Srdja Trifkovic
General Pierre-Marie Gallois, a prominent critic of the Western policy in the Balkans, died in Paris on August 23 at the age of 99. As noted in my Chronicles obituary, he was the last in a long line of European geopolitical thinkers—from Clausewitz and Jomini to Liddell Hart and Guderian—who've combined superbly honed analytical skills with hands-on soldiering.
Arguing against the building of an Islamic shrine near New York’s Ground Zero, former U.S. vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin linked the mosque project to “building a Serbian Orthodox church at Srebrenica killing fields where Muslims were slaughtered.” Mrs. Palin is right to oppose the Ground Zero mosque. It is unacceptable, and detrimental to her cause, to invoke false parallels in the process, based on events of which she knows but very little.
An English romantic poet has said that we should not revisit the haunts of our youth, and that we should be especially careful in avoiding those that elicit sweet memories. Being on the wrong side of fifty, sipping my morning espresso in Belgrade's Knez Mihajlova street, I realize how wrong he was: as we near the end, we increasingly cherish the sights, smells, sounds, and memories of many decades ago.
For some years now Boris Tadić and his cohorts have been looking for a way to capitulate on Kosovo while pretending not to. The formula was simple: place all diplomatic eggs in one basket – that of the International Court of Justice – and refrain from using any other tools at Serbia’s disposal. (For Serbian scroll down to the end)
My Meaning of the Myth elicited a strange diatribe on AltRight. My reply focuses on the curious fact that a visceral Islamophilia is shared by the multiculturalist Left and some on the self-styled radical Right. It is different in motives but similar in symptoms and consequences.
Surging Islam, Western crisis and the myth of "Srebrenica" make a seamless whole. Islam is a collective psychosis seeking to become global, and any attempt to abet it is to become part of the madness oneself. The Western peddlers of "Srebrenica" are therefore worse than criminal; they are mistaken.
On July 11, the three constituent nations of Bosnia-Herzegovina marked the 15th anniversary of “Srebrenica.” The name of the eastern Bosnian town still evokes different responses from different communities, however. In the West, in the meantime, the complexities of the issue remain reduced to a simple morality play devoid of nuance and context.
As presented at AIU Roundtable in Kiev, June 17, 2010. (To read this article in Russian and Ukrainian scroll down to the end of the English text.)
Ukraine faces serious security challenges from its southwestern neighbor. They reflect a remarkable continuity of Romania’s geopolitical objectives, regardless of the nature of its domestic regime. They require carefully calibrated policy responses from Kiev.
The U.S. Department of State human rights report on Croatia, released on March 11, states matter of factly that Jasenovac was "the site of the largest concentration camp in Croatia during World War II, where thousands of Serbs, Jews, and Roma were killed” [emphasis added; a daily scene from Jasenovac, above]. This remarkable claim is the exact moral and factual equivalent of asserting that “tens of thousands” of Jews and others were killed in Auschwitz or Treblinka.
Ukraine's decision to say a final "No" to NATO should be a model for Serbia to follow. The government in Belgrade is still intent on seeking NATO membership, and encouraged to do so by various ill-informed and not necessarily well-meaning Americans. Such advice is contrary to Serbia’s interests and detrimental to peace and stability in the Balkans. [Russian translation of this article is at the end of the post]
