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December 12, 2002
Democratic
Destruction
What
Politicians Do
Hardly
a day goes by in the southwestern corner of Europe without
local authorities and their foreign minders repeating their
worn platitudes about the importance of democracy and social
engineering, and the need for more of both. Yet the lives
of the people they are supposed to be serving and protecting
continue to get progressively worse.
In
2000, it took $150 to feed an average family in Serbia. This
was after a seven-year blockade, harsher than one currently
imposed on Iraq, and a devastating NATO bombing. Now, after
two years of "democracy" and "reforms"
supposedly aided by Western funding, those same basics cost
$400. Meanwhile, unemployment has risen dramatically and wages
have stagnated. If these are official
figures of a government that claims success – and
they are – one should shudder to think what failure would
look like.
That
is only because "success" and "failure"
are defined in common-sense, rational terms, as betterment
of people’s lives or lack thereof. But in democracy-speak,
"success" is whatever makes the government stronger,
and "failure" is whatever makes it weaker. The people
can suffer in silence; their only purpose is to serve the
state, anyway. While this is about par for the wishful thinking
of the rulers, it seems the ruled buy into it as well, as
the shadow of despair grows deeper by the day.
Serbia
is but an example for the entire region. Every day, rulers
of Balkans fiefdoms and their foreign masters commit countless
acts of stupidity and random destruction, in addition to the
destruction they actually plan. Few places on Earth bear so
many scars of social engineering, demonstrating for everyone
the fallacy and danger of this pseudo-discipline, if only
anyone were willing to learn.
Still
doubtful? Here are some examples, from just the past few weeks.
Masters
of Surrender
When
the current government in Serbia was still the opposition,
and not just by name, it solicited votes by promising a break
with the past. They supposedly meant the recent past, one
of international persecution, conflict and numerous "victorious"
capitulations.
As it turns out, they meant the distant past, one in
which freedom and honor meant something, and surrender was
out of the question.
The
Djindjic regime has mastered the fine art of surrender exceedingly
well over the past two years. They’ve even overcome its foremost
obstacle, which is the loss of face. After all, it is hard
to lose what one doesn’t have to begin with.
Two
of their most significant capitulations concerned, obviously,
the extradition
of Slobodan Milosevic to the Hague Inquisition, and the groveling
before Imperial legates in regard to occupied Kosovo. Whether
because their political loyalties lay with the current opposition,
or because the Belgrade authorities considered the occupiers’
good graces more important than their duty to protect their
citizens, those few Serbs who stayed in the province, resisting
Albanian ethnic cleansing attempts and countless pressure
of UN and NATO occupiers, have been repeatedly betrayed by
the current regime. The last such betrayal came on November
25, when all Serb areas were finally surrendered
to full authority of the UN occupation government. Reports
from Kosovo left little doubt that the Djindjic regime, represented
by its designated quisling Nebojsa Covic, sacrificed Kosovo
Serbs in order to
gain Washington’s approval to join the ranks of NATO’s
satellites ("Partnership for Peace") and other Imperial
structures of submission.
Covic
and others argue that collaborating with the UN and NATO is
the only way Kosovo Serbs can survive in the occupied province.
Alas, such assertions are not borne out by reality. Despite
attempts
to show otherwise, life for non-Albanians in Kosovo remains
almost impossible. Last week, two more Serbian churches were
destroyed by "unknown perpetrators," like 110
others already. One would think that with 40,000 troops
of the self-proclaimed terrorist-fighting alliance occupying
a province of 2 million, those perpetrators would not have
stayed unknown for 3 ½ years.
This
week, Belgrade’s notion of successful foreign policy involved
ceding
a strategically vital peninsula to Croatia in return for
absolutely nothing. The Prevlaka
was given to Croatia during the Communist era, and was held
by the Yugoslav military since Croatia’s 1991 secession. Now
Zagreb gets it back, unconditionally, even though half a million
Serb citizens it expelled during the 1990s still live as refugees
throughout Serbia. Again, since their political loyalties
lie elsewhere, and submission is popular with the rulers’
foreign handlers, those exiles can go to Hell. If they aren’t
living it already.
And
as if none of these were bad enough, representatives of Serbian
and Montenegrin governments finally
agreed on a Constitutional Charter of their new quasi-state.
Though ostensibly doing so in order to join international
bodies and alliances, the very nature of the new arrangement
makes such accession impossible. Even if the undead
union had the appropriate institutions through which to
enter international bodies – and it doesn’t – who would ever
admit a pseudo-state with a rapidly approaching expiration
date? The new Charter’s beneficiaries would be those governing
Serbia and Montenegro, not their unfortunate inhabitants.
Allies,
Torturers and Terrorists
Serbia
and Montenegro are by no means the only examples of Democratic
Destructivism. Croatian authorities are perfectly capable
of running their country into the ground as well, though they
have a longer way to go thanks to Imperial aid in the past,
and Belgrade’s present spinelessness.
Having
already landed official Zagreb in hot water by accusing Croatia’s
top wartime general of war crimes, The Hague Inquisition recently
dispatched investigators to probe further into Croatia’s 1995
summer offensive, which had resulted in a mass Serb exodus.
Given that Croatian troops were trained and equipped for that
mission by the US, reports
from Washington have interpreted the probe as aimed at
the Clinton Administration. While some Serb exiles hope that
the Inquisition might actually accuse the Empire of aiding
and abetting the crimes of its vassals, such expectations
have been flat-out rejected by "Tribunal" officials.
Croatian authorities, however, have attempted to refute the
charges by insisting on U.S. involvement, and claiming it
gave their actions full legitimacy. Since prosecuting Croatian
officers would mean prosecuting American leaders as well,
and the "Tribunal" has refused to do so, the reasoning
goes, the entire case should be dismissed. Their logic is
somewhat wobbly, but ultimately irrelevant to issues of Imperial
"justice."
Meanwhile,
a Croatian judge has seen fit to ridicule
law by dismissing all charges against eight former guards
of the "Lora" prison camp in Split. Mind you, Judge
Slavko Lozina did not simply argue down the prosecutors’ charges,
he actually made the entire trial a mockery of judicial process.
Among other things, he allowed the brutal badgering of witnesses
and dismissed their complaints of intimidation; actually released
the accused from detention during the summer recess; and
summarily dismissed all evidence given in Belgrade by witnesses
who did not dare come to Split fearing for their lives. He
also made a point of enthusiastically attending a concert
of Marko Perkovic Thompson, a musician whose songs glorify
fascism and Serbophobia.
But
arguably the stupidest recent act of official Zagreb was the
request
to the United States for repatriation of a convicted and confessed
terrorist, who in 1976 hijacked an airliner and threatened
to blow it up for the cause of Croatian independence. Zvonko
Busic and his accomplices actually did blow up a locker at
a New York train station, killing one and injuring another
police officer. He is now serving a life sentence at the high-security
federal prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, because he escaped
from another prison and was arrested
again in 1987.
Some
Croatians may well consider Busic a hero, just as they flock
to Thompson’s concerts, but requesting the release of a convicted
terrorist – an airplane hijacker, no less! – in the midst
of America’s proclaimed crusade against terrorism simply transcends
the boundaries of stupidity.
How
exactly are interests of the Croatian people served by angering
the Empire, poking Americans in the eye, or reminding people
of the Croatian cause’s terrorist past? They aren’t, and can’t
be. But such actions play to the mob’s emotions, which have
proven important for gaining and preserving power.
Follies
of Court Intellectuals
Every
government relies on "learned experts" who endeavor
to give its policies a stamp of legitimacy. Among those court
intellectuals and their organizations ("think tanks"),
the International Crisis Group has long been one of the more
spoiled and ill-mannered, seeking to bully as much as persuade
as its influence grew. However, its most recent attempt to
capitalize on the fabricated scandal involving Serbian industries
and Iraqi weapons backfired, as the Imperial government dismissed
its sensationalist
report as "full of speculation and errors."
Meanwhile,
another organization with similar proclivities for global
interventionism, Council on Foreign Relations, published a
study
this week outlining the strategy the Empire should embrace
in the Balkans. According to wire
services, the study’s recommendations are largely social
engineering: establishing judiciary, overhauling financial
systems and economy via central planning, and creating elements
of liberal socialist democracy (government-run education,
media) that would enable further government control of society.
Unsurprisingly, authors of the study are some of America’s
most influential shadow
policymakers.
There
were reports last week that the Empire was planning a Balkans
pullback, in order to pursue conquest elsewhere. It seems
Germany
was requested to police the Balkans instead, as a shining
example of democracy and social engineering in action. While
that may or may not actually happen (though it would be ironic
if it did!), it is obvious that the Empire has no intention
of abandoning its pet experiment. And more’s the pity.
Misadventures
in Democracy
At
last, there’s that ultimate bit of "democratic"
folly, the second failed Serbian presidential election in
two months. Vojislav Kostunica yet again won the vote, but
the turnout was predictably
sabotaged and the vote was declared invalid. Zoran Djindjic
can now appoint
the parliamentary Speaker, a flunky of his, to be "caretaker"
President until the next election, and "regrettably"
resort to ruling by decree. Of course, Kostunica angrily refused
to accept the results, but he hasn’t shown the ability
to overturn Djindjic’s faits accompli so far.
If
the Serbs have truly become disillusioned with democracy,
as
BBC’s reporter suggests, there may be hope for them –
and the entire Balkans – yet. If the economic disaster and
repeated diplomatic defeats haven’t managed to convince them
already, the electoral circus ought to show once and for all
that the DOS regime is no better than their predecessors,
and that they can either have peace, liberty and prosperity,
or democracy – but not both.
Now
if they would only take the next, crucial step and finally
realize that the solution is not to "elect the right
people," but to reduce the power of elected officials
(if they insist on having them at all) to the bare minimum
necessary, their lives would improve dramatically in a very
short period of time. Not quite overnight, but close.
Why?
Because that is what happens when restraints on natural human
ingenuity, creativity and talent for survival are removed,
and spirit of enterprise escapes from the democratic-socialist
bottle. Whether in Serbia, Croatia, or anywhere else, prosperity
is created in spite of – and never because of – any
amount of social engineering or democracy. They can only "create"
destruction.
–
Nebojsa Malic
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