Falling Towards Entropy
Stubborn Balkans Realities
“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” wrote a French columnist back in 1849 – but the witticism applies just as well in 2012. Recall, for example, that Barack Obama became Emperor in 2008 by promising Hope and Change, only to embrace continuity instead. His challenger this year campaigned against Obama’s domestic policies, but on matters foreign he was strangely in sync with the incumbent.
Obama’s easy re-election has, predictably, been termed a mandate to continue the present policies – including, no doubt, the “humanitarian” interventions and social engineering (called “nation-building” when done abroad). The trouble with Empire, however, is that it’s not only bleeding the U.S. dry, but that it manifestly doesn’t work.
Consider, as Gordon Bardos did earlier this week, the situation in the Balkans. Twenty-odd years of Imperial meddling later, and the region has come back to where it was in the early 1990s – though some roles may have been reshuffled in the process:
“…some of the most well-funded international efforts in nation- and state-building in history have in many ways gotten us right back to where we started from two decades ago. Perhaps even further back.”
Ramush Returns
Take, for example, the ICTY, an ad hoc “tribunal” allegedly established – under dubious circumstances – to foster reconciliation by prosecuting those responsible for wartime atrocities. It has manifestly done nothing of the sort, instead serving as a tool of the Empire to eliminate inconvenient politicians, bolster favorites, and rewrite the region’s history, both recent and distant.
Having recently released two Croatian generals it originally convicted of taking part in a campaign to murder and expel ethnic Serbs, the “Tribunal” did the same with Ramush Haradinaj. One of the leaders of the terrorist KLA, Haradinaj became a favorite client of Empire and “prime minister” of the Albanian provisional government in the occupied Serbian province of Kosovo. Then, in 2005, he was charged by the “Tribunal” and much was made of his orderly surrender. Just as the generals’ indictment cleared the way for Croatia to join the EU, Haradinaj’s indictment helped the Albanians declare independence. Having served the purpose, they were set free, leaving the “court” to return to its business of railroading Serbs.
This Time, It’s Personal
Haradinaj’s release came just a day after the centennial celebration of Albania’s independence, and was rightly seen as a gift to the Albanians from their patrons in the West. Its implications were obvious: “I’m happy that international justice has confirmed that our road to freedom was clean and just,” Haradinaj declared (Reuters), just as Croat leadership had done two weeks prior.
A day earlier, at the ceremony in Tirana, Albania’s president Sali Berisha gave an exuberant speech, among other things laying claim to parts of Greece, Montenegro and Macedonia, in addition to Kosovo and more of Serbia. Athens and Skopje both protested. Belgrade, predictably, did not.
Berisha claimed he was misinterpreted, and that the promised union of all Albanians would be the EU. But just days earlier, he had joined “Kosovo PM” Hashim Thaci at the massive celebration organized in Skopje. Having ceremonies in Tirana and even occupied Pristina is one thing, but staging one in the capital of a neighboring country, where Albanians are a minority (however privileged), suggests an arrogance of people who believe they can do anything, since the Empire is personally invested in their cause. Not for the first time, either.
Appeasement Now
That impression is certainly shared by the current government in Serbia. Prime Minister Ivica Dacic simply took the appeasement policy of the previous government – in which his Socialists were a key, but junior, partner to Boris Tadic’s Democrats – and cranked it up to eleven. No matter what happens, he keeps repeating that the “EU has no alternative.” He has now been to at least two meetings with “fellow Prime Minister” Hashim Thaci in Brussels, organized by the EU.
Deputy PM Aleksandar Vucic, recently elected leader of the Progressive Party, has even said that the government would “continue its path to the EU… because it is the best thing for Serbia’s citizens, whether they agree or not.”
As a result, Dacic’s government is setting up border controls on what they euphemistically call the “administrative line” with Kosovo – and the EU, the Albanians and the actual documents signed properly term a border. As a reminder, Thaci’s failed attempt to do just that in July 2011 resulted in a yearlong standoff between the local Serbs and NATO’s occupation force. The crisis never really ended, it merely subsided after the Empire decided it would be easier to break Belgrade than the locals.
Now the Serb civilians are on the barricades once again, facing not NATO tanks (yet) but Serbia’s own gendarmerie, who have orders to secure the construction sites – or else. Whether the gendarmes fire upon their own people, or refuse the orders and turn against the government, the situation has a lot of potential to become extremely unpleasant.
Bitter Fruits of EUrope
It is unclear whether the regime in Belgrade serves the Empire with such desperate eagerness because they honestly believe in its might, or if they simply fear it more than the wrath of their own populace. In any case, their devotion to the EU blinds them to events in immediate vicinity. It’s one thing to ignore Greece’s less than stellar EU experience, but what about Slovenia?
The first “republic” to separate from Yugoslavia, claiming the rest of the country was dragging its prosperous economy down, Slovenia had actually been the privileged recipient of subsidies and raw materials from the rest of Yugoslavia, while also benefitting from trade with the West. The wealth thus accumulated enabled it to coast for years – until it joined the EU, and discovered that Brussels was a far less forgiving master than Belgrade.
Now there are riots throughout the country, as resentment of corrupt politicians spills over into the streets. Even if somehow they got better politicians, though, it’s hard to see what else the Slovenians could do, trapped in the EU’s unworkable model of death-by-overregulation and welfare statism.
Tripwire
This is the deadly embrace the replacement quislings in Serbia obsessively work towards. Their obsession, however, blinds them to a lesson from their own past.
In October 2000, the Empire engineered the fall of the Milosevic government by stoking the feelings of discontent among the people, while lavishly funding the media and the opposition. What is forgotten is that the opposition had used a catchy slogan accusing Milosevic of “betraying Kosovo” by surrendering it to NATO and the Albanians.
Yet it was the surrender of Kosovo to NATO and the Albanians that the opposition was installed to accomplish – and they’ve been trying for twelve years, while doing far more damage to the Serbian society, security, economy and dignity than Milosevic ever had. Now they are rushing to “finish the job”, convinced the people will meekly follow their lead.
Perhaps they believe that without a shadow apparatus run by the National Endowment for Democracy, popular discontent cannot be properly channeled and can therefore be safely ignored.
But if the cycle of Balkans history is anything to go by, they are very much mistaken.
Read more by Nebojsa Malic
- Injustice for All, Again – November 22nd, 2012
- Winter of Discontent – November 9th, 2012
- Hamlet in Belgrade – October 25th, 2012
- The Enduring Schism – September 28th, 2012
- In Death Ground – September 20th, 2012
The Threeof Spades
December 7th, 2012 at 4:25 am
Mr. Malic writes:
"But if the cycle of Balkans history is anything to go by, they (the Belgrade government) are very much mistaken."
However, if the monumental apathy that reigns supreme in Serbia is anything to go by, the author is mistaken, too. I predict only the changes that the EU demands or instigates, and endless misery for the Serbs in Serbia proper and in the rest of former Yugoslavia.
MvGuy
December 7th, 2012 at 7:43 am
Easy to get distracted by the local squabbles… being so adroitly stoked by empire's bureaucratic minions.. Their grey bureaucratic army with the warm EU blanket for the cold winter nights…… the "unworkable model of death-by-overregulation and welfare statism" read favors, bribes and negative inducements …..AKA sticks.. I.E. the EU model of commerce which seems to silently suffocate it's victims… Geobbels is gone… so it was Blair, Sarcozy and Berlesconi…. and now their more bureaucratic greyer replacements… eagerly sucking up to Empire's inevitable masters of the universe ….. the ones allowed, charged and given the alchemists overwhelming privilege…to create money and therefor THEIR reality … OUT OF THIN AIR…… So the Balkans become an inert Kennanesque Cordon Sanitaire .. As it is… and always has been since '17….. all about the bear….
Nebojsa Malic
December 7th, 2012 at 8:34 am
I just heard that the locals agreed to "suspend" their protest due to guarantees they received from the government in Belgrade. They will find out such guarantees aren't worth the paper they are scribbled on soon enough – but the question then is, what will they do about it?
And I must admit I do not know.
conumishu
December 7th, 2012 at 9:02 am
Shouldn't be spelled EU-rope ? A multipurpose object, rope. Quislings usually hate one of its uses. Truth be told, for now the EU-rope ties tightly the European nations while the eurocrats keep dreaming of a nationless empire. But you can't really destroy nations like that, resilient "beasts" nations. Quislings on the other hand…
MichaelKenny
December 7th, 2012 at 9:45 am
Every two weeks stir the pot. Nothing new, really. None of us know who "Nebojsa Malic" really is. Whoever he is, his ingenuity (if not his credibility) in finding pretexts to smear the EU is without limit. Who would have thought that a vote by Bosnia's UN ambassador in support of a Saudi resolution could be twisted into an attack on the EU! Dear Nikkolas, you'll do me a great favour by getting rid of the imposter. I wish you good luck in that endeavour.
Roque Santa-cruz
December 7th, 2012 at 1:54 pm
M. kenny you are blind and your mother must have been severely retarded at the time of your birth.
Antiwar.com Newsletter | December 7, 2012 - Unofficial Network
December 7th, 2012 at 8:40 pm
[...] Nebojsa Malic reminded the world of some stubborn Balkans realities. [...]
Nikkolas
December 7th, 2012 at 10:59 pm
Out dear Mr. MichaelKenny
As I said many time about you might having problem.See.. unlike you I don't have illusions ( and I don't smoke good stuff from BC ) that Serbs where Angels like many others.I am myself not Serbian either but I am not led by occasionally racist propaganda and clear intent t to take in same cases criminal responsibility of "dear Western Leaders " .But who will bring them to the Justice system..Maybe your democracy ??
This is not personal but I hate to say that real talk should be based on Intellectual talk based on Facts and not a fiction of your Mass media with dollars signs.I watch them daily and we deserve this.
You have to understand there is not too many nation left today having own history and not been bought by mighty dollar.But you can't understand that since you don't have that DNA.
The Threeof Spades
December 8th, 2012 at 5:36 am
Mr. Malic, you are very modest in stating that you don't know what the people might do. I am not so guarded. I know what they will do – nothing!
The other day Serbia's ambassador to NATO died. There was a big rush to proclaim it a suicide.(A jump from mere 30 feet height, enough to maim but not kill.) He is to be cremated, thereby removing the evidence.
In the light of other Serbs dying mysteriously in the Hague, one can only hope that an exorcist will appear and lift the curse.
MichaelKenny
December 8th, 2012 at 7:14 am
Dear me! Back to merely stirring the pot again! Re-hashing the past! Nobody bothers with that here in Europe. We’re too busy building the future! The Belisha speech thing was a misunderstanding. He was quoting from a document dating from 1912. That was widely reported in the media, including the BBC. Which, I suppose, is why we were referred to that august body only in regard to Slovenia! Of course, the BBC, no friend of the EU, makes no link between the anti-corruption demonstrations and the Union. Clearly, there’s still no sign of the Austrian cavalry clattering through the streets of Belgrade anytime soon! By the way, where is Entropy?
And, of course, I agree with the comments by Roque Santa-cruz and Nikkolas concerning the person using my name. I NEVER keep copies of my earlier comments, so a "re-post" is never me!
conumishu
December 8th, 2012 at 10:54 am
"building the future"… yup… have you tried that line in Madrid, or the outskirts of London, in Dublin, Paris faubourgs, eastern Europe, not to mention Greece ? You might find instant cure for your eurocentric delusions. The sort of shock and awe therapy.
Nebojsa Malic
December 8th, 2012 at 10:57 am
The whole thing about the ambassador is murky, but based on his history of political views and known associations, I'm ruling out an attack of conscience or disloyalty to Empire as possible motives.
nedley416
December 10th, 2012 at 1:04 pm
"Re-hashing the past! Nobody bothers with that here in Europe. We’re too busy building the future!"
Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.
But I guess what you're saying does make sense. Europe needs building on account of it being laid to waste due to countless wars, most avoidable had history been considered.
The Threeof Spades
December 11th, 2012 at 4:20 am
Nothing would make my day like wasting Europe anew, turning the continent into a Dresdenlike spectacle. Those that live by the sword shall perish by the sword. Restive Spanish minorities and
Corsicans are, perhaps, the harbingers of the things to come.