| June
20, 2002
Balkans
Leaders Chose Servitude
Time
To Do Away With Them
It's
been a fact for at least a year now, ever since the Treaty
of Ohrid was signed,
that the Balkans was fully conquered. Perhaps the final, unnecessary
confirmation came in March, when the last remnant of the last
Yugoslav federation was officially
dismantled. Those who inherited the rubble of what used
to be Yugoslavia pledged their fealty to Emperors of the West,
just as Yugoslavia's neighbors had done previously.
Certainly,
the Empire's control is not yet fully established. There are
little things, details such as what will happen to Kosovo
and Macedonia; will Bosnia ever be united; who will rule the
vassal principality of Serbia, or how small it will end up
being. Right now, the money seems to be on Zoran the Foul,
since any resistance to his parliamentary coup is readily
interpreted as support for The Evil Milosevic. But whoever
wins will be rewarded by being a friend and
partner in hunting down any and all Serbs who might oppose
it.
For
it is not enough merely to obey the masters, one must love
them as well. Only willing servants, such as Macedonia's political elite, will
do.
(Re)writing
History
To
this purpose, then, the history of the entire region is extensively
rewritten. Gone are chapters about certain nations' associations
with the Nazis, for example, or massacres they
perpetrated against today's designated culprits. Instead,
a new history is composed in prestigious institutions of Western
academia at the behest of the Hague Inquisition, one that
has as much resemblance to the truth as "Protocols
of the Elders of Zion."
Certainly
the mainstay of this effort is the omnipresent myth of "Greater
Serbia" as forged by the Austro-Hungarian government in
the early 1900s and resurrected at need by the Nazis, Communists,
and NATO. But the effort goes far beyond that crucial generalization,
and into horrifying details.
One
instance is the recent
ruling of the Inquisition's "appeals chamber,"
upholding the convictions of three Bosnian Serbs accused of
mass rape. The decision reiterates the Inquisition's position
that "sexual offenses had been used by Serb forces as
part of a campaign to intimidate Muslims and prompt them to
flee." (AP) Essentially, this means that Bosnian
Serbs committed systematic mass rape during the 1992-95 war.
Accusations
of systematic mass rape by the Serbs have long been a staple
of most rabid propaganda. Stories of 40,000 victims sheltering
in Tuzla alone dominated the news in 1993. But while rape,
along with torture and other forms of abuse, has certainly
been widespread in the Bosnian conflict, there is no evidence
– save the claims by the Muslim regime and reporters sympathetic
to its cause – that there was ever a method in this madness.
Most tellingly, the realistic number of rape victims has never
been officially established. Surely, it would be imperative
that an accusation of this magnitude be accurately documented?
Or is the word of an illegal court all it takes,
these days?
Definitions
By Fiat
Sadly,
it seems the answer is yes. When the Inquisition convicted
Gen. Radislav Krstic of "genocide" for his alleged
role in the 1995 "Srebrenica massacre," it never
bothered to establish the facts of the case beyond what has
been heard in countless propaganda pieces over the past seven
years. Even the exhaustive Dutch
report, published this April and condemned by Keepers
of Official Truth, failed to establish for certain how many
people were killed and how, or whether they were civilians,
combatants, or both. Two claims have proven enduring in this
veritable vacuum of facts: that "up to 8000 Muslims"
were killed, sometimes qualified as "men and boys;"
and that this constituted "genocide."
Those
who believe genocide entails a near-complete annihilation
of an entire people may be forgiven for their confusion. The
Inquisition, itself a product of manipulated definitions,
is prone to stretching terms a bit.
Preordained
Outcomes
The
depths to which the Inquisition stoops were made apparent
last week, when a German general who oversaw the NATO attack
on Yugoslavia claimed Slobodan Milosevic told him Serbs should
conduct mass
executions of Kosovo Albanians. So what if Klaus Naumann
was a high-ranking NATO officer who took part in an illegal
war of aggression, and thus needs to justify it, lest he be
charged by some other
court on grounds of "command responsibility"?
So what if Milosevic was actually referring to the 1946 Communist
executions of Albanians who sided with Nazi Germany, and
whose sons and grandsons fought in the 1999's KLA? What could
sound more righteous than a German general accusing
Serbs of mass murder?
An
American Ambassador, maybe.
A
sort of controversy broke out last week regarding the possible
testimony of Richard Holbrooke, the dark apprentice of Warren
Christopher and Madeleine Albright, who engineered the 1995
Dayton Peace Accord and the 1998 agreement that opened Serbia
up to NATO bombs. Namely, the State Department demanded that
Holbrooke's testimony be made secret, citing fears of precedent
if one of their own appeared in an "international court."
It was a neat attempt to create a false impression of the
Inquisition's impartiality through US reluctance, and deflect
potential embarrassment from Holbrooke's tactless candor.
But when London's Financial Times opined that the US
was jeopardizing Milosevic's (already assumed) conviction,
the State Department could not resist.
"That's
absurd. […] Prosecutors have a very strong case," cited Reuters
an unnamed US official. Another said that American diplomats
"do not have knowledge that constitutes a smoking gun."
But
Holbrooke was eager to go. "I absolutely believe he's guilty,"
he told the New
York Times. "Whether we have smoking guns, that's
a different issue." He went
on:
He
noted that there were 66 counts against the former Yugoslav
leader. "I don't know which of the 66 will matter," he said.
Namely,
any one of the charges is enough to lock Milosevic
away for life. Holbrooke's testimony is irrelevant not because
he has nothing to say, but because the outcome of the "trial"
is already preordained. One cannot
be allowed to interfere with the rewriting of history,
not on this scale.
A
Union of Vassals
There
has been talk in Serbian papers recently about a Western plan
for a "Balkans confederation," consisting of Serbia,
Montenegro, Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia and Bosnia. Much as
the post-WW2 Yugoslav federation was built as a conglomerate
of conflicting interests that were used as a control mechanism
by the supreme power of President Tito, this "confederation"
would provide a means to control the Balkans conflicts while
establishing complete economic, political and military supremacy
of the new supreme power, the Empire. Such an entity would
then serve as Empire's lever against (or within) the European
Union.
There
has certainly been a push from the West for cooperation between
the shards of former Yugoslavia, and some have even drawn
parallels to the origins of the EU. But while peaceful
cooperation between neighbors is something to be desired,
this "confederation" would be nothing of the sort. A forced
marriage created for the purpose of servitude and exploitation,
it would be no place for those who cherish liberty.
The
Second Yugoslavia was a union of people who were originally
convinced of their commonality, yet they all eventually staked
a claim to difference in a sea of blood. What makes one think
this clear violation of free association, this "confederation"
of disparate peoples – some openly hostile to others – could
possibly function? Yet so many thralls of the Empire long
for "integration" as the cure to all their ills,
without even thinking they should solve them on their own.
Choices
and Consequences
Perhaps
"integration" is simply a reflection of desire for
wider horizons, now that they have shrunken so much. But the
root cause of Balkan conflicts – unsolved property issues,
personal and state-level – would not be addressed with this
panacea. Notions of "confederation," entry into
the EU (as if that will be allowed to happen!), or
membership in NATO merely trick the people into believing
their problems are being solved. They are but an illusion
of a carrot, followed by a certain stick, for the Balkans
donkey: a beast of burden for the rapacious Empire.
"Leaders"
in the Balkans and elsewhere may think – no, do think
– that joining the Empire is the best choice at this time.
Serbia's experience has shown the price of defiance, and it's
not as if freedom has ever been easy to gain, or hold. But
taking the path of least resistance is far from being cost-free.
The Leaders themselves would do well to remember the fate
of Empire's servants who fell from grace, or were discarded
when they were no longer useful: Zaire's Mobutu, Iraq's Hussayn,
Nicaragua's Noriega, Persia's Reza Shah, Chile's Pinochet.
Their people would suffer even more (not that the Leaders
care, but even so), as the price of servitude grows ever higher.
After all, choices always
have consequences. |
