During his inaugural address, Donald Trump deployed rhetoric that was familiar to anyone who spent time in the Balkans in the 1990s. “You will never be ignored again,” Trump thundered, with Congress as his backdrop. He expanded on the idea a few days later, during a visit to the Department of Homeland Security, where he said, “To all of those hurting out there, I repeat to you these words, we hear you, we see you, and you will never, ever be ignored again.”
Trump’s message was a variation, directed at his largely white constituency, of the you-shall-not-be-beaten-again rhetoric used with malignant effect by Slobodan Milošević during the collapse of Yugoslavia. Trump is not Milošević and the United States is not Yugoslavia, of course, but the echoes between these paragons of national shamelessness reveal the underlying methods and weaknesses of what Trump is trying to pull off.
In 1987, Milošević was sent to Kosovo to soothe angry Serbs who felt threatened by Albanians who dominated the province. A low-profile communist official at the time, Milošević visited a municipal office and spoke to a crowd of unhappy Serbs who had gathered outside. Milošević was uncertain as he addressed them, but everything changed when he voiced a nationalist message they had never heard before: “No one will be allowed to beat the Serbs again, no one!” he said.
The crowd began to chant his name. Even though he remained cold (he had almost no charisma), it was a decisive moment in which he realized the political usefulness of tapping into the resentments of Serbs who felt slighted by other identity groups in Yugoslavia. This had been a taboo, and he broke it. When Milošević returned to Belgrade, he took up the banner of Serb nationalism and ousted his low-energy mentor, Ivan Stambolić. He provoked other republics to secede from Yugoslavia, and this led to years of warfare and war crimes.
Milošević created his own reality. I have never interviewed Trump but I have an unforgettable memory of what it’s like to sit in a room with a gaslighter-in-chief and try to pin him down. I was one of the few American journalists whom Milošević spoke with before he was overthrown and extradited to a war crimes trial in The Hague, where he died of a heart attack in 2006.
Slobodan Milošević is greeted by supporters in front of his house in Belgrade during a gathering of the Socialist Party of Serbia in 2001.
Photo: Couple/Globalphoto.com/Liaison via Getty Images
I visited Milošević on a bright spring day when he was in the full bloom of power. His office was in the center of Belgrade in a former palace that had been chiseled with the less-than-joyous touch of Austro-Hungarian architecture. Plainclothes guards asked me to walk through a metal detector that beeped loudly, prompting one of the guards to ask with a laugh, “Any guns?” He waved me through. A woman then led me through empty hallways to a waiting room. Sit here, she said.
She returned in a minute and opened a set of double doors into an office that had a long row of windows letting in the day’s sunshine. The office was empty except for Slobodan Milošević, who was standing by the windows. His first words were, “Why do you write lies about my country?” I now realize these words could just as easily come out of Trump’s mouth, or his Twitter account, when he discusses media organizations he does not like, which is most of them.
Milošević was shameless in lying about obvious truths. “We are blamed for a nationalistic policy but I don’t believe that our policy is nationalistic,” he said. “If we don’t have national equality and equality of people, we cannot be, how to say, a civilized and prosperous country in the future.” As we spoke, the military forces he had organized were continuing to lay waste to Bosnia, encircling Sarajevo and other major cities with medieval-style sieges.
We sat together for 90 minutes, with nobody else in the room. Though he didn’t have the bluster of Trump — Milošević was a quiet and controlled speaker, with just occasional flashes of anger that were tactical, not impulsive — he was a master of the alternative fact, even in the face of someone who knew they were lies, because I had reported from Bosnia on the crimes perpetrated by military forces under his control. When I later wrote a book about all this, I described Milošević’s relationship to the truth in a way that I now realize fits Trump, too.
I would have had better luck trying to land a punch on a hologram. Milošević existed in a different dimension, a twilight zone of lies, and I was mucking about in the dimension of facts. He had spent his entire life in the world of communism, and he had become a master, an absolute master, at fabrication. Of course my verbal punches went right through him. It was as though I pointed to a black wall and asked Milošević what color it was. White, he says. No, I reply, look at it, that wall there, it is black, it is five feet away from us. He looks at it, then at me, and says, The wall is white, my friend, maybe you should have your eyes checked. He does not shout in anger. He sounds concerned for my eyesight. I knew the wall was black. I could see the wall. I had touched the wall. I had watched the workmen paint it black.
President Donald Trump raises his fist after speaking during the 58th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 20, 2017.
Photo: Carolyn Kaster/AP
Trump’s buffoonery was present, however, in another protagonist of the Balkan carnage — Radovan Karadžić, the Bosnian Serb leader who got his start as Milošević’s puppet. Karadžić’s fabulism was more brazen than his fellow Serb’s, if only because like Trump he adored the spotlight and talked so much. Karadžić was a night owl, and one evening I attended a press conference that began after midnight in his small-town headquarters outside besieged Sarajevo. The Muslims were bombing themselves, Karadžić said. The media invented the tales of Serb mistreatment of detainees. There was no ethnic cleansing — Muslims left their homes voluntarily.
Karadžić’s performance was Trumpian in its audacious make-believe, and it conveyed a lesson that’s useful to us today. Tyrants don’t care if you believe them, they just want you to succumb to doubt. “His ideas were so grotesque,” I later wrote of Karadžić, “his version of reality so twisted, that I was tempted to conclude he was on drugs, or that I was. I knew Bosnia well, and I knew that the things Karadžić said were lies, and that these lies were being broadcast worldwide, every day, several times a day, and they were being taken seriously. I am not saying that his lies were accepted as the truth, but I sensed they were obscuring the truth, causing outsiders to stay on the sidelines, and this of course was a great triumph for Karadžić. He didn’t need to make outsiders believe his version of events; he just needed to make them doubt the truth and sit on their hands.”
The terrible experience of the Balkans offers a slit of hope, however: Milošević was overthrown. His world of alternative facts led to a disaster that involved Weimar levels of hyperinflation that sapped his regime of popular support. During one of my stays at the Hyatt Hotel in Belgrade, the nightly rate exceeded 4 million dinars, taxes not included. The defining moment of his overthrow occurred when bulldozers from the working-class town of Čačak smashed into Belgrade at the head of a column of blue-collar workers who realized their hero had conned them.
It wasn’t inertia that caught up with Milošević, nor the liberals and students who opposed him from almost the first day. Well-behaved democrats played important and necessary roles, laying the groundwork for Milošević’s removal, but it was his core constituencies, the working class and the security services, that delivered the decisive blows. The role of Brutus is often taken by insiders who have finally had enough of a failed demagogue. These are early days in the Trump era, but if Milošević’s fate is as much of a guide as his rhetoric, Trump will be undone when the democratic resistance deepens and the voters and party that brought him to power turn on him.
Top photo: Slobodan Milošević appears on a broadcast during a 1999 speech.
Another self pro-claimed expert on what happened in Yugoslavia. It was a little bit (well a whole lot) more complicated than the meme “the Serbs decided to kill everybody” that the MSM is trying to tell you. The conflicts of Yugoslavia took decades in the making and involved nationalism, religion, ideology, organised crime and interfering by outside powers, most notably the US, Germany and the UK. Serbian nationalism was a reaction to Croatian nationalism started by the “Ustasha” organization (as reference to the WWII Ustasha government of Croatia that massacred tens of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Roma).
Maass speaks of the speech that Milosevic held in Kosovo in 1987. He probably refers to the speech at Kosovo Polje. Just like Allan Little’s “death of Yugoslavia”, Maass stops short of what Milosevice really said there as well as what he said in 1989. You should look these speeches up and he said something else than Maass and others want to tell you.
Milosevic might have been a crook in many respects but as what was mentioned here several times, he was cleared by the Yugoslav tribunal. Futhermore, in a verdict against Sjesil (a truly evil nationalistic loud mouth) the judges of that verdict (two agreeing, one dissenting) ruled that the state of war in Yugoslavia was legitimate and the result of illegal successions. After all, the breakup of Yugoslavia was not only against the Yugoslav constitution, it was also against international laws regarding federations.
I did not think that in 2017 there will be ANYONE uncertain of what Milosevic politics was (nationalist, seems it needs to be said, and to say the least). And to defend him or his politics at all- it’s beyond me. Learn something.
You people who are sulking at the mention Milosevic was a nationalist who wanted a new country in his rule and talk about demonization and western propaganda that made him look that way- it seems you are unaware of his propaganda he spread during the war, you bought it. Usually that is how propaganda works. And it got stuck and you are stuck in ideas that were backwards even 30 years ago.
Try to get an educated opinion. You have no excuse, in this day or time; where information are available, but above all, when people who have barely managed to survive wars and graves of those who didn’t; to support this idea of Milosevic as someone who wanted PEACE and stability, that he was just misunderstood, that things just turned out this way, came out wrong….
And the funniest thing is that basically you are proving what has been stated in this article. For someone to see anything that Trump or Milosevic stands for (and for the record, Milosevic didn’t stand for non-violent approach (like some version of Balkan Ghandi all of a sudden- what is wrong with you) and wasn’t upset that Karadzic continued war with Bosniacs because he wanted stability- he was worried that it will disrupt the legality “Yugoslavia” (Yugoslavia as a declaration, a tag) as a state still had at the time and he had made some arrangements about sharing Bosnian territory, you should know this) as good and to support ideas and leaders of that ilk, you must be resistant to logic and sense and be prepared to live in their alternative reality. So, welcome, I guess.
Exactly people who support political figures and caricatures like that, are making the whole thing uniform. You are the reason this article was written and you came to prove it had to be written. Good job.
They can be masters of alternative facts and realities and everything alternative all they want, but they need YOU to believe it. And you do. You do.
I knew there’s a buch of people who live in some fake heroic yesterdays under a rock somewhere. Glad to see you all come out. Sorry to see reasoning is non- existant.
And stop holding on to the fact Milosevic was found not gulity by the Hague, you are embarassing yourself with this shortcut to not thinking.
The author of this ridiculous piece ignores the minor point that Milosevic, relentlessly portrayed by the western media as a genocidal maniac, was exonerated posthumously by the International Tribunal of the Hague which found him not guilty of the charges against him. But maybe Mr Maas just didn’t know this, given that the entire western mass media simply refused to report this. (Like many others, I
first head about this from Counterpunch.)
Maass states “Miloševi? created his own reality.” Well, I guess he wasn’t alone, was he Peter?
Thanks to the Intercept (!) for publishing one of the best examples of irony that I’ve ever read.
Yeah exactly what I wanted to say when I read this article… All this talk of fake news these days as if its only a recent phenomena! -it seems to me to be the result of people for first time having a means to express themselves and expose the fake biased news from the media that has reigned unopposed for so long… now they are meeting the wave of counter arguments and counter truths… being held responsible for their mistakes.
The issue is possibly not a sudden recent propagation of fake news its the endless stream of fake news finally being questioned for the first time by a large population with a large body of knowledge.
It always struck me as so unfair that a newspaper can publish a story about someone and as an ordinary person you have no way/means to respond… or as a victim of wide scale bias such as Serbia no one would listen to you anyway. Just see how Russian opinions/news is treated… just ignored like they are untermenschen!
All this talk these days about racism and misogeny but wow.. if you see how they treat Russia & Syria…. it seems perfectly ok to simply ignore them as if they are all liars.
So much bias, so much misinformation, so little accountability. Never mind how women are treated look how Russians and Syrians are treated by the news organisations and western politicians. Shameful.. and shamefully stupid.
milosevic did not die of a heart attack in prison. after he was killed he was found not guilty of all charges at the hague. clinton should have been charged with crimes against humanity for the NATO Bombing Campaign. the Sebreniszca Massacre could have been prevented if the Dutch NATO guards had been reinforced. The Massacre was watched in real-time by American Satellites flying overhead in orbit.
They continued the trial after he died?
The Srebenica Massacre could have been prevented if the Serb militia didn’t murder thousands and thousands of civilians
The Exoneration of Milosevic: the ICTY’s Surprise Ruling
by ANDY WILCOXSON
Email
The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague has determined that the late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was not responsible for war crimes committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.
In a stunning ruling, the trial chamber that convicted former Bosnian-Serb president Radovan Karadzic of war crimes and sentenced him to 40 years in prison, unanimously concluded that Slobodan Milosevic was not part of a “joint criminal enterprise” to victimize Muslims and Croats during the Bosnian war.
The March 24th Karadzic judgment states that “the Chamber is not satisfied that there was sufficient evidence presented in this case to find that Slobodan Milosevic agreed with the common plan” to permanently remove Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats from Bosnian Serb claimed territory.[1]
The Karadzic trial chamber found that “the relationship between Milosevic and the Accused had deteriorated beginning in 1992; by 1994, they no longer agreed on a course of action to be taken. Furthermore, beginning as early as March 1992, there was apparent discord between the Accused and Milosevic in meetings with international representatives, during which Milosevic and other Serbian leaders openly criticised Bosnian Serb leaders of committing ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ and the war for their own purposes.”[2]
The judges noted that Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic both favored the preservation of Yugoslavia and that Milosevic was initially supportive, but that their views diverged over time. The judgment states that “from 1990 and into mid-1991, the political objective of the Accused and the Bosnian Serb leadership was to preserve Yugoslavia and to prevent the separation or independence of BiH, which would result in a separation of Bosnian Serbs from Serbia; the Chamber notes that Slobodan Milosevic endorsed this objective and spoke against the independence of BiH.”[3]
The Chamber found that “the declaration of sovereignty by the SRBiH Assembly in the absence of the Bosnian Serb delegates on 15 October 1991, escalated the situation,”[4]but that Milosevic was not on board with the establishment of Republika Srpska in response. The judgment says that “Slobodan Milosevic was attempting to take a more cautious approach”[5]
The judgment states that in intercepted communications with Radovan Karadzic, “Milosevic questioned whether it was wise to use ‘an illegitimate act in response to another illegitimate act’ and questioned the legality of forming a Bosnian Serb Assembly.”[6] The judges also found that “Slobodan Milosevic expressed his reservations about how a Bosnian Serb Assembly could exclude the Muslims who were ‘for Yugoslavia’.”[7]
The judgment notes that in meetings with Serb and Bosnian Serb officials “Slobodan Milosevic stated that ‘[a]ll members of other nations and ethnicities must be protected’ and that ‘[t]he national interest of the Serbs is not discrimination’.”[8] Also that “Milosevic further declared that crime needed to be fought decisively.”[9]
The trial chamber notes that “In private meetings, Milosevic was extremely angry at the Bosnian Serb leadership for rejecting the Vance-Owen Plan and he cursed the Accused.”[10] They also found that “Milosevic tried to reason with the Bosnian Serbs saying that he understood their concerns, but that it was most important to end the war.”[11]
The judgment states that “Milosevic also questioned whether the world would accept that the Bosnian Serbs who represented only one third of the population of BiH would get more than 50% of the territory and he encouraged a political agreement.”[12]
At a meeting of the Supreme Defense Council the judgment says that “Milosevic told the Bosnian Serb leadership that they were not entitled to have more than half the territory in BiH, stating that: ‘there is no way that more than that could belong to us! Because, we represent one third of the population. […] We are not entitled to in excess of half of the territory – you must not snatch away something that belongs to someone else! […] How can you imagine two thirds of the population being crammed into 30% of the territory, while 50% is too little for you?! Is it humane, is it fair?!’”[13]
In other meetings with Serb and Bosnian Serb officials, the judgment notes that Milosevic “declared that the war must end and that the Bosnian Serbs’ biggest mistake was to want a complete defeat of the Bosnian Muslims.”[14] Because of the rift between Milosevic and the Bosnian-Serbs, the judges note that “the FRY reduced its support for the RS and encouraged the Bosnian Serbs to accept peace proposals.”[15]
The Tribunal’s determination that Slobodan Milosevic was not part of a joint criminal enterprise, and that on the contrary he “condemned ethnic cleansing”[16] is of tremendous significance because he got blamed for all of the bloodshed in Bosnia, and harsh economic sanctions were imposed on Serbia as a result. Wrongfully accusing Milosevic ranks right up there with invading Iraq only to find that there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction after all.
Slobodan Milosevic was vilified by the entire western press corps and virtually every politician in every NATO country. They called him “the Butcher of the Balkans.” They compared him to Hitler and accused him of genocide. They demonized him and made him out to be a bloodthirsty monster, and they used that false image to justify not only economic sanctions against Serbia, but also the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia and the Kosovo war.
Slobodan Milosevic had to spend the last five years of his life in prison defending himself and Serbia from bogus war crimes allegations over a war that they now admit he was trying to stop. The most serious charges that Milosevic faced, including the charge of genocide, were all in relation to Bosnia. Now, ten years after his death, they admit that he wasn’t guilty after all – oops.
The ICTY did nothing to publicize the fact that they had cleared Milosevic of involvement in the joint criminal enterprise. They quietly buried that finding 1,303 pages into the 2,590 page Karadzic verdict knowing full well that most people would probably never bother to read it.
The presiding judge in the Radovan Karadzic trial, O-Gon Kwon of South Korea, was also one of the judges in the Slobodan Milosevic trial. Milosevic’s exoneration by the Karadzic trial chamber may be an indication of how the Milosevic chamber would have eventually ruled, at least on the Bosnia charges, if Milosevic had lived to see the conclusion of his own trial.
It’s worth recalling that Slobodan Milosevic died under a very suspicious set of circumstances. He died of a heart attack just two weeks after the Tribunal denied his request to undergo heart surgery in Russia.[17] He was found dead in his cell less than 72 hours after his attorney delivered a letter to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in which he said that he feared he was being poisoned.[18]
The Tribunal’s official report on the inquiry into his death confirmed that, “Rifampicin had been found in a blood sample taken from Mr. Milosevic on 12 January 2006.” And that “Mr. Milosevic was not told of the results until 3 March 2006 because of the difficult legal position in which Dr. Falke (the Tribunal’s chief medical officer) found himself by virtue of the Dutch legal provisions concerning medical confidentiality.”[19]
The presence of Rifamicin (a non-prescribed drug) in Milosevic’s blood would have counteracted the high blood pressure medication he was taking and increased his risk of the heart attack that ultimately did kill him. The Tribunal’s admission that they knew about the Rifampicin for months, but didn’t tell Milosevic the results of his own blood test until just days before his death because of “Dutch legal provisions concerning medical confidentiality” is an incredibly lame and disingenuous excuse. There is no provision of Dutch law that prohibits a doctor from telling the patient the results of his own blood test — that would be idiotic. On the contrary, concealing such information from the patient could be seen as malpractice.
This all gives rise to well-founded suspicion that powerful geopolitical interests would rather Milosevic die before the end of his trial than see him acquitted and have their vicious lies exposed. U.S. State Department cables leaked to Wikileaks confirm that The Tribunal did discuss Milosevic’s medical condition and his medical records with U.S. Embassy personnel in The Hague without his consent.[20] They clearly didn’t care about medical confidentiality laws when they were blabbing about his medical records to the American embassy.
It’s an unsatisfying outcome that Milosevic has been quietly vindicated for the most serious crimes that he was accused of some ten years after his death. At a minimum financial compensation should now be paid to his widow and his children, and reparations should be paid to Serbia by the western governments who sought to punish Serbia in order to hold Milosevic “accountable” for crimes that their own Tribunal now admits he wasn’t responsible for, and was in fact trying to stop.
Then why was he killed, if he was set free in the end? Whose toes did his existence step on, that his “innocence” didn’t?
Massacre was watched in real-time by the whole world. Somebody should have definitely have stopped it, since those who were doing it couldn’t stop themselves. Then you would want to charge those who have stopped it for crimes against humanity.
The comparison seems to have weak predictive power because the US is no Yugoslavia at all. Who is going to secede and spark a series of prolonged armed conflicts? Who will bomb the US into submission? How could the situation be settled if non-white immigrants are all over the country rather than in a single region like Kosovo?
As for ignoring certain facts and offering some wild alternative claims, it applies to both sides. For example, the persistent yet absurd claim that ‘ethnic diversity is a strength’, which flies in the face of all research in the social sciences (Alesina, La Ferrara, Oliver, etc.) Or the denial of the IQ gap between races in the US, including the claim that IQ is somehow not mainstream in psychology. Or deliberately obfuscating the race of criminals in newspaper reports.
Arguing with US mainstream media over such topics is futile, because they just shout you down. The only strategy that has worked so far is to shout the media down instead, while hurling equally bold and insane accusations with little regard for truth or mutual respect.
Because all the things you’ve pointed out are racist
Mr. Maass strikes me as the usual arrogant Western journalist, who — of course knows the Truth, subscribes to the TRUTH and reports nothing but the TRUTH. The problem is, that it is HIS TRUTH.
The only part of this shallow article that is worth a cent’s worth-, is the comparison of the type of leaders that arise when a self-respecting , successful and even a dominant nation faces either a decline or a collapse, and the confused public searches for a comfort -figure, someone to lead them out of this crisis.
Yugoslavia, under Tito and under a Communist government, was one of the almost perfect societies on earth. The US and Germany, living under their own un-assailable TRUTHs, could not tolerate such a success story, where a Communist society disproved all their dogmatic propaganda. A major de-stabilization was launched — at first simply to dis-member the various republics and ethnic groups making up this nation state. The Serbs who were first among equals and were dispersed in various areas of Yugoslavia. The Albanians living in Kosovo were not a native group there either, but emigrated there from Albania when Tito started to industrialize the country. They were the Mexican migrant of Yugoslavia. As, the dismemberment and de-stabilization of Yugoslavia (by the US and Germany) was proceeding at an alarming speed, the Serbs, who were the dominant segment of the country found the rugs pulled out from under them. Kosovo, their historical core, was now over-run with alien Albanians, and even were instigated and armed by the West —as a final act of degradation and humiliation in the coup-de-grace that was be-falling them — to separate into an independent country. On top of all this, the Serbs, who resisted this disintegration, were demonized in the Western Press and government, in the usual way that these demonizations are done in the indoctrinated Western Public. The right which is the reptilian segment of society, and always of course lustily endorses any subjugation of other nations, always applauds in any aggressive action by the West. But, to get the liberals to their side, the Mass (controlled) media will begin the well-rehearsed campaign to play up the ‘Human Rights’ card, and voila the coup is complete. “The Serbs are inhuman monsters and oppress everyone around them”.
The statement by the way, that MIlosovitch died of natural heart attack in the Hague, is cheaply stated in this article as a ‘fact’. He did in fact needed medication. But, his demise is strongly and independently contested, and sinister forces could have been at play.
Yes, Trump is a figure who could have appeared in response to the decline of the US as manifested by the inability of the ‘unassailable’ system to take care of a large segment of its population. How this will play itself out, is anybody’s guess.
Maass was there. He interviewed key players from all sides and saw atrocities committed with his own eyes. Were you there to witness mass murder?
Realy? He was “there” in Bosnia AND Kosovo? And saw all the “massacres” with his own eyes? Wow that guy is realy something. How about the fact that when it comes to the so called “Rugovo” massacre that triggered the bombing campaign, a German journalist and a photographer that took the pictures of dead “civilians” said and showed the full set of pictures clearly showing that they were not just innocent civilians, but armed KLA fighters. Pictures that were used in the western media only showed the ones without uniforms, no KLA emblems showing on their clothes and no weapons right next to their bodies. It was presented by the German minister of defense as a massacre on innocent civilians. You dont know what are you talking about and this “journalist” is lying if he’s saying that he was everywhere and saw everything.
Stej, were you there? Maass says: I later wrote of Karadži?, “his version of reality so twisted, that I was tempted to conclude he was on drugs, or that I was. I knew Bosnia well”. Obviously, Maass was and is on drugs. Karadži? warned that Muslims have training camps in Bosnia and that they were preparing for terrorist attacks. September 11th terrorists were trained there and Europe is under attack now. Maass, get help.
“Yugoslavia, under Tito and under a Communist government, was one of the almost perfect societies on earth” – “perfect”.
My fellow human being, you truly don’t know what you’re talking about.
Robert, you have no idea what you’re talking about! Yugoslavian perfect society was nothing but a scam. It never existed. It was a propaganda that the whole world was buying until it collapsed. Tito was a dictator and tyrant. Everyone who served and supported the Party (or Partija, in serbo-croatian) did well or was at least left alone. Everyone who spoke out against Tito was murdered. Tito had murder squads that targeted Croats. My grandfather was killed because he once publicly said that he is proud to be a Croat. After that incident his wife was fired from her job (mind you, we didn’t have private companies, everything was state-controlled). These killings didn’t happen just on the Yugoslavia territory – the numerous murders of Croats in Germany by the communist Yugoslavia secret police are still among the longest unsolved murders in Germany. What Tito masterfully did was maintaining the false economy whose main role was to glorify communism in the eyes of the ordinary people – while murdering more than a million of innocent people in the process.
And Serbs didn’t start a war in 1991. It was a group of Serbs that called themselves Chetniks. They wanted to purge the country and create Great Serbia, from Kosovo to Slovenia. This idea wasn’t a new one. It was something that was planted a long time ago and that was brought to life with Milosevic’s rhetoric.
And everything that you heard about this particular group of Serbs (that they are inhuman monsters..) was true. Actually, the truth was worse. These were blood thirsty savages whose greatest joy, besides gruesomely killing everyone who is not a Serb, was to force fathers and sons to watch while 50 of them are brutally raping their wives and daughters. After that they would also force them to watch how they slit their throats before they would kill them as well. Raping pregnant women and then carving out the babies from their bodies was also a special treat for them. Why? Because for them it meant that they are directly affecting the reproduction of a nation that they hated.
Still think the Serbs were demonized?
The “wall” is not black nor white, it has white spots and black spots. Milosevic and the autor both extrapolated the colour of the wall based on the spots they preferred. Milosevic for his cause and the author (in this text) for his fame, or some other reason. Neglecting, failing to mention the “black” facts such as, for example, quarter million of ethnic Serbs expelled from Croatia (a country that still officially celebrates that day), and of course some being killed in the process – paints the picture that fails to be completely true and objective. Milosevic was a master of cherrypicking the facts and distorting the truth, and to fight against it we cannot act as him and cherrypick only what he had tried to avoid (because we loose credibility).
So, the truth always contains things that do not fit in ones agenda, and only the people with a lot of integrity will say it as it is. Painitng the picture either black or white is just a manipulation of the audience and has it’s place either in courts or public propaganda.
And of course, this is also relevant in Trump’s case as he acts similar to Milosevic (and other dictators).
Oponents of Trump often do this kind of cherrypicking and put themselves on the same level of Trump supporters who absolutley don’t care about the truth.
Milosevic was not a dictator. After decades of communist dictatorship led by Croatian, Serb-devourer Tito, who killed Serbian leader of resistance to Nazi occupation colonel Mihailovic (decorated by US for rescuing over 500 US and allied airman) Milosevic restored multi party democracy and initiated the process of privatization of state owned industry, restored free press… Maass is an idiot. He was wrong about Milosevic and he is, probably, wrong about Trump.
How are you even capable to lie or be misinformed this blatantly?
If by “not a dictator” you mean “not Stalin himself”, yes, Milosevic is not Stalin.
Mihailovic was firstly an opportunist. That explains everything he has done- being royalist, nationalist, against Nazis, against partisans, collaboration with Nazis and fascists, and rescue of US soldiers (one good hit he had). Nothing heroic, just opportune.
Multi-party system exists everywhere. Just sometimes one party wins and wins and wins for years and years and years.
Dude, no. Free press? During ’90s? I guess that’s the press you’ve been fed.
Yes, during the rule of S. Milosevic there were established private newspapers and radio and TV stations. During Croatian dictator Serb-devaurer Tito government controlled all media. Privatization? Yes. I was one of beneficiaries. He issued privatization vouchers to all citizens. That’s how I got stocks of several companies. Globalists were unhappy about that. They wanted to acquire these enterprises for cents to the dollar but Milosevic screwed them. Globalists, than invented “humanitarian crisis” in Kosovo to justify destruction of Yugoslavia’s industry. Damage was over 100 billion dollars. USA did not care about Albanians, illegal immigrants. USA wanted to acquire Yugoslavia’s assets.
Here’s proof. To US “War on terror” is excuse to introduce “Patriot Act”, suspend civil liberties at home, treat US citizens as terrorist and use real terrorist to fight for US interests around the World: Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria for oil, natural gas and minerals. What was the goal in Yugoslavia Yugoslavia was one of very few nations capable of producing independently submarines and fighter jets. Weapons were the number one export item. During NATO aggression on Yugoslavia principal target were arms producing factories. Globalists were eliminating competition. How did the war criminals benefit from their illegal enterprise”? Madeleine Albright: “So why did Albright participate in these war crimes? Apparently, to share in the spoils of war. Many former top Clinton officials swooped into war-torn Serbia and secured millions of dollars in contracts ironically designed to help “rebuild” Serbia and the new nation they helped to create, Kosovo.
As the New York Times put it, “So many former American officials have returned to Kosovo for business — in coal and telecommunications, or for lobbying and other lucrative government contracts — that it is hard to keep them from colliding.” Albright’s company, Albright Capital Management, aggressively bid for Kosovo’s telecommunications company PTK — its most prosperous asset. While this purchase would have been worth upwards of $600 million for Albright, it was also discovered that her sister company, Albright Stonebridge Group, held shares in PTK’s only competition.”
http://usuncut.com/politics/special-place-in-hell-madeleine-albright/
Wesley Clark: Kosovo Mulls Giving Wesley Clark Major Stake in Coal – See more at: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/kosovo-mulls-giving-wesley-clark-major-stake-in-coal-09-12-2016
If the Intercept is supposed to offer an alternative to fake mainstream news, why is it promoting opinion which is clearly informed entirely by fake mainstream news. Just a few months ago Slobodan Miloševi? was , justly if belatedly, exonerated by the International Tribunal which was set up to cover for NATO war crimes in Yugoslavia. This article is a travesty of the truth. Is the Intercept deliberately setting out to trash its own reputation as a reliable source of information?
Mr. Ray, can you offer facts to buttress your claims of travesty? the article is written by a journalist who was boots on the ground covering Milosevic. I admit I didn’t pay much attention to this era, but clearly Milosevic was a tyrant and ultimately paid the price for his horrific reign of terror. If I’m wrong, please correct me.
If you really don’t know what happened in Yugoslavia read “Fool’s Crusade”.
It’s all explained there. With footnotes.
Thank you. Fools’ Crusade is the essential book for understanding what happened in Jugoslavija.
i do not support hilary. i just had hoped for some of her basic decency had prevailed, but now we have an ego maniac. please read VANITY FAIR article, 2/17 issue re Trumps insidious way of making his move and major control of so much in PALM BEACH, FL. INSIDIOUS PERSON, SO CUNNING AND FUC U ATTITUDE.
My honest opinion is that the people of USA have voted against third world war, and that is good! No matter how bad Trump may seem, third world war would have been much worse! Hillary is the supporter of third world war, she gloats on executions of people, and thus makes her seem utterly evil in the eyes of the rest of the world! Journalists, please stop this pro-Hillary bullshit, because she is evil, and dangerous person who almost came to power!
Dear Mr. Maas, you have absolutely no idea about the events that preceded the balkan wars. You know nothing of men with socks on their heads, called “?arapani” that roamed villages in Croatia during the late eighties with manily Serb population, putting lists on electricity posts, which contained names of people who need to leave the village, or the night will make them perish… You can only imagine who were the people on the list. Thus trying to do ethnical cleaning way before you say it was invented by Serbs.. You also can’t understand the mentality of these people, which are direct descendants of the warrior people settled here by austro-hungarian empire to defend against the Turks (which they actually accomplished), and the pride they took in their history, and origin. Now, if you poke the hornets nest, you can definitely expect being stung and bitten. Not to say the origins of Miloševi? which came to Yugoslavia straight from Washington. Do you ever wonder where was this utter coldbloodedness trained? And yet you write these accusations like you know it all.
I am sorry, author, and I don’t know Milosevic either but I got to know you a little after reading this shameless, lie piece you produced for the Intercept.
As you probably know but you won’t admit because you lie, Yugo was a generally happy and relatively prosperous country until murderous Clinton and entourage thought it would be a good idea to bomb them a little, just for fun. And it was bipartisan. The aggression was telegraphed by Poppy Bush who demanded that Milosevic withdrew from Kosovo. Kosovo, by the way, was a Serb province at the time. Not a Yugoslav republic but a province of Serbia. With Germany actually leading from behind, we did everything in our power to destabilize and eventually destroy whatever was left of Yugoslavia – a country that resisted the Nazi in WW2 and whose ‘partisans’ were rescuing and taking care of our down pilots and managed to stay independent and, like I said, borderline prosperous even under a communist rule.
Now, that we ‘liberated’ the place, look what we got: Bosnia still under NATO occupation, the ‘free’ Kosovo now famous for organs, drugs and sex slaves trafficking, Serbia humiliated, resentful and likely to take revenge when an opportunity presents itself because this is the Balkans.
Meanwhile, know-nothing, ignorant, lying do-gooders such as yourself, keep producing worthless propaganda pieces such as this one because… this is what you do. I am sure you consider yourself super-clever now for oh so subtly calling Trump ‘a Milosevic’ while most of your sorry peers call him ‘a Hitler’. Yes, you are super original. lol
Will you ever look back at the trail of blood and tears your sophisticated and humanitarian heroes left behind? Yugo aside, contemplate the chaos, death and destruction of Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Somalia… I am sure I missed many. Are you aware that Libya was the most prosperous African country before we brought them Hell? Anything to say about the dreaded Taliban cutting their country’s opium production to zero? Words on Syria as a place where people of many faiths and ethnicity lived lived in relative peace? Of course not, lies and fake stories are more profitable, I’m sure.
Wait a minute….. Wasn’t he just exonerated? Like years after he died? And you didn’t KNOW this? Tsk tsk. I expected better from the Intercept.
Trump is mentally ill. Trump is racist. Trump isn’t fit to be President. This also means that all Trump supporters are racist. If you can’t admit that, then you’re just as delusional as he is.
Says Tom.
I would add to Trump supporters as worthless, racist subhumans everybody else who didn’t vote for Hillary. When Hillary said “why aren’t I 30 points ahead” she wasn’t a demented psycho, she was RIGHT.
Trump is a paradigm that captured an extremist right with voodoo magic. He chose Pence adopted his Koch philosophy with the Tea Party Prayer warriors and is now going to try and make deals to coordinate their ideas. Unfortunately its probably his extreme white..right that will be most disappointed and then his forces will have betrayed him for the Globalization Capitalistic God where the conspiracy voices will go back to bantering and denouncing the liberals like Soros and the Global Warming Gurus they have set truly free to shape the world once again.
” I had reported from Bosnia on the crimes perpetrated by military forces under his control”
Milosevic was exonerated. Might want to mention that next time, you know, in the interest of not being a hack reporter.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/01/the-exoneration-of-milosevic-the-ictys-surprise-ruling/
This link contains quotes relating to his exoneration and is supported with references.
He might have been overthrown, but his mentality, ideology hasn’t. If it had, there would be a future of amicable relations between Kosovo and Serbia. They wouldn’t continue to so publicly scream “Kosovo is Serbia”. There’s something about fascists…their leaders might come and go, but their ideology stays forever!
Hey Peter,
Define “white” for us. I didn’t see a single person at trump’s rallies who had “white” skin. What, exactly, are you attempting to infer with that descriptor? That Trump was attempting to appeal to the majority of American voters? OMG, what an unbelievable sin!!! A candidate makes a campaign speech in a democratic society for the purpose of getting elected by appealing to the largest demographic and…? What? He is racist? Weren’t Trump’s speeches similar to Obama’s in that they largely promised hope and change to the majority of American people? From Hitler to Miloševi?, Really? Does the Intercept have no shame? No minimum standard? No journalistic integrity?
The Intercept got more integrity than your shamefully retarded ass.
That was a wonderful example of the kind of language Peter was writing about, the web of half-truths and lies that are designed to inspire just enough doubt to convince people to do nothing. Thanks for the contribution.
And your comment is a great example of the weak generalizations and rhetoric your mate Peter uses to try and make a point when, in reality, he’s talking out of his ass through a filter of opinion and bias.
Thanks for being an asshat
A caption from this article: “President Donald Trump raises his fist after speaking during the 58th Presidential Inauguration at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on Jan. 20, 2017.” Like Hitler? Like Muhammad Ali? Proof positive, right? A scurrilous article.
I think it’s far fetched.
– Miloševi? was uncertain as he addressed them, but everything changed when he voiced a nationalist message they had never heard before: “No one will be allowed to beat the Serbs again, no one!” he said.
Very sloppy, Mr. Maass. He did not mention Serbs on that occasion. He said “No one should be allowed to beat you!”
Also the beating reference was about the police. Police (largely Albanian, talk about Serb oppression) was brutal and was beating up people.
As for the author of this “article”: Idiot. One could grind Milosevic and Trump on million other relevant issues but of course this one just propels the usual BS narrative.
Thank you for pointing this out Chris. The video can easily be found on YouTube with the exact moment. It did strike me as unprofessional to simply impute the word “Serbs”. I’ll assume it’s just the author’s interpretation.
I don’t think you could have delved very deeply into Milosevic’s politics, Mr. Maass. The fact is that Milosevic was not a nationalist. He wanted to preserve Jugoslavija. I would suggest that you read the full text of his speech in Kosovo Polje instead of quoting something that you may have read or heard second or third hand. Milosevic expressed his view that the multi-national nature of Jugoslavija was its strength, not its curse – a view at odds with the distorted media-created image of Milosevic the Rabid Nationalist.
Quite correct! Milosevic was not Serbian nationalist, no matter what Western “fake news” MSM was writing for past 30 years. Simply, he wanted to preserve Yugoslavia and socialistic system. Furthermore, he refused to “privatize” large state owned companies, meaning he refused to sell it for peanuts to Western multi-national corporations…That was his sin.
Whose nationalist you suggest he was?
Privatization is generally not in the spirit of any socialism. This is nothing revolutionary in a socialist system you are a part of, this is what people in power in socialist countries usually stood for.
I don’t like to talk about sins of other people, but since we’re talking, I’d say his sin was that he was apt to do what he did. (And I mean, to put it mildly, take part in wars (people die in those), taking your whole nation practically hostage with your deranged “politics”, not to mention other nations who were destroyed by wars, etcetc.)
Milosevic was a nationalist and he did not want to preserve Jugoslavija. He wanted to preserve the BORDERS of Jugoslavija or to get as much as he could from its territory, since there were other interested sides too. “Nationalist” is exactly how one could describe his politics and politics of other Yugoslav countries.
It is one thing to talk about the cause of speech in Kosovo polje, it is entirely different thing to explain what it meant. You are simplifying things, while in Jugoslavija things were everything but simple, which gives people in power to throw phrases as they see fit in that gray area. You are here critical of an article, dissecting every sentence, but not at all critical of demagogy. I would suggest you dissect that, start there.
The author was in a unique position, having first-hand experience of what was happening in the field and interviewing or hearing Miloševi? and Karadži? in person. Without taking anything away from his insight, I do wonder if their blatant denial of reality and their seemingly rather unpleasant personae led to being more easily discerned. Is it more difficult for someone in the author’s position to have the same clarity of judgment when faced with individuals in power who are more schooled in the art of presentation and representation? And I am not for a moment pretending that my comment leads anywhere other than to some Western leaders. Aside from that, this was an extremely well-written and interesting article. Thanks.
Regrettably, the victims in the mass graves from Milosovic’s policies cannot speak. If you were on the receiving end, your tune would be different, darling.
My “tune” in no way denied the writer’s reporting of what he knew from his own journalistic experience of the situation, nor did it deny what the victims suffered at the hands of the two leaders and their policies and actions. There was also no attempt to dismiss the author’s first-hand experience of them nor his honest assessment of them. My question was merely whether it is easier it is for a reporter to know when a politician is lying when the speaker is not schooled in the art of deception. A number of Western leaders have been lying and continue to lie consistently in the face of evidence that shows they are lying. But they are polished performers, coming from the higher reaches of their own culture, speaking mostly to reporters who are themselves products of that culture and likely to fall into the trap of thinking they are still in university, perhaps asking clever questions of their guru, and satisfied more with the form and perhaps wit than the content of the responses. Also, most of these leaders as people are genuinely “nice guys” who fit their cultures and the reporters’ image of what the PM or President should be like. The U.S., for example, has a long trail of films and TV shows with various A-list actors “playing the President”, not only creating specific expectations in the viewers, but providing a certain archetype, one that most modern Presidents match. Now, Trump does not fit that archetype and he and his cabinet and advisors would need a major make-over to come close. That makes it easier and maybe more comfortable for the media and cultural archetype creators to crucify him. For some reason, many Americans rejected the archetype this time. For the record, I am not American, but if I had been I would not have voted for either Trump or Clinton.
Similarities between authoritarians of various ilk are fairly obvious and worth pointing out. Yet, some of the key statements presented as factual claims in the article are incorrect and undermine credibility of the piece.
1) Milosevic never controlled Bosnian Serbs nor their military, as the author claims twice, the way he did control Serb minority leaders and forces in the previous conflict in Croatia (after he managed to ditch the initial fairly reasonable leaders). If he did, he would not have to impose real and severe sanctions on them at a certain point during the Bosnian war and practically close the border between Serbia and Bosnia at the US demand. This is, in part, why he was praised by EU and Clinton administration as a “factor of stability in the Balkans” after that. Look it up. Neither Mladic nor Karadzic took orders from Milosevic – at best they consulted with him and were at times characterized as unruly in Serbian state media. His public support was meant to appease nationalists at home in Serbia first and foremost. Judging by the Hague tribunal papers they did not even consult him how Srebrenica action will look like. This indicates he was an opportunist, not even that powerful as he was portrayed at the time, more than anything else.
2) A paraphrased bit from the interview on equality of nationalities in the country refers to Serbia. It’s a piece of demagoguery but it is not a fabrication. Serbia has a significant Muslim minority (Serbian speaking and Albanian speaking) and countless other minorities. It had them throughout the Balkan wars of the 1990s. There was only one incident (albeit terrible) resulting in the death of several Muslims taken off the train in the 1990s but in general Muslim enclave of Sandzak in Serbia was safe throughout the war. This is why Milosevic always insisted that wars are taking place outside the borders of Serbia because he provided stability in Serbia. His claim of stability of Serbia that was applicable for almost 10 years was blown to pieces with the war in Kosovo, and shortly thereafter he lost his power by popular uprising. His story about stability in the face of foreign provoked wars did not work any more.
Presumably the author neither knows nor cares that the breakup of Yugoslavia was engineered by the US and NATO, and that Milosevic, who died after years in custody without a trial, was recently absolved of any crimes by the kangaroo court which ordered his arrest.
But that would get in the way of this imaginary news, wouldn’t it!
You have to feel bad for the serbs who heroically slaughtered women and children and demonstrated their warrior prowess on the helpless. The siege of Sarajevo, the Srebrenica massacre, ethnic cleansing, serb nationalism…it must have been really tough on the chetniks to rape and murder. Poor chetniks.
FYI, this is not about sympathy for the Serbs. This is about setting the record straight about what Milosevic stood for.
I would suggest you read the following:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/01/the-exoneration-of-milosevic-the-ictys-surprise-ruling/
Yeah, Mislosovic stood for Serbian Nationalism at the expense of other ethnicities. Misolovic did not care for uniting Slavs, but for racial superiority for one ethnicity (serbs). Keep in mind that some Serbs fought alongside other ethnicities in Sarajevo against serb nationalists/chetniks. These Serbs were into the groovy multi-ethnic thing. Milosovic was not so much into the groovy multi-ethnic thing, rather to assert serb-this and serb-that and to encourage rape/plunder/murder/whatever to bring back some imaginary serb-gloriola heyday. Glad to set the record straight as to what Milosovic stood for, the darker side of humanity. When Milosovic was dragged into the Hague, what else would a guilty party like him say? Milsovic used nationalism to further his political goals. Does not sound like much of an inclusivist to me.
Interesting. The Wikipedia article on Slobodan Miloševi? has additional information on the ruling.
So the kangaroo court locked him up, and then the kangaroo court absolved him of (only) crimes he was charged for?
Which is it?
And those engineers that dismantled the country really know to pick the time and place and instruments to do it, don’t you think?
Peter, you have been watching too much CNN and it is obvious you are repeating the US government stand on war in Yugoslavia. What do you really know about Yugoslavia, Serbs and Croats and history of the region? Do you really consider yourself a journalist after writing such article? Do you think b visiting a place , all of sudden you are an expert? Yes, you can have an opinion but I doubt you can to this on your own.
“His world of alternative facts led to a disaster that involved Weimar levels of inflation”. Unfortunately, this is in itself an “alternative fact”. The hyper-inflation experienced by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1993 was brought about by UN-imposed economic sanctions which prohibited exports and all imports except for food and medicines, and not by the words of a politician, alternative or otherwise.
Thanks for this very interesting insight! I hope, the midwest working class is as intelligent as the serb working class has been. Trump surely will let them down!
Very sad to see TI becoming a full member of the Fake News team.
Fake news is not only reporting falsehoods, but also omitting crucially important facts to create a false narrative.
In this example, Maass paints a clear narrative by summarizing Milosevic thusly: “he was overthrown and extradited to a war crimes trial in The Hague, where he died of a heart attack in 2006.”
Well, first John Pilger reported that the US claims of 100,000 dead had been completely refuted – only 3,000 bodies having been found. http://www.newstatesman.com/node/151946
Then in 2001 a UN court officially found that no “genocide” had occurred. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1530781.stm
And now the ICTY has exploded the narrative, having “determined that the late Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic was not responsible for war crimes committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war.” http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/01/the-exoneration-of-milosevic-the-ictys-surprise-ruling/
So, perhaps Maass is actually correct, in that Trump is being smeared by the neoliberal globalists, as it appears Milosevic was in the 90s.
Mr. Maass, with all due respect, being a deceitful mouthpiece for the NATO warmongers is no way to go through life.
Oh ok, ONLY 3000 bodies were FOUND.
How many people – relevant to the population living at a certain area- have to be murdered for killings to be declared genocide?
Numbers are usually the lowest and easiest form of manipulation.
Also, a few years ago bodies were found in Katyn Forest in Poland, since the massacre in WW2.
Of course UN officially found that no genocide occured. Then they, specifically Dutch, would have to be the ones who watched it, through the fence, just a few meters away. But that helps no one sleep good at night. Except Bosniacs, but they don’t sleep well anyway.
Milosevic was charged for war crimes in Bosnian war. And that is all he was charged and found not guilty for. Nothing less. Nothing more.
You know, in the 90s in Yugoslavia people didn’t know anything about neoliberal globalists, but they did know just recently they were being promised a better world, just if you elect them, everything great, and then they found themselves in a dirty war. They didn’t always know, and some still don’t want to admit, that they are cannon fodders.
Peter…. I wish you inserted some of the conversation; actual quotes… to permit readers to get a feel of being there, to hear the language, get a feel for the syntax of manipulation used.
‘punching a hologram’, for this reader, misses the meat of discourse in serving up imagery… that does illustrate and symbolize….
I am interested in the text as well…
Thank you for your writing.
Thanks, Peter. I appreciate the insight into that period that most of us, at least one of us, were left scratching our heads trying to understand how a seemingly modern society could devolve so quickly into chaos.
You have no idea about what happened in Yougoslavia….. Accepting Peter’s selective memory as historical fact is as far off the truth as accepting Amanpour’s narrative on mortar attacks on people standing in a breadline.
“I was one of the few American journalists whom Miloševi? spoke with before he was overthrown and extradited to a war crimes trial in The Hague, where he died of a heart attack in 2006.”
And, you might have added, “before he was eventually cleared of charges of genocide by that court and also by the International Court of Justice.”
Your article is unworthy of The Intercept. It’s another example (of which we in the “Third World” see so many) of a Western journalist speaking about a region that he understands nothing about — even if that journalist has been there and written a book about it, like you.
Concentrate on your own country. Concentrate on attacking Trump, and the society that allowed him to happen — your society.
In the meantime, you might want to check on the links provided readers TYR and Eduardo Vieira regarding the clearing of Milosevic in the courts — or you might actually read the court rulings themselves.
Trump is being used for his name (branding) much like he did with his buildings. Republicans have done this to get their party elected and also have someone to blame when things go wrong. trump is nothing but a puppet who will sign anything the republicans put in front of him. Rolling our nations progress back 50 years will do major harm to the economy as well as the US’s reputation throughout the world as a leader.
Yugoslavia 101 (hot off the griddle) :-
Tariq Ali discusses “The Fate of the Balkans” with Igor Stiks
on teleSUR English’s “Global Empire Series”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SX3aYu9VCWA (30 mins / posted January 17. 2017)
I’m thinking Trump’s popularity should be corrected by dramatic losses in the Iran War. It’s an unnecessary war, with no Western support, that puts him in conflict even with his “friends” in Russia. And Trump unifies the Middle East against the U.S. – first by getting both Sunnis and Shiites to hate us with an Iran attack, but also by increasing US oil output and keeping the export pipelines humming until it is a competitor for Middle Eastern producers instead of a client. This profits the oil companies (and nobody else) but means that King Fahd is no longer likely to be a friendly face to turn to for some crazy adventure. Catch is, the way falsehood works any more, Trump’s people probably will use the losses to say “well, you can’t change presidents in the middle of a war…” and the concomitant terror attacks to suggest liberals are too crazy to be let near power.
Only one problem: Trump isn’t a neocon.
_”Trump Mocks Bill Kristol: “This Poor Guy,” “All He Wants To Do Is Go To War And Kill People”“_
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2016/05/25/trump_mocks_bill_kristol_this_poor_guy_all_he_wants_to_do_is_go_to_war_and_kill_people.html
Bernie and Hillary are the warmongers. It’s a good thing neither of them nor Jeb were elected.
We’ll see. I honestly hope you’re right. But what I think is that Republicans all do what they’re told and they hire some B-grade actor like Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump to be a front man.
Reagan wasn’t a neocon either. His skirmishes were limited; he helped Thatcher with some satellite intel to take back the farm off the coast of Argentina.
Like Trump, Reagan was awake–H.W. was forced on him in ’80. The difference is Trump is really awake.
Reagan also withdrew from Beruit, early.
Moreover Reagan ran into many of the same globalist-inspired headwinds as Trump even to get elected. Reagan wasn’t good news for Brzezinski, Rockefeller, et al.
Oh man, you’re so narrow minded. Your parallels are completely wrong on so many levels.
Peter, you have a serious case of what is called a selective memory syndrome ! There are treatments for this psychological affection. One of the therapies is to go kite surfing with billionaire buddies….
I really appreciate your work. Great journalism.
I’m sorry to say Peter Maass, but as has been proven time and again – Milosovic aimed to keep the territorial integrity of the former Yugoslavia. So much so, that Jose Ocampo who takes great pride in prosecuting third world despots, was not able to get a conviction for the worst murderer in Europe since WWII. The nationalists were the Croats, Bosnians, Slovenians obviously supported by western European intelligence agencies. So saying that ethnic nationalism was the core of Milosovic is faulty. Every government is guilty of crimes and when the dogs of war are released, then many horrible things happen (Ethnic cleansing, tit-for-tat murders, sieges etc). I suggest starting with Edward Herman’s indepth analysis of these events. Again no one claims that the government of Milosovic was saintly pure but probably not the nationalism that we hear from Trump, just because of the simple fact that keeping Yugoslav territorial integrity was the government’s policy.
Absolutely, all Milosovic wanted to do was cleanse Jugoslavia of undesirables. Get rid of any Slav but a Serb one, encourage whatever means for the chetnik/nationlist hordes to purge Jugoslavia for the purity of a greater serbia. That is why he spoke about serbs and serbia, because he wanted a Jugoslavia minus the undesirables. Pawe? Thanks for your history lesson. I feel so ‘cleansed’.
Let’s consider some issues with this narrative. I’d like to use the case of Georgia as an intro:
Condoleeza Rice visited Georgia in July 2008 directly before Georgia moved on South Ossetia:
http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/west-marches-east-part-two.html
In addition, U.S. military contractor trainers were recently arrived in Georgia, days before Aug 7:
Senators Graham and Biden and Lieberman immediately moved to travel to Georgia within a week after the attack and the Russian response:
The U.S. also immediately transported Georgian troops from Iraq back to Tbilisi, which must have required some pre-coordination, you’d think:
[end]
Point being, I think Peter Maas is the preeminent voice of neoliberal Clinton-Bush-Obama policies in alliance with Pierre Omidyar here at the Intercept. And, if this was the 1990s, with limited Internet access, gosh, I bet Assad would be the new Milosevic, wouldn’t he? Just like Saddam was the new Hitler. But why isn’t the House of Saud in the same boat? Why are some evil dictators protected?
Seriously, who do you think you’re fooling?
Marvelous photosymbiosis
I am so happy to see that others also note that this article is just another neoliberal opinion. Milosevic was cleared years after his death. Please. This just keeps Americans eager to go into new wars to remove new ‘thugs’!!!
You have restored my faith in humanity with this post photosymbiosis.
Nice name there, Camp Bondsteel. ;)
Turned up this, looks interesting:
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/22/world/europe/how-the-saudis-turned-kosovo-into-fertile-ground-for-isis.html
The most astonishing thing about that story, really, is that the NYTimes allowed it to be printed.
Same happening in Ukraine.
@photosymbiosis You going to cleanse Albania and finish the job your hero Milosovic started, to solve the problem?
The paranoia is fueled up by those that will use you and turn back on you as soon as they are done with you.
You are looking for enemies at the wrong place.
If the Serb-Natiolists were truly concerned about the spread of Islamism, using ethnic cleansing is the wrong way to go about stopping it. Once you target a group, you wind up radicalizing them. Under marshall Tito, long standing ethnic strife was avoided and unity was empasized. Then with his passing, people like Righteous Milosovic was singing, ‘You lost that ethnic hatrid feelin’, bring back that racist feelin’ oh yeah!’ So prior to the ethnic cleanisng path, I doubt that that there would be radicalized Albanians or whathaveyou. Once Albanians or whatever are targeted for cleansing, funny how they start resisting.
The point is, the ones who instigated the breakup of Yugoslavia were most likely external actors backing their favored candidates who would ensure they controlled the region. If you look at Croatia, Sebia, Kosovo, Bosnia, etc. you see all kinds of outsiders coming in and provoking the situation. The resulting effort to pin all atrocities solely on Milosevic are pretty ludicrous when viewed from the historical angle.
As TYR (below) stated: Milosevic was cleared.
the only thing that really matter, if and only if you are not related to Trump’s orange @ss or hairdress to any extent, is “how persuasive” your points are …
RCL
Wow, RCL. How persuasive. I suppose you’re not interested in facts. Not that facts are everything. But they’re certainly 95% of what matters. Politically-illiterate? Or only philosophically? From the article: “Comparisons of political leaders are of limited usefulness because no two are exactly alike — they bring to mind Tolstoy’s line about unhappy families, each is unhappy in its own way. Miloševi? was whip smart, disciplined, and he wasn’t a narcissist in the way of Trump. He didn’t have a lot of public meetings, his face wasn’t plastered on Serbian media, and he spent most evenings at home with his wife, a hard-line professor named Mira Markovi? who was also his principal confidante. And no matter what Trump does, I don’t believe the United States is heading for the kind of violence that Miloševi? knowingly steered Yugoslavia toward.” Hair and other body parts? This is what you refer to as a persuasive logic?
As someone who has also lived the Balkan history during and before the years described in this article – not in the capacity of a visiting westerner, but in that of a resident native – I completely agree with lulemali’s comment below. Milosevic was and Trump is a fake populist, using discontent to advance the agenda and hegemony of themselves and their inner circles and enablers. While many circumstances differ, the playbook is the same. What happened to Milosevic and Yugoslavia is history now; what will happen to Trump and the US remains to be seen. It may come as a surprise to many outside of the former Yugoslavia that before 1991 the vast majority of Yugoslavia’s citizens would laugh at the idea of a civil war and disintegration of their country into pieces.
Similar article to this one here: http://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/januaryfebruary-2017/is-donald-trump-americas-milosevic/ “Milosevic was an opportunist. I doubt he planned to lay waste to his country and die in a cell in The Hague. He merely followed the logic of the ethno-nationalism he unleashed.”
Bernie is on a CNN debate right now defending buying untold billions of dollars of goofballs every year for fake, marketing invented ‘diseases,’ so that Americans in the stranglehold of Obamacare never can afford treatments for actual, infrequent maladies.
“Slobodan Milosevic was vilified by the entire western press corps and virtually every politician in every NATO country. They called him “the Butcher of the Balkans.” They compared him to Hitler and accused him of genocide. They demonized him and made him out to be a bloodthirsty monster, and they used that false image to justify not only economic sanctions against Serbia, but also the 1999 NATO bombing of Serbia and the Kosovo war.
Slobodan Milosevic had to spend the last five years of his life in prison defending himself and Serbia from bogus war crimes allegations over a war that they now admit he was trying to stop. The most serious charges that Milosevic faced, including the charge of genocide, were all in relation to Bosnia. Now, ten years after his death, they admit that he wasn’t guilty after all – oops.
The ICTY did nothing to publicize the fact that they had cleared Milosevic of involvement in the joint criminal enterprise. They quietly buried that finding 1,303 pages into the 2,590 page Karadzic verdict knowing full well that most people would probably never bother to read it.” http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/01/the-exoneration-of-milosevic-the-ictys-surprise-ruling/
Great reference. Looking more like a worldwide divorce in progress between Globalists and Nationalists. Seeing as how wallstreet ‘growth’ thieves have out grown their skin and shed it in the US, they need to lay their eggs elsewhere for their surrogates to hatch.
Thank you TYR
Great piece.
Translation:
I’m not just an English major writing articles. I travelled and have seen something. I even met one authoritarian in person, even if it was some party apparatchik who never got his shit together.
Now I understand everything and I am able to make broad psychological evaluations of every so-called leader in the world, but, out of convenience, I will skip authoritarians whose policies agreed with mine.
Brilliant, Tony!
// __ FOX Sports: Bill O’Reilly interviews President Donald Trump before Super Bowl LI | FOX SPORTS
youtube.com/watch?v=74DAI2hr9Kk&t=130
~
…
O’Reilly: Putin is a killer.
Trump: … lots of killers. There are a lot of killers. We’ve got a lot of killers. What, do you think our country is so innocent? (2x)
O’Reilly: I don’t know of any government leaders who are killers.
Trump: Well, … take a look at what we’ve done too? We have made a lot of mistakes, too. I’ve been against the war in Iraq from the beginning
O’Reilly: …, but mistakes are different, then …
Trump: We have made a lot of mistakes … OK? but a lot of people are killed. So, a lot of killers around. Believe me!
O’Reilly: Alright! Let’s talk about Mexico …
~
// __ Styxhexenhammer666: What, You Think Our Country is So Innocent? Quote of the Century
youtube.com/watch?v=a29R1uarvMs
~
RCL
// __ MSNBC LIVE 2/6/17 Retired general: Trump confused American values
Former Gen. Barry McCaffrey on Monday said President Donald Trump’s recent comments about Russian President Vladimir Putin may be “the most anti-American statement” ever made by a commander-in-chief.
~
Putin:
youtube.com/watch?v=JwSD7CriLx8&t=45
1) is running an oligarchy
2) kills people abroad and at home:
3) imprisons journalists
4) takes away business, property
5) shares 4 with his former KGB agents
6) invades and seizes Crimea
7) invades Eastern Ukraine
~
1) OK, how could you define USG? They have used so many terms trying to do so!
2) USG doesn’t? Or, is the ratio of locals to foreign killings what bothers you? USG has definitely killed way more people in total! Oh, no wait! USG is just “freedom-loving” them!
3) it seems Russian journalists have enough of a spine to create so much trouble to be killed. Seth Rich and other 4 influential members of the DNC were found dead in the most questionable circumstances within a very short period of time, Michael Hastings had a very unfortunate car accident, elite hacker Barnaby Jack, Sarah Kershaw, … and many more other people were killed by Putin, too.
4) actually the gringo business system is so advanced that you don’t have to take away business, property you actually give it away to people in schemes depriving the proles of business, property and life for good in some sort of financial enslavement
5) and we, the proles, are very happy you are not sharing your profit with Putin’s KGB buddies, who use off shore tax heavens in Panama, why should you if you have Delaware right in the U.S. instead!
6) Crimea was the only “invasion by invitation backed by a referendum of a jurisdictionally autonomous people” that has cost zero lives (yes, that was right 0 casualties or lives (Now, this is totally new concept, probably “freedom-loving” gringos should learn a few things about invading people from Russia!))
7) and unfortunately Victoria Nuland ran out of cookies while feeding crazy @ss neo-Nazi Svoboda party morons in Kiev. She didn’t have enough to give some for the ethnic Russian people living in Eastern Ukraine. It seems. Probably they don’t care much about cookies.
~
RCL
I think “America” will never be able to pay crazy orange @ss Trump the favor of helping them get their minds out of their own @ss for a change.
Now, all of a sudden, journalists care about “fact checking what politicians say”. Truly amazing! But, will journalists ever use their supposedly higher mental and verbal prowes in a smart way? As of late people seem to be shocked about the intrinsic semantic dissonance in substantive phrases such as “truthful hyperbole” and “alternative facts”.
// __ Kellyanne Conway on Donald Trump’s “Alternate Facts”
youtube.com/watch?v=ZeONzGnOmss&t=4m3s
~
Clinton sympathizers, still at loss for losing “their election”, have lately even turned to good old George Orwell:
// __ Sales of George Orwell’s 1984 surge after Kellyanne Conway’s ‘alternative facts’
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/jan/24/george-orwell-1984-sales-surge-kellyanne-conway-alternative-facts
~
Great! Who on earth would have predicted that just two words cobbled together by Conway would make a nation lose their silly TV addiction (gringos spend (1/4) of their waking time watching TV) and for once do something a bit more edifying for their minds! Of course, that comes with risks and unsuspecting side effects. They may notice the little-fart irrelevance of that J.K. Rowling’s “Trump is worse than Voldemort” comparison.
Actually, Obama was the king of “Alternate Facts” and his administration was plagued with such disease. How on earth could a “constitutional lawyer” who sat his black @ss in law school for 12 years consolidate and improve on such things as: “laws which interpretations are ‘secret'”, officiated by “secret judges”, in “secret courts”; and surveillance that greatly surpasses Zamyatin “We”, Orwell 1984 and Huxley “Brave new world”, as well as the stasi’s and KGB’s wildest, wettest dreams.
// __ Obama: ‘Nobody Is Listening to Your Phone Calls’
youtube.com/watch?v=KVY3mq6B-5w
~
// __ Ron Wyden’s exchange with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
youtube.com/watch?v=nsmo0hUWJ08
~
Assange has been illegally kept under house arrest since June 2012, supposedly based on sexual assault allegations whose victims have repeatedly pointed out the Sweden government/police made up the whole thing in order to suck it up to USG, but then they get angry with “Russian hackers working for ‘killer’ Putin” for undeniably giving them yet plenty of many more reasons to ponder about how corrupt their “Royal Bitch” was. Such “alternative facts”!
Thank you Conway
RCL
And once his pack of ignoramus, cannibalistic sheep has turned on him? Will they suddenly be a different kind of sheep? No. They will merely go back to lying in wait for the next “Great White Hope” to (hopefully, for real this time) make “America great again”. That is not a good outcome.
A left wing progressive talking about violence. Peter that is rich. More nonsense coming from you clowns, smh. Trump is shaking up the elite and they are scared their world is coming down on them. He isn’t playing ball and you idiots aren’t smart enough to take on Trump. He will eat you for breakfast.
“Trump will be undone when the democratic resistance deepens and the voters and party that brought him to power turn on him.” So what? Undone? When? There is NO chance that we make it, unless we get organized – yesterday! A coup is shaping sooooo fast – looking to be real, in my opinion. Nobody will be able to sit this one out. Even “little old ladies”, couch potato cable addicts – even the oval office occupiers, themselves, who will become very paranoid, as more of us citizens suddenly wake up, together in unison.
Out here in Arizona, back during the Bush crime family governance era right after “Katrina”, there was a very large horseshow-sized arena built a few miles from the state penitentiary in Florence. It was surrounded with two 10 ft high, double razor wire and barbed-wire fences. It forced a vision of a prison camp not unlike “Hogan’s Heroes” TV sitcom. with a central viewing tower. It had suddenly shown up on the road to the prison. THAT made a believer outa me. This was in the early 2000’s, during the heyday of conspiracy theories that flew around – like WE were one of the art installations at the Banksy’s “Dismaland”, “Bemusement Park”, in England last year.
Point. At best, we working people are in deep shit – but as this article might ask, will our “democratic resistance” overcome a real, for reals, genuine coup? IN TIME before:
Standing Rock. Looming and grave weather-related destruction of major services, communications and food supplies, (People in large metropolitan are trapped there, without outside help.) Narcissistic fascist white supremacists, more and more emboldened. I’m afraid to go any further. Rogue …….
Now comes a ‘so-called’ journalist who writes about a subject he knows as well as any of us do. But he begs us to accept that he ‘knows’ him well enough to foist his theory about him upon us because of his belief that he knows another man who, he thinks, says the same things. How many more of these absolutely ridiculous stories, written in denial and desperation, even craziness, are we to accept as ‘journalism’?
this comment is a great example of spouting non-sense to spread doubt. Shut the fuck up and take it back to brietbart/info wars you loser
I seem to recall that the Clintons unleashed al Qaeda on the Serbs and Roma, slaughtering them, because they wanted to create a socialist state?
I appreciate the work Maass has done in the past, but suggest he read Brian Alexander’s book:
Glass House: The 1% Economy and the Shattering of the All-American Town.
WTF? I’m writing this from ex-Yugoslavia where I live since birth and I’ve never seen such a load of nonsense as your first sentence (and most of the comments above).
Regarding those who follow blindly because of their “incapacity to think” (as Hanna Arendt said of Eichmann). Says Fromm,
“Why is man so prone to obey and why is it so difficult for him to disobey? As long as I am obedient to the power of the State, the Church, or public opinion, I feel safe and protected. In fact it makes little difference what power it is that I am obedient to. It is always an institution, or men, who use force in one form or another and who fraudulently claim omniscience and omnipotence. My obedience makes me part of the power I worship, and hence I feel strong. I can make no error, since it decides for me; I cannot be alone, because it watches over me; I cannot commit a sin, because it does not let me do so, and even if I do sin, the punishment is only the way of returning to the almighty power”
Elsewhere he said
“But if thought is to become the possession of many, not the privilege of the few, we must have done with fear. It is fear that holds men back—fear lest their cherished beliefs should prove delusions, fear lest the institutions by which they live should prove harmful, fear lest they themselves should prove less worthy of respect than they have supposed themselves to be. “Should the working man think freely about property? Then what will become of us, the rich? Should young men and young women think freely about sex? Then what will become of morality? Should soldiers think freely about war? Then what will become of military discipline? Away with thought! Back into the shades of prejudice, lest property, morals, and war should be endangered! Better men should be stupid, slothful, and oppressive than that their thoughts should be free. For if their thoughts were free they might not think as we do. And at all costs this disaster must be averted.” So the opponents of thought argue in the unconscious depths of their souls. And so they act in their churches, their schools, and their universities.
Fromm, Erich. On Disobedience: ‘Why Freedom Means Saying “No” to Power
This is what i would call mainstream journalism. You can do better Peter.
I read as far as the bogus “quotation” from Milosevic. That’s not what he said, and that’s not the context in which he said it. Either you know that and you’re deliberately lying, or you don’t and you haven’t done even basic fact-checking, you’re just writing some post-truth bs in the service of disgusting propaganda. The Intercept really needs to tighten up its standards.
“It wasn’t inertia that caught up with Miloševi?”
It was those war criminals Bill Clinton and Mad Albright that caught up with him and helped destroy Yugoslavia and then Serbia.
“And no matter what Trump does, I don’t believe the United States is heading for the kind of violence that Miloševi? knowingly steered Yugoslavia toward.”
Is this meant as a joke?? The United States has been the world leader in violence long before Milosevic became president, let alone Trump. I disagree with much of your article, but this quote is as laughable as it is ignorant.
Coincidentally, this morning, reading a 1999 New Yorker article on Kosovo by Michael Ignatieff, noted the same: these bozos are two peas in a pod.
“…they just want you to succumb to doubt” is the important insight here. This is why these vengeful and conspiratorial mindsets are never challenged for their blatant psychosis.
Hence, Trump only needed a greedy press and corrupt Democrat party to get elected. Easy- peasy.
However, 40% of Trump voters supported Bernie as well. So just like in the Balkans, enough of solid Trump supporters should know they’ve been conned to turn the tide.
But that just leads us back to a corrupt Democrat party and CNN, et al.
Fuck.
I’m with you – fuck.
Trump presents us with a bleak future where the entire establishment is razed to the ground so that America the Great can rise up. Exactly how does that play out?
I for one prefer gridlock and predictable politicians who are corrupt instead of a demagogue destroyer of societies. Pick your poison. I prefer to sleep easy at night and not worry about going to war over some stupid tweet.
As someone who has lived the Balkan history during and before the years described in this article – not in the capacity of a visiting westerner, but in that of a resident native – I find the description of Milosevic super excellent, and the summarization of the historical context alright. Whatever the Hague’s results, they don’t change an iota the horrendous reality that the balkan people experienced as a result of Milosevic’s mastermind.
Your judgment is selfish.
What could you possibly know about the Serbs, and their lives, in Croatia, Bosnia or at Kosovo?
You don’t feel like one, you are good for yourself
All nationalists are not racial nationalists.
All racists are not nationalists.
Donald Trump is a nationalist.
The article suggests that from the above premises one can conclude that Trump is a (white) racial nationlist but this doesnt follow from the fact that Trump is an American nationalist. There’s a reason Trump got 1/3 the Hispanic vote and higher percentage of the black vote than Romney despite the later’s overt courting of the former. The author assumes (presumably) the reason relates Hispanic and Blacks internalized oppression, self loathing or pure ignorance but it relates to one thing: American nationalism. America First.
“Have Trump” (Tactical) & “Bernie” (Strategic). It’s written in the stars. Matter of time.
https://www.google.com/?q=%22a+special+tool+for+special+needs%22+and+%22have+trump%22+and+%22bernie%22&gws_rd=cr&ei=JUuaWPKwD8WzaeiwmIgM
Thank you for sharing your experience. Most people think of genocides as occurring only in Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, but no nation is immune from this power game. It comes as part of acts of revenge, so the same crises occur on every level, too. Character defamation, and even romantic attachments can turn into family genocides when the two people have different goals, and the relationship devolves into acts of revenge.
Learning to recognize the games as they devolve is important. Mankind is actually facing a global genocide now that came as the result of the preemptive strike on Iraq. Ripples of effects have gone out to draw in every person on the planet in some way. We need to spread the word about how to end genocides, because the existing international structure has proven it cannot end or prevent wars and genocides.
To stop a genocide, someone must stand up to say stop. England is addressing this with the Chilcot Report, but the United States is facing a devolving crisis with the schism in our government.
A plan for an international government is being debated, and it is the solution to this crisis. The first step is an Exit Strategy for Iraq, which leads to the creation of an international court system so disputes between nations are resolved in court rather than the battlefield. People in 85 nations now support the plan. It is based on the US Constitution and the cooperation of nature, and it has the capacity to create a sense of equality in the world and it will guarantee to every person on the planet our inalienable rights now granted to Americans under our Constitution. People who have been dragged into a genocide lack their liberty, so an institution that guarantees to every person his or her rights, and has the application of the principles to make it a reality, will help to end a genocide.
The “global” genocide was there before the strike on Iraq, and unfortunately will be there as long as mankind exists. It was Iraq itself that mass murdered Kurds in Northern Iraq and there was a genocide in Libya, Syria under the regimes of dictators. We’ve ignored the facts and now that the attacks occur in Europe and the US it is all of a sudden a “Global” genocide. Forgotten about Rwanda, Guatemala, Nepal, Sudan? All combined significantly outnumber the so called “genocide” related to the Iraq war.
Glad that another T.I journalist has his eyes-wide-open to how this latest leader is propelling the north-american nation towards internal genocide. A truly open usa_naziland oppressing its citizens dissent & demonstrations as things to be ignored & labelled irrelevant is quite backwards yet these are only the start of the dark-times for you lot.
The rest of the world looks on in disbelief at how with a change of power. The previous rules & governance can be usurped towards a totally different stance against agreements with the international community. President trump looks up towards the isreali-scumbags for inspiration at how they demonize ‘others’ and just ignore the gasps & dismay of outsiders towards its own pernicious plans for the enslaved occupied lands its stolen.
A good thing that’s become open knowledge now is that the E.U. knows this american leader wants europe to fall apart & be dismantled. So that they can send in more CIA-scum to cause havoc & mistrust amongst neighbouring nations. So that they can manipulate & terrorize for the greater evil of usa_naziland. Finally europeans have learnt openly that they cannot trust north-americans!
Prophecy come True: Is this not the complete description of “Donald the Demon!” (DTD)
1 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
6 For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
7 Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth… ~2 Timothy chapter 3
Prophecy come True: Is this not the complete description of “Donald the Demon!” (DTD)
Regards,
A Voice Crying in the Wilderness
May Trump suffer the same fate of Milosevic and Karadzic….
oh, and *hi FBI*
I’m incredulous you can excrete an article like this without any reference to the fact milocevic was acquitted by the Hague of the charges he faced.
You paint him as a complete liar, when he was vindicated in his accusations that the west’s charges were outright fabrications.
No need for nuance and fact when you’re cartooning an ogre, eh?
“The Trial Chamber of the Karadzic case found, at paragraph 3460, page 1303, of the Trial Judgement, that ‘there was no sufficient evidence presented in this case to find that Slobodan Milosevic agreed with the common plan’. The Trial Chamber found earlier in the same paragraph that ‘Milosevic provided assistance in the form of personnel, provisions and arms to Bosnian Serbs during the conflict’.”
Far cry from innocent. That you spout off such things demonstrates your ignorance of his involvement and events.
What did you expect from him? To ignore slaughter over Serbs by the fascists and mujahideens?
Does Peter Maass speak Serbian?
He was most certainly not acquitted. http://www.aljazeera.com/amp/indepth/opinion/2016/08/slobodan-milosevic-hero-160823124808287.html
Ah, the usual idiocy from Al Jazeera, part of the wahhabi franchise.
I find John Pilger vastly more credible, both on track record and on message: http://johnpilger.com/articles/provoking-nuclear-war-by-media
lol. Idiocy from an entire organization vs John Pilger. LMAO!
I know, right? Highly credentialed independent journalist vs state sponsored rag with an axe to grind. Who we gonna believe..?!
I second Andrew’s opinion. Maass’ article is a delusional exercise in self-importance, combined with a prose typical of warmongers (à la Jonathan Freedland and other corporate- and fascist-friendly propagandists) and a murderous disregard for historical accuracy. The ICTY absolved Milosevic as reported by John Pilger, who is one of the last few credible, unflinching journalists. Pilger cites Carla Del Ponte, a former prosecutor at the ICTY, stating she was pressured to keep quiet about NATO. Also, Edward S. Herman of Manufacturing Consent fame (Chomsky credits him with most of the work) has challenged the widespread assertions of genocide in Yugoslavia. Now, I’m not saying Milosevic is some sort of saint but please, let’s not make all sorts of crass generalizations just because we need to write a column once in awhile. How about doing some actual reporting and telling us something we don’t already know?
I doubt if the base of the gop will turn on Trump. The republican establishment has and will continue to turn on him, but will not go the impeachment route. I don’t fear Trump any more than I feared Obama as the opposition that mattered is in play. That is the government employees in most agencies and the courts.
As for the opposition to Trump on other side. One establishment democrat feared that the radical nature of the Trump regime will cause the democratic base to itself become more radicalized. The insider was making a point that opposition to Trump must travel the path set up by the democrats and it could get out of their control. I think the opposition will become that cliched snowball going down hill, and out of party control or co-opting.
No impeachment. Trump will declare his work ‘done’ within the next 18 months and resign, giving the reigns to Pence.
The workers turn on him? Yes. The Party? We’ll see. If they do, it won’t be because they’ve had enough of tyranny and violence. It will be because they’re afraid for their own careers.
And it is going to be extremely ugly.
I voiced this sentiment in the past eighteen hours.
Thank you for your perspective, Peter Maass, it rings true to my ears.
Thanks, appreciate it.
You are welcome.
Peter, take a look at this article:
“The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague has quietly cleared the late Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, of war crimes committed during the 1992-95 Bosnian war, including the massacre at Srebrenica.
Far from conspiring with the convicted Bosnian-Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, Milosevic actually “condemned ethnic cleansing”, opposed Karadzic and tried to stop the war that dismembered Yugoslavia. Buried near the end of a 2,590 page judgement on Karadzic last February, this truth further demolishes the propaganda that justified Nato’s illegal onslaught on Serbia in 1999.”
Does this proceed? It is an article by Pilger (http://johnpilger.com/articles/provoking-nuclear-war-by-media)
No doubt Milosevic was accumulation of rethoric and certainty, but aren’t they all? As says Chomsky, any power will protect itself… But did you get access to this ICTY veredict?
An interesting comparison, which you, Peter, are highly qualified to make, having had the opportunity to meet with Milosevich and see his handywork first hand. Personally, though, I prefer another comparison, explored in today’s SZ interview with the historian Timothy Snyder: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/timothy-snyder-wir-haben-maximal-ein-jahr-zeit-um-amerikas-demokratie-zu-verteidigen-1.3365852. For those of you who are Trumpian and thus eschew foreign languages, the article contains links to some equally interesting pieces appearing in english.
What did Adolf Hitler teach you about Benyamin Netanyahu?
There’s another message here which the author might not find so congenial.
Yugoslavia was an artificial agglomeration of tribes divided by language, ethnicity, and religion – “diverse” in modern parlance. Though one can certainly argue that Serbs, Croats, Slovenes etc. have far more in the way of shared history and culture than a white Iowan Christian pig farmer and a Nigerian Muslim taxi driver in NYC. The country was held together by a flimsy ideology and, sure enough, the centrifugal forces of history and base human instincts won out in the end.
Milosevic, the wars, and the massacres might not have actually been inevitable, but neither did they come out of nowhere. I see great risk in the path Western countries are on; it didn’t begin with Trump and it sure won’t end with him.
There’s another message here which the author might not find so congenial.
Yugoslavia was an artificial agglomeration of different tribes, divided by language, ethnicity, and religion (“diverse,” in modern parlance). The component peoples had little in common with each other – though, one can argue, far more in the way of shared culture and history than a white Christian Iowan pig farmer and a Nigerian Muslim taxi driver. Yugoslavia was a fiction held together by flimsy ideology, and sure enough the centrifugal forces of history won out in the end.
Milosevic and his authoritarianism, the war, and the massacres may not have been inevitable but they sure didn’t come out of nowhere – and neither did Donald Trump.
I don’t know what is the problem with all you people at The Intercept. The Muslim people are definitely not bad people, but you guys continue to project them as devils. For many centuries they have proved that they are excellent at their work. A small group of them, with some help from their shadowy sponsors, have miraculously fought off large organized armies for decades. So they should stay where they are and look after themselves and their old and infirm and injured folks. I don’t understand why they are bent upon venturing out here at the cost of their own dignity and freedom. Peter Maass and Robert Mackey can also go join them and then come back after a year and relate to us their experiences in their wonderful lands.
You either haven’t read the piece, you are commenting under the wrong article or you think Serbs (orthodox Christians) are Muslims?
I dont know which of those three it is, but your comment makes you look foolish/ill informed …. you could say “Trumpian”
The article is in the wrong place, not my comment.
Hilarious! Thanks.
A comment worthy of Karadži? himself.
Peter Maass – why don’t you apply your same awesome powers of historical analysis (recent or notso) to Hillary Clinton and see what you come up with???
Good question.
I actually thought about this kind of remark while listening to Washington Journal this morning.
Who is the greater danger to this country?
Who is in power?
What is the purpose of your false equivalency, other than to try to distract people from the parallels of Trump and other delusional autocrats/lying leaders of state.
Uh, she lost. Sooo…why are you so interested? Or is it because Maas is writing about Saint Donald of Trump without the drooling hagiography that you wish?
Interesting choice of words of words from a gut who like to BROADSIDE his targets from the shadows… do T-bones make you drool?
“He provoked other republics to secede from Yugoslavia, and this led to years of warfare and war crimes.”
This is a huge simplification of the ex-Yu break-up.
The basic conflict was an economical one, originally between Slovenia and Serbia, mostly between the neoliberal or the socialist future for the entire ex-Yu.
Croatia had its nationalistic movement since the early 70s, for a greater autonomy and the separation of Croatian and Serbian language:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croatian_Spring
It is a childish oversimplification to ignore all these greater historical processes and put the whole war only on Miloševi?, even if he was a dictator and Serbs did commit massacres and Srebrenica in Bosnia.
Karadži? was not a puppet of Miloševi? (which is why there was a great conflict between them in 1993), and this article greatly ignores the real problems of Croatian Serbs and Bosnian Serbs, their victims in the civil war, and their distinct political interests from those of Serbia itself.
This is the same type of oversimplified reporting that got the Americans into Iraq.
Thank god we have internet and more nuanced voices like Greenwald today.
“This is the same type of oversimplified reporting that got the Americans into Iraq.
No. Comparing truncated accounts that are intended to and sufficient to make a larger point isn’t akin to the outright lying and not reporting at all that brought us the Iraq War and the subsequent fiasco’s in the Middle East.
The outright lying was made possible by the previous oversimplification of the Iraqi sociaty, and the narrative that Saddam controlled everything, including even Al Qaeda.
In a similar narrative Sloba was an all mighty dictator controlling even Serbs outside of Serbia.
The larger point of the artical is also misleading.
Serbia and USA can hardly be compared (Serbia is much smaller and more influenced by foreign forces).
The internal disobedience to Miloševi? of the most powerful men in his circle, the working class and the head of the secret service was not enough to bring him down until he had the support from the
foreign forces as the “guarantee of the Bosnian peace”. He had to be kept in power in preparation for the Kosovo war, permitting him to inject a billion into the 1997 campaign (when Serbia was officially under the sanctions, and could not sell even a screwdriver):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telekom_Srbija
Serbian example screams that a dictator remains in power while convenient to the greater and more powerful forces.
I’m not sure you can conclude on the possible ways of bringing Trump down based on the Serbian example, since he is certainly not going against the American elite.
You seem to be wanting this article to be more than it is. No one I know, including the author here, directly makes the claims you say are being made.
The conclusion drawn by Peter seems apt: “Trump will be undone when the democratic resistance deepens and the voters and party that brought him to power turn on him.”
I’m already seeing some signs of this: many that I know who voted for him have second thoughts; and the GOP is as narcissisticly selfish as Trump is, but actually wields more power (they control the purse strings) with regards to governing and implementing policy, and will shut down even their leader if it suits them.
Although Trump may not be going against a large swath of the American elite, there are signs it’s not as monolithic a group as they’ve been portrayed (Cuban, Whitman, Gates, Koch’s as examples).
Even with those rich folks against Trump it won’t be their efforts alone that bring Trump substantive grief – it will have to be be the voters, channeling their dissatisfaction using marches, boycotts, and other means to tell their representatives that enough-is-enough.
The agenda to push the President as a religious bigot trumps the need to be truthful and transparent. Years from now this article will be quoted as the truth about the dying days of Yugoslavia.
BTW, all wars are economical. There is no other reason to commit troops to kill neighbors.
Economical? Surely you are being sarcastic, for wars are the greatest possible waste of resources, not to mention lives. Hence their popularity among capitalists, as they offer unbounded opportunities for consumption.
To the victor belongs the spoils. That’s not coined by me.
Destruction of what does not belong to you is not necessarily waste. And there is a lot of potential economic benefit if you can insulate yourself during the war and emerge out of it in the winning side.
Grow up.
The ‘General’ is off his meds.
So, war is a business decision.
Up in the tree where you live it isn’t. Down here it is.
I agree that I had to simplify some complex things (the nature of journalism, alas), and it’s very true that Yugoslavia was heading towards trouble before Milosevic took control of Serbia, etc., but I’m very comfortable with the points I made and emphasized. Appreciate your input–there’s certainly a longer conversation we could have another time.
My grandfather always taught me that lies are complex, and truth is simple. So when you are trying to “simplify some complex things” it basically implies that you are trying to make some parts of what is essentially false appear to the readers as true.
Alas, it is really unfortunate that “the nature of journalism” has universally become thus, thanks to the contribution of good-natured folks that find it difficult to stay simple.
The moral of the story is that it is incumbent on grandfathers to educate their grandkids properly, else we may again get another Number 44 with deprived upbringing.
Very good analogy. Their aren’t many Democrats in gov’t LEFT, TO oppose Trump’s policies, too much lying to themselves going on right now about their virtue & popularity. They seem to have one strategy, the ‘opposition from day-one’ thing.
In Yugoslavia it was, ” …the working class and the security services, that delivered the decisive blows.” This strategy will take too long in this United Chaos of Opinions… unless the cool and flippant Trump makes a unrecoverable fumble. Look, many many Democrats still think Obama’s presidency was successful as hell?! The “fifth estate” is not checking, but has become an extension of the government’s political parties.” Hope & Change” are working a toxic poison stronger than any EPA regulation can restrain.
Mr. Poet. Right on! The climate crisis is now in full bloom and its continuance the fault of the current occupiers of our oval office. They own it. History will be very, very uncharitable, let’s say, to these brash, deeply flawed sociopathic banksters.
You need to watch Dutch documentary about Milosevic’s trial. DO better research and read a book or two.
First do no harm , book would be a good start.
https://www.amazon.com/First-Harm-Humanitarian-Intervention-Destruction/dp/0826516440/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1486496645&sr=8-6&keywords=First+do+no+harm
With articles like this you are discrediting all the good work of Intercept
Yes – a lot like when Mona tries to comment on Northern Ireland.
I’ve read a lot of books on Yugoslavia. Oh, I wrote one too ;) https://www.amazon.com/Love-Thy-Neighbor-Story-War/dp/0679763899
Good now try writing one about German, Vatican and UK/US involvment in this tragedy. What were above special forces doing there before conflicts started and what happened to Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia before war started.
Miloš, where is your ‘accumulation of data’ coming from? Emir Kusturica? Also, I’m curious to know: what have you been reading these days: Dobrica Cosi??
I’m sure your book on Yugoslavia sucks as much as this article does.
The wall is white, and the Srebrenica massacre never happened :-D
greatersurbiton.wordpress.com/2016/07/27/srebrenica-genocide-denier-david-n-gibbs-praises-donald-trump-on-foreign-policy/
Donald trump is part of the Loonie Tune Brigade. . . . lying for convenience
What a disgrace of an article.
Everyone that’s at all familiar with the Balkans will tell you that Milosevic was caught in the chain of events he could not brake. The US was spending money on breaking up Yugoslavia since Reagan.
Milosevic was incompetent for sure. Confused between socialist ideology and Tito’s pragmatism he lost Russia by supporting the coup on Gorbachov and he lost the West by not allowing a NATO base in Serbia.
His actions prevented the EU and NATO from devouring the rest of Eastern Europe in one decade. Similar to Balkans role in the Second World War – Barbarosa.
All International Rules were broken in breaking up Yugoslavia and creating Kosovo. But now Bondsteel is there to stay for next hundred years.
The Intercept neglected to write an article on the first US President who openly admitted US committed war crimes but found it appropriate to write an article on Milosevic of all people.
Credibility lost.
By the way, I voted for Jill Stein and would have voted for Bernie. Just to be clear.
You, Bond, yes you, lost all credibility with your second-last sentence. Your inclination to cast your votes in ridiculous fashion exposes shallowness of thought and futility of action. Rest of what you have written I completely agree.
Hercules,
As long as we agree on facts.
My personal choices not to vote for Hillary or Trump diminish my credibility in your opinion. I can live with that.
The U.S. government had Milosevic killed. Dead men tell no tales, as the old ones have it. You’re right about this article. It stinks.
Kind of a shitty article making an odd comparison. It’s easy to bash Milosevic as this shill does, but there are two sides to this story. Maybe this author was heartened by the American’s bombing of Belgrade? Most likely.
This is a very peculiar article which leaves out the fact that the
opposition to Trump which is most likely to eliminate him
is NOT some supposed democratically driven resistance
(because that is a delusion in the faking U$A), but it is
much more likely to be driven by the extremely rich international
Devos-ian set of predators who run the show through both
the democrat and republican faking political operatives and
they do not like Trump’s bad-mouthing their pet projects whereby
they are consolidating their global power through wars and
devious financial schemes. To them, Trump is not corrupt enough.
Sure, he is dangerous because he is a vain loudmouth who has
reinvigorated nationalistic myopia and bigotry, but he has also
indicated a distrust for those schemes which are central to the
more powerful criminal manipulators of global financial corruption.
If anyone still thinks the democrats of the faking U$A have the
ability to challenge their Devos-ian masters and the
NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP, NATO machine of global inequality,
then you are as vainly delusional as Trump.
Nah. Trump is plenty corrupt. He’ll get paid off bigtime. Everything he says is BS. Reformer? Hah!
I never said that I believed Trump is much more than a vain
promoter of bigotry. Your assumptions are an indication of
a lack of comprehension.
I am pointing out the fallacy that the democrats will be
part of a good solution. They and the republicans are incapable
of challenging the corrupt manipulating elites who have
no allegiance to anything except their own wealth.
You underestimate the extent of the Devos-ian corruption
which sees Trump as a bit of an annoyance and would have
rather had Hillary Clinton in the White house to continue
her insider huckster established warmongering for their
precious private profits. Now they will have to train Trump
to be a bigger fraud
or they will get rid of him (with the help of the suckers in
the democrat version of neo-fascism}.
I agree with you that democratic institutions will not be responsible for Trump’s demise, but disagree with the contention that it will be brought about by any internal forces. The parallels between the US in 2016 and Germany in 1933 are chilling, and I doubt that anyone in the US will attempt to bring Trump down before it is too late.
It seems to me that one of the reasons for the demise of democracies has to do with increasing entropy. In the early days of a republic, the founding spirit is rampant, and the populace is eager to build public institutions and support. As time goes by, the founding generation and their offspring die out, replaced by ever more complacent, ever less engaged generations of citizens, which lays the ground work for the subversion of the principles upon which the republic was founded by the greedy few. Eventually the system drifts into political chaos, corresponding to a high entropy state.
Note that I am not claiming that political entities obey the Clausius statement of the second law of thermodynamics. Just that they might.
I’m shocked that the Intercept would publish this mendacious hit piece lumping together Milosevic and Karadzic, in view of the facts, long known by fair-minded and serious journalists, easily accessible to everyone who cares to know in the Wikipedia article:
Miloševi? was indirectly exonerated in the 2016 ruling concerning Radovan Karadži?.[133] Paragraph 3275, pp 1235 of the judgment[134] reads: ” Points of discussion included (i) their opposition to the secession of BiH and the desire to remain part of Yugoslavia; (ii) opposition to the creation of an Islamic State […]”. Paragraph 3460, pp. 1303 reads: “With regard to the evidence presented in this case in relation to Slobodan Miloševi? and his membership in the JCE, the Chamber recalls that he shared and endorsed the political objective of the Accused and the Bosnian Serb leadership to preserve Yugoslavia and to prevent the separation or independence of BiH and co-operated closely with the Accused during this time. The Chamber also recalls that Miloševi? provided assistance in the form of personnel, provisions, and arms to the Bosnian Serbs during the conflict. However, based on the evidence before the Chamber regarding the diverging interests that emerged between the Bosnian Serb and Serbian leaderships during the conflict and in particular, Miloševi?’s repeated criticism and disapproval of the policies and decisions made by the Accused and the Bosnian Serb leadership, the Chamber is not satisfied that there was sufficient evidence presented in this case to find that Slobodan Miloševi? agreed with the common plan.” The paragraph makes reference to footnote 11027, pp. 1303, which reads, “The Chamber notes that the relationship between Miloševi? and the Accused had deteriorated beginning in 1992; by 1994, they no longer agreed on a course of action to be taken. Furthermore, beginning as early as March 1992, there was apparent discord between the Accused and Miloševi? in meetings with international representatives, during which Miloševi? and other Serbian leaders openly criticised Bosnian Serb leaders of committing ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘ethnic cleansing’ and the war for their own purposes.” The judgment also indicated that the support the Bosnian Serbs received from Belgrade was curtailed because of the opposition of Milosevic’s government to ethnic cleansing. Paragraph 3292 of the judgment pp. 1243 reads “Given the difference of opinion between the Bosnian Serb and the Serbian leaderships, in 1993 and 1994, the FRY reduced its support for the RS and encouraged the Bosnian Serbs to accept peace proposals. In this regard the FRY leadership was on notice about some of the extreme views held by the Bosnian Serb leadership and they could not support those views, including with respect to ethnic cleansing.”
Thank You for this great posting.
Thank you for writing this. Minor quibble, in the main article I disagree with the comment about narcissism. Both of them, Trump and Miloševi? are dangerous narcissists in their own way.
@MS, your comments are also very insightful about narcissism and abuse in relationships. as a country, we need to wake up and stop taking the abuse…
Great article, as the Russian trolls confirm. Trump will be undone like any authoritarian and dictator—it’s just a question how much of the world and the country he will take down with him.
Like any authoritarian dictator? Obama claimed the legal right to kill or detain anyone without judicial oversight. Why are liberals always pot to call the kettle black?
Every government does that. Every religion does that. Most all societies have had rules on who gets to live and who dies. Hypocrisy didn’t start with liberals or conservatives, they are just different flavors of B.S. used to control people.
A brief, to the point, comment with much insight. Thank you.
Your continued insistence that “liberals” are missing the hypocrisy, especially among readers here, completely misses the mark.
As we saw with the turn-out this past election, the reasons why the Democrats (not a liberal party anymore) lost out out was precisely because many “liberals” denounced at the ballot box their neoliberal policies, and either voted for a third party, voted for Trump, or didn’t vote at all.
As the author notes: “Trump will be undone when the democratic resistance deepens and the voters and party that brought him to power turn on him.”
It’s this democratic resistance that will ultimately undermine Trump. When a society reaches Miloševi?-ian or Trumpian delusions of self-righteousness that still fails to meet the needs of most of its citizens is when they become vulnerable. It won’t be as quick or as easy as most would like, but it is inevitable.
It makes sense, given that your past and present are epistimically closed, we would find more epistmic closure in your perception of the future. I am sure you were one of those philosopher kings that assured us of Hillary’s victory.
“I am sure you were one of those philosopher kings that assured us of Hillary’s victory.”
This is further proof that if you do read anything here, you understand nothing. I’ve never advocated for Hillary’s victory in anything – the opposite, in fact.
You remind me of another commenter here, CraigSummers, who types a lot of things, but only for the purpose of confirming his own bias.
“And no matter what Trump does, I don’t believe the United States is heading for the kind of violence that Miloševi? knowingly steered Yugoslavia toward.”
That’s true Peter. Obama has already armed Africa to the teeth through AFRICOM. He has unleashed Jihadist armies that he armed through the rat-line to destroy Syria, who later declared a Caliphate. Before this he bombed Libya into the stone age, which is now a failed state run by Jihadists or corrupt Western puppets.
Obama armed Nazi groups two months before an election in the Ukraine and now paramilitary groups are roaming that failed state. A state after Obama overthrew, he gifted with Hunter Biden, who magically was placed on the board of Ukraine’s largest gas company. What a wonderful peace Laurette! Overthrow a country using Nazi groups and then place your VP’s son in a position of power.
Peter the Propagandist is right … in the same way a stopped clock is. The United States is not ‘heading for the kind of violence that Miloševi? knowingly steered Yugoslavia toward’ — we have already surpassed it by an exponentially horrifying factor.
Considering the US has always been expansionist, capitalist, and imperial in its foreign policy since always, none of that is really surprising.
The US is the bastard son of the British Empire. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Yes, it is depressing most of our wars are to control the x-colonies of France, Italy and Britain. But imperialism is all Trump’s fault … it just started a few weeks ago.
It truly is a pleasure to find people with minds and wit on any comment column.
huh? …
Thank you, I wish the Intercept published someone like Glenn Ford of Black Agenda Report — that would stir things up.
You are always a little behind, a little to the left or right, a little wobbly. Your posts are almost always a one note whistle or hum.
If you paid attention to what the journalists write, instead of insisting on your agenda in each and every misguided post, you would understand that most of TI (founded after the Ed Snowden revelations) has not approved of Mr Obama’s expansionist agenda in the realms of war and the secret state – and in many areas, but I’m not broadening the areas of discussion.
.
Nobody is intimating Trump is the beginning of something new in warfare.
On what most of us seem to agree is the fact that the results of this election, which are playing itself out daily are from an grossly unqualified, wholly unprepared, utterly incapable – emotionally and psychologically – man who is in control of the levers of power in the most important country in the world.
Somebody else’s past may not hew to prologue, but history is all we have in addition to a sixteen month campaign and a two point five week old presidency.
A hopeful lesson, perhaps.
I’ve been confused most of my life because of the cognitive dissonance we’re expected to exercise in order to live our “civilized” lives.
Men like Trump or Milosevic are insane. Clinically, legally, medically, whatever version you like, they are insane. That’s not strange. There are always irrational fools pushing their delusions on others in every society, just look at religion or politics. The head scratcher for me is the people who try to reason with these insane people. There is no reasoning with them. They are incapable of rational thought. They have figuratively gouged out their eyes. They insist on bringing you down to their level of stupidity and then beat you with experience. It’s how it has always worked.
The big question is, why do reasonable people continue to try and cooperate with these insane individuals? It’s like the woman in an abusive relationship insisting to the cops after yet another black eye from “falling” that her husband is a good man who will change. Who is she really trying to convince? Nothing is changing, she’s just used to suffering and is too afraid to make a change in her life.
That’s where we are as a society. Too afraid to change even though our abusive relationship will kill us. Just like the alcoholics who insist they don’t have a problem, they’ll just cut down a bit, maybe switch to beer on Fridays, they maintain denial because they’re too afraid to wake up from their delusions.
That’s Mr. Insane to you, son.
Is it insanity, or simply a different version of the psychic split that enables people to look away from what or who they are so that they can continue to function? It was very present and obvious during the Obama administration, but easier to take. Someone today, maybe Assange, said that Obama was a wolf in sheep’s clothing and Trump is a wolf in wolf’s clothing. Which one is closer to the dreadful truth?
In my opinion, it’s a cultural issue. Modern societies, and by modern I mean the past 3000-5000 years of known human history, have been promoting insane, anti-social, hyperindividualistic, ego-driven behavior as valuable assests to their societies. The people of the agricultural revolution were those people. They were the proto-business and religious leaders. The kinds of people who created ideas of personal ownership, work, war, etc. Their culture has spread worldwide from its modest beginnings in the fertile crescent, killing off any tribe or peoples that oppose their vision. A good modern example would be European colonization of the Americas and the genocide of the native people who couldn’t “convert” to the new world order.
I’m not saying those behaviors are wrong per se since that stuff is relative. But it is no surprise people have been struggling in modern societies with pretty much the same problems for known history. The culture creates its own issues, especially when that culture thinks itself above its biology and the laws of nature.
Karma, evolutionary selection, nature, whatever you want to call it, will continue working with or without us on the planet. Some people are aware and enjoy life for what it is, and others are blind and will live a life of self-imposed suffering.
Well, I do appreciate and agree with a lot of your line of thought. What you wrote reminded me of Rousseau’s writings and, not so strangely, of Huckleberry Finn and his avoiding “sivilizing” at least until he had settled his own mind. (Not comparing you to either, just the association I made which is usually relevant to very little.) My own way of understanding lately has been nature at work processing a confusing mutation.
His speech at the 600th anniversary of the Battle of Kosovo, 1989, on that battlefield, may have been decisive in his career, and a proximate cause of the mayhem that followed. Certainly it caught a national narrative and turned it to his purposes.
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/spch-kosovo1989.htm
Interesting speech, so he was saying that even if the Serbs failed to secure independence in that battle they bloodies enough noses to prevent a genocide? Turning a moment of national defeat into a victory via propagandistic lensing?
That was what he was going for, and that’s what got his career, and the troubles, moving. The battle, where the Serbs were overrun by the Turks and occupied for 500 years, was a central part of the Serb narrative.
Kosovo and Metohia was the credle of Serb Kingdom, its central point. Kosovo Battle was won by Christians, Serbs, and Ottomans went back to Turkey not to return for decades, almost a century. Notre Dame Church rang bells since july of 1389 in honor of Serb victory over Ottomans, for centuries, it became a tradition. But, Serb Kingdom was so weakened by the effort to repel Turks, that it never have bounced back, so Turks have not met any resistance when they returned to Balkans.
After ww2, and Croat led communist occupation of Serbia helped by Allies (on request of communist leader Tito, Allies bombed Serb towns and cities which were resisting communist occupation!!), Croat Communist Dictator Tito forbade return of Serb refugees to Kosovo (expelled by Albanian nazi collaborators), and allowed immigration of hundreds of thousands Albanians to Kosovo and Metohia, giving them free houses, land…Albanians became majority in Kosovo only recently, since expulsion of Serbs from Kosovo continued after ww2 up until that speech of Milosevic…up until that moment, Kosovo Albanians controlled its police force, its Justice system, ruled Kosovo as it was a part of Albania, oppressing Serbs living there, pushing them to leave…You two, along with this presstitute author, do not have a clue what you are talking about….
2 corrections: ruining the economy based on “alternative facts” (eg that Wall Street doenst need regulation) is NOT a “slit of hope”;
and Trump cant be overthrown- if ur analysis is correct, Pence mayb more like Milosevic: a penchant for civil society destruction without any charisma; and then perhaps Trump would be more like Kradzic after all…
I believe Trump’s brodude, Steve Bannon, is the one to watch. Bannon is anti-left, anti-right, and anti-establishment. Is he a Marxist? A Leninist?
“In January 2016, for instance, Bannon was quoted by the Washington Post’s referring to him as ‘virulently anti-establishment':
‘We call ourselves ‘the Fight Club.’ You don’t come to us for warm and fuzzy,’ said Stephen Bannon, Breitbart’s executive chairman and one of its guiding editorial spirits. He adds, ‘We think of ourselves as virulently anti-establishment, particularly ‘anti-’ the permanent political class. We say Paul Ryan was grown in a petri dish at the Heritage Foundation.’
In 2013, Bannon said that he didn’t believe that the United States had a functional conservative party:
‘We don’t believe there is a functional conservative party in this country and we certainly don’t think the Republican Party is that,’ he told a gathering of conservatives in Washington, D.C. ‘It’s going to be an insurgent, center-right populist movement that is virulently anti-establishment, and it’s going to continue to hammer this city, both the progressive left and the institutional Republican Party.'”
http://www.snopes.com/bannon-leninist-destroy-state/