Tag: kosovo

Consenting to Rape

The calmness with which the Empire and the EU took Belgrade’s initial refusal to accept their ultimatum should have been a telling sign of things to come. The carefully cultivated quislings of Serbia weren’t going off-script, but performing just as they’ve been coached. Their “no” had served to interrupt the momentum of domestic discontent and … Continue reading “Consenting to Rape”

An Unexpected Refusal

As late as Monday, it had appeared that the government in Belgrade would accept the demands from Brussels and capitulate on Kosovo. The province, occupied by NATO in 1999, was declared independent in February 2008, but despite the Empire’s insistence, even the most dedicated of quislings in Belgrade have been unwilling to recognize this. When … Continue reading “An Unexpected Refusal”

Still a Lie

On February 17, 2008, the ethnic Albanian provisional government of the NATO-occupied province of Kosovo declared independence. Five years later, the “Republic of Kosovo” has been recognized by half the world’s governments and enjoys unqualified Imperial support. It is also a crime- and corruption-ridden hellhole, and a failure of Western nation-building project. Not surprisingly, the … Continue reading “Still a Lie”

Intervention, Reloaded

Empire Studios’ Syrian Sequel Syria is just like Kosovo, argued one interventionist two weeks ago, on the pages of the War Street Journal. According to Fouad Ajami, both involve a brutal dictator oppressing innocent civilians, and the Empire ought to act the same way, bypassing the U.N., and — to borrow a phrase from the … Continue reading “Intervention, Reloaded”

A Most Stubborn Reality

Glitches in Empire’s Matrix In the virtual reality concocted by the Empire, the lynching of Moammar Gadhafi was a splendid victory for NATO. Never mind now that it was the “transitional rebels” who were supposed to be fighting the “kinetic military action” in Libya — or any such inconvenient details. No, insist the Imperial partisans, … Continue reading “A Most Stubborn Reality”

Law and Disorder

Among the many half-successes, pretend-successes and outright failures, until this week the Empire could still plausibly claim that it had scored a victory in the Balkans. Nearly two decades of efforts to dismantle Yugoslavia just so, and install pliant governments in its arbitrarily arranged shards, seemed to have been crowned with a triumph last fall, … Continue reading “Law and Disorder”