Common Sense RIP

America's airports have become common sense-free zones.

“It could be a bomb!”, bellowed the oafish Denver International Airport TSA official peering closely at my 10-year old son’s travel souvenir. The surfing bears inside the transparent plastic pencil holder sloshed about gently on the oil and water mixture.

I pointed to my wife and 10-year old twins. "Does this look like a terrorist cell?”

He handed the toy back to my wife. “You have time to check it in upstairs.”

So now we know. Potential bombs on planes are fine as long as they are not hand luggage. And once inside the cabin, just what would we have used to melt the hermetically sealed container and ignite the “lethal liquid” to achieve our devilish family suicide pact? The in-flight vinaigrette salad dressing?

Next to me, a TSA troll was sticking her latex paws down the trousers of a seriously crippled and resigned-looking elderly lady in a wheel chair. In a third ring of the security freakshow, a fellow TSA goon was busy reducing another elderly female passenger to tears (they are so tough and brave, the TSA!) while her traveling companions stared helplessly in disbelief. It was the TSA at its best.

My wife returned from her second visit to the check-in counter and declined a bonus porno-scan. In the interests of freedom and democracy, she was whisked off for a mandatory grope and warned not to touch her children en route to the TSA perverts’ playroom.

Her escort happened to be the same security gangstress who had told me off earlier for the way I had placed my laptop in the plastic tray. “Next time, don’t put anything on top of the laptop.” I didn’t bat an eyelid. “Save your breath. This is the last time I travel to the United States”.

I too issued warnings as I passed through the voyeur-chamber: “What you are doing is totally unconstitutional”. The po-faced sheep herders in headsets remained silent. How naïve of me. The US Constitution was trashed years ago. Just ask George W. Bush and the US Congress.

I fell into an exchange with a disgruntled male traveler who on principle “opted out” of the scan, going reluctantly (or so he said) for the grope instead. He turned out to be ideologically right-wing but we found some libertarian common ground. “Did you know that Chertoff’s client got the contract for the porno-scanners?”, I asked him. “No, I didn’t!” He seemed startled to learn this. “They’re all in bed with each other”, he said shaking his head.

It was his turn to impress. “Did you know these useless machines cost $330,000 each? And these guys!” He nodded towards the airport Gestapo. “The Thousands Standing Around (nice one!) get a minimum salary of $42,000 and get all the benefits of the FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act). And now they want to unionise!” A union for licensed power-hungry perverts?!? Who said that progressive politics was dead in the United States!

Time for some easy mental maths. A thousand of Chertoff’s Confession Boxes (that’s the target for America’s airports by the end of 2011) cost roughly 1/3 of a billion US dollars. And just wait till Janet “God’s Gift to Safe Travel” Napolitano’s dream comes true of hordes of TSA primitives similarly humiliating commuters at every major bus terminal and train station in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave (and the Totally Broke).

My enlightenment wasn’t merely financial. For here I was witnessing first-hand the consequences of the destruction of common sense and with it the extinction of two previously unassailable and centuries-old values: the presumption of childhood innocence and respect for the elderly, precious cornerstones of civilization. Stamp out common sense, as the TSA does daily and enthusiastically with millions of air travelers, and you are left with headless chicken notions of chemical mixing 10-year-old suicide bombers and immobile grannies itching to detonate false limbs.

But as Madeleine Albright once said of America’s imperial arsenal, what is the point of all this equipment and power if you are not going to use it? Besides, the Department of Homeland Security assures us that air travel is a privilege, not a right, and if you don’t like it THEN YOU CAN WALK!

Not so fast, reptiles. In normal countries, those who are scared to fly on planes carrying ungroped/unscanned children and grannies are the ones who walk. Still, it’s a safe bet that once Napolitano is through “securing” America’s transportation system, the traveling public will be so damned “privileged” that cows, sheep, and pigs will have more traveling rights.

One final thought. Just how does Napolitano plan to force overseas security officials to electronically and physically molest passengers flying to America’s airports?

I guess they can all swim to New York if they don’t like it, right Janet?

If you want an image of the future, imagine a TSA hand groping your private parts forever.

Here is the good news - boots no longer have to stomp on human faces. Americans are voluntarily surrendering their right not to be physically molested by the government. At least that’s what the TSA claims on its Orwellian website. A helpful Completely Bought Sycophants (ie. CBS) poll reveals that 4 out of 5 Americans agree with the complete body scan. Wow. That’s a helluva lot of sheep!

Hang on. Isn’t this precisely the sort of government abuse the Tea Party swore to oppose? Have you heard a single peep of protest from these Glenn Beck-worshipping frauds? Why did they not rush to defend John Tyner, the brave young man who told the TSA to fuck-off? What does this tell you about the Tea Party’s commitment to individual liberty?

“If we don’t like it, we don’t have to fly” And what about tens of thousands of daily business travelers? What about emergency fliers? Surely it is those who are too nervous to share a plane with unmolested grannies and 8-year olds who should be catching the bus.

“But it’s the age in which we live”, Joe Liebermann assures us above the din of squealing Department of Homeland Security piggies feeding from the trough of porno-scanner contracts. Wrong Joe. It’s the age which you and your fellow scoundrels are trying to impose on us.

“But what about the underpants bomber?” Oh, you mean the guy who was on a no-fly list and was still allowed to board a plane? So instead of enforcing the existing rules, you prefer to put thousands in the pockets of Michael Chertoff Consultants Inc. and humiliate millions of totally harmless air travellers day in and day out?

Will the TSA scumbags win? They certainly have the upper hand. A “scare” can be easily manufactured to quell protests.

Meanwhile these clueless control freaks are subjecting pilots to the same humiliation. Just how do these idiots reckon a porno-scanner or a good grope is going to stop a "suicide pilot" already armed with a pistol in the cockpit from deliberately crashing a plane?

And what happens when the evil ones (I refer now to the suicide bombers) “pull off a Madrid” on American soil? Think of all those crowded trains, tubes, buses, stadiums which are potential targets. Will TSA start zapping and fondling everyday commuters?

Enough is enough. Boycott travel to and within the United States until the government restores fundamental human dignity to their air travelers.

“Hey, hey, TSA - how many kids d’ya grope today?”

Pass it on.

My choice for this year’s Peace Prize – The Reverend Terry Jones

Terry Jones - Closet antiwar activist?

Reverend Terry Jones is a crackpot, a bigot and probably inbred. Yet his plan to burn hundreds of copies of the Koran has lifted my spirits:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11209738

American troop commanders are up in arms over the Florida pastor’s proposed bonfire. David Petraeus has said that this could cause problems “not just in Kabul but all over the world.” Protestors have begun burning effigies of the unhinged preacher.

The Koran-burning is the latest in an epidemic of Islamophobia that is sweeping the United States. It’s hardly surprising. America’s multiple wars are going badly, the economy is doing worse, people are losing hope. Scapegoats abound.

The American Constitution, however, guarantees Reverend Terry’s right to burn any literature he wishes as long as the fire doesn’t endanger his neighbour’s property.

The irony, of course, is that the reverend has himself become a scapegoat for a war that was lost long ago. Burning the Koran, according to Petraeus, “could endanger troops and it could endanger the overall effort" says Petraeus. "It is precisely the kind of action the Taliban uses and could cause significant problems.”

Let’s hope it does. The reverend’s gesture should be supported precisely because it will cause problems for the US occupiers and therefore speed up our departure from Afghanistan and hopefully from the entire Islamic world.

"Not just here, but everywhere in the world, we are engaged with the Islamic community," insisted Petraeus in a plea to the Rev. Jones. Just ignore him, Reverend Terry, and get cracking with that fire. We’ve seen the tools of American “engagement’ at work: sanctions, killer drones, air strikes, torture, rendition, depleted uranium and white phosphorus.

So stoke those flames high and bring on the Korans!!! And don’t forget the hot dogs and the marshmallows.

PS. A tip for the reverend - these work really well in case you run low on fuel:

http://www.amazon.com/Journey-My-Political-Life/dp/0307269833/ref=pd_sim_b_1

Bernie the Implausible Anti-Semite

Will Congress recognise Bernie's services to Israel?


I remember someone arguing many years ago that Stalin was the greatest anti-communist of the 20th century. What is the proof? I asked. "Look at the millions of communists he killed!" was the reply.

By the same logic, Bernie Madoff is the greatest anti-semite of the 21st century. Look how many Jewish families he ruined financially.

Like most personality cult investment managers, Bernie was in the "giving" business. The arch-swindler diverted tons of supposed fee income from stellar investment performance to his favourite Jewish charities. In reality, the "fee income" was the vast sums handed over by his gullible country club acquaintances many of whom thought they were investors in the Madoff bonanza and who are still coming to terms with the fact that they were not Bernie's best friends. To paraphrase the old Gentile saying, Bernie robbed Hymie to pay Shlomo. Surely this proves there was no religious bias to the scam.

Not so fast. We still don't know where most of the money went. Did he lose it in the markets? Is it hidden in a Swiss bank account? Or did it travel to Israel? The last possibility is the most intriguing because it is the one that could bestow Robin Hood status upon the crook of the century (and perhaps for eternity). What if Bernie diverted money from those stingy East Coast Jews and funneled it all into special offshore Jewish causes, ie. Mossad front companies? What would the reaction be in the States? One can picture the headlines in the New York Times: "The Madoff Affair: All For A Good Cause" accompanied by Tom Friedman in the op-ed pages explaining how if only Congress would give more to Israel, then people like Madoff wouldn't feel the need to steal on behalf of our deserving little democratic ally in the Middle East.

Of course things will never be allowed to go so far. The Bernie Madoff scandal represents the biggest threat to Israel's image as an unimpeachable ally of the United States since the Pollard case. The longer the silence on the whereabouts of the missing funds, the more suspicious we should be that the money has left the country for good and that a water-tight alibi is being prepared under the guidance of AIPAC and their useful idiots in Congress, this time with the full cooperation of the "slumbering" SEC.

Maybe Hilary won after all?

Is Obama waving goodbye to "change"?

It definitely felt like a hangover. I hit the sack at 4 am only to be woken 3 hours later by my 8-year old son. He was hovering over me. "Can you tie my school tie, daddy?" Then my wife intensified the misery. "Steve, you have to find Christopher's football gear. He has practise today." Some way to celebrate the end of the worst presidency in American (or do I mean human?) history.

Still, I managed to smile. Our decrepit war hero and his village idiot partner had been cast into the dustbin of history. The morally bankrupt Republican Party melted down to irrelevance. Altogether, it was a pretty satisfying result although it's frightening to think that McCain/Palin somehow managed to secure 45% of the vote.

The media couldn't get enough of the biggest global party of the century. Images of joyous Americans, Germans, French, Indonesians, Kenyans dominated newspapers and television. The verdict on 8 years of Bush was crystal clear. One has to go back to the overthrow of Nicolae Ceaucescu to recall such unmitigated joy.

Yet we need to be careful. Obama has not brought change to America. All that is certain is that a change in American thinking has brought Obama to power. The authenticity of Obama's change will be revealed through his choice of cabinet. Indeed, it is instructive to note who is not popping open the champagne.

While Chicago danced in the park, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev announced that Russia will station short-range missiles in the Kaliningrad enclave, a clear response to America's "anti-Iranian" missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic. Is this the "test" that the prophet and self-proclaimed Zionist Joe Biden warned of during the election campaign? I pray that it is. Will Obama lower the temperature and pledge to dismantle the shield? Or will he continue to maintain the fiction of the threat of an Iranian missile strike on Europe? Russia, it seems, is demanding early proof of "change".

Unfortunately with America facing crises on so many different fronts (wars, economy, health, energy), the conventional wisdom is that Obama must assemble a cabinet ASAP. This plays into the hands of the Clintons and their mafia who are more than ready to infiltrate the corridors of power in the name of "experience". Veteran interventionists of the Clinton years such as Richard Holbrooke and Strobe Talbott have returned to the op-ed pages of the Guardian and the FT urging the new administration to stand-up to Russia "aggression" and obstruct Serbian "mischief" in Bosnia. A Clintonian offensive to re-capture the levers of foreign policy appears to be well underway.

There are other bad signs. Obama has already appoined Clintonite Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff. The powers of the Chief of Staff are not defined in the Constitution (who reads that obsolete document these days anyway) but he controls who gets to see the President. It is an alarming first step in sealing off Obama from those who may see the world differently from the Clintons.

I have a horrible sense of deja vu.

The ICARUS Principle

Maybe the Pentagon is right. Maybe Camp X-ray is full of dangerous jihadists.

Ever hear of ICARUS? Not the ancient Greek story of the boy whose wings melted when he flew too close to the sun but a modern variation of one of the oldest human truths, ie. "It's Called Armed Revenge on the US, Stupid."

ICARUS is absent from all mainstream US political analysis of the Middle East. A fine example is the recent ham-fisted attempt to spin a suicide bombing in Mosul. The Pentagon whores at the New York Times dutifully reported that the bomber, a Kuwaiti national captured in Afghanistan and handed over to the Americans in 2002 by some Northern Alliance boy scouts, "returned" to terrorism after his release from Camp Xray in 2005.

Stop right there. Does anyone for a moment think that the Americans would take the risk of freeing a proven terrorist? The Pentagon PR machine, however, is in a tight spot because if this inmate didn't "return" to terrorism then there is only one other much more frightening and wholly inadmissible conclusion, namely that our Kuwaiti friend TURNED to terrorism to avenge his treatment in Gitmo.

So now we see why the foot-shooters in the Pentagon prefer to hold the remaining 300 prisoners in indefinite legal limbo. There is every likelihood that 8 years of tender loving care in Camp X-ray has converted a number of unlucky detainees into super-jihadists.

But only, of course, if you believe in the "myth" of ICARUS.

A Fitting End (or the Politics of "Deliverance")

Bah golly ah'd jes luv to shoot rabbits with ya'll!!




Those nauseating toads at CNN are playing make-believe again. We all have to pretend that the West Virginia primary is a significant political event whose result will affect the outcome of the Democratic nomination. No one, it seems, has the guts to call Horrible Hillary what she really is - a washed-up loser clinging to wreckage of a campaign that totally misjudged the mood of the Democratic Party. Instead everyone speaks of the need to tiptoe around Hillary's feelings until she is ready to concede defeat like parents of a spolied child, petrified of provoking a tantrum.

How Ole Hill' miscalculated! She banked on media-hyped nostalgia for her horny hubby and her eagerness to obliterate Iran to secure the nomination yet somehow she managed to lose to a guy whose name sounds suspiciously like Osama bin Laden. Like Humpty Dumpty, not even the storm-troopers of the Israel lobby could put her together again. Even worse, Tinsel Town has deserted her. How it must have stung to watch one ultra-bleeding heart after another throw support behind Obama. The only progressive thing about the Clintons these days, it seems, is their irrelevance to American politics.

What a delicious irony though! Who would have guessed 3 months ago that the real elitist liberal in this contest would finish up as the race-baiting trailer park trash candidate? The Clintons, written off by ordinary folk long ago as classic out-of-touch Washington insiders, have re-invented themselves possibly (and hopefully) for the very last time. How long before Hillary swaps her dreary campaign uniform for combat fatigues and a Support Our Troops baseball cap? How long before she crosses the border into Kentucky, shoulder-to-shoulder with her bourbon-swiggin' raccoon-shootin' diehard supporters in the back of a Ford pick-up plastered with Jesus Loves You bumper stickers? (An' jes cos' she's worth millions of bucks don't mean she can't feel what them God-fearin' Blue Ridge mountin folk is feelin'. Maybe that's why she's driving her campaign into debt. She needs some financial street credibility when she drones on about making ends meet.)

So here is where it probably ends. Not with a prime-time coronation or bear hugs from Oscar winners on the podium of the Democratic convention this August but in the God-foresaken political junkyard of gun-totin' backwoods bigots and hip-flasked hicks straight out of the film "Deliverance". More or less where the long journey to the White House began in Arkansas many years ago. Re-invention humbug. Welcome home Hillary and Bill!!

Revealed: al-Qaeda’s inter-galactic hideout

Intelligence officials worry that some galaxies have succumbed to al-Qaeda's ideology




There are growing fears that Islamic fundamentalists have seized control of the Andromeda galaxy and are preparing it for a spectacular suicide mission. “We have reliable intelligence that Andromeda is racing towards the Milky Way at the mind-boggling speed of 500,000 kms per hour”, claimed an unnamed source at the Pentagon. “That means that Andromeda will collide with the Milky Way in approximately 2 billion years from now.”

The White House is pleading for additional emergency defense funds in anticipation of the present military surge in Iraq lasting well beyond the collision. “Democracy takes a long time build”, explained the Warlord-in-Chief George W. Bush in a video conference from a nuclear bunker. “Our commitment to Iraq and Afghanistan is unshakeable and precludes any troop redeployment during this time-frame. I’m afraid we are going to have to dig deep into our pockets and our neighbours pockets and our kids piggy banks and their college funds to confront this new menace”. Bush added that “Andromeda must not allow itself to become a haven for inter-galactic terrorism” and insisted that the Andromedan authorities move quickly to dismantle all terrorist networks, adopt free-market legislation and recognize the state of Israel as a pre-condition for normalization of relations with the Milky Way. “Andromeda must take concrete steps to prove that it respects Israel’s right to exist.”

Aspiring WiC candidate John "Maybe 3 Billion Years" McCain praised Bush's commitment to war in the Middle East but went a step further calling upon the White House to break off all relations with other galaxies that fail to condemn Andromeda. “We must teach the universe that there is a price to be paid for appeasing Andromeda”, snarled McCain before throwing a punch at a bewildered passer-by for looking insufficiently patriotic. McCain is widely credited with the administration's current Rogue Galaxy Rollback strategy and is a co-sponsor of the Andromeda Liberation Act which is expected to sail through the Council of Yes-men and become law sometime next week. The bill is the brainchild of the Project for an American Milky Way which shares office space with McCain.

Speaking at a Mossad fund-raiser in New York, visiting former British prime minister Tony Blair was in little doubt as to the consequences of Andromedan belligerence, “Andromeda will find us united in our determination to thwart any attempt to impose its barbaric values on Milky Way civilization. To the Andromedans I say this – good will triumph over evil.”

Some former military officers, however, have spoken out against the White House’s approach describing it as “unimaginative and unproductive”. One retired warlord stated that, “there appears to be no strategy for winning the hearts and minds of the Andromedans or any of their organs for that matter.”

The Campaign for the Release of all Hubble Space Telescope Scientists from Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo issued a press release dismissing the supposed threat from Andromeda as “science fiction along the lines of Saddam Hussein’s WMDs” noting that both galaxies are “racing towards each other”.

Neither Osama bin Laden nor the Andromedan ambassador could be reached for comment.

Eliot the Idiot

"And once I booked a room in Bill's name......"




"If Eliot Spitzer wants to use prositutes then that's his business". Thus barked the noisy and irascible Alan Dershowitz, plagiarist, Israel Firster extraordinaire and holder of the Felix Frankfurter chair at Harvard School of Law.

Unfortunately, it's not that simple because Client No. 9 hid his "habit" which put him in a position where he could have been blackmailed. Such poor judgment totally undermined his authority as governor. There is also the obvious hypocrisy of employing the services of prostitution rings while supposedly hunting them down but does anyone really care? As former Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez might have put it, revulsion towards hypocrisy is a quaint relic of American political life.

The dignity and integrity of public office certainly means little to Dershowitz who has stained his own academic reputation with all sorts of lies and dirty tactics against his political enemies (eg. his nasty private war to block tenure for Norman Finkelstein at De Paul University). One suspects, however, that Dershowitz's bitterness is motivated by Horrible Hillary's loss of a prominent, pro-Israeli, "Teflon" campaign supporter. Indirectly, Spitzer's fall is Obama's gain.

So I guess this kills any chances of a Hillary-Eliot ticket this November but then again, we are talking about America where scumbags can stage suprising scumbacks. Just ask Bill.

Kebekistan

A clip of the little devils skiing down Mt. Tremblant (Feb 2008).

A Tale of 2 Hillaries

One climbed Everest, the other, um....let me see....

Yesterday Sir Edmund Hillary died. Typically an ABC newscaster botched a tribute with a parting reference to “Mr. Hillary” but I don’t think it would have bothered Sir Edmund. By all accounts he was an extremely modest and reserved man for whom titles held little importance. It is incredible to think that the only photo taken of the conquest of Everest was Sir Edmund’s shot of sherpa Tensing Norgay. Self-publicity was the last thing on his mind. Not only that, both men spent some time looking for traces of Mallory and Irvine, 2 mountaineers who had perished on the slopes of Everest nearly 30 years earlier perhaps having been the first to ascend the summit. Sir Edmund, you see, was not scared to prove that he had not been the first to conquer Everest. He also led expeditions to the Antarctic, traced the source of the Yangstee River and devoted himself to improving the lives of the sherpas of the Himalayas. Sir Edmund was a hero and a true humanitarian.

This week Hillary Clinton cried. She cried because either she thought she was going to lose the New Hampshire primary or because someone instructed her to cry to make her more likeable to the voters. No one calls Hillary Clinton “Mrs. Clinton” because that is too damn dowdy for someone of her self-importance. Hillary has achieved nothing in her career (other than convincing many people she has achieved something) but to listen to her you’d think she had climbed Everest single-handedly many times over. Hillary has an entourage of well-paid spinmeisters working 24/7 to make sure that barely an hour passes without her making headlines. The idea that Hillary could do anything without claiming credit for it is sheer fantasy. Moreover Hillary’s idea of humanitarian sacrifice is human sacrifice. Ask any Serb, Iraqi or Afghani. Depressing to think that for millions, Hillary is a selfless hero.

So there we have it. The Hillary on the right was a giant full of dignity while the one on the left just squeals and wallows in mud.

All aboard the investment banking gravy train!!

I’ll be earning lotsa dosh!!





Crime never pays. Unless you are in investment banking where the sky’s the limit. That’s the inevitable conclusion from the reported decision of JP Morgan to hire the unindicted war criminal Tony Blair as a strategic advisor. Gone are the days when you had to bring an impressive track record to the table to land a senior position at a major financial institution.

One wonders what insight JP Morgan thinks it is getting by bringing Toady on board. It’s rumoured that JP Morgan prizes Blair’s unique perspective on international politics and globalisation. I guess the management were too distracted with their gigantic losses on the sub-prime portfolio to notice this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/china/story/0,,2207514,00.html

Blair’s perspective is about as unique as a black cab in London. The man is derivative from his head to his toe. His guiding principle in international politics is clear: America must never feel isolated. So why hire a Brit if you want an American perspective? I have a feeling that Bush interceded on behalf of his buddy to obtain this sinecure. Tony has a crippling mortgage to pay off and he needs to get cracking on boosting his earnings.

Then again, should we be surprised? Acquiring worthless assets appears to be part of JP Morgan’s core strategy.

US elections: The freak show continues

Democracy is ugly





I dislike Barack Obama. He is a windbag and is not the threat to the political establishment that people like to imagine. But at least he voted against the war in Iraq. So I was happy when he kicked Hillary Clinton’s large and ever-growing backside in the Iowa caucuses. I am really sorry he couldn’t repeat the triumph in New Hampshire but that’s the way it is in the United States. Just when you think the voters may have smelled a rat, they pull out a bag of bread crumbs and start feeding it. Humiliating Hillary was simply beyond the courage of American voters. And all she had to do was shed a few tears on prime-time television in response to yet another obviously planted question (“How do you keep upbeat and so wonderful?” Oh yuck!). That was the signal for Hillary’s reserve army of aging feminists to storm the polling booths and swing the election in favour of “experience”. What experience? The experience of failing to reform health care under her whoring husband? Of watching impassively as former friends from Arkansas went to jail or were found dead on park benches in Washington? Of participating in dodgy property deals and making money off questionable commodity trades? Or was it the experience of ignoring her husband’s lifelong philandering? Perhaps it was the experience of voting to support Bush’s disastrous military adventure that qualifies her to become C-in-C. I am reminded of the words of AA Milne: “Three cheers for Pooh! For who? For Pooh? Just tell me someone – what did he do?” Exactly. Just what has Hillary achieved that makes her “experience” so valuable?

Just as depressing was the victory of John “Bomb, Bomb Iran” McCain. Lunacy has obviously become a pre-requisite for the Republican nomination. The nightmare scenario is Hillary the Bitch vs. Madman McCain in November 2008. Keep the cyanide handy.

Long Live Lavrov

Thank God for Sergei Lavrov. I watched Russia’s foreign minister in action yesterday on the BBC. Without hesitation he dismissed the absurd “exceptionalist” argument for Kosovan independence. Of course the BBC would like us to believe that Russia is being obstructive. It’s open season on Russia who is once again the Cold War baddy, this time because it is standing up for international law.

Some people have expressed fear that NATO will allow Kosovo to unite with Albania to create Greater Albania. They are missing the point. No formal union is necessary. Thanks in large part to NATO aggression, Greater Albania is already a reality since Kosovo’s southern border is non-existent. In any event Albania, like Kosovo, is not a real country – more like a giant swarm of clans eking out meager existences while battling each other for the spoils of drug-running and prostitution rackets when they are not settling vendettas according to the Kanun of Lek. Unemployment in Kosovo is reportedly somewhere around 50%. That sounds suspiciously low to me.

To avoid the accusation of forging a Greater Albania from the ruins of a Greater Serbia, NATO will rule out any formal union, keeping "separate" the two Albanias. Fortunately, all the KLA leadership have Swiss bank accounts to receive wires from Langley, Virginia in return for postponing union indefinitely.

Washington has a few problems, however. First of all, how are they going to prevent the Serbs from fleeing independent “Kosova”? It won’t do America’s already battered humanitarian image much good when the remaining 100,000 or so Serbs flee north.

Secondly, what about the Bosnian Serbs? Does anyone think they are not paying close attention to what is going on?

Thirdly, how will the US get around Russia’s UN security resolution veto?

Fourthly, what happens when Serbia decides to strangle the bastard infant state and cuts off the electricity and supply routes to the south?

And so on.

Unlike the idiots in the White House and Downing St., the Russians are chess players and are used to thinking this far ahead.

NATO must be gambling that it can humiliate the Serbs and get away with it without serious consequences. Detaching Kosovo from Serbia will destroy Serbia’s link to its past and slowly erode its identity. The idea is that Serbia will become another Balkan zombie state that takes orders from Brussels and Washington.

So if that is the game then perhaps Serbs should consider some or all of the following steps:

1) Provide transport and shelter for all Serbs wishing to leave Kosovo and make sure it is done in front of Western cameramen.

2) Expose the shenanigans of Western diplomats in Macedonia who are encouraging similar de facto secession of Western Macedonia.

3) Highlight US House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Tom Lantos' wish to appease jihadists with the gift of a Muslim state in the Balkans.

4) Encourage Bosnian Serb separation from the failed state of Bosnia.

5) Cut all electricity and supply routes to Kosovo from Serbia.

6) Highlight the fact that there is no border worth speaking of between Kosovo and Albania (ie. Greater Albania is alive and well).

7) Demand to know why there has been no protest at the destruction of ancient Serbo-Byzantine churches etc. a la failed campaign to stop the Taliban from blowing up the Bamyan Buddhas.

8) Put forward proposals to re-draw borders and liberate dozen of oppressed minorities across Europe and in the Caucasus.

And that's just for starters.

December's target - The Sage of Surbiton

For as long as I can remember, Surbiton has been an English metaphor for smug suburban complacency. Those days may be numbered. Say hello to the new kid on the blog: Marko Attila Hoare (or MAH):

http://greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/

MAH is a half-Croatian, half-English “ex”-Trotskyist and the son of Branka Magas and Quintin Hoare, marginal figures on the so-called “decent humane left” of British/Croatian politics. The choice of the blog title is meant to be a pun on "Greater Serbia" (and with that, we can safely say we have reached the frontiers of MAH's wit).

According to his website, MAH helped draft the ICTY indictment of Milosevic. He was also a translator for an aid convoy to Tuzla during the war in Bosnia, a role proudly described as an act of solidarity with “the Bosnians”, that politically-loaded epithet which excludes the Bosnian Serbs.

MAH lived in Serbia sometime between 1998 and 2000 and professes a strong emotional attachment to Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia. This is a bizarre declaration since he spent the spring of 1999 in Belgrade not as defender of Serbian sovereignty but as an observer and supporter of the NATO blitz. Perhaps what he meant is that, like his ideological bedfellows, he feels an emotional attachment to the destruction of Serbia.

He is also the author of several books on Balkan history. I have read none of them and never will because I know precisely what to expect having scoured an assortment of his "scholarly" rantings in the blogosphere: The Serbs started all of the wars of secession. Milosevic was an evil fascist genocidal tyrant. The West bombed Milosevic to prevent the slaughter of thousand upon thousands of innocent Muslims blah, blah, blah. You get the idea.

Which begs the obvious question: how did this intrepid foe of the "fascist" regime manage to outwit the "genocidal tyrant's" ruthless security apparatus, with its presumably vast network of spies and informants, and remain at liberty in Serbia for two whole years, especially during the NATO "air campaign"? Did MAH walk around with a paper target on his head to blend in with his unsuspecting Serbian hosts? Or did he spend 78 sleepless days and nights peering nervously out of sewer gratings alongside comrades from the "anti-fascist" Otpor resistance? "Genocidal dictatorship” may sound sexy but I'm afraid the image is largely spoiled by MAH's effortless survival.

MAH, however, is more polished than your run-of-the-mill professional anti-Serb. A significant portion of his “scholarship” is aimed at promoting the moral equivalence between Serbian and Croatian atrocities during the Second World War.

Ordinarily this would be a tough sell given the hundreds of thousands of Serbs who died at the hands of the Ustashe in Jasenovac and elsewhere in the NDH. But MAH has a trump card up his sleeve – the insinuation of Serbian anti-semitism. The traditional WWII Balkan narrative which recognises the unspeakable atrocities against the Serbs is fundamentally flawed, says MAH, because it downplays the fate of a far smaller number of Jews who perished not only under the NDH but also at the hands of the collaborationist Nedic regime in Serbia:

http://www.southslavjournal.com/mah.html

By centering the Balkan genocide debate on the primacy of Jewish suffering, MAH cleverly yanks the spotlight away from Croatian collaboration. The biggest victims are put on trial and the precise number of Serbs massacred by a regime whose brutality shocked even the Nazis fades into academic irrelevance. So does the inconvenient fact that Germans built and ran the camps on Serbian soil whereas Jasenovac and sister camps were created by enthusiastic Croats:

http://www.srpska-mreza.com/library/facts/Almuli.html

MAH brushes all of this Equivalence Jamboree party-pooping aside and asserts that the Serbs were “never simply defenseless victims”. Serbian suffering, like Armenian suffering, is always somehow tainted. Unlike Jewish suffering, it can never be recognized in its own right. The fact that many Serbs fought back against their fate under the NDH is held against them. What a pity they didn’t meekly accept annihilation. Just imagine how Hollywood and MAH might have honoured them!!!

(Note, however, that "moral equivalence" is taboo in discussions of more recent Balkan bloodshed. Here there is one clear victim (the Muslims) and one clear perpetrator (the Serbs). The mere rumour of a Muslim death is sufficient to provoke howls of anti-Serbian rage in the op-ed columns of the NYT and the Washington Post.)

Unsurprisingly, MAH champions the “liberation of Iraq”. I suspect this dates back to the period when Slobodan Milosevic was Saddam Hussein and vice-versa, another magical piece of mainstream journalistic equivalence that conjured up the mythical beast Slobosaddam. According to legend, the wounded creature fled to Baghdad where it was finally captured and slain. But although this "liberation" fairy-tale imploded long ago, MAH remains adamant that the whole thing was a superb idea.

Critics are fed a foul stew of euphemisms, bogus analogies and pseudo-apologies. For instance, Abu Ghraib is conveniently dismissed as an “error” as though it were a friendly-fire incident and not the carefully planned and US-government approved application of Israeli torture techniques. The Americans, of course, bear no blame for four years of unstoppable sectarian killings that, in retrospect, have made Saddam look like an unappreciated humanitarian.

Moreover, MAH thinks that Weapons of Mass Destruction (as in biological weapons etc). should never have been the main rationale for the invasion, not because there were no WMDs but because even a machete qualifies as a weapon of mass destruction, as we saw in Rwanda. Is this a plea for an international ban on machetes (and what about bread knives)? Or a case for invading other machete-wielding nations and regions (eg. The Democratic Republic of Congo, the Amazon, Bermuda)? Or perhaps a call to think twice before launching the next war of aggression?

The correct answer is none of the above. MAH is simply offering advice on how to spin future illegal and immoral invasions. The case for war against Iraq, it seems, should have been based entirely on stale and discredited “humanitarian principles”.

Genocide, tyranny, dictatorship, liberation. It’s unquestionably exciting times for sleepy Surbiton, new outpost of the militant liberal international revolution.

Return of the Dead-Enders

I just read this:

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/22259.html

After a moment's reflection, it dawned on me: the Dead-Enders are back!!

Remember the Dead-Enders? No, not the clique that is running and ruining the United States.

The Dead-Enders, if you recall, was Dick Cheney’s way of belittling the Iraqi resistance during the early days of the American occupation. The Dead-Enders were “remnants” of Saddam Hussein’s Baathist army who, we were assured, would be “mopped up” within weeks.

Well not only did we fail to mop them up, they are thriving like mice in the pantry. But the good news is that they are on our side, or at least for now which is why we no longer refer to them as Dead-Enders.

The so-called “surge”, you see, is merely a cover story for a much more profound shift in American policy. The Americans have finally realized that they will never woo the Shiites away from Iran. With the key support of an anti-Shiite alliance (Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt), America has been making overtures to the Sunni tribesmen and ex-Baath party officials who only months ago were organising and planting IEDs with devastating effect.

It sounds risky but a quick overview of several inter-twined scenarios and rationales shed light on the new American eagerness to establish a Sunni proxy army. These include:

1) An American attack on Iran. Sunni troops can be thrown into battle against Shiites in the event of Iranian/Shiite retaliation against “coalition” troops in Iraq.

2) A decision to carve up Iraq into sectarian “thirds”.The Sunni statelet will need a standing army to defend its sovereignty and the economic and political interests of its foreign sponsors.

3) Baghdad drifts completely into Tehran's orbit. With a bit of hard training and discipline, the most promising Dead-Enders will be re-molded into the praetorian guard of a revolutionary council that will swing into action and topple the central government.

Stories of how we are "defeating al-Qaeda", “reducing violence”, “keeping Iraq from falling apart”, and “winning hearts and mind” are for the ignorant masses high on FoxNews and CNN. This is the last gambit to stave off a total defeat at the hands of Iran.

And how long will this marriage of convenience last? 3 months? 6 months? A year? Does anyone really believe that all is forgiven after 4 years of savage occupation?

I wonder if George Bush can hear Saddam's bones rattling with laughter.

Bavarian memories

Time to immortalise some old family holiday sketches before I mislay them forever...

Escape to Watzmann

“Come on! Time to swim!” came the unmistakeable Montenegrin bark. Yoksy, Steven and Eva turned over in their beds in disgust. Yoksy had been dreaming of glory as a fighter pilot in the looming Gulf War. Miraculously, he had managed to bomb all Iraqi military bases single-handedly without being chased by a single Iraqi aircraft or missile. He had been tucking into a celebratory jumbo deluxe chocolate ice cream back at AFHQ when Pops shattered his slumber.

Steven was slow to rise, placing his feet in the soggy towel Eva had left at his bedside the previous night.

“Come on you guys”, echoed Jenny, Pops’ right-hand woman. “We’ve got to get up. There’s not much time left for breakfast.”

“This is like a recurring nightmare”, thought Steven. “I hear the same god-damned thing every morning.” Sleepy Eva looked confused by a pair of trousers she was trying to pull over her head.

“Eva! Tonta!” screamed Yoksy. “You don’t put pants over your cabeza!!”

“Shut-up Yoksy!” came Eva's witty reply.

Looked like it was going to be one of those days. Steven heard the bathroom door shut. "Damn!" he thought. "Looks like I’ll have to pee in the pool again." He collapsed back into bed.

Yoksy suddenly charged out of the bathroom singing a new variation of “Anchors Away” which only added to the mystery of his obsession with air combat.

“Come on! We play poker!” bellowed Yoksy. He was already dealing cards on Steven’s stomach.

“Yoksy cheater!” shouted Eva. “You didn’t shuffle properly!”

Jenny was back with Pops not far behind. “Look. I told you they’re going to stop serving breakfast soon.” Eva and Yoksy turned around.

“Shut up!!” they roared in touching unison.

Jenny, ever eager to broker a compromise tried again. “OK. You can play poker in the pool as long as you get into your bathing suits immediately.”

Cheshire grins appeared on Eva and Yoksy’s faces. “Immediately” was a flexible unit of time in the Vujacic household spanning 'sometime today’ to ‘2 years from now’.

But a volcano was rumbling. “If you don’t get into your bathing suits this second…….”

Pops didn’t have to finish the sentence. The kids charged out of Room 307 as if pursued by hungry wolves.

“You see! That is how you talk to these kids!”

Alas, many lessons would have to be learned. As Pops returned to his room he collided with Eva who, in the panic, had run out of the room without her hairbrush. “What are you doing here?!?" sputtered Pops. “And why do you have ice cream on your head at this time of the morning?!?”

Quick thinking was called for…………………


A Bunch of Eisholes

“Uh” drawled Jenny. “Yelstin like, he ought to be Prez.”

“Oh shut-up” grumbled Pops. “Jenny always says the first thing that comes into her head”. He took another sip of Dunkel. “Now Yelstin – he ought to be president!”

Jenny heaved a sign of disgust. All was forgotten though when she felt a familiar tug of her threadbare armsleeve. An indignant Yoksy began to scream.

“Mama! The man didn’t let me eated his pickle!” Yoksy was nearly in tears.

“ ‘Ate’ not ‘eated’! bellowed Jenny who detected a resentful Germanic glare from the corner of her eye.

She quickly relented. “But look darling, you can play 7 games of minigolf, have 19 candy bars and order 73 ice creams if you behave yourself”.

Yoksy spotted an opportunity for blackmail. “What about Spezi-Cola?” he shouted.

Eager to avoid embarrassment, Jenny tried to change the subject. “Hey look at that interesting piece of woodwork in the ceiling!” Everyone in the restaurant looked up except for Yoksy.

“WHAT ABOUT THE SPEZI COLA?!?”

Pops stepped in with a deal. “You forget about the Spezi-Cola and I won’t thrash you in front of all of these people.” The bargain was irresistible.

“Ok, ok!” replied Yoksy. “What a bunch of Eisholes!” he whispered. As usual, his “whisper” was overheard.

“Ah ja! Die Eishole!!” came the cry from the next table. “Das ist sehr schoen!!”

Yoksy glared at the amiable eavesdropper. “Stop staring at me, ok? And I can do flips in the pool so NYAH!!!”

When Tom met Jessie, who met Brian, but never Mary

It’s a slow day at the Embassy so I thought I'd treat you to a heart-warming tale of everyday internet folk.

Our story takes place in Buffalo, New York and some hic-town in West Virginia (did I need to add the prefix "hic"?). The main characters are Tom (a middle-aged Walter Mitty), Jessie (a gullible teenager – or did I need to add “gullible”?), Brian (a tragic opportunist) and Mary (more about her later).

Tom worked in a tool plant in Buffalo. He was married with 2 daughters but decided he needed some spice in his life. So he began scouring the internet for a “companion”. Trouble is, Tom was sick of being Tom so he invented a new persona. Tom became a well-built 18-year old Marine just back from Iraq and looking for romance.

Soon he struck gold. Along came Jessie, a pretty blonde-haired 17-year old high school student from West Virginia eager to find the perfect partner. The cyber-relationship blossomed and before long Tom was sending gifts and (falsified) photos. Jessie was bowled over. Hundreds of hours were lost in on-line chat and declarations of love. Tom’s family were none the wiser.

But Jessie started to worry. It all seemed too good to be true. So she decided to contact a work colleague of Tom’s just to make sure Tom was who he said he was. Armed with the name and address of Tom’s employer (foolishly provided by an over-confident Tom), Jessie managed to track down the email address of Tom’s colleague Brian.

Months of deception unravelled within minutes as Brian confirmed that Tom was more or less the opposite of what he pretended to be. Not only that, Brian turned out to be much more like Tom than Tom, if you see what I mean. Brian was in his early twenties and even more ripe for romance. So Jessie re-focused her affection on Brian.

But she didn't give up entirely on Tom with whom she continued to correspond mostly out of pity. The balancing act proved unmanageable and in a moment of confusion, Jessie left an e-trail back to Tom's new rival. Tom and Brian began squabbling over Jessie.

Then one morning Brian was found dead in his pick-up van with three gunshot wounds to the head. It didn’t take long for the police to point the finger at Tom. Naturally they also wanted to speak to Jessie.

Except that Jessie turned out to be Mary, Jessie’s middle-aged mother who was sending equally bogus “credentials” to Tom (and Brian).

The End

(The moral of the story: Beware of husbands who can't come to the dinner table because they are too busy "blogging".......)

The Croatian curse

The Croatian Fascists have knocked the English Multiculturalists out of the Euro 2008 tournament. The score last night was 3-2, an improvement on the previous encounter (2-0), but with the familiar English goaltending slapstick. To put it bluntly, England would have won if they hadn't lost.

Yes, I know: the condition of the pitch was atrocious. At times it seemed as though the players were skating over the field. But we are talking about England for God’s Sake. Half of professional English football matches are played in mud and rain. That should have given England the advantage.

What makes the outcome doubly embarrassing is that there are only 4 million Croats compared to a whopping 40 million or so English (weighted for relative population sizes, the final scores should read 30-2 and 20-0). And England has a steady stream of immigrants whose citizenship can be fast-tracked should their football skills warrant it. I never read of lorries crammed with suffocating refugees trying to start a new life in Zagreb or Split. Not only that, English football commands a huge budget whereas Croatia's coach struggles to afford pencil and paper:

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article488278.ece

Oh well. No point crying over slippery balls when an exciting bitching season is about to get underway. Time to sit back and enjoy the upcoming qualifiers where 10 million overlooked coaching geniuses from every pub and office across England will square off to decide What Went Wrong and How To Make Sure It Never Happens Again before the newest scapegoat is awarded the mandate to resume England’s quest for the long-awaited and elusive "turning point". Whoever thought that Iraq would one day become a metaphor for English football?

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

UPDATE: It's just been confirmed. England has no divine right to participate in the major football tournaments:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/internationals/7100393.stm

November's target - Oliver Kamm

When I'm not being hounded for activities compatible with my undiplomatic status, I enjoy tipping embassy champagne over smug neocon heads. This month's target is the bloated Oliver Kamm. Here is a record of our recent exchange:

Hi Oliver

Just catching up on some of your thought-provoking posts and noticed a item on Che Guevara.

Here is something for you to consider:

Guevara was indeed ruthless. But Guevara died for his beliefs.

Why are there no brave neo-cons on the battlefields of Iraq? (and please skip the nonsense about you NOT being a neo-con - it's the foreign policy that matters). I am, of course, referring to you, Aaronovitch, Finkelstein, Geras, etc. Didn't you tell us that this was a war to defend civilisation, no less? Shouldn't you lead by example?

Hasta la victoria siempre, amigo.

CW


To which Ollie replied:


Thanks for your kind comment.

I do not consider it an accurate description of Che's end to say that he died for his beliefs, while your "white feather" argument on foreign policy is less original than I think you assume.


To which I replied:


Sorry but I don't follow. If Che didn't die for his beliefs, then what did he die for? To appear on t-shirts at university gigs?

Re "white feathers", make no assumptions about my assumptions. While the question is certainly not original, neither is the refusal to answer.

Hasta pronto, amigo.

CW


That, apparently, was too much for poor Ollie. I never heard from him again.