Politics and Anti-politics—Thoughts About Most Beloved Greek Words

=By=

"The Fall of Icarus"

Hubris in ancient Greek referred to excessive behavior or lack of measure, transgressions for which the gods punished offenders. Hubris referred to actions that humiliated the victim for the pleasure of the abuser. In modern usage, hubris means extreme pride, a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one’s own capabilities, usually of persons in positions of power. Political writers apply it also to groups and in a special way to the United States of America and its leaders. Personally I try to avoid words which are being widely used, sometimes, it seems, at random. When I use the word hubris I have in mind the meaning of arrogance; in any case I intend a despicable quality.

An expressive Greek word I have come to love is hamartia. The meaning I attach to the word is a character FLAW. Though hamartia, especially in ancient Greek literature, is a negative quality that leads to tragic consequences, I also use hamartia as a character weakness such as drug or alcohol addiction, a flaw to be overcome after a life-and-death struggle, a struggle, if won, that molds and strengthens character. I conceive of hamartia as a necessary quality in a positive literary protagonist or in a hero in real life. The person you love and admire most has most probably struggled and overcome his hamartia, which most of us have somewhere in our being.

Though ancient Greeks as a rule applied these dramatic words to the individual—Antigone’s flaw was her stubborn loyalty for which she paid with her life—we today apply these words also to entire societies or nations. We can label Europe’s hubris its Eurocentrism; its hamartia (for which the ancient Greeks would perhaps punish it collectively), is its destructive nationalisms on the one hand, and its contemporary subservience to America on the other.

Today a powerful anti-political spirit is spreading across Old Europe, a Europe of old politics and old ideologies, Europe which, despite its vaunted geographical and demographical growth, is in reality shrinking. Hubristic Europe is withering away. Neo-Fascists in Hungary, right wing nationalists growing by leaps and bounds in France, Poland and Italy, Socialists who are not really Socialists or even leftists in other places, and Conservatives who claim leftist values elsewhere. All are in doubt; socio-political suspense reigns.

Among the faint signs of hope for political survival of this Europe, at least, are the decreasing number of countries with majority parties and the rise of faintly anti-systemic movements and political parties and/or leaders, such as Syriza in Greece and the Labourite Corbyn in the United Kingdom

After post-WWII Italy established the multiparty model (based on Weimar in post-WWI in Germany with its 15 parties), today we have also Spain abandoning the two-party system and the new center-left PODEMOS stepping onto front stage. Here and there across the sub-continent, populist anti-political movements are suddenly born and rapidly emerge from the debris and ashes piling up around the crumbling traditional political parties, which, in their unjustified hubris, lose once solid pillars one by one, faster and faster, louder and louder the din, as they disintegrate more each day, each week, each month, and sink deeper into a dark sticky morass.

Meanwhile, citizens who no longer feel protected—much less represented—by the political class desert the vote and the heretofore political class. Why is that? How did it come about? The English poet Percy Shelley asked the same 200 years ago: “Is public virtue dead?—is courage gone?’” One hundred years later, the German, Walter Benjamin, answered: “For never has experience been contradicted more thoroughly than moral experience by those in power.”

Or, the disoriented citizens, still brainwashed, vote, helter-skelter, at random, for the lesser evil, ALSO, and still a majority, though rapidly decreasing, we find naïvely fanatic electors who continue to cling to the electoral process like to a life jacket on a sinking ship to change things and turn out at the poll stations to vote for the new anti-politicals or the super nationalists or extremists of Right and Left as for example:

Leftist PODEMOS in Spain,

Centrist FIVE STAR MOVEMENT in Italy,

Extreme rightwing FRONT NATIONAL in France,

Leftwing GREENS or DIE LINKE in Germany

Rightwing populist FREEDOM PARTY OF AUSTRIA

Leftist GREENS in Finland

One of the several rightwing conservative parties in Poland

Neo-Fascists in Hungary

Fascists and Nazis in Ukraine

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]lear ideologies? Nada. Nineteenth and Twentieth century myths! Workers rights, heath care, care for the aged, for the unemployed and homeless, for the socially excluded classes? Zero.

Away with the old. Bring on the new.

We ask what is the new? We are right to wonder. Analysts too search for a handle. Is the politically new a party or a movement? Is it Right or Left? Populist? Apolitical?

Spaniards just turned out at the polls in record numbers—maybe in one last desperate attempt to save something of the familiar old two-party system. Or maybe to say NO to the existing system. Spain voted. No one won. The conservative Popular Party got the most votes but not enough to govern, not even in a potential coalition with the far right party of Los Ciudadanos, The Citizens. The second of the heretofore two-party tandem, the Socialist Party of Spanish Workers (PSOE), lost; that is, it got fewer votes than the Populars. And the New? Podemos, the brand new “non-ideological party” emerged as the real victor albeit with a few votes less than the “old” Socialist Party. No one party has a majority. The nearly powerless King, of all people, must now decide who to charge to search for a new kind of majority. Quo vadis, Espana? No one knows.

SO IS THE EUROPEAN UNION FALLING APART?

What with all the tensions, dissension, the many different forms of government (Or non-government) from fascist to extreme rightist nationalism to populist to moderate socialist to leftist socialist, the EU should be crumbling. Perhaps it is, but I do not believe it will happen … not yet. Europe has too much to lose by abandonment now.

However, as one of the consequences of America’s imperialistic actions throughout the world grave splits mark the European Union. These splits threaten to break up the union of 27 nations and return Europe to the confusing jigsaw puzzle of small separate nations, which in any case would be lost in the era of planetary unions, while nonetheless remaining totally subservient to America.

TWO COUNTRIES—Poland and Italy

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he extreme right government of Poland is spreading dissension in the EU. Tensions reached the culmination when the present alternating President of the EU Council, the Polish political leader, Donald Tusk, rammed through the EU extension of sanctions against Russia. Moreover, the EU Commission opposes the new Polish far-right government’s attempts to change the Polish Constitution in order to be able to enact the laws and policies it desires. Many Commission members opine that if that happens Poland’s voting rights in the EU should be suspended. With 38% of the vote the Polish Law and Justice Party won an absolute parliamentary majority. It aims at control over the Constitutional Court and the media.

Four things should be remembered: Adolf Hitler established his dictatorship with 43% of the vote, Poland borders on Ukraine, it is very hostile toward Russia and is very friendly with the USA.

Today at year’s end conflict governs relations between Italy and the EU leaders (not elected by the people) of economic Europe. A battle between Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and the EU Commission and German Chancellor Angela Merkel rages on three fronts: banks and the European banking system, state support for failing big industry and Italy’s national deficit (percentage wise similar to that of the USA). Moreover, Italy opposes military intervention in Syria.

Pravda of December 22 published an interview with an Italian politician of Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia Party, Fabrizio Bertot, about Russo-Italian relations. Bertot: the economy of Russia is perfectly complementary to our economy. Russia has a big market and large oil and gas reserves. In Italy, we know how to make many products. The ‘made in Italy’ label is respected, and we need a market like yours. At the same time we need energy, because ours is insufficient. This complementary relationship needs an incentive. Sadly, this is not in the interest of the USA. We must discuss this within the EU and maybe change completely the EU and its institutions.”

TIME IS OUT OF WHACK

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his Russo-Italian relationship reflects the atmosphere among people across Europe. Perplexity, indecision, confusion, disorientation. Perplexity about what to do to better one’s own situation. Indecision about for whom or for what to vote. Confusion about nationality: for example, Italian first, European second? Or the reverse? Disorientation about the form of society: social or individualistic?

The chief competitions today are between system and anti-system, between nationalism and internationalism.

Consequently, planning for the future seems futile. For Europeans time in general seems out of whack. Never has the present seemed more a time of transition. For the rich and the powerful 1%, time perhaps seems to stand still. For them, the hands of the clock move slowly and sometimes action seems truant … or they wish it were, so that their good things would last forever. And fuck the rest. Nuclear war and destruction of our planet hardly concerns them, no more than Syrian children fleeing the bloody war drowning in the stormy winter waters of the Aegean Sea. In reality, we, the 99%, know it is as the song recalls: time waits for no one.

The less fortunate too stand as with one foot lifted now toward a factory gate, now to board a tram, hands frozen, afraid of touching the uncertain future. For still others, time itself is clearly the enemy. Time is filled with tension and seems ready to explode into a still unwritten direction. Everyone knows that time means change. But what change is the question.

The most problematic group are Europe’s thinking people, the people still socially and politically aware, intellectuals, academics, journalists. For they know that this is a time when anything can happen. The outrageous can occur. To think that World War III can explode in the American-created, fascist Ukraine two hours from Rome or Paris is mind-boggling.

And, as Tony Cartalucci noted on this site, beyond Ukraine similar scenarios are developing, where as USA/NATO expands closer and closer to Russia’s borders, it is finding it increasingly difficult to find allies who are not fascists or nazis. Or something worse.

Other Europeans—though their number is decreasing at an alarming rate—hold onto legality: naively some still believe that the next elections can change things. The present will end, they hope. Normal time will resume. Things will return to what they once were. A better future can begin.

The subject of America’s imperialistic footprint across the world as outlined above lends itself to a dialectical analysis, as, in an abbreviated form, I have undertaken here:

America’s hubris has spawned the thesis of the nation’s purported exceptionalism and, consequently—because of its wealth, power and way of life—its self-proclaimed god-blessed destiny to dominate the entire planet.

The antithesis of America’s over-estimation of its rights and its capabilities is the rejection of uni-polar domination by vast parts of the rest of the world. For example, the Eurasian pole of Earth’s Heartland headed by Russia and China stands diametrically (antithetically) opposed to U.S. hegemony.

The synthesis of the two variants would require America’s cognizance of the reality that the consequence of its blind insistence on world domination will be universal conflagration and the probable extinction of the human species. America must join the rest of mankind. As a first step, America must show genuine atonement for the ills its hamartia—i.e. evil conviction of its exceptionalism—has wrought on mankind.

In such a way, that is if America comes to its senses and recognizes the realities of a multi-polar world living in peace, a new synthesis of the drives and destinies of peoples of the world for a rational world order can be achieved.

As Percy Shelley at age 18 wrote in the last eight lines of his Poetical Essay on the Existing State of things, a work lost for two hundred years and re-found in 2006:

Man must assert his native rights, must say

Oppressive law no more shall power retain,

Peace, love, and concord, once shall rule again,

Then, then shall things, which now confusedly hurled,

Seem Chaos, be resolved to order’s sway,

And errors night be turned to virtue’s day.—

Senior Editor Gaither Stewart, based in Rome, serves—inter alia—as our European correspondent. A veteran journalist and essayist on a broad palette of topics from culture to history and politics, he is also the author of the Europe Trilogy, celebrated spy thrillers whose latest volume, Time of Exile, was just published by Punto Press.

Public Domain The myth goes that Daedalus made the wings and warned his son Icarus to not fly too high. Icarus, in his hubris disregarded his father’s warning and fell from the sky.)

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Soros Plays Both Ends in Syria Refugee Chaos

=By= F. William Engdahl

Since John D. Rockefeller was advised to protect his wealth from government taxation by creating a tax-exempt philanthropic foundation in 1913, foundations have been used by American oligarchs to disguise a world of dirty deeds under the cover “doing good for mankind,” known by the moniker “philanthropy” for mankind-loving.

No less the case is that of George Soros who likely has more tax-exempt foundations under his belt than anyone around. His Open Society foundations are in every country where Washington wants to put ‘their man’ in, or at least get someone out who doesn’t know how to read their music. They played a key role in regime change in the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe after 1989.

SIDEBAR

When capitalism returned to Russia…the overthrow of socialism facilitated by the triumph of the world plutocracy with headquarters in Washington, DC., USA aided by the idiocy of some Soviet leaders like Gorbachev, and the disgraceful corruption of some party apparatchiks like Yeltsin and his gang, the country went into a tailspin of misery from which it could only slowly recover. While things have improved markedly under Vladimir Putin, stubborn social issues continue to plague this great nation. In that sense what we are seeing in Russia today is the poisoned fruits of capitalism, eerily similar to what we observe in a scores of cities in the United States and other parts of the capitalist world: the homeless, the open prostitution, the political corruption, the drug addictions and the rise in crime. The Soviet Union was not a consumer paradise—no nation, even when capitalist, is a consumer paradise for those without jobs or money—but it guaranteed a dignified existence to most citizens, with fully paid college studies, full access to medical care and medicines, subsidized food and rent, and so forth. And even the top party officials lived in apartments that, while centrally located and spacious, were austere by Western standards, and could never be described as luxurious even in Russia itself. Quite a difference from America, where the obscene extremes of inequality have the privileged 0.0002% living like royalty while a full 30% of the bottom half leads a life of bitterness and social alienation underscored by permanent economic insecurity and the most basic things—like healthcare— are subject to market valuation.

Now his foundations are up to their eyeballs in promoting propaganda serving the US-UK war agenda for destroying stability in Syria as they did in Libya three years ago, creating the current EU refugee crisis.

We should take a closer look at the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis wreaking such havoc and unrest across the EU, especially in Germany, the favored goal of most asylum seekers today. George Soros, today a naturalized American citizen, has just authored a six-point proposal telling the European Union what they must do to manage the situation. It’s worth looking at in detail.

He begins by stating, “The EU needs a comprehensive plan to respond to the crisis, one that reasserts effective governance over the flows of asylum-seekers so that they take place in a safe, orderly way…” He then says that, “First, the EU has to accept at least a million asylum-seekers annually for the foreseeable future[1].”[2]

Soros does not elaborate where he pulled that figure from, nor does he discuss the role of other of his Soros-financed NGOs in Syria (i.e., “white helmets”) and elsewhere which manufacture faked propaganda to build a public sympathy lobby for a US and UK “No Fly Zone” in Syria as was done to destroy Libya.

The American hedge fund speculator then adds, among his points to be implemented, a series of proposals that would consolidate a de facto supranational EU state apparatus under control of the faceless, unelected bureaucrats of the European Commission. The Soros proposals call for creating what amount to EU-issued refugee bonds.

He states, “The EU should provide €15,000 ($16,800) per asylum-seeker for each of the first two years to help cover housing, health care, and education costs – and to make accepting refugees more appealing to member states. It can raise these funds by issuing long-term bonds using its largely untapped AAA borrowing capacity[3]…”[4]

That issuing comes to 30 billion euros at a time when most EU member states are struggling to deal with domestic economic crises. Soros is generous with other peoples’ money. The mention of the AAA bond rating is the rating of the legal entity named the European Union.

“Avaaz was given initial financial support by Soros’ foundation in 2007 to promote key policies suitable to the US State Department…”

[dropcap]S[/dropcap]oros has maneuvered for years to try to get a centralized Brussels independent financial power that would take the last vestiges of national financial sovereignty away from Berlin, Paris, Rome and other EU states, part of a scheme to destroy the remains of the national borders and of the nation-state principles established at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ending the Thirty Years’ War.

George Soros has more ideas how to spend European citizens’ tax euros. He calls on the EU to cough up an added annual commitment to “frontline countries” (Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan) of at least €8-10 billion annually. Then, insidiously, Soros declares, “Safe channels must be established for asylum-seekers, starting with getting them from Greece and Italy to their destination countries. This is very urgent in order to calm the panic[5].”[6] [7]

Hungarian born US billionaire philanthropist and Honorary Chairman of Central European University, CEU, George Soros speaks about his plans concerning CEU School of Public Policy and International Affairs during his lecture entitled ‘A Global Public Policy School for the 21st Century – My Vision’ in Budapest, Hungary, Tuesday, April 24, 2012. (AP Photo/MTI, Balazs Mohai)

‘Destination Countries’

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]is use of the term “destination countries” is very interesting. Today, by a huge margin that means the Federal Republic of Germany. Soros strategy is obviously to target Germany, especially, with a refugee flood.

It has gradually come out into the open that many of the refugees or asylum-seekers flooding into the EU since summer of 2015 have come in response to reading Twitter or Facebook social media portraying especially Germany as an arms-open, refugee-loving paradise where all their needs will be met.

How did word get out that Germany was the “in place” for those in flight from Syria and other conflict areas? Vladimir Shalak at the Russian Academy of Sciences developed the Internet Content-Analysis System for Twitter (Scai4Twi). He made a study of over 19,000 refugees-related original tweets (retweets discounted). His study showed that the vast majority of the tweets name Germany as the most refugee-welcoming country in Europe[8].[9]

Shalak’s study discovered that 93% of all tweets about Germany contained positive references to German hospitality and its refugee policy. Some samples of the Tweets:

• Germany Yes! Leftists spray a graffiti on a train sayin “Welcome, refugees” in Arabic

• Lovely people – video of Germans welcoming Syrian refugees to their community

• Respect! Football fans saying “Welcome Refugees” across stadiums in Germany. _ • This Arabic Graffiti train is running in Dresden welcoming refugees: (ahlan wa sahlan – a warm welcome).

• ‘We love Germany!,’ cry relieved refugees at Munich railway station

• Thousands welcome refugees to Germany – Sky News Australia

• Wherever this German town is that welcomed a coach of Syrian refugees with welcome signs and flowers -thank you[10].[11]

Now comes the real hammer. The vast majority of these “Germany welcomes refugee” Tweets come not from Germany, but from the United States and from the UK, the two countries up to their necks in the bloody deeds of ISIS and Al Qaeda and countless other terror gangs rampaging across Syria the past four years.

Shalak analyzed 5,704 original tweets containing a “#RefugeesWelcome” hashtag and a country name which welcomes them. It showed almost 80% of all Tweets claimed that Germany was the most-welcoming country in Europe.

The second most welcoming country found was Austria with 12%. However, the study also found that those “Germany welcomes you” Tweets did not originate from inside Germany. Over 40% of all the Tweets originated from the USA, UK or Australia. Only 6.4% originated inside Germany[12].[13]

[dropcap]G[/dropcap]eorge Soros is also the Daddy Warbucks financing a new EU think-tank with the name European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). On the website of the ECFR is an editorial titled, “If Europe wants people to stop drowning it needs to let them fly.” The Soros Think-Tank argues that the main reason migrants choose boats is EU Directive 51/2001/EC: “The EU directive was passed in 2001.

Put simply, it states that carrier companies—whether airlines or ship lines—are responsible for ensuring that foreign nationals wishing to travel to the European Union have valid travel documents for their destination.

If such travelers arrive in the EU and are turned away, the airlines are obligated to foot the bill for flying them home[14].” [15]In other words, “open the gates of heaven wider, dear Lord.”

Soros’ Syria NGOs Beat War Drums

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he cynicism of the Soros call for the EU taxpayers to step up to the plate and accept millions of new refugees, to fly them in without papers, and more, is clear when we look at the same Soros-financed network of NGOs active in Syria trying to create the propaganda background to get acceptance of yet another US “No Fly Zone” over Syria as was done against Iraq after 1991 and against Libya in 2012 to bomb those countries back to the stone age.

One of the key online advocates for a US-UK “No Fly Zone” over Syria, something the Russian intervention since September 30 has de facto blocked, is an organization known as Avaaz. Avaaz was given initial financial support by Soros’ foundation in 2007 to promote key policies suitable to the US State Department.

They cite Soros’ Open Society foundation as their foundation partner. Avaaz played a key role promoting the 2011 No Fly Zone in Libya that introduced a regime of terror and chaos in that once prosperous and stable African nation. Avaaz is now very actively promoting the same treatment for Syria[16].[17]

Another Soros-financed NGO active demonizing the Assad government as cause of all atrocities in Syria and helping build public support for a war in Syria from the US and EU is Amnesty International. Suzanne Nossel, until 2013 the Executive Director of Amnesty International USA, came to the job from the US State Department where she was Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, not exactly an unbiased agency in regard to Syria.

As well, the Soros-financed Human Rights Watch has played a major role in falsely portraying ISIS and Al Qaeda civilian bombings and other atrocities as the work of the Assad regime, building support for military action from the US and EU[18].[19]

The Middle East and other wars today including Ukraine are the product of the foreign policy doctrine set out in 1992 by then Defense Assistant Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the infamous Wolfowitz Doctrine that justifies “pre-emptive” war, free from any oversight from the UN Security Council, against any nation or group of nations which threaten US “Sole Superpower” domination. George Soros, the hedge fund speculator turned self-proclaimed philanthropist, and his tax-exempt foundations, are an integral part of that pre-emptive war machine.

Now Soros lectures the EU countries, above all Germany, on how they should receive the human fallout from the wars he and his cronies in the US State Department have created. That’s real Chutzpah, or perhaps it is really hubris.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics [20].

First appeared: http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/18/soros-plays-both-ends-in-syria-refugee-chaos/[21]

Endnotes:

future: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rebuilding-refugee-asylum-system-by-george-soros-2015-09
: http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/18/soros-plays-both-ends-in-syria-refugee-chaos/#sdendnote1sym
capacity: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rebuilding-refugee-asylum-system-by-george-soros-2015-09
: http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/18/soros-plays-both-ends-in-syria-refugee-chaos/#sdendnote2sym
panic: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rebuilding-refugee-asylum-system-by-george-soros-2015-09
: http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/18/soros-plays-both-ends-in-syria-refugee-chaos/#sdendnote3sym
Europe: http://www.voltairenet.org/article188774.html
: http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/18/soros-plays-both-ends-in-syria-refugee-chaos/#sdendnote4sym
thank you: http://www.voltairenet.org/article188774.html
: http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/18/soros-plays-both-ends-in-syria-refugee-chaos/#sdendnote5sym
Germany: http://www.voltairenet.org/article188774.html
: http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/18/soros-plays-both-ends-in-syria-refugee-chaos/#sdendnote6sym
home: http://www.ecfr.eu/article/commentary_if_europe_wants_people_to_stop_drowning4046
: http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/18/soros-plays-both-ends-in-syria-refugee-chaos/#sdendnote7sym
Syria: https://ingaza.wordpress.com/syria/human-rights-front-groups-humanitarian-interventionalists-warring-on-syria/
: http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/18/soros-plays-both-ends-in-syria-refugee-chaos/#sdendnote8sym
US and EU: https://ingaza.wordpress.com/syria/human-rights-front-groups-humanitarian-interventionalists-warring-on-syria/
: http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/18/soros-plays-both-ends-in-syria-refugee-chaos/#sdendnote9sym
“New Eastern Outlook”: http://journal-neo.org/
http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/18/soros-plays-both-ends-in-syria-refugee-chaos/: http://journal-neo.org/2015/12/18/soros-plays-both-ends-in-syria-refugee-chaos/

Source URL: http://www.4thmedia.org/2015/12/soros-plays-both-ends-in-syria-refugee-chaos/

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Merkel Under Pressure: EU Countries Resisting Russia Sanctions

By ERIC ZUESSE

Merkel Under Pressure: EU Countries Resisting Russia Sanctions | German Economic News, translation by Eric Zuesse | Published:14:12:15

The EU is in the surprising situation of needing to deal, at its upcoming summit meeting at the end of this week, with the question of whether to extend sanctions against Russia. It had been expected to be an automatic continuation on account of Angela Merkel’s routinely doing whatever Washington says. But some European nations are clenching their fists and resisting her leadership on this particular matter.

The EU summit this Thursday and Friday is consequently surprised to have to deal with the extension of economic sanctions against Russia. The EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, on Monday the 14th, at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, stunned people by placing this question onto the agenda. She tried to downplay the matter by saying that doing this is routine in cases where any Member State might dissent from a consensus. Last week, Italy, in particular, said that it was opposed to extending sanctions, and therefore any extension would require high-level talks.

The sanctions are hated by many states: sanctions have increased European unemployment. However, economic reasons may not be formally stated as a reason for pressuring national politicians; but, suddenly, the EU now resists paying the economic price for its bondage to the U.S., and for doing the bidding of America’s key European agent Angela Merkel. Most EU member states had, in fact, already rejected these sanctions at the outset. US Vice President Joe Biden publicly admitted that the United States needed to force the EU to cooperate.

In fact, some European capitals clench fists in their pockets, because the penalties the individual economies suffer from the sanctions impose a significant competitive disadvantage: In Italy, the former EU President Romano Prodi warned early on, that they’d produce an economic disaster. The Greeks were always against the sanctions, and could bide time stalling for an extra deal on the bailouts. Justification now: The bankrupt state must now spend additional billions for refugee measures. Hungary is fighting against the EU because of the energy policy [especially gas]. Austria has taken serious damage, which even incited the prudent President of the Austrian Chamber of Commerce to a tantrum. The French have taken a two-pronged approach: They carry the sanctions officially, but deal unofficially with the Russians. Recently there was a French agreement with an aircraft carrier, and in Syria there is an unofficial Russian-French partnership. Even the German economy dares discreetly to be rambunctious against Angela Merkel: the Committee on Eastern European Economic Relations stands strictly against the sanctions. However, its chairman Ekkehard Cordes has resigned.Whether the resignation in connection with his criticism of Merkel stands is unclear.

The EU had imposed economic sanctions against Russia in 2014 after the downing of the passenger plane MH17 above Ukraine in July of last year. The sanctions depend on measures against Russian state-owned banks, the import and export of arms, as well as major Russian oil and gas firms.

Merkel: America’s shill in the heart of Europe.

According to the current situation, sanctions expire at the end of January 2016. The cited reason for the sanctions has been that Russia had shot down the MH17 plane. However, everything indicates that it was instead likely to have been an erroneous firing by the rebels in Ukraine’s east. That’s the basis for having imposed the sanctions. The EU-funded government in Kiev is at least partly to blame, however: They were obligated to close the airspace over the Donbass for civilian flights because of the fighting, but they didn’t do that. And yet the sanctions are only against Russia.

Then, the EU required that a full implementation of the Minsk Agreement would be needed before sanctions would end. This was supposed to occur by 31 December 2015. But recently, among other things the agreed ceasefire had become brittle and the preparations of regional elections that are also required under the Minsk agreement are several months in arrears. Ukraine has launched several provocations, such as the interruption of power supply in the Crimea by neo-Nazi attacks, but this has been ignored by the EU. Also not considered is that Russian President Vladimir Putin instructed the rebels vigorously in the early summer, to cease hostilities [despite continuation of attacks by the other side, which the EU also ignores].

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]talian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentilioni is determined that despite the obvious resistance in individual EU member states, the Russian sanctions must be “on the table” at the summit on Thursday and Friday. He expects “no big discussion,” he said, according to AFP. Nobody was against the “punitive measures,” he said. But the summit was to assess where the issue of Minsk stands. If certain countries have additional needs for discussion, it was not a problem. These are rather “technical” issues.

Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) will inform his colleagues, according to diplomats on Monday, on the progress in the implementation of Minsk. After there had been in recent weeks, “significant setbacks” in securing the ceasefire, it was again quiet, he said in Brussels. “We are now focused on the preparation of the legal basis for elections, which will take place next spring.” That is clear, however, “very, very tedious work is ahead”. The sanctions issue was ignored by Steinmeier.

Basically, any EU country could block the sanctions with a veto. But this will probably not happen: In all EU member states either massive economic pressure is exerted, because they are net recipients; or else the states have very weak governments, such as Austria, whose Chancellor Faymann has his back up against the wall because of Austria’s embarrassing crisis management in the refugee issue. All other States will keep themselves covered so as not to fall into Angela Merkel’s firing-line. She is responsible for the renewal of sanctions.

The EU plays in this process an awkward role: it does what the US demands. This week, a traveling extraordinary commissioner is being sent through Europe to “help” persuade recalcitrant members of the EU.

EU President Jean-Claude Juncker lives up to his reputation yet again: using falsehoods as a legitimate weapon: A few weeks ago Juncker had said that the EU should aim for a normalization of relations with Russia. Probably he wanted, by this trick, to win time and lull his critics into a false sense of security.

The timing was chosen deliberately: A few days before Christmas, there are no revolutions in European politics. On several occasions important decisions have been made so that no more time for consultations would be available. Next Monday, the politicians in the EU and in the Member States say goodbye, closed for business during the Christmas holidays.

TRANSLATOR’S CONCLUSION:

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he December 31st deadline is thus pushed forward to December 18th. And, if there still remains a holdout, a veto, by Italy or any other nation, then something will be worked out, some price will be paid, someone will be bought off. The American aristocracy’s war against Russia will not tolerate resistance within the alliance. The members of the gang always stick together. No matter how much the real blame might happen to be on the U.S. and its Ukrainian stooges, and no matter how much Russia might actually be simply responding to their infractions, the gang will hold together. Because, if one member steps out, he’ll be shot. So, the European people are being impoverished, and even attacked by terrorists and flooded with refugees from America’s serial invasions, but Europe’s ‘leaders’ want above all to be ‘leaders’; so, they comply. And that’s the way the world works: it works top-down, nowadays.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

The translator, investigative historian Eric Zuesse, is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

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Pentagon push for build-up in Europe against Russia

By Patrick Martin

US trooper with futuristic sighted rifle. (USA flickr)

Top Pentagon generals are backing a plan for stepped-up rotation of American ground troops to Europe that would increase by 50 percent the US forces available to NATO in the event of a confrontation with Russia.

US armada near Iraqi waters.

The plan was outlined at a defense forum at the Reagan Library in southern California that Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter addressed on Saturdayafternoon, putting Russia and China on notice regarding the build-up of US military forces in Eastern Europe and the South China Sea.

In comments reported by the Wall Street Journal Monday, both General Philip Breedlove, NATO commander, and General Mark Milley, the Army chief of staff, confirmed the planned troop increase. The US military has two brigades on permanent station in Europe, totaling 7,000 soldiers, and the rotation plan would add a third brigade.

According to the Journal, General Milley proposed an even bigger build-up, saying he would like to add even more brigades to those rotating to Europe as well as “attack helicopter units, engineering teams and artillery brigades.” This would mean the effective doubling or tripling of the size of the US force deployed to Europe and available for NATO.

LTG Mark Milley, USA. It is "sane" madmen like these who are running this planet into its final chapter.

LTG Mark Milley, USA. “Aggression left unanswered is likely to lead to more aggression.”. It is “sane” madmen like these who are running this planet into its final chapter. Power without morality, short-termers, careerists, can-do men, mediocre intellects. A plague unleashed on an unsuspecting humanity. Robotic creatures accustomed to see reality upside down.

Many details of the rotation plan remain to be worked out, but Breedlove said decisions would be made “in the next couple of months.” Milley told the Journal that the Army was changing its training methods to deal with what the Pentagon terms “hybrid war,” the combination of regular troops and irregular forces, as in the Russian operation in Crimea.

The Obama administration and the European Union have raised the alarm of alleged “hybrid war,” supposedly a new technique for seizing territory, to distract attention from their own aggressive intervention to overthrow the elected Yanukovych government in Ukraine in 2014 and replace it with a pro-NATO puppet regime.

The coup in Kiev, spearheaded by neo-fascist groups backed by the US State Department and CIA, sparked both the Russian intervention in Crimea—whose population is majority Russian and voted overwhelmingly to break with Ukraine—and the rebellion by pro-Russian separatists in the eastern Ukraine regions of Donetsk and Lugansk.

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[dropcap]B[/dropcap]oth General Breedlove and General Milley have spoken out in the last few weeks to warn that too much attention is being paid to the new Russian operation in Syria, in support of the government of President Bashar al-Assad, at the expense of the confrontation between NATO and Russia over Ukraine and more generally along the whole extent of Russia’s western border.

“I fear that as we are dealing with Russia in Syria, the eyes are off the Donbas,” Breedlove told the Journal. “Why would we want our first negotiations on how we cooperate to be in Syria and then possibly allow the eyes of the world to accept what happened in Crimea?” Milley chimed in, “Aggression left unanswered is likely to lead to more aggression.”

At a press briefing the week before at the Pentagon, General Breedlove hailed the results of a series of military exercises, involving ground troops, naval warship and fighter jets, conducted under NATO auspices this year. The latest was Operation Trident Juncture, the largest NATO war game in 13 years.

He also cited ongoing US involvement in training troops and national guardsmen in Ukraine, which is not a NATO member. He noted that the Ukrainian soldiers “have been on the front line, under fire by the Russians every day.” He continued, “And so, they have a great experience of what it is like to be hit by modern artillery,” which they would be able to share with their US trainers.

The two generals also disclosed that the Pentagon plans more training exercises to rehearse the transfer of much larger forces across the Atlantic Ocean against Russian efforts to interfere or disrupt. Such a scenario would follow the outbreak of open warfare on the border between Russia and the eastern European countries that are members of NATO, including Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

US trooper.

Breedlove said the Pentagon anticipated obstacles both in airlifting troops from the continental United States to Europe and transporting equipment and supplies by sea. “The Russian navy is not going to stand by and watch us reinforce Europe,” he told the Journal. “For two decades we haven’t thought about the fact that we are going to have to fight our way across the Atlantic.”

Milley cited huge Cold War military exercises such as Reforger, which simulated the transport of tens of thousands of US troops across the Atlantic. “We don’t need exercises as big as Reforger anymore,” he told the Journal. “But the concept of Reforger, where you exercise contingency forces … that is exactly what we should be doing.”

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he generals called attention to the supposed Russian expansion of what the Pentagon calls anti-access, area denial forces—essentially defensive weapons such as air defense systems and anti-ship missiles—at Russian bases in Belarus and Kaliningrad. The latter is actually Russian territory, an enclave bordered by Poland, Lithuania and the Baltic Sea, likely the first target of any NATO military operation in the region.

While the Pentagon complains about Russia’s military moves on its own territory, or at one of the handful of bases outside Russia, most of them in the territory of the former Soviet Union, the United States maintains a gargantuan worldwide empire of between 700 and 800 military bases. All other countries in the world combined have less than 30 such bases, according to one recent study. That disparity gives a much better picture of which country is the global aggressor.

With almost 1000 bases ringing the world, and a war budget dwarfing all other nations combined, the US military can be found almost everywhere. Seeing US ships, troops, and planes operate in all latitudes has become second nature, something unquestioned and natural.

The Wall Street Journal report noted the disparity between the language used by the generals and Defense Secretary Carter and the less strident rhetoric from the White House and the European Union: “While officials have said the White House in recent weeks has asked some military leaders to temper some comments, the administration is pursuing a strategy that allows Pentagon officials the latitude to talk about bolstering defenses, while State Department diplomats try to engage with Moscow.”

There is certainly precedent for such a cynical division of labor. However, it is likely that the Pentagon is driving the discussion rather than simply playing its assigned role. The turn by US imperialism towards war, particularly with major potential adversaries such as Russia and China, inevitably strengthens tendencies towards the centralization of power in the hands of the military-intelligence apparatus.

Patrick Martin is a senior political analyst with wsws.org.

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A Hot Summer in the Balkans

//

REVISED AND EXPANDED BY PATRICE GREANVILLE
Simulpost with Fort Russ

[box type=”bio”] With several countries in the Balkans experiencing instability, a combination of both real and contrived political issues, ranging from economic to Islamic terrorism, threaten to shake-up this historically volatile region. – . JF. ed [/box]

It seems that the Yugoslav ‘commotion among peoples’, as I like to call it, or a general atmosphere of insecurity and anxiousness started again to dominate the post-Yugoslav space. A series of political processes show a general insecurity and increased conflict potential throughout the Balkan Peninsula. This includes the sea border dispute between Slovenia and Croatia—both of them who are NATO and EU members—but that particular example is in fact the least of problems and serves just as an illustration of the current geopolitical neurosis in the Balkans.

Much more worrying are problems such as the massive (measured by tens of thousands) emigration of Kosovo-Metochia ethnic Albanians towards western countries; example: armed clash in May in Kumanovo, between ethnic Albanian terrorists and Macedonian police, leaving dozens of fatalities; Macedonia arresting numerous ISIS activists in August, yet unable to root-out terrorist camps on its territory; Serb-Croatian and Serb-Muslim tensions in Bosnia-Herzegovina; thousands of Middle-Eastern and Central-Asian (mostly Syrian, Iraqi and Afghan) refugees crossing across the Balkans in pursuit of happiness—or just bare survival—somewhere in western Europe; links of conflicts in Ukraine and Middle East to the Balkans; new energy and transport routes as sources of tensions …

The list just goes on. In other (non-Yugoslav) parts of the Peninsula things are also getting warmed up and cooled down in waves. Greek crisis seems to be delayed for a while, yet nothing seems to be finished. It appears, however, that besides the internal reasons, these new tensions have their origins in the centres of power far away from the Balkans, as was the case so many times in the Peninsula’s history. In this article I will explain why I think so.

Albion’s Game

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he approaching of 11 July 2015 meant that Bosnian and regional politics were to be occupied on another Srebrenica anniversary. In 1995 the Serbian army (Serbian entity of Bosnia-Herzegovina) took the Muslim enclave in eastern Bosnia. Srebrenica was a UN protected zone, yet also a stronghold of Naser Orić, a notorious local warlord and criminal (both war and peacetime). Despite treaties between Serbs, UN and Muslims, he constantly sallied from the town and massacred Serbs in villages surrounding the enclave between 1992 and 1995.

Mega-criminal Naser Orić.

The death toll of these raids is at least 3287 Serbs . Just weeks before Serb forces entered the enclave finally, Orić and his top thugs abandoned it by helicopter for the safety of Sarajevo. The Serbian offensive resulted in many combat casualties among Muslim soldiers who defended their position and while attempting to cross Serb-held territory under combat, to reach Muslim-held territory in central Bosnia.

In addition, many Muslim POWs were executed. The question regarding who ordered the executions has stayed unclear even after a series of trials at The Hague War Crimes Tribunal (ICTY), as there was no evidence that the Republika Srpska Army command gave such orders. Disputed is also the overall number of Muslim soldiers who died in July 1995. The official Bosnian Muslim leadership and the political West (US, UK and the Netherlands in the first place) insist on labelling events as genocide. This anniversary usually means that the tensions between Serbs and Muslims get heated in Bosnia, but the tensions this year were higher then ever.

The reason for this was that the British proposal of UN Security Council resolution that would brand Srebrenica as genocide has forbid the labelling of that narrative as ‘genocide denial’ and in effect labels Serbs as a ‘genocide nation’. The resolution never passed Russia’s “veto”, but the debate about it heavily damaged relations between the communities. One of its effects was (in the contest of current geopolitical standoff between the West and Russia) supposed to contain the Serbs whom the UK views as the exponents of Russia in southern Europe and Mediterranean.

Having this in mind, the main goal of the resolution was to brand the Serbian republic a ‘genocide state’, which was to be used as a prelude for the revision of the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement and for centralising Bosnia-Herzegovina at the expense of Serbs. Without their state, Serbs would be completely deprived of their rights, which would in effect move Bosnia back to 1992, reinstating the casus belli.

The commemoration ceremony in Srebrenica happened after the resolution has failed and turned out to become a major international scandal. Trying to calm the tensions, but also to please the western countries who supported his rise to power, Serbian PM Alexander Vucić went to the ceremony, but after it ended he was nearly lynched by an organised Bosnian Muslim mob.

The Srebrenica massacre, such as it is, boasts a complex parentage, as the author makes clear in this article. This mass grave is near the village of Pilica, approx 55kms (32 miles) northeast of Tuzla, at a former pig farm. Yugoslavia’s civil war, detonated by Western interference, was an ugly affair, displaying the marks of ancient hatreds between cultures that never quite fused in a true national identity.

It remains unclear if this was only supposed to be a ‘message’ or really a murder attempt, but tomorrow morning Serbian tabloid Alo named a supposed MI6 operative on their cover page , blaming him directly for a murder attempt that was supposed to be a provocation that would ‘burn down the Balkans’. The tabloid went so far to connect the British operative with the 2003 assassination of Serbian PM Zoran Đinđić. This meant that the ‘political honeymoon’ between Vučić and the UK abruptly ended.

Not long after that Tony Blair ceased being one of Vučić’s advisors . The second half of the drama was painted with the message of peace that Vučić sent by hosting members of the collective Presidium of Bosnia-Herzegovina Bakir Izetbegovic (Muslim), Dragan Čović (Croat) and Mladen Ivanić (Serb). Although the whole scene was very kitsch, in general this turned out a good move of the Serbian PM, as it actually did ease the high emotional tensions that were potentially very explosive.

The response to all of this by Republika Srpska President Milorad Dodik was to call a referendum to restore judicial powers vested to Republika Srpska by the Dayton Agreement, but stripped off by the so-called High Representatives of the international community, in effect the colonial-type viceroys of the political West. Dodik’s initiative was backed by Russia, which meant that Russia raised the stakes and adequately responded to the British challenge.

Vučić previously politely suggested to Dodik to ‘rethink’ the decision already made by the parliament of Republika Srpska. However, after Russia supported the referendum, I doubt that Vučić was to oppose the referendum publicly, as this would be viewed badly by his own voters. Most of his supporters are fond both of Russia and especially of Russia’s firm position on defending the Serbian interest and their own obligations towards the Dayton Agreement (as Russia is one of the guaranties of the peace treaty). But even more relevant is that Vučić’s voters are fond of Dodik, whom they see as an independent brave Serbian voice in the Balkans.

The behaviour of the Serb leadership under President Dodik is absolutely rational, however it is only such because the Serb leadership is forced to behave like this in the circumstances where the Bosnian Muslim leadership is both NATO oriented, and leaning towards Islamist religious extremism. The ties of Bakir Izetbegović’s father Alija with the jihadists are well known.

Bosnian Mujahedin, blessed by Clinton, and used against the Serbs in the Yugoslav civil war.

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he first Islamist militia on European soil was the notorious El Mujaheed Brigade of jihadist volunteers fighting for Bosnian Muslims during the Yugoslav Civil War. Izetbegović Junior has excellent ties with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and many young Bosnian Salafists fight in the ranks of ISIS, Al-Nusra Front and other extreme groups in Syria. Needles to say that both Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and PM Ahmet Davutoğlu—in the spirit of Neo-Ottomanism—repeatedly gave threatening statements on Bosnia-Herzegovina.

These implied Turkey would militarily interfere against the Serbs if needed, which is not to be taken lightly keeping in mind that now the Turkish air force is engaged in bombing Kurdish positions in Syria, which essentially allied Turkey with ISIS, this being already an ‘open secret’ for some time.

Nevertheless, in spite of the extremism of the Wahhabi sect in Bosnia they comprise from 5% to maximum 10% of the overall Bosnian Muslim population, while the vast majority of Bosnian Muslims are secular. The voice of the moderates who support peace and cooperation with Serbs and offer alternative narratives to both the past events and current processes in the Balkans are however silenced both by the official Muslim elite and media, but also by the Western discourse constantly produced in the media, which serves to maintain a constant state of tensions between Serbs and Bosnian Muslims.

“Serbs (Orthodox Christians) and Bosnian Muslims should be natural allies, as they are both essentially the same people, divided by faith as a result of historical circumstances…”

Otherwise Serbs (Orthodox Christians) and Bosnian Muslims should be natural allies, as they are both essentially the same people, divided by faith as a result of historical circumstances. Furthermore, in the eyes of the West, both are in essence ‘Oriental’, so their cultures intertwine once again, having the historical civilisation centre in Constantinople. The 1992-1995 war in Bosnia-Herzegovina showed that such cooperation is quite possible when not interrupted from outside, as in the case of Serbs-Muslims coalition of the so-called Republic of Western Bosnia centred in the town of Velika Kladuša, led by Bosnian Muslim leader Fikret Abdić who disagreed with US-backed Alija Izetbegović’s intolerant policies.

Unfortunately, such cooperation was rarely seen as it did not fit the outside forces’ interests, in the most current case the UK that geopolitically manipulates the hostilities and tries to fuel another conflict.

Serbs and Anti-Serbs

[dropcap]I[/dropcap]t is well known that Croatian nationalism is a negative type of nationalism. It is actually defined through negation of another identity. For a Croatian nationalist, the first thing they want to make clear is that they are not Serbian. Everything rest is secondary and derived out of that first principle.

This of course has its origins in history that is not as ancient as often presented. From the beginning of the 19th century and the process of the formation of the Serbian state, the Habsburg Empire felt the danger that all the Serbian speakers might thrive to join the newly formed state. Many of these people were living in the Empire’s border areas, which represented a real security threat.

With the help of the Vatican and a circle of intellectuals (both clerical and secular) the Black-Yellow Monarchy decided to implant a new identity into the masses of Serbian-speaking Roman Catholics. This is why the identity of the Serbian-speaking Balkan peoples started to be defined on the basis of religion, not language as it was the case for most other European nations, such as Germans.

That is why the modern Croatian identity was based on a negative mirror identity. This case is far from unique. Similar was with the British Empire that facilitated the partition of India to secure the division and paralyse the potential rise of their former colony into a major power. Today we have India and Pakistan (as Anti-India). The same might come out with Ukraine (as Anti-Russia) if it remains an independent state, as it is today, after the war ends.

Coming back to the present day, August began with another anniversary. Croatia celebrates the 20th anniversary of ‘operation Storm’ on 5 August 2015. That was a major offensive of the Croatian forces trained by the Military Professional Resources Inc. (MPRI), a private US mercenary company with strong ties to the Pentagon. The operation was a military attack against the Republic of Serbian Krajina which was (just like Srebrenica) a UN-protected zone, even some UN troops were killed by the Croatian army during the attack.

The US was directly involved as its warplanes bombed Serbian air defence, radar and communication facilities , thus allowing the Croatian air force to bomb Serbian refugee convoys. The attack was utterly illegal from the point of international treaties, yet backed by the US, whose Ambassador Peter Galbraith personally joined in riding a Croatian tank. The result of the operation was that several thousand Serbian civilians were massacred by Croatian troops, while almost a quarter of a million Serbs were ethnically cleansed from their ancestral lands and forced to flee for safety in Republika Srpska or the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (today Serbia and Montenegro).

To commemorate the ‘victory day’, Croatia organised a military parade and events all over the country, while the leaderships of Republika Srpska and Serbia decided to commemorate it as a day of sorrow. The celebration in Croatia was followed by an outburst of WW2 Nazi symbolism (from flags, hate songs and WW2 Croatian Ustashe uniforms, to Nazi salutes) glorifying the genocide committed by the so-called Independent State of Croatia (Nazi puppet state in occupied and dismembered Yugoslavia) upon the Serbs. This should not surprise knowing the nature of the anti-Serb sentiment is a necessary integral part of modern Croatian nationalism.

[dropcap]H[/dropcap]aving in mind the 9 May ethnic Albanian terrorist attacks in Macedonia and a jihadist attack on a police station in Zvornik (east Bosnia), all these events combined show that tensions are immanent and can easily arise in the ex-Yugoslav space. This most recent wave of animosities in the ex-Yugoslav space seems to be coming out of nowhere.

Although the bad feelings did not go away, the new clashes seem to be produced and controlled from abroad, for the time being. One thing is already clear, that none of the Yugoslav banana republics are ready for war. Primarily – because they have been heavily de-industrialised and demilitarised in post-war years. Even though weakened by ‘reforms and professionalisation’, the Serbian army remains a dominant military power in the post-Yugoslav realm, while the Serbian question remains the central question in the Balkans.

Frustrations are high on all sides, but it still seems that internal forces did not solely provoke the wave, which is why the British failed attempt for a UN resolution on Srebrenica and recent parade in Zagreb seem to be coming from the same kitchen. These Balkan skirmishes seem to be a part of a much greater picture. The Russia-West proxy war in Ukraine might be part of the answer, but the real answer lies in the shift the US is making globally – by leaving the Middle East and concentrating on the Pacific to contain China.

It should be said that the Ukrainian conflict is also somehow connected to the Balkans. The overwhelming majority of Serbs support the Russian population in Ukraine and Croats in general support the other side. This is why many Serb volunteers fight in the ranks of the pro-Russian militias, whereas some Croat Neo-Nazis joined the Azov battalion. Knowing that many Islamists from the Balkans fight in the ranks of ISIS and other groups in the Middle East, it seems that the response of the peoples in the region to the world crisis is very Huntingtonian.

Turkey, Saudi-Arabia, Iran, and the Balkan Muslim population

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]oth Turkey and Saudi Arabia are in grave danger now. It could even be said that both are in a danger of decomposition in the nearest future, in Syrian-Iraqi style, though time will only tell how much stamina they have. At the same time, their main regional adversary – Iran is in a geopolitical expansion and may rise further as the main regional power, as a result of the wars in Syria, Iraq and Yemen which are all proxy wars of Turkey, Saudi and other minor Sunni Muslim courtiers against Shia Iran.

The Iranian nuclear deal of Vienna will show its results in the near future, so it remains to be seen if Persia will cooperate with the US at the expense of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, but also at the expense of their own ties with their ally Bashar Assad, as French Middle East expert Thierry Meyssan suggests.

So, what is the connection with the Balkans? All three sides supported the Bosnian Muslims during the 1990s wars in Bosnia-Herzegovina and all sent arms, money and fighters to Alija Izetbegović in the name of the Muslim cause. It seems, however, that Iranians have regretted this move, as the Bosnian Sunni Muslim leadership gave much more influence to Turkey and Saudi Arabia after the war.

Furthermore, the Muslim leadership of Bosnia and Herzegovina, now headed by Bakir Izetbegović (Alija’s son) made some directly anti-Iranian moves. They have voted for a UN resolution condemning Syria (Iran’s greatest friend in the Middle East), which was logically seen as a treason in the eyes of Teheran. But regardless of the obvious rise of their regional influence, Iran can hardly take the leading role among the Balkan Muslims, for the simple fact that most of them are Sunnis and Turkophiles.

Yet the shift in power in the Middle East will in one way or another influence the relations in more remote regions with Muslim populations such as the Balkan Peninsula. The danger is ever more serious if Turkey gets more frustrated and desperate and tries to gain some success in the Balkans to compensate for defeats in the Middle East. This goes for Saudi Arabia too.

The Balkans and the Gates of Tears

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]hina bought the largest cargo terminal at the port of Piraeus and plans to build a fast railway to connect it with the heart of Europe – through Skoplje, Belgrade and Budapest. Russia wants to do the same with its Turkish stream gas pipeline through Greece, Macedonia, Serbia, Hungary with final destination in Austria.

These facts offer an obvious answer why we can see the new wave of destabilisation in the Balkans. Germany is not opposing these projects, as they would strengthen their energy security and supply of goods. The US on the other hand was and still is the dominant foreign power influencing external and internal politics of the Balkan ‘banana republics’, so they certainly are not happy about these projects.

Both of these grand construction projects provide a unique historical opportunity for the Serbs and Hungarians to find a firm common interest which would be a great opportunity for longstanding stability and cooperation between the two peoples and countries with a troubled bilateral history. They would also connect all the countries on their path and secure peace and economic stability for a foreseeable future. But instead of this, we can see all these countries being pushed on a path of instability.

This region is only a fragment of a picture that starts in the Middle East. The story starts in 2001 when the US started the war in Afghanistan and later in Iraq, which left their greatest regional foe Iran victorious, establishing a local hegemony. Another defeat for the US was the so-called Arab Spring that essentially deprived the US from the control over the Suez Canal.

In Egypt they supported Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood against their old ally Hosni Mubarak, but eventually the military junta led by Field Marshal Abdel Fattah el-Sisi turned out to be Nasserist and started cooperating with Russia soon after the coup d’etat. One wise thing the US did was not to repeat the Franco-British fiasco of 1956 and enter another disastrous war.

The Balkan construction projects—especially the fast railway as part of the Chinese ‘New Silk Road’—are directly connected to the current battle for the trade chokepoints in the Middle East: Suez Canal, Hormuz Straits and Bab-el-Mandeb (The Gates of Tears). If the Suez Canal or Bab-el-Mandeb is closed for even a short period, then what is the purpose of the Piraeus port for China ?

None.

“The Chinese are switching to a global commodities position, and that switch is the imperial switch,” said British historian Niall Ferguson. This Chinese ‘switch’ makes the US move its focus towards the Pacific, in the process trying to leave chaos behind in the Middle East and elsewhere in Eurasia including the Balkans. This is also the reason why we can see the navies of all major powers including China and Russia in and around these choke-points.

The US is leaving the Middle East. It is gaining energy independence by developing fracking and containing China becomes a goal above all others. US President Barack Obama said this explicitly in his statement about concentrating of the US focus from the Middle East to the Pacific. This leaves an open space for Russia.

We have seen recently that the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of two fierce regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran visited Moscow in a short period of time. The sudden change of attitude towards Russia among the absolutist monarchies of the Persian Gulf also shows that the Wahhabi monarchs realised that ISIS, the monster they created in Syria and Iraq, can easily collect their royal heads too. After all, the fate of former Western allies Hosni Mubarak and Muammar Gaddafi tells more then a thousand words.

The main US goal in the Balkans is similar to the goal they had in Germany after the WW2 – to keep the EU in, the Serbs down and Russia out for as long as possible, but all of this without a ‘Marshal Plan 2’ to secure economic prosperity in the region, quite the opposite. The US is well aware this policy cannot be successful forever. The Russians should do just the opposite if they want to enlarge their share of influence in the region, and the best way to do so is to strengthen the Serb factor – being both central and Russophile.

Is the Refuge Crisis a Threat and, if it is, to What Extent?

[dropcap]B[/dropcap]elgrade—as many other Balkan cities—is witnessing a very new and surreal scene. The city parks around the central bus and railway stations are full of unfortunate travelers who walked their way on foot, trains, sea and by any means possible, to reach the Serbian capital and to continue their journey to the Hungarian border and then further westward to the ‘lands of opportunity’.

The vast majority of these people are not economic, but war migrants – refugees who fled the warzones of Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, all inflamed by the US, NATO and their ad-hoc formed ‘coalitions of the willing’.

The Balkan countries that have been hit the most by this wave are Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Serbia. The migrants reach Bulgaria through Turkey from which the road leads them through the Bulgarian Trace Valley to Serbia. Another—much longer—route goes trough the Greek islands onward through the Macedonian Vardar Valley and Morava Valley in Serbia, from which they try to enter Hungary (or Croatia, in a rarer case).

This flood of migrants raises new questions in already troubled societies. The press and numerous experts and commentators speculate that ISIS members might be infiltrated into the masses of refugees. The fear is further fueled by several threatening videos of ISIS that call for attacks on Serbia, Croatia and so forth in order to spread the ‘Caliphate’ westward.

This is not an empty threat, knowing that many Balkan nationals—especially from Bosnia-Herzegovina and from NATO-occupied Serbian province of Kossovo-Metochia—fight and many have already been killed in the ranks of the extremist organisations in Syria and Iraq. Also the terrorist attack in April 2015 on a Republika Srpska police station was perpetrated by a local claimed to be associated with the Islamists. Some experts fear that in the event of a Muslim-Serb conflict, ‘sleepers’ hidden among the migrants might spread terror in major cities and join the fight in the regions of the Balkans (Bosnia, Macedonia, Kossovo-Metochia, southwest and southeast Serbia) that might be lit up in a hypothetical future war.

Russian expert for the Balkans Elena Guskova claims this war may start as early as late-August . The potential conflicts are with the Albanian factor (Albania plus their population in the region) or the Bosnian Muslims if this fits the interests of the US. This should certainly not be taken without caution in the light of the US Secretary of State John Kerry’s statement about the ‘line of fire’ between Russia and the West, where he directly named a number of Balkan states.

Another aspect of the problem is that Hungary started building a wire fence along the border with Serbia, as well as media speculations that Serbia and Macedonia should build refugee camps to host hundreds of thousands of refugees, and that the Western countries might send the refugees back not to their countries of origin, but to the first non-EU country they’ve entered before stepping into the Union.

While these may well be mere sensationalist media speculations and orientalist xenophobic scaremongering, the end of the refugee crisis is not foreseeable. Only time will tell how serious the problem will get.

Conclusion

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Balkans should be not viewed only as part of Europe, where it geographically belongs, but also as part of the Greater Middle East problems, and one of the key hot-spots in the current world crisis and global shift of power. The US is retreating from the Middle East in general and moving politically and militarily to the Pacific to try to contain China. The US strategy is therefore also to create conflicts everywhere it can along the borders of Eurasia.

The outline of this process was bluntly given by John Kerry in his famous ‘countries on the line of fire’ remark. This is done by the retreating US to divide the continent and lock it in conflicts for as long as it can. In that way Eurasia cannot consolidate and its countries cannot establish new trade and energy routes which would not be under the control of the US (or the West more broadly).

As long as the US controls the main sea routes it will be the dominant world empire. While it may be losing its grip, it would certainly not want to let go without creating chaos before other powers of the emerging multi-polar world take control. If they break up, before managing to organise, even better, that is the logic of the US today.

In pursuit of this, another goal seems to be a tendency to destroy classical nation states by creating civil unrest everywhere possible along the neuralgic points of Eurasia, the ‘Arab Spring’ that toppled secular Arab nationalist autocracies and brought Mad Max-style chaos offers proof of that.

If a society is unraveled from the level of national entity to the level of ethnic group or tribe, thereby disorganized in a classical nation state manner, it is easier to be manipulated, and it becomes locked in conflicts with others. We have seen this scenario unveil in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, but the worst case scenario took place in Libya and Somalia. All the mentioned disputes and recent geopolitical skirmishes and processes in the Balkans need to be viewed in this perspective.

The American retreat from the Middle East towards the Pacific Ocean means that the influence of Russia is only likely to increase in the region (Middle East, South Caucasus and the Balkans), especially if Russia plays its cards well. This also means that the US may gradually retreat from its bases in Kosovo-Metochia and elsewhere in the Balkans, leaving a security gap and increasing a conflict potential.

If Russia wants to benefit from this situation it should maximally support the Serbs in the Balkans to fulfill this security gap. By uniting the Serb space, it would do exactly the opposite from what the US and its European allies have been doing for the last 25 years. The Serbs occupy the heart of the Balkan Peninsula and still are the largest ethnic identity between Vienna and Constantinople, but they are also very vulnerable.

They are surrounded by NATO and a bandwagon of traditional local enemies that could be activated with the help of US at any given moment. It should not come as a surprise if the US uses Hitler’s WW2 blueprint of occupying Serbian space by using local NATO countries to divide the terrain into occupying zones. Recent US military supplies to Bulgaria should not go unnoticed in this context, especially after the Bulgarian PM Boyko Borisov’s threatening message to Macedonian PM Nikola Gruevski to resign. But not only did Borisov verbally attack Gruevski, he also sent the Bulgarian army to the border with Macedonia.

In light of the above, I strongly believe Russia’s Balkan policy should focus on finding the means to significantly support Serbia (politically, economically and militarily) as soon as possible, so that it can overcome this immensely challenging period.

Moscow should also support and help facilitate the aspiration of the Serbian people to reunite the Serb space in the future. This space is now divided into many failed state formations, but before any of this can be addressed Russia should help preserve the bare existence of the Serb population in hostile countries and territories.

Bearing in mind that the Serbs are the south/westernmost outpost of the Orthodox Christian-Slavonic world, by doing so Russia would largely increase its influence in the south of Europe and the Mediterranean. Many challenges, however, some of which are mentioned here, lie ahead this long and wiggly road.

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