Croatian newspaper Slobodna Dalmacija refused to publish two articles of Croatian journalist Damir Pilić. Both articles have been translated for SouthFront. First article criticizes the US policy in the Middle East and Europe, while other is about the link between the upcoming elections in Croatia and results of research of “Political Literacy of students finishing high schools in Croatia” whose results are worrying to say the least. For example, three-quarters of students who participated in research think that Independent State of Croatia was not a fascist state. It seems that in Croatian mainstream media it is not acceptable to write against the US policy, or something against the “democratic opposition”.
Damir Pilić (PHOTO: fellowship.birn.eu.com)
This article originally appeared at Foum.tm translated by Stevo Marjanović exclusively for SouthFront.
People across the Europe are finally waking up. From Gibraltar to the Urals, from Reykjavik to Istanbul more and more Europeans understand who is working against them. As it happens in mafia blockbusters, the executioner is usually someone very close to victim, in which the victim (Europe) has a lot of confidence. So it is now: the main threat to Europe is not Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, but the one who points a finger at Putin – the United States.
But people are slowly waking up. In doing so, refugees from North Africa and the Middle East are helping them. Looking at this giant river of unfortunate people – the average European has to wonder (and thankfully, it already has beginning to wonder): “Now wait just a minute, how did all this start? Who is responsible for this biblical exodus of the people?”
So, the amateur investigator, a citizen of Europe, begins to ask more questions. Who started the war in Iraq in 2003, which led to the death of a million of Iraqis, all under the false pretext that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction?
Who started the war in Libya in 2011 and killed its leader, Muammar Gaddafi, after whose death to this day Libya is engulfed into flames and chaos?
Who launched the war in Syria against Bashar al-Assad in that same 2011, the conflict that is still going on without ending anywhere in sight, and which has until now killed 200,000 people and created ten million refugees and displaced persons?
Who, then, knocked down multi-ethnic secular regimes of North Africa and the Middle East in favor of Islamic fascists, from which millions of people are now fleeing to Europe? Who falsely promised that they would bring democracy and human rights to Arab youth, when in reality they brought only “death, misery and suffering”? And who, after all, is destabilizing Europe right now?
So our amateur investigator, a citizen of Europe, is wondering and he sees that all the answers lead to one place, which in today’s world is called “the West”, or to be more precise the military fist of the West – the United States .
Although the destruction of societies (that were according to our standards insufficiently democratic, but rather stable) of North Africa and the Middle East has produced millions of refugees whose first waves are now coming to Europe, America distances itself from the effects of this social disaster: the highest officials of the United States, including Secretary of State John Kerry, states that they are willing to accept only a few thousand refugees, and for a year or two, perhaps all one hundred thousand (from the beginning of the war in Syria 2011 only 1500 Syrians have received permission to enter the United States).
Meanwhile, America has started another task whose consequences extremely damage our continent: it tried, and quite succeeded at that, to set us against the mother Russia. Producing false hysteria about alleged Russian plans for an invasion of Europe (hysteria so similar to hysteria about the supposed Iraqi weapons of mass destruction), which in practice serves as an excuse for dragging the American military equipment in Europe, the United States has managed to install fear and Russophobia in a good part of Europeans, which has negative social, political, economic and other possible implications for our continent.
If what our artist Vlado Martek claims is true – that Europe is half America and half Dostoevsky – then the United States tried to separate us from our spiritual half. This is called abuse. The true Europeans will never give up on America, but they sure will neither give up on Dostoevsky, nor Russia.
We can’t be sure what are the goals of US policy, but we feel their effect on our European skin: Europe is becoming weaker and weaker, more vulnerable and more dependent on America. If the geopolitical strategists of Uncle Sam wanted this then they are doing a good job. Evil job, but a high-quality one.
For decades, the citizens of Europe with great appreciation looked across the Atlantic, to their “younger, but stronger brother”. The Europeans remembered a major role of the United States in World War 2, their valuable contribution in crushing Nazism. It is true that the victims of the Soviet Union and the Red Army in World War 2 were greater than anyone else’s, it is true that Tito’s partisans gave a very important contribution to this crucial victory for humanity, but still, we must always bear in mind that Americans honorably dashed when Europe was in trouble.
Besides that war gratitude, for decades the citizens of Europe looked to America as a successful cultural and social experiment that attracted everyone with its “openness to all” (well, everyone except the communists). And especially American films and music for Europeans behind the “Iron Curtain” represented a window into a much more colorful world than the one in which they lived.
And because of that to average European citizen it’s hard to watch as his “younger, but stronger brother” becomes a caricature of what he once represented in the libertarian sense. That is increasingly evident in numerous comments on the Croatian portals, and for the purposes of this article we highlight the following:
“It never came to my mind a few years ago that I will write something against the USA. What country has more beautiful music, like rock and blues, not to mention many others genres, and movies too, it was the land of my dreams. When the US national anthem was played I felt proud. With a heavy heart I realized that their policy is something different from the opinion of ordinary American citizen or a rock star. Through rock music they Americanized the whole world, at least the most part of it. The world would be a boring place to live without American culture. It wasn’t easy for one who loves USA like me to admit that their foreign policy is anti-European and expansionary. ”
The other day in Jutarnji list Miljenko Jergović wrapped it all up: “After the total moral bankruptcy of the United States, almost all the moral capital of the Western world is in the German’s hands.”
Speaking about Germany, there are more and more signs that Chancellor Angela Merkel is starting to wake up. This week she called on the United States to accept more refugees and asylum-seekers. Shame is that she has not seen the light earlier, when the transatlantic brother started its “democratic march” to the Middle East.
Last who will wake up, seem to be a famous professor Ivo Banac, a famous liberal and a democrat who in Jutarnji list tirelessly writes against anyone who dares to publicly point out that America is no longer what it was. Whoever criticizes US imperialism is against democracy, and quite possibly a Putin’s mercenary – it seems that this is the logic that this great liberal practices. Only look at the sentence with which the professor ended his recent article:
“As for us, we can be satisfied that we have removed big and strong states led by Saddam, Assad, Gaddafi…”
Indeed, it is difficult to explain this cold heart. One million dead in Iraq, and our professor is pleased that we removed Saddam. From the country in which all of Africa and half of Europe wanted to work (including many Croatian citizens), Libya has become a country of death, and our democrat has this feel of joy because we got rid of Gaddafi. Two hundred thousand dead Syrians and fifty times as many Syrian refugees and displaced persons, and our liberal is very happy because we are on the path to remove Assad, no matter that after Assad’s death Syria and Middle East would become a true slaughterhouse .
It is worthless, absolutely worthless, reminding people like Banac of the words of Dragana Shoukry – published in Jutarnji list – who these days works around the clock at the forefront of the refugee wave in her hometown Tovarnik, with her Syrian husband Nizar, who are helping the refugees with their knowledge of Arabic:
“As a Croat, I had prejudices for Syria until I met my husband, and his family. When I went there, and when they took me in, Syria has become second country to me. (…) Syria was beautiful, people were living normally without any problems, open to foreigners, they accept absolutely everything and what happened is the impact of a higher power … “
But what worth does the story of Dragana Shoukry has when our Banac knows that Assad is pure evil which needs to be removed so that people in Syria could “live normally without any problem”. It’s touching how our democrat cares for American interests (God knows why), but it’s slightly less touching how in his liberal soul he cannot find even a minimum of compassion for the immense human tragedy caused by the American foreign policy.
But it does not matter that the various people like Banac can’t see. It is important that the citizens of Europe are starting to wake up.