigrants from farther-away lands. But they rarely dream to roll history back. This is a dream of far nationalist right, which is practically outlawed in Europe and the US.

Could it be that Presidents Bush and Sarkozy, the editors of the New York Times, Le Monde and Haaretz, human rights activists Bernard-Henri Levy and Daniel Cohn-Bendit calling for the boycott of the Chinese Olympics have become supporters of Le Pen, David Duke and Horst Mahler, and after regaining national character of Tibet, Europe and America will follow into asserting their uniqueness? However, I doubt these luminaries will approve of Jewish pogroms; why the pogroms of Chinese are so warmheartedly applauded?

If not Tibet, there would be some other reason for this anti-Chinese campaign. Christopher Caldwell quipped in FT (March 29/30, 2008): “Boycotting Beijing Olympics is the solution that has long been in search of a problem”. “The problem” could be Darfur, Burma, human rights, mistreatment of prisoners and animals, or late abortions. Israeli newspapers produce daily some new reasons why China should be boycotted, usually because of “human rights violations”. The precise reasons vary, but the bottom line remains the same: ostracize, isolate and punish China, for it is too independent.

The Chinese leadership is not weak-kneed; they have witnessed too many horrible examples of what happens if the central government shows weakness. The Soviet Union went down because Gorbachev did not deal with separatism in the Baltic republics, Ukraine, Armenia. The Chinese leaders are made of sterner stuff. Sometimes, hard decisions had to be made, and they call for people of strong will.

Such a hard but wise decision was that of Tiananmen riots’ suppression in 1989. Without it, China would disintegrate in flood of blood and tears; it would be re-colonised by the Western powers. Now, the suppression of Lhasa riots was relatively a small-time event, hopefully soon forgotten. The Tibetans were misled, now they may readjust their vision. So did many secessionists: Ibo of Nigeria fought a long war, but eventually settled for equality. So did the people of Dixie after their defeat.

The Chinese are within their rights to fight secessionists and preserve the integrity of their land, including the region of Tibet. A few days ago, the Pink Panther of a president, M. Sarkozy, said in the UK: “We shall never surrender Afghanistan”. If the French clown wants to keep Afghanistan and is ready to send French soldiers to die for it, there is no reason for the Chinese to give up Tibet, a part of China for one thousand years. (The French readers may be comforted: the main alternative to the clown, Segolene Royal, was even more outspoken in her calls to boycott China. Indeed if there is something more miserable than Gaullists of Sarkozy, that’s Socialists of Royal.)

The Western ideologues wish to shape the world according to their preferences, and independent China, (or Russia, Iran, India) is not their cup of tea. That is why they sow strife and dissent; promote separatism and secession in the independent countries. This is an old game of undoing empires, and afterwards creating a new empire on their ruins. In this game, the leftist hypocrites and the rightist imperialists work together.

They do find local nationalists, often sincere people, who accept their support. These nationalists usually are duped; unless they are cynical crooks who are aware of the game they play. Nothing good came out of separatist secession causes: usually, the seceded lands became a part of the Judeo-American Empire. The recent case of Kosovo (probably an inspiration to the Tibetan rebels) is a clear example: the Albanians of Kosovo regained freedom from Serbia and became a colony of the EC serving the biggest American military base and the oil terminal.

Independent Tibet would also become a US base against China, India, Russia. The bloody and cruel Tibet rebellion of 1959 was fully prepared and paid for by the CIA, in order to undermine China. We know it now, because two bad guys – Kenneth Conboy of the Heritage Foundation and James Morrison, an Army veteran trainer for the CIA – boasted about it in a book called The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet (Kansas University Press, 2002). Gary Wilson correctly compared it with the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.

Marx and Lenin were reluctant to speak in general categories. Instead of calling for freedom, they asked “freedom from what? Freedom for whom? Independence of what?” They did not absolutise freedom, independence, self-determination, but rather checked whether it is good for them or for their adversaries. If a small nation turns into an imperialist tool, it should be fought against, they said. Indeed, it is impossible to say whether “independence is good in general” or not.

Often, independence is a piece of cheese in the mousetrap. Gandhi was asked what he thinks of European civilization. It would be nice! – he exclaimed. Likewise the idea of independence. If a country like Tibet – or Chechnya, – could be independent, instead of serving an advance base for an American invasion, it would be nice. But such an option does not exist. In words of G W Bush, you are with them, or with us.

It is right time to give up the chase after “self-determination”, for this noble sentiment has been abused by far too often. Instead we demand equal rights for all. Alexander the Great was famously even-handed with the subjects of his vast empire, and his own Macedonian warriors complained that he prefers the defeated Persians to the victorious Greeks. “For me, there is no difference between a Greek and a Persian”, – he replied – “both are subjects of my state”. This is the right attitude.

The idea of independence and self-determination failed everywhere; and now it failed in Palestine, too. The vestiges of this concept are being used now to perpetuate apartheid and to keep in power some corrupt and powerless politicians. Native Palestinians do not need independence; they are not going to get it either, but every day this fiction is being nurtured just postpones the day of true equality of all and for all in Palestine/Israel.

The Tibetans should understand that too. The way to preserve uniqueness of Tibet – and of France, England, Palestine – lies through our victory over the Empire and over its tendency to globalise and homogenize. In this battle, China is their protector and friend, not an enemy.

Israel Shamir is a regular columnist for Novakeo.com

A native of Novosibirsk, Siberia, a grandson of a professor of mathematics and a descendant of a Rabbi from Tiberias, Palestine, he studied at the prestigious School of the Academy of Sciences, and read Math and Law at Novosibirsk University. In 1969, he moved to Israel, served as paratrooper in the army and fought in the 1973 war.

After his military service he resumed his study of Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, but abandoned the legal profession in pursuit of a career as a journalist and writer. He got his first taste of journalism with Israel Radio, and later went freelance. His varied assignments included covering Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in the last stages of the war in South East Asia.

In 1975, Shamir joined the BBC and moved to London. In 1977-79 he wrote for the Israeli daily Maariv and other papers from Japan. While in Tokyo, he wrote Travels with My Son, his first book, and translated a number of Japanese classics.

Email at: info@israelshamir.net

Kosovo: A Threat to Israel’s Survival

There are many self-styled friends of Israel in the United States who have been enthusiastically supportive of Kosovo’s independence for years. People like Sen. Joe Lieberman, Rep. Elliot Engel, Morton Abramowitz, William Kristol, Douglas Feith and many others appear to be motivated by the hope that favors to a supposedly moderate Muslim group in the Balkans may buy some brownie points for America—and by extension for Israel—in the Islamic world. That delusion was stated brazenly yet eloquently by the late Rep. Tom Lantos during a House hearing on Kosovo last April:

Just a reminder to the predominantly Muslim-led governments in this world that here is yet another example that the United States leads the way for the creation of a predominantly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe. This should be noted by both responsible leaders of Islamic governments, such as Indonesia, and also for jihadists of all color and hue. The United States’ principles are universal, and in this instance, the United States stands foursquare for the creation of an overwhelmingly Muslim country in the very heart of Europe.

Israel is some thousands of miles away from the heady Beltway air (and whatever they are putting in their water inside it), and such inanities cut no ice there. Writing in the Jerusalem Post on February 21 (“Kosovo’s Stark Warning”), Caroline Glick, one of Israel’s most prominent columnists, pleads for Israel to join Russia, China and others in not recognizing Kosovo for the sake of its own existential interests. “The fledgling failed-state of Kosovo is a great boon for the global jihad,” she warns. It has been used as bases for al-Qaida operations, members of the ruling KLA have direct links to al-Qaida, and “the Islamic world as a whole perceived Kosovo’s fight for independence from Serbia as a jihad for Islamic domination of the disputed province”:

For Israel, Kosovo’s US-backed declaration of independence should be a source of alarm great enough to require a rethinking of foreign policy. Unfortunately, rather than understand and implement the lessons of Kosovo, the Olmert-Livni-Barak government is working actively to ensure that they are reenacted in the international community’s treatment of Israel and the Palestinians.

In the meantime the neoconservative-neoliberal disconnect between aiding and abetting Muslim designs in the Balkans and “fighting the Global War on Terror” is growing deeper. The appeasement has never yielded any dividends, but repeated failure only prompts the architects of the policy to redouble their efforts—as Under-Secretary of State Nicholas Burns proved on February 18, a day after the Kosovo declaration. Noting approvingly recognitions of Kosovo by Turkey and Afghanistan and “a very strong and supportive comment by the Organization of the Islamic Conference,” he reminded his audience that “Kosovo is going to be a vastly majority Muslim state, given the fact that 92 to 94 percent of their population is Muslim. And we think it is a very positive step that this Muslim state, Muslim majority state, has been created today.”

If it is intrinsically “a very positive step” for the United States that a “vastly Muslim state” is created inside a non-Muslim state, in an area ethnically cleansed of non-Muslims, it stands to reason that Washington will be equally supportive of any putative Islamistan from western Macedonia to southern Bulgaria to the northern Caucasus, and one day perhaps even Palestine. It is especially worthy of note that the Organization of the Islamic Conference statement, to which Mr. Burns referred so approvingly, stated that “the Islamic Umma wishes [our brothers and sisters in Kosovo] success in their new battle . . . There is no doubt that the independence of Kosovo will be an asset to the Muslim world and further enhance the joint Islamic action.”

“[W]e don’t see the independence of Kosovo as some kind of precedent,” Burns reiterated the oft-repeated assurance during his press briefing on January 18, but ethno-religious separatists around the world, and Muslims before all others, were quick to challenge his assertion. Pandora’s box is wide open, and Israel is among the first to feel the consequences.

The Palestinians “should follow Kosovo’s example and unilaterally declare independence” if peace talks with Israel fail, Yasser Abed Rabbo, a top aide to the PA President Mahmoud Abbas declared on February 20. “Kosovo is not better than Palestine,” he added. If the United States and the majority of the European Union “have embraced the independence of Kosovo, why shouldn’t this happen with Palestine as well?”

Dr. Rice, Mr. Burns et al would reply “because we say so,” but Israeli analysts are not impressed. Col. Shaul Shay, an expert on Islamic radicalism at BESA (Begin-Sadat) Center at Bar-Ilan, thus notes that when the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina ended, terrorist infrastructures remained there and served as a basis for the Islamic terror activities in Kosovo:

Today, the Balkans serve as a forefront on European soil for Islamic terror organizations, which exploit this area to promote their activities in Western Europe, and other focal points worldwide . . . [T]he establishment of an independent Islamic territory including Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania along the Adriatic Coast, is one of the most prominent achievements of Islam since the siege of Vienna in 1683. Islamic penetration into Europe through the Balkans is one of the main achievements of Islam in the twentieth century.

The main danger, as he and other prominent Israelis see it, is that the U.S. recognition of Kosovo endorses the principle that a solution to an intractable political and territorial quarrel can and should be imposed by outside countries, even if one of the parties rejects the proposed solution as contrary to its vital national interests. While the question of how Israel should reach agreement with Palestinian aspirations remains open, the notion of a solution imposed from outside is anathema to all Israelis. Furthermore, outside powers’ award of a part of a state’s sovereign territory to a violent ethnic or religious minority may come to affect not just the West Bank but even the Galilee and the Negev, where Arabs have, or may soon acquire, local majorities. Israel’s Muslim population is now just above 20 percent, roughly the same as Serbia’s with Kosovo included. If Albanian Muslims can demand separation from Serbia today, citing alleged past mistreatment, it is a sure bet Israel’s Arabs will do the same tomorrow.

In order to survive in a hostile and unpredictable environment, Israel must not allow a dreadful precedent like this to stand. There are two main areas in which Israel can make a positive contribution to ensuring that it does not stand.

Firstly, the Israeli government should state its publicly and forcefully that it is against an imposed solution. Secondly, the impact of Israeli opinion on the public policy community in the United States should not be underestimated. Among the American advocates of Kosovo independence are many friends and supporters of Israel who appear oblivious to the fact that their advocacy might have a negative impact on Israel. Such advocates are found among media, public policy groups and think tanks, advocacy organizations, and other centers of influence representing in particular the US Jewish community, liberals, neoconservatives, and elements of the Christian community.

In addition, Israel’s military and defense experience with terrorism is widely respected in American defense, intelligence, and homeland security sectors, both in and out of government, and in both the Executive and Legislative branches. It is important that every such contact in the United States be informed by their Israeli interlocutors that the wrong solution for Kosovo, currently pursued by the United States, would have an adverse impact on Israel.

Dr. Srdja Trifkovic is a regular columnist for Novakeo.com
Dr. Trifkovic is Foreign Affairs Editor of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, published by The Rockford Institute, and Director of the Institute’s Center for International Affairs. He has a BA (Hon) in international relations from the University of Sussex (UK), a BA in political science from the University of Zagreb (Croatia), and a PhD in history from the University of Southampton (UK).
www.trifkovic.mysite.com

Next Page »