At the time, practically everybody bought that narrative. There were a few exceptions here and there - the independent journalist Michel Collon in Belgium deserves a special mention here with his book MediaMensonges written as early as 1994 - but by and large the Empire's campaign of "strategic psyops" was a stunning success.
I will return to the topic of this war on a regular basis because a lot of things still must be re-visited and re-explained, especially now that the Muslim world has found itself on the receiving end of exactly the same forces doing exactly the same thing in Libya and Syria. But for the time being, I just want to share an email exchange I had with one upset reader to whom my reply could serve as a useful starting point to begin to set the record straight.
Here is the email which I got last week:
Dear Saker,Here is the text of my reply: (slightly corrected)
Let me first congratulate you on excellent articles and commentaries on your site. I enjoy reading them, and agree with them.
But, of course, there is one thing that bothers me in your writings, your obsession with "suffering" of Serbia and Serbs. Even in today's article you mentioned 78 days of "suffering" of Serbia. If you really needed good example of suffering from Balkans couldn't you use Siege of Sarajevo which lasted from 5 April 1992 to 29 February 1996, longer then Siege of Stalingrad, and guess who kept Sarajevo under the siege, yes your dear Serbian fascists.
Few pictures ...
https://www.google.ca/search?q=siege+of+sarajevo&client=ubun tu&hs=kzk&channel=fs&tbm=isch& tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei= zIEsU-aLKYOsyAGOmoGAAg&ved=0CE UQ7Ak&biw=1458&bih=774&dpr=1
Enemy of my enemy does not have to be my friend, and a lot of progressive writers loose some of their credibility by portraying Serbs under Milosevic as another victim of US imperialism, they are the same shitty nazies like those who are ruling Ukraine these days. They came in power by coup, they pushed other nations from Yugoslavia, they committed worst crimes during wars in ex-YU mostly in Bosnia, but also in Croatia and Kosovo!
Best,
xxxxx xxxxxx
P.S. I was born and lived for 31 years in Sarajevo until Serbs forced me to leave in 1991.
I did not get a reply, nor was I expecting one (though I do expect today's post to trigger an avalanche of outraged comments). The crisis in the Ukraine is far from over and there are other events to which I would like to turn to - like the absolutely barbaric condemnation to death of 528 members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The situation in Syria also deserves much more coverage then the zero-coverage I have been giving it since the crisis began in the Ukraine. Alas, I simply do not have to time to reply to all the comments and emails I get every day, nevermind providing a focused coverage on several "fronts" so I always pick the one which appears to most important to me. All this is to explain that I will not be able to reply, especially in detail, to what I expect to be quite a few irate comments to this post. I sincerely apologize for that, but I promise to come back to this topic as soon as things cool down elsewhere.5) which side even got the al-Qaeda types to support them with money, guns and wahabi crazies? (answer: Bosnian Muslims)4) which side did exactly what the Ukies do today and said: 'we can secede from you, but you cannot secede from us'? (answer: Croats and Bosnian Muslims)3) whose side got the support of the so-called international community and even for the USAF to bomb on their behalf? (answer: Croats and Bosnian Muslims)2) which was the party which decided to use a symbol clearly associated with a Bandera-like regime? (answer: the Croats with their checkerboard)Dear xxxxx,1) who of the Croats, Bosnian Muslims or Serbs unleashed the devil of nationalism and who stood for a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society? (answer: Croats and Bosnian Muslims)
Thanks for your email. I have to honestly tell you that while I sympathize with your plight as I would do for the plight of any person suffering the consequences of civil war, I find your arguments wholly unconvincing. First and foremost, you have to ask yourself basic questions:
6) which side use to hide inside UNPAs or UN safe havens and conduct attacks from there? (answer: Croats and Bosnian Muslims)7) which side was backstabbed by its own people? (answer: Bosnian Serbs whom Milosevic slapped with en embargo)8) which side had the most displaced persons/refugees? (Serbs from Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo)9) which side organized false flag massacres (Markale I and II, Racak) to trigger intervention? (answer: Bosnian Muslims)10) which side had to give up its so-called "heavy weapons" before the US and Croat forces attacked them? (answer: Krajina-Serbs)11) which side turned a formerly progressive and liberal society into an obscurantist and intolerant one as portrayed in the Bosnian movie "Luna's choice"? (answer: Bosnian Muslims)12) which side had the full 100% support of the US propaganda machine and the NWO media? (answer: Croats and Bosnian Muslims)13) which side produced the worst collaborators with Hitler? (answer: Croats and Bosnian Muslims)14) which side produce the strongest resistance against the Nazis? (answer: Serbs with Tito and Mikhailovich)15) which side managed to get the support of BOTH the various Jewish lobbies AND of the Vatican (answer: the Croats)16) which side benefited from nightly delivery of weapons from NATO and Turkey? (answer: the Bosnian Muslims)17) which side first signed a peace agreement and then reneged on it? (answer: the Bosnian Muslims)18) which side had crimes committed against it never punished by the Hague Tribunal? (answer: the Serbs)Also - let me tell you a little something about myself. I used to do military analysis for, amongst other assignments, the United Nations and I followed the wars in Croatia and Bosnia on day-to-day basis, and not the public stuff , but classified UNPROFOR reports. I also personally interviewed *A LOT* of UNPROFOR officers include 2 UNPROFOR Force commanders. So, believe me, I know what did or did not happen in Bosnia, Croatia and, Kosovo. Yes, there were crazy Serbian nationalists and murderers who committed atrocities, no doubt here at all, but no more and no less then what the Croats or the Bosnian Muslims did. Second, I make a HUGE difference between Milosevic (both an ex-banker AND an ex-communist) and the Bosnian Serb people, including Karadzic and his aides. Milosevic was the scum of the earth, a fake nationalist, fake communist, and real capitalist SOB who betrayed his people at least twice (when he slapped sanctions against the Bosnian Serbs and when he betrayed the Kosovo Serbs), but Federal Forces in Bosnia committed the least atrocities and massacres and some Serbian paramilitay units - like the one of Capitan Dragan - has an excellent record on human rights. So to portray the Serbs as Nazis the way you do is simply not honest and, in the case of a person like me, futile - because I know what was going on behind the propaganda veil.As for the leaders of the so-called "good guys" a lot of them were scum and professional liars (Tudjman, Silajdzic) or maniacs (Itzebegovich). Yes, Milosevic was a piece of shit too, but no worse than these guys.Kind regards,
Your vision is simple: bad Serbs, good Croats and/or good Bosnian Muslims. That is utter nonsense. Like in any other country, in all the ethnic/religious groups of the former Yugoslavia you had a majority of decent but passive people, a certain percentage of sick and evil folks who like to do evil, and a small group of heroes who kept their decency in the middle of the horror around them. And 90% of people did NOT want a way, much less so a civil one. And today, most people in Bosnia understand that they have been used by the US Empire and regret the civilized society and country which they lost. I think that if somebody did a public opinion survey in Bosnia and asked the people: "when you see the outcome today do you think that it worth triggering a civil war at the time?" the vast majority would answer "no". Well, that civil war was not started by the Serbs.
So, please, don't come tell me how bad the other guy is. Look at what *your* people did to *themselves* and try to learn something from it.
The Saker
For one thing, I consider it my moral obligation to address my many Muslim readers with a plea to "connect the dots" and realize that they have been lied to not only about Chechina, but also about Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. I know that some of them have been reading this blogs for years and they know my views on nationalism, religion and Islam and that I really do try to live by Malcolm X's motto "I am for truth, no matter who tells it". The Empire's propaganda machine tried hard in presenting the wars in Chechnia and in the former Yugoslavia as a war of Orthodox Christians against Islam. Sadly, this propaganda campaign was nothing short of a total triumph, especially amongst Muslims. So today I want to submit to you all, but especially to my Muslim readers, the following exchange with a first-rate Muslim scholar and academic to whom I had written to express my enthusiasm for his book and my issue with only once sentence in it. (I am not going to reveal the name of this person out of respect for him, especially since he is going through a great deal of suffering right now). Here is what I wrote:
Dear Sir,This is the reply I got:
My name is xxxxxx xxxxxxx and I am writing to you for two reasons. First, to express my gratitude for your most interesting essay on Wahhabism which was recommended to me by a Muslim friend as "the best book on Wahhabism". I can only agree wholeheartedly. At the end of the book though, one sentence immensely disappointed me and made me decide to write directly to you.
On page 68 you wrote that the US global war on terror was "waged in concert with allies such as Russia, its hands bloodied with the Muslims of Chechnya". I take issue with literally every letter of that sentence.
1) First, we now know from the testimony of Sibel Edmonds that not only did the USA not help Russia but, quite to the contrary, the USA fully supported the Chechen insurgency.
2) You make it sound like the wars in Chechnia were wars opposing Russians and Chechens. This is also patently false. There never was a united "Chechen side", not in 1995 and, even less so, in 1999. In fact, I would credit the Chechens of Akhmad and Ramzan Kadyrov with killing at least as many insurgents as the Federal Forces did.
3) You also make it sound like the wars in Chechnia were wars opposing Muslims and, by implication, non-Muslims. This is also patently false. Not only was there always a Chechen opposition to the insurgency, but there were plenty of non-Chechen Muslims in the Federal forces, especially so during the 2nd Chechen war which, after all, began with a Chechen attempt to invade Dagestan where Muslim Dagestanis fought to their death to stop this invasion.
4) Now let's take the issue of whose hands were bloodied with Muslim blood. Do you really not know of the constant violence which was meted out by the government of the independent 'Ichkeria' against its own citizens? Of all people, you should know best how Wahabis treat non-Wahabi Muslims! Do you really believe that when the Wahabis got to power in Chechnia they treated the local Muslims any better than what they have always done everywhere in the past and which your book so well explains? Why is it that when (putatively) non-Muslim Federal Forces kill Muslims this deserves a special mention whereas when (putatively) "Muslims" such as the Wahabis kill (real) Muslims this gets no mention.
Now, you wrote the book in 2002 and you can be excused for not having guessed at that time what Chechnia would look like a decade later. I will honestly admit that I also could not have imagined that. Still, I think that now that we see the kind of butchery the Wahabis are yet again engaged in in Syria, and following the disgraceful events which happened in Syria, you might want to ask yourself who the "good guys" and who the "bad guys" really were in Chechnia. I submit to you that what Putin and Kadyrov did is save the Chechen people from the horrors of Wahabism and that this is exactly the situation Assad in now facing in Syria. The only difference is that Putin was always represented by the (US funded) Muslim propaganda as some kind of bloodthirsty monster and Kadyrov as his "puppet".
In conclusion I want to express to you my deep disappointment that a person with your phenomenal culture and knowledge would fall for the "wrong or right - my Ummah" reflex. According to you, the Muslims in Bosnia, in Kosovo and in Chechnia were each time the "good guys" and the victims. As a specialist of the war in Bosnia I can assure you that this is false. The sad and admittedly embarrassing reality is that in all three of these wars the Muslims were used by the US as a tool for its imperial designs, just like the "Mujahedeen" had been in Afghanistan a few decades earlier. In Kosovo, the native Serbian population was ethnically cleansed, replaced by a regime of gangsters and Mafia dons, the USA opened its huge "Camp Bondsteel" at the cost of a barbaric bombing of the entire civilian population of Serbia and Montenegro and now Kosovo is a criminal black hole. Is it not a disgrace for the Muslim world that it blindly sided with the Kosovar drug lords?
Sir, I see Wahhabism as a huge danger for the entire planet. As long as it was a small crazy sect in the sands of Arabia it was ugly and bloodthirsty, but it was limited. But as soon as the (always "brilliant") US CIA cooked up the plan to federate various neo-Wahabi movement into one worldwide movement, which later became known as al-Qaeda, Wahhabism became a danger to us all, but first and foremost to Muslims and, amongst Muslims, first and foremost for the two forms of Islam the Wahabis hate the most: the Shia and the Sufi. Now this is my key point here: non-Wahabi Muslims need all the allies they can get to deal with this nightmare (just look at the situation in Syria as a proof of this). This, however means, that as long as even the most educated Muslims will instinctively stick to a "wrong or right - my Ummah" reflex you will deny yourself these allies.
Critics of the US and EU policies point at the logical absurdity of using military forces to destroy Wahabis in Mali while at the same time arming the same forces in Syria. I agree, this makes no sense. But what of the mainstream Muslim stance of supporting Wahabis in Chechnia or Bosnia while opposing them in Syria or Egypt? How is that less absurd?
In which country today do we see truly large numbers of Sunni Muslims live with the state protecting them from the Wahabis? In which country does the state have as its declared and official policy to support and defend traditional Sunni Islam against Wahabism? Which country has for the past two years played a key role in not letting the Wahabis over-run Syria? Finally, which is the ONLY major country to have ALWAYS opposed Wahabism, everywhere and at all times, regardless of the pretexts for war?
Russia, of course. The very same Russia you accuse of having Muslim blood on its hands.
This is factually wrong and this is morally wrong too. Finally, it is self-defeating and country-productive as it offends Russians like myself who refuse the Western canard that "all Muslims" are a threat to "our" civilization and that there is a clash of civilization happening.
I, Sir, believe that what Russia did in Chechnia was not "killing Muslims", at least not deliberately or because of their Islam, but killing many truly evil Wahabi thugs and this is why so many Chechen commanders changed sides and are now deeply grateful to Putin. Putin did not try to shed Muslim blood any more than Assad tries nowadays in Syria. When faced with a violent, vicious, bloodthirsty and aggressive insurgency fully paid for by the Gulf states and supported politically by the USA Putin and Assad simply did the only thing which could save their country, including its Muslim population: they ruthlessly pursued and physically destroyed the Wahabi-run insurgency. I submit to you that all non-Wahabi Muslims owe them a great debt of gratitude.
Thank you for taking the time to read this letter and thank you again for an outstanding book.
Kind regards,
xxxxxx xxxxxxx
(Florida)
At this point on, I knew that it was futile to try continue a discussion with my correspondent did not want to have, so my reply was short:I have already written more than I intended. This correspondence is now at an end.You are disappointed that I have fallen prey to the "wrong or right - my Ummah" reflex. Plainly what you are suffering from is an advanced case of Pan-Slavism.Your notion of a diabolical US-Wahhabi alliance against Muslims is at the very best curious. As for Russia being the protector of Muslims to whom a debt of gratitude is owed, are you try to make me laugh?Dear Mr. xxxxxxx,There is much that I could say in response to your comments, but I have decided not to expend the effort. After all, you describe yourself as "a specialist of the war in Bosnia." I don't know what your credentials are in this respect. Having visited Bosnia both before and after the genocidal war waged against the Muslims, talked with the survivors and bereaved of Srebrenica, seen the soccer fields of Sarajevo turned into cemeteries, prayed in the ruins of mosques destroyed by your fellow Slavs, seen the remnants of the burnt manuscripts of the Orientalni Insitut, talked to some of the women raped by the Serbs ... I find your assurance that it is false to regard the Muslims as the "good guys" and the victims quite simply repulsive. As for Kosova, yes there are gangsters there (as there are in your much cherished Serbia), and I can appreciate the fact that Russian mobsters will not welcome the competition. In Chechnya, yes, much of the opposition is Wahhabi-oriented,and the North Caucasus has not produced anyone even remotely comparable to Imam Shamyl of blessed memory, but does this justify the destruction of Grozny, the staged bombings used by Putin to justify the second Chechen war, or the numerous crimes reported by journalists such as Politkovskaya whom the Kremlin found it necessary to assassinate?
Dear Sir,My hope in publishing these exchanges today is to at least set the stage for future discussions, especially with my Muslim readers, about these wars. Why? Because as long as the AngloZionists can divide us they will also rule over us. In France, for example, the Zionist lobby is making truly immense efforts to set the French Muslims against the French Latin Christians because they know that as long as these two groups fight against each other, they themselves will be safe and in control. The French author Alain Soral says that what is taking place is a war between the "Old Testament" world (Judaism and Protestantism") against the "New Testament" world (Latin and Orthodox Christianity) and that the key strategy used by the Empire is to set Christians against Muslims. As you probably know, I have a big problem with the notion that Latin and Orthodox Christianity are on the same side, today's events in the Ukraine only prove the opposite, but this is irrelevant here: Soral's religious education is, frankly, sub-minimal (he considers himself a non-believing "cultural Catholic"), but his political acumen is world-class and what he says about France is absolutely true: the plutocratic elites are now in a complete panic because they see that the "stem French" (local, Latin Christian French) against the "branch French" (first or second generation Muslim immigrant) are joining forces against the Zionist domination of France and that this alliance has a huge potential. Likewise, in Russia, we now see that the strongest and most determined defenders of Russia are the Chechen people (speaking of which: Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov has declared that just as his special forces have killed Doku Umarov, they will hunt down and catch Dmitri Iarosh, "dead or alive - either way is fine by me" said Kadyrov). As for the Resistance on a global scale, we see today that it is lead by Russia (Orthodox, Muslim) then China (Confucianist, Taoist, Buddhist), Iran (Muslim), Syria (Muslim, Christian) and Hezbollah (Muslim). The Empire, of course, tried hard to set Russia against Islam (Chechnia: failed), China against Russia (failed), Islam against Orthodox Christianity (Bosnia, Kosovo: success), Islam against China (in progress), Sunni against Shia (Syria: in progress), Christian against Shia (Lebanon: in progress), Islam against Latin Christianity (France: failed), Sunni against Shia (Iraq: success), Sunni against Shia (Iran: failed), Sunni against Shia (Bahrain: success), Muslim against Christian (Indonesia: in progress), Muslim against Christian (Mali, Sudan: success), etc. This list is incomplete - but I think the point I want to make is clear: the Empire has had a stunning success in using Muslims literally as cannon fodder to fight against its enemies. It is, I submit, therefore absolutely vital for Muslims worldwide to realize this and to refuse to be further lied to. The real enemy of Islam is exactly the same as the real enemy of Christianity: the AngloZionist Empire. Sayyid Qutb did see the real nature of the Empire, as did Malcom X. The real heir of their thought today are not al-Qardawi and degenerate rulers of Saudi Arabia, but people like Sheikh Imran Hussein, Ramzan Kadyrov and Hassan Nasrallah (whose Hezbollah party includes only Muslims, but whose military resistance includes Christians).
Though I am disappointed by the lack of substance in it, I thank you for your reply.
And, Sir, *all* the inhabitants of Bosnia are Slavs, including Muslims. As for Pan-Slavism, that silly idea died roughly 200 years ago :-)
Kind regards and all the best,
xxxxxx xxxxxxx
What happened to the Serbian people is a grotesque injustice and nothing short of an abomination. It was also the precursor of what happened to the people of Libya and Syria and the Serbian people, now more than ever, have a moral right to have the truth finally be said about their plight. Furthermore, those of us who are determined to resist the Empire need to learn from our mistakes, if only to avoid repeating them in the future. This is the purpose of this post today and I hope that it will be understood by those who will read it.
The Saker
