Who Supports Israel?

Question: Of the people living in Bosnia, the Serbs and the Bosnian Muslims, who would you say supports Israel?

Answer: The Serbs, of course. Republika Srpska supports Israel. In fact, according to the article, the Bosnian Muslims are virulently anti-Israel, pro-Hamas. I guess they haven't forgotten that the terrorists of the Middle East helped them commit atrocities in the wars of the 1990s, even if the West conveniently has.

One Acquittal, More Convictions In UN Trial

Well, I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the UN war crimes tribunal actually acquitted a Serb accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity: Kosovo trial clears Serbia leader.

Serbian ex-President Milan Milutinovic has been acquitted on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Kosovo by a UN war crimes tribunal.

[...]

The court found that the 66-year-old, who led Serbia from December 1997 to December 2002, had no direct control over the Yugoslav army. His release from custody was ordered.

Of course, guess whose fault everything was? Slobodan Milosevic's, of course! I mean, isn't Slobodan Milosevic the source of all evil in the modern world? Isn't he? Come on, I can't hear you...

Judge Iain Bonomy pointed the finger at then-Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, saying: "In practice, it was Milosevic, sometimes termed the 'Supreme Commander', who exercised actual command authority over the [Serb army] during the Nato campaign."

The bad news is that the five other Serbs with whom Milutinovic was tried were all found guilty and sentenced to prison terms.

Five former top Serbian officials were found guilty on some or all the charges relating to the 1990s conflict. Their sentences range from 15 to 22 years.

[...]

His [i.e. Milutinovic's--my addition] five co-accused were convicted for what the judges described as a "broad campaign of violence directed against the Kosovo Albanian civilian population".

Ex-Yugoslav deputy prime minister Nikola Sainovic, ex-Yugoslav army general Nebojsa Pavkovic and former Serbian police public security service chief Sreten Lukic were found guilty on all counts and were each sentenced to 22 years in jail.

The charges included deportation and forcible transfer, murder and persecution.

Former Yugoslav army chief of staff and defence minister Dragoljub Ojdanic and ex-Yugoslav army general Vladimir Lazarevic were found guilty of deportation and forcible transfer and sentenced to 15 years.

All five will be given credit for time already served in the tribunal's custody.

All I have to say is that the day this kangaroo court came into existence was a sad day for justice indeed.

Stupid Headline Of The Decade

As I was trying to relax and calm down after my rather frustrating day, I came across this headline on the BBC and it has only served to upset me greatly: Serbs ordered to pay for mosques.

I am so incredibly sick of this rubbish, this misinformation and disinformation, about Serbia and the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s. Are the Bosniaks going to be made to pay for the buildings they destroyed? What about the countless Serb civilians they murdered in cold blood, often in brutal ways? Are the Albanians going to be made to pay for the Orthodox churches they've destroyed in Kosovo? Is NATO going to be made to pay for the destruction in Serbia from the 1999 bombings? I rest my case.

What is a crime against humanity is how an innocent people, the Serbs, are continually defamed and humiliated, their leaders indicted and tried for false crimes in kangaroo courts, while the true criminals are portrayed as victims and their leaders walk free even to this very day. That is the true crime that has been committed here, yet people continue to believe the lies propagated by our leaders and the Western media. It's so incredibly ridiculous and stupid, and it makes me so angry.

When It Rains, It Pours

Wow, what a singularly bad week this has been. First off, yesterday my parakeet William died. He had been sick for some months with cancer, but it was still rather unexpected, especially since he had such a good day on Wednesday. The photo below is William on some of my books in the sitting room in June 2008, during happier times.



And to top everything off, today some horrible, stupid person broke into our house and stole my mum's computer. All the files she had on there are gone now. There's just nothing like throwing away two thousand dollars, is there?

This week was supposed to be good--I finished up my midterms. I had only one exam this week and I think I did really well on it. I had a bad cold last week and I really started feeling better this week. But, needless to say, this week turned out to be pretty bad.

Suspects In Politkovskaya Murder Acquitted

I'm sure a lot of people reading this will remember Anna Politkovskaya, the journalist who was murdered on October 7, 2006. How could we not remember her, after how the Western media played up the whole thing and shoved it down our throats (I am not saying her murder was not terrible, because it was, only that the media was less than honest with us in their reporting of the case). Today, according to the BBC, three men who were accused of aiding in her murder were acquitted. It's an interesting article, and I think worth quoting in its entirety.

A Russian court has acquitted three men accused of aiding the murder of investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya in October 2006.

The court in Moscow handed down "not guilty" verdicts on brothers Dzhabrail and Ibragim Makhmudov and ex-police officer Sergei Khadzhikurbanov.

A third brother, Rustam, is accused of the actual murder and remains at large.

Russian prosecutors said they would appeal against the verdicts delivered by the jury.

Ms Politkovskaya, a fierce Kremlin critic, was shot in her apartment building.

The brutal murder of the reporter, who worked for the small-circulation Novaya Gazeta newspaper, highlighted the risks run by journalists in Russia. [Emphasis mine--N]

She was the 13th journalist to be killed in a contract-style killing in Russia during Vladimir Putin's period as president, according to the US-based Committee to Protect Journalists.

While her death shocked the international community, it did not register widely in Russia.

'Shame'

According to Russia's Itar-Tass news agency, the jury took two hours to arrive at its verdict.

It also acquitted a former FSB (Federal Security Service) agent, Pavel Ryaguzov, of an extortion charge relating to the case.

Investigators said last summer they believed that Rustam Makhmudov, 34, was hiding in western Europe.

They have not named or arrested anyone suspected of "ordering" the killing.

The three brothers come from Chechnya, where Ms Politkovskaya did some of her most damning reports into alleged abuses by Russian security forces. [Emphasis mine--N]

Reacting to Thursday's acquittals, the chairman of the Russian Union of Journalists, Vsevolod Bogdanov, said he was "ashamed".

"I have this feeling of incredible shame - at what level was the investigation conducted that the jurors delivered this verdict unanimously?" he asked, speaking to Interfax news agency.

I have put the most interesting parts of the article in bold. First off, the admission that Novaya Gazeta was (and still is) a very small newspaper is very rare in the Western media. Many news stories gave the impression that Novaya Gazeta was a newspaper with a huge circulation and that's just simply not true. I am not trying to make a political point out of this--I am simply stating a fact that is indisputably true and interesting to note, especially the fact that it has been much distorted.

Second, the admission that at least two of the acquitted come from Chechnya is quite impressive. In the Western media one of the commandments by which they report says, "Thou shalt not cast the Chechen people in a bad light." So I am quite impressed at the inclusion of this fact in this article. And yes, here I am trying to make a political point because I am fervently anti-Chechen.

Anyway, it would appear that this murder will be one of many to go unsolved, though of course many people in the West have their own ideas about it, which they have acquired through indoctrination by the Western media much careful thought and analysis, as well as a wealth of knowledge about Russia.

I Support Serbia

Today is a sad day indeed. One year ago today, the pseudo-state of Kosovo declared its independence. I am ashamed to say that my country recognises this false state that was artificially and criminally made possible over a course of many decades.

And of course, the Albanians are gleefully celebrating the first day of their "independence", while the Western media is gloating because this is just one more insult to Serbia.

Albanians in Kosovo are marking the first anniversary of the province's unilateral declaration of independence.

After unsuccessful negotiations between Belgrade and Priština which lasted nearly three years, on this day in 2008, Kosovo declared independence.

At a special ceremonial session of Kosovo’s assembly on Feb. 17, 2008, the Declaration of Kosovo Independence was adopted and proclaimed by Kosovo Prime Minister Hashim Thaci. The plan for a unilateral declaration of independence had been announced just the day before.

Kosovo President Fatmir Sejdiu said today that Kosovo’s unilateral independence declaration a year ago brought to life the dreams of many Kosovo generations. Speaking at a ceremonial session of the Kosovo assembly, Sejdiu said the independence declaration was the most important decision in the province's history and that it had given Kosovo the status of a subject in international relations.

Read the rest here.

On Valentine's Day, Serbian president Boris Tadic said that Serbia will never recognise an independent Kosovo, which is good (of course, Tadic is ultimately a complete moron, due to his pandering to the EU). Still though, at least he's right on at least one important issue.

I personally do not recognise Kosovo as independent. Kosovo is Serbia--it is, in the words of the late Slobodan Milosevic Matija Beckovic, a poet and academic, "the equator of the Serbian planet."¹ It is a very important part of Serbia, and its independence will not bring anything good to the Balkans.

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

1. From Milosevic: The People's Tyrant by Vidosav Stevanovic, trans. Zlata Filipovic.

Correction: it was the poet and academic Matija Beckovic who said the quote I used, not Milosevic himself. I have rectified the mistake.

Photo credit.

Hate Crime Legistlation: Subjective, Not Objective

I haven't really mentioned The Brussels Journal very much on this blog, which is strange, considering that I consider it to be one of the best websites out there. Back in the end of January, Thomas Landen wrote an excellent article about hate crime legislation and how absolutely ridiculous it is. Some of the most important excerpts (though the whole article is important, of course):

The introduction of hate crime legislation brings a subjective element into the legal system. Where typically Lady Justice is blind and only takes objective facts into consideration, disregarding the position and the opinions of those committing the crimes, she may now apply the law unequally and selectively. Our societies subsequently risk losing an important principle of Western law, viz. equality under the law. Europe has already gone further down this road than America, but the U.S. is following fast in Europe’s tracks.

[...]

Prosecutors and judges are no longer interested in what actually and objectively happened. Instead they focus on the intentions which they claim motivated those who acted. No longer is Lady Justice blind to anything except the facts; she is blind to the facts, but claims to be a clairvoyant about everything else.

Last week , the White House website announced that President Obama and Vice President Biden intend to “strengthen federal hate crimes legislation, expand hate crimes protection by passing the Matthew Shepard Act, and reinvigorate enforcement at the Department of Justice's Criminal Section.” In the past, Europe was in the habit of imitating bad American examples (never the good ones). Now it seems the policies of “Change” in the U.S. mean that America will imitate Europe’s bad examples....

Read the whole thing--it's excellent.

I've always had a problem with the phrase "hate crime" anyway. I mean, as opposed to what? A "love crime"? People don't go around committing crimes against those they love--so isn't every crime therefore logically a "hate crime"? And hate crime legislation does not just introduce subjectivity into what should be an objective practice, but it is offensive as well. There is no difference morally between murdering someone just to murder a person and murdering someone because one does not like that person's race. Murder is murder, no matter what motivates the perpetrator.

Lastly, hate crime laws are just excuses to curtail free speech. They are ridiculous and go against our legal principles, namely that everyone is equal under the law. We would do well to get rid of them once and for all.

Happy Birthday, Charles And Abraham

Today's a big day. On this day exactly two hundred years ago, both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born. They were two of the greatest men of the era, and arguably in history. Though they both made completely different contributions (Darwin to science, Lincoln to preserving the United States), both of their ideas and aims have been subsequently perverted by people trying to further their own agendas, political or otherwise. (Note to Mr. Obama: You're not Lincoln, not even close, so stop trying to be.)


Charles Darwin, of course, is the man who made one of the most invaluable contributions to science: the theory of evolution. Even today, evolution is undermined and attacked--one of the more ridiculous claims I've heard is that Hitler justified his theories by natural selection, which is a blatant lie.


Abraham Lincoln was the president at the time of the Civil War. He wanted above all the keep the Union together, and in that he succeeded. He freed the slaves in 1863 (yes, all of you Democrat-voting blacks out there, it was a Republican who freed your brethren). When the war was over and the country needed him most, he was murdered, becoming the first president in our history to be assassinated.

If it weren't for these two great men, the world might be quite different today. Let us honour them for their invaluable accomplishments.

Lincoln photo credit; Darwin photo credit.

Autism Not Caused By Vaccines

I'm a huge fan of vaccines. I think they are one of the greatest accomplishments of modern medicine. That's why I sometimes get very angry when people refuse to vaccinate their children, especially on grounds that they fear negative effects from the vaccines. It's not fair to the rest of us who get our vaccines--our immunity largely protects those who are unvaccinated.

In a very important court ruling today, it has been said that autism has not been caused by children's vaccines.

Thousands of parents who claimed that childhood vaccines had caused their children to develop autism are wrong and not entitled to federal compensation, a special court ruled today in three decisions with far-reaching implications for a bitterly fought medical controversy.

The long-awaited decision on three test cases is a severe blow to a grass-roots movement that has argued -- predominantly through books, magazines and the Internet -- that children's shots have been responsible for the surge in autism diagnoses in the United States in recent decades. The vast majority of the scientific establishment, backed by federal health agencies, has strenuously argued there is no link between vaccines and autism, and warned that scaring parents away from vaccinating their youngsters places children at risk for a host of serious childhood diseases.

The decision by three independent special masters is especially telling because the special court's rules did not require plaintiffs to prove their cases with scientific certainty -- all the parents needed to show was that a preponderance of the evidence, or "50 percent and a hair," supported their claims. The vaccine court effectively said today that the thousands of pending claims represented by the three test cases are on extremely shaky ground.

Of course, I feel sorry for any parents with autistic children, as well as the children themselves. But in the case of these parents trying to get federal compensation, I just feel angry. I think these parents are blaming their kids' medical problems on something that is not to blame, as well as capitalising on people's sympathy in hopes of getting free money. And that's just not right at all.

Birds, On A Wire, In Russia

Courtesy of Getty Images, via Daylife.

These birds are on a wire in Red Square, which I think is one of the most beautiful places in Russia. No, I have not been there, but I desperately want to go. The building in the background is St. Basil's Cathedral (a picture of which is currently my desktop wallpaper).

Red Square in Russian is Красная Площадь (Krasnaya Ploshad). Красная means "red", but a more archaic meaning is "beautiful", and it is from this that the name of the square is derived (it was originally applied to St. Basil's Cathedral, but then was extended to the whole square). In modern Russian, the word for beautiful is красивая (krasivaya)--even today, one can see the similarities between the two words.

Cheney: 'High Probability' For Terror Attacks

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has said what I think has been intuitively obvious for some time now, but apparently was not intuitively obvious to fifty-two percent of Americans who voted in the 2008 presidential election: that a big terror attack is in our near future and that Obama's policies make this more likely.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney warned that there is a “high probability” that terrorists will attempt a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack in coming years, and said he fears the Obama administration’s policies will make it more likely the attempt will succeed.

In an interview Tuesday with Politico, Cheney unyieldingly defended the Bush administration’s support for the Guantanamo Bay prison and coercive interrogation of terrorism suspects.

And he asserted that President Obama will either backtrack on his stated intentions to end those policies or put the country at risk in ways more severe than most Americans — and, he charged, many members of Obama’s own team — understand.

Best quote from the article, and possibly the best quote I've heard in a long time:

“When we get people who are more concerned about reading the rights to an Al Qaeda terrorist than they are with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans, then I worry,” Cheney said.

I worry, too. In my view, these terrorists our sworn enemies--not enemy combatants, as we're not fighting a very conventional war against them--and therefore should have no rights. They have absolutely no right to a fair trial. I say we question them, and when we are finished, execute them. I don't understand all this worrying about their rights under the Geneva Conventions. They certainly don't observe our rights--why should we observe theirs?

'Whitewashing Stalin' On WesternFront America

It is my great honour to announce that my article, Whitewashing Stalin, is published on WesternFront America.