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April
17, 2003
Empire's
'Liberation'
The
Opposite of Liberty
Last
week's "liberation" of Iraq bore a striking resemblance
to the "liberation" of Kosovo four years ago, or
the continuing "freedom" Bosnia enjoys, replete
with the Imperial occupation troops, a viceroy, general devastation
and cultural
destruction. Empire's quest for a
global Balkans grows more apparent by the day. The polls
may indicate that most Americans are happy with the Brave
New World thrust upon them, but the wise are already wondering
if what has emerged could be better called Communist,
Fascist
or something else altogether. In any case, not the
Republic
envisioned by its Founders.
Nor
are its occupied territories and vassal domains in the Balkans
anything like the public has been led to believe. Bosnia has
been writhing in torment for over
a decade, in a Hell
partly of its own making, but now run by an Imperial viceroy.
Kosovo is a land of darkness and despair, mired in terror
and lies. Serbia has fallen under a reign
of terror cleverly disguised as a "war on crime."
But at least they all have democracy
seeping out of every wound, and isn't it grand?
Illusions
of truth, perversions of justice, and a demonic sort of "democracy"
are today's Balkans reality, and the coming reality of "liberated"
Iraq.
Truth?
The
"liberated" Kosovo is an example of many things:
naked
aggression posing as humanitarianism; ethnic cleansing
and cultural persecution posing as multi-cultural tolerance;
an occupation posing as freedom. It is also a symbol of the
way the Empire decides what is reality: whatever it says it
is. One could talk about the way NATO fabricated pretexts
and justifications
for its invasion, or how it twisted the armistice to mean
unconditional surrender, or how it "interprets"
the fig-leaf UN mandate to do whatever it wants.
Or
one could just read the recent news reports about a string
of terrorist attacks by an "Albanian National Army"
(AKSh), whose very existence NATO and its flunkies hotly deny.
So a northern Kosovo railroad track blew
itself up this weekend, and the two terrorists who died
in the explosion did not really exist. The non-existent organization
certainly doesn't have
a web site. The simultaneous bombing of two police stations
in Pristina last month? Never
happened. And the February bombing of a court house in
Struga, Macedonia? Figment
of someone's imagination.
This
deliberate denial of the obvious is staggering. A major witness
against KLA officers charged with murder, torture and abductions
is gunned
down in a family car, yet the UN police say they "do
not know" who did it, "nor the motive." The
pinnacle of outrage surely must be the insinuation by Empire's
propaganda vehicle, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which
blamed
Serbs for many deaths of Albanian civilians and KLA officers
in the first year of Kosovo's occupation. But for all the
Empire has done, and is doing, in Kosovo, that should not
come as a surprise.
To
the Indispensable Nation, truth
is a matter of convenience.
Justice?
News
came from Bosnia last Friday that Naser Oric, former commander
of Muslim forces in Srebrenica, was seized
and shipped off to the Hague Inquisition, on charges of
war
crimes.
Oric
was the notorious
warlord who abused Srebrenica's status as a UN "safe
haven" to launch raids on nearby Serb villages, and is
directly responsible for hundreds of murders. He even videotaped
some, and those videos are evidence beyond reasonable doubt
that the man ordered and committed atrocities. All of which
makes his indictment by the Inquisition even more insidious.
"Serbs
begin believing in justice and The Hague" read a headline
in Sarajevo's daily Oslobodjenje on Monday, the paper
unwittingly revealing the real reason behind Oric's arrest.
The illegal
and illegitimate Hague "tribunal" is desperate
to create a perception among all Balkans peoples, but mainly
the Serbs that it is really a legal, legitimate institution,
meritorious to decide whether war crimes happened and who
was responsible for them. Occasional arrests and convictions
of non-Serbs are supposed to serve this important credibility
effort. Meanwhile, the Inquisition's actual goal – to fabricate
charges of a "joint
criminal enterprise" of Serbian leadership to foment
and conduct the Balkan wars and commit atrocities therein
– can proceed unchallenged.
People
like Oric, or the Celebici
torturers, or Stela
and Tuta, are but sacrifices. Whether they committed atrocities
or not is irrelevant to the Big Picture, which demands their
conviction for the sake of "bagging"
the Serbs. In fact, the Inquisition is really not interested
in establishing whether its Serb detainees actually
committed the atrocities they stand accused of. Their very
indictment is proof enough, and the conviction merely a preordained
matter of procedure.
There
has been word of possible US military tribunals trying Iraqi
officers and officials for "crimes" committed under
the rule of Saddam Hussein, as a "sovereign
right" of the conqueror. Between The Hague Inquisition
and this, it is obvious that any pretense of justice has been
perverted
and corrupted to serve the interests of power.
Democracy
Incarnate
Purges
initiated by the Serbian government after the assassination
of Prime Minister Djindjic last month continue unabated, targeting
the regime's political rivals even as the new Prime Minister
denied
such a thing was happening.
Following
the lead of His Most Democratic Majesty, Zivkovic offered
no argument beyond his assertions. "Because I say so"
seems to be the popular argument
these days. Unsurprisingly, the supine media took his word
for it, and ran headlines proclaiming "No repression
in Serbia" or some such. Ah, freedom at work! At the
same time, Zivkovic indicated that "it
may happen" that top opposition politicians would
be found guilty of crime connections. Well, how convenient.
The
Serbian parliament – a mockery of that institution if there
ever was one – recently passed
new laws allowing the police to detain people up to 60
days without charges, legal counsel or visitation, all in
the name of "fighting crime," of course. A comparison
with the intent, if not extent, of the USA Patriot Act would
be tempting, except that the term "patriot" has
been banned in Serbian public discourse, and will likely be
replaced by "democrat." Furthermore, there is nothing
patriotic about the amendments
to the extradition law, passed purely to appease the Empire.
But
none of it matters, because the people overwhelmingly
support the government – or so the government says. DOS'
approval rates match those of His Imperial Majesty so much
that they might have been cribbed from American pollsters.
But any media examination of these claims is, of course, banned
under the State of Emergency Act.
Culture
Cleansing
Another
disturbing trend in Serbian purges is the emerging Kulturkampf
component. The arrest of folk singer Ceca Raznatovic for weapons
possession and alleged links to the Djindjic assassination
prompted a condemnation
of the "symbiosis" between Serbian popular culture,
crime, and the [former/evil – as opposed to current/good]
Government.
Proponents
of "cultural cleansing" who fashion themselves Serbia's
"civil
society" don't have a problem with government manipulating
the popular culture, as long as it is the culture they
approve of. Their sentiments go beyond the dislike of
some contemporary trends of truly questionable quality, but
actually represent a fiery hatred of all Serbian folk
culture as lowly, unworthy, primitive and "retrograde."
The
next step is, logically, the elimination of Serbian folk culture
in favor of a more "progressive" set of values,
imposed by the all-benevolent State for everyone's benefit,
under the pretext of "de-Nazification" and "lustration."
After surviving almost 60 years of social engineering, the
Serbian society would be finished off by the modern managerial
State and its faithful flunkies.
The
Real Liberation
One
libertarian columnist recently
remarked that the young countries can prosper only in
the climate of "culture-driven self-government, absent
outside military interference and manipulation from great
powers and entangling alliances. It's kind of like what the
founding fathers envisioned for this country. A variation
of national socialism, administered by outsiders or their
handpicked minions, will stifle and annoy any country, but
especially one that has been promised 'liberation'."
Empire's
"liberation" is the actual polar opposite of liberty.
Based
on just the examples cited above, the truth of this proposition
has already been decisively demonstrated in the Balkans. It
will be demonstrated again in Iraq. The Empire has denied
it, and will continue to deny it, because this truth is inconvenient,
but it is truth nonetheless. So long as we refuse to
accept it, we will continue to be in thrall to Empire's lies
– as well as our own.
–
Nebojsa Malic
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