Commanding the Tides

Empire Fails Canute's Lesson

by , March 01, 2013

For two decades, the Atlantic Empire and its European satellites have claimed to have reached the end of history, bombing or blockading anyone who dared disagree. Certain of their own invincibility, they’ve treated reality with contempt, and scoffed at Canute’s lesson as something that did not apply to them. They think they can command the tides by wishing it so.

Try as they might, though, no amount of will-to-power can overcome mathematics, or physics, or human nature. Everywhere the cracks are appearing in the pseudo-utopia they have constructed, as the long-denied realities strike back with annoying frequency. Still they cling onto their delusions of control; for they know nothing else.

The Italian Shoal

While the oligarchy in Washington squabbles over the impending sequester – both sides continuing to believe they can spend their way out of debt, differing only as to how much – the Eurocrats once again ran aground the shoals of democracy. Elections in Italy returned a hung parliament. Bankster PM Mario Monti was simply crushed at the polls, while former PM Silvio Berlusconi made a comeback, and comedian Beppe Grillo won big.

Brussels, of course, cares little for democracy if it doesn’t result in the desired outcome. Like the Irish or the Greeks, the Italians will have to vote again till they get it “right.” Sooner or later, though, someone will refuse, and the House of Euro will unravel. How long before someone wonders about the purpose of a massive bureaucracy regulating the shape of cucumbers, if it can’t prevent horsemeat being sold as beef.

Loyal Lapdogs?

At least the Balkans project is going as planned, right? Once reviled as an ” ultranationalist,” the current President of Serbia is meeting with “president of Kosovo.” Surely that means Serbia’s suicide is just about a done deal, no? The “Kosovian” has even triumphantly declared that Belgrade is willing to "disband” its security forces in the north of the occupied province. Except the very next day, a ranking government official said there was nothing to disband. The “clandestine security operation” exists only in the imagination of the Albanians and their Western sponsors; the resistance to “Kosovian” takeover is local and civilian in origin, but that’s too much of an embarrassment for Pristina, Brussels and Washington to admit.

Serbia’s quislings show no sign of abandoning their quisling ways. The Prime Minister was recently in Washington, and his deputy in Berlin, promising to do everything that is asked of them , and more. But the president’s recent decision to decorate Vladimir Putin may irk both the Empire and Moscow.

Meanwhile, the government relies on manufactured scandals and celebrity gossip to keep the public distracted, but the tactic continues to lose efficiency the longer it is employed.

Hitting the Brakes

Ironically, the Serbian leadership now appears to be easier to control than the Albanians, whom the Empire has favored as its local proxies since 1998 or so. Former Albanian PM Pandeli Majko recently spoke of finalizing the ” historical process of the formation of the Albanian nation” by getting “Kosovo” UN acceptance – after which, presumably, it will join Albania as planned.

The Empire doesn’t seem to mind this turn of events. “Kosovian” independence is one of the few things uniting the Heritage Foundation and The Atlantic, for example. But Washington would appreciate if the Albanians weren’t quite so vocal about it. A memo urging the Albanians to tone down the "nationalist rhetoric" was leaked to the press recently, with Washington warning Albanian president Sali Berisha to stop antagonizing the neighbors needlessly. Bit too late for that…

Meanwhile, “Kosovian PM” Hashim Thaci sought to bolster his credentials by attending a "world summit" in South Korea, organized by Rev. Moon’s Unification Church. Thaci boasted about receiving an award for “leadership and good governance,” as well as a honorary doctorate, from the Moonies. It’s anybody’s guess what might happen once the militant Muslims in Thaci’s pseudo-state figure out what the Unification Church is.

Inquisition’s Ploy

In November last year, the Hague Inquisition released two Croatian generals accused of atrocities against the Serbs, as well as KLA commander Ramush Haradinaj. Then in December, it convicted Bosnian Serb Gen. Zdravko Tolimir, after reinventing the Srebrenica narrative. Yesterday, the Inquisition acquitted on appeal Serbian general Momcilo Perisic, originally charged with “aiding and abetting” atrocities in Bosnia as the chief of staff for the Yugoslav Army.

In three out of the four cases – Haradinaj was acquitted because the witnesses against him recanted or “disappeared” – the Inquisition changed its mind about the standards of evidence. Generals Gotovina and Markac were originally convicted using a dubious metric for determining civilian targets – one which, if applied to Serb defendants, would see them all acquitted. The grounds for Tolimir’s conviction were hotly disputed by Zambian judge Nyamba. And in the case of Perisic, two years after he was sentenced to 27 years, the Tribunal decided that charges against him had not been proven beyond reasonable doubt. Oops?

The inevitable conclusions is that either its prosecutors and the judges of are incompetent (at best), or the Inquisition is a political body, its convictions and acquittals are dictated by concerns other than justice. Sure enough, reporters covering the Perisic verdict unfailingly pointed out that it “might restore some faith in the tribunal’s neutrality among people in Serbia” (BBC), and “will be welcomed in Belgrade where the court has been perceived as biased” (AFP).

Except that doesn’t seem likely, since Perisic is still remembered in Serbia as someone who got caught red-handed spying for the Americans. As it turned out, the “Evil Milosevic’s” top military and security officials had been CIA assets for years.

Delusions All The Way Down

What the Empire seems to have forgotten is Korzybski’s dictum that the map is not the territory. Obama is not America, just as Bush II wasn’t. Simply seizing control of the levers of power in Serbia (or Italy, or Iraq, etc.) isn’t enough to actually control the people. And people aren’t pieces on a game board, but often have a will of their own.

Imperial think-tanks, like the International Crisis Group, still nurture illusions they can control the Islamic community in Bosnia, having imbued it with a righteous victimhood complex. Then again, they also believe Serbia and "Kosovo" are on the road to "normalization". Wishful thinking much?

Some Imperial pundits now call for replicating the “success” of Bosnia by arming jihadists in Syria. That is, in fact, already happening, with Croatia as the proxy. There is no way that could possibly backfire, right?

Read more by Nebojsa Malic