From Journey to Orthodoxy:

Posted by Fr. John on November 19, 2011

More and More People in Czechia and Slovakia Are Giving Preference to the Orthodox Church

An interview with Metropolitan Christopher, Archbishop of Prague and Metropolitan of the Czech and Slovakian lands.

Archbishop Christopher of Prague, Metropolitan of the Czech and Slovakian lands talks about the history and modern condition of the Orthodox Church in Czechia and Slovakia. The talk was recorded in June of 2011.

—Your Beatitude, you chose the path of a clergyman of the Orthodox Church during the time in Czechoslovakia after the famous events of 1968 (“Prague Spring”), and for a number of reasons thousands of parishioners were leaving the Orthodox Church. To be Orthodox at that time was at the least, not considered prestigious. What moved you to go against the current?

—Yes, that was when my fate was decided: I chose the Orthodox theological seminary. I have to admit that it was not my cherished dream to become a priest. I wanted to become a forest ranger, and I also wanted very much to paint icons. I studied iconography with Fr. Andrei (Kolomatsky), a very gifted Russian priest, architect, artist, and tireless man of prayer. At times I would try to paint, wanting my icons to be like his—alive. But it didn’t come out like that. I would complain to Fr. Andrei, and he would answer, “Are you praying?” He himself prayed without ceasing, and that was the most important thing I learned from him. I began my spiritual path with him, and I came to know the mighty power of prayer, the strength of Orthodoxy, which enables a man, hoping in God’s help, to overcome what would seem to be insurmountable. I came to know God’s mercy, how the Lord works miracles. Perhaps it was then that I first had the desire to become a priest, albeit not fully consciously.

I went to the seminary only because no other school of higher education would have accepted me. At the time, in order to be accepted at an institute, one had to fill in an application line about one’s agreement to enter the armed forces of the Warsaw convention on my country’s territory. I was not in agreement with violence. Never. When I heard that in the application for admission to the seminary at the Orthodox theological department of Charles University had no such requirement (but there is, as they told me, a more complicated question—on Holy Scripture), I applied there. This is how, by God’s will, I began my path as a clergyman.

—The Church of Czechoslovakia is currently preparing for the sixty-year anniversary of its autocephaly. Why did the Church of Czechoslovakia receive its autocephaly from the Russian Orthodox Church?

—The first contacts, which became the basis of the friendship between our Churches, go back to antiquity, in the tenth–eleventh centuries, when the recluse Procopius, like St. Sergius of Radonezh, founded a monastery in the forest wilderness not far from the Sázava river, which later became a large, famous monastery. During the time that the Sázava Monastery was active, the monks would go to Kiev, and the monks from Kievan Russia would visit the Sázava Monastery. Each time they would bring gifts of icons and manuscripts to each other… These gifts from the Sázava Monastery are still treasured in Kiev. The Kiev monks in their turn brought a piece of the relics of Sts. Boris and Gleb to the Sázava Monastery, where they were honored with great reverence. One of the monastery’s side altars was dedicated to these saints.

In the eighteenth century, the Russian Orthodox Church also aided our country’s renewal of our Church. For nearly three centuries, Czechia did not have its own government, and was subject to the Austrian Hapsburg Empire. The people were Germanized, and had no rights. No one in the West wanted or was able to help us. Russia was a light, hope, and refuge for the Czechs at that time. Russian Slavophiles supported the Czech and Slovak patriot-renewers both ideologically and materially. With their help, in 1848 the first Slavic conference was conducted in Prague, which placed a beginning of the renewal in Czechia of Slavic culture and language. In 1867, the Slavic conference took place in Moscow, and on the streets of Prague people were singing, “God save the Tsar!”

Russians helped the Czechs afterward, also. They sent money for the construction of Orthodox Churches, and Orthodox priests. One of these was, for example, the martyr for Orthodoxy and faithfulness to Slavicism Archpriest Nicholai Ryzhkov. The people of Czechia honor that man’s memory. The Czechs also received Russian refugees (during the years of the civil war in Russia and subsequent persecutions) as their own brothers. They helped them to establish themselves, to receive education… The young Czech government spent billions on that.

The first head of the Czechoslovakian government formed in 1918, Karel Kramář, was Orthodox. Together with his wife, Nadezhda Kramář Khludova (a Russian aristocrat), he organized the construction of a remarkable church dedicated to the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos in the Olšany Cemetery, which became a haven for Orthodox Russians, and then during the war years, for Orthodox Czechs, who were earlier under the omophorion of the Holy Hieromartyr Gorazd, the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Czechoslovakia who was executed by the Nazis. The Russian priests, primarily Fr. Andrei (Kolomatsky) and Bishop Sergius of Prague, helped their Czech brothers and sisters in Christ, spiritually cared for them, risking their own lives…

The Russian Orthodox Church did much for the Orthodox in Czechia also after the war. During those years, on the territory of the Czech and Slovak lands their existed four jurisdictions. It was necessary to do away with this atomism of the Orthodox Church and place our reliance in the largest Orthodox Church, the Russian Church. In 1946, the Czech Orthodox Church was accepted into the Moscow Patriarchate. The Russian Orthodox Church sent a talented organizer and missionary to Prague, a most honorable man who suffered much, Bishop Eleutherius. He had a gift of preaching from God, and drew to Orthodox tens, later hundreds of thousands of parishioners.

In 1950 the Church of Czechoslovakia already had a sufficient number of the faithful and bishops to receive independence. It even had a theology school. The Church could support and maintain itself, and needed no support from other sources. On November 23, 1951, a statement was signed in the Moscow Patriarchate granting autocephaly to the Czechoslovakian Orthodox Church. From December 18, 1951, after the notification of the heads of the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches of Czechoslovakia, the Orthodox Church exists as an autocephaly.

—During the 1950′s, the Russian Orthodox Church endured a new round of persecutions (the Khrushchev era). In Czechoslovakia, upper echelons of the Communist Party aided the Orthodox Church in a victory over the Uniates. Is it true that this act of the Communists aided Orthodoxy in Czechia and Slovakia?

—The Communists, both yours (Russian) and ours were always enemies of the Church. That the Czechoslovakian party members supposedly helped the Orthodox Church in Czechoslovakia was only their cunning maneuver: to get rid of the Uniates as quickly as possible with the help of the Orthodox. In fact, the Communist only injured the work of Orthodoxy. They shouted about the victory over the Uniates. In fact, there was no victory, only liquidation. You see, the Unia was introduced into the Slavic lands during the seventeenth century, also by force. Therefore, a large part of the faithful in the Uniate churches, under the influence of Bishop Eleutherius’ sermons, joyfully returned to the bosom of the Church of their ancestors, to Orthodoxy. Undoubtedly, all the rest would have followed their example, with perhaps rare exceptions. But during the process of voluntary departure of parishioners from the Unia—it could be said, at its final stage—the Communist bosses inserted themselves, demanded speedy and total liquidation of the Unia. Their methods are well known: prison, exile…

Then, to the Northern Czech border were sent hundreds of Uniate families. Scores of Uniate priests who did not accept Orthodoxy were defrocked. The Uniate leaders, for example, Bishop Goidich, were held in prison cells, and then sent to a concentration camp designated for particularly dangerous criminals. There Goidich died. Of course, all of this had a negative effect on Orthodoxy. We Orthodox know that no such force is a victory. Goidich became a holy martyr for the Uniates, their standard. Unfortunately, we still have not been victorious over the Unia. They call people to their churches through deception. Those who come to them see Orthodox icons, and thinking that they are being baptized into Orthodoxy, they end up in the Unia…

—What was the real reason for the mass exit of parishioners from the Orthodox Church after the events of 1968?

—The aforementioned was the reason, in any case, the main reason, for the mass exit of parishioners from the Orthodox Church. The arrival of Soviet tanks on our streets completed this process. Orthodoxy was always associated with Russia. And those who invaded our country in tanks spoke Russian. As a sign of protest, our people “forgot” the Russian language. It cost the Primate of the Orthodox Church of Czechoslovakia, Vladyka Doretheus, an enormous effort to save the Church from total disintegration…

—Is it true that at the present time, only the Orthodox Church of the Czech lands and Slovakia is increasing in the number of parishioners, while all other confessions are decreasing? What is the reason for this, in your opinion?

—Yes, this is true. The number of Orthodox in Czechia is growing. Many people have come to us from the former Soviet Union. They want to live here. And they bring their homeland with them—the Orthodox Church. But Czechs are also coming to be baptized into Orthodoxy. Our Church attracts people by the absence of negative phenomena in its history—that is, the inquisition and persecution of those of different convictions. To the contrary, the Orthodox Church is a refuge for all the persecuted. That there are many more Orthodox can be seen: all the Orthodox churches are full. On feast days we even have to serve outdoors, next to the church. Meanwhile, the many Catholic churches are empty; at best, concerts are given in them. The Uniate churches are also not at all full. Less than a tenth of the original number of parishioners (in the 1920′s there were 900,000!) are left in the Hussite Church. Around three million parishioners have left the Catholic Church.

—Why is this happening? Why is Czechia the most atheistic country in Europe?

—People ask me about this often. I then answer by telling the history of my much-suffering country, which joyfully received Baptism from the saintly brothers Cyril and Methodius, but later, after many centuries, suffered persecution from the aggressive (at that time) Roman popes and cardinals… Catholicism was instituted by force, by almost the same methods as fascists or communists used. For disobedience—requisition of property and land, exile from the country, and even execution… “Let every father, mother, and child who does not receive Catholicism in fourteen years be exiled from the country!” Such were the orders from the Pope of Rome after the Catholic League’s victory over the Czechs.

At that time, nearly half of the population of Czechia was exiled. Out of 150,000 families, there remained only 30,000. It is apparently understandable, why Czechs did not like Catholicism. Therefore, as soon as Czechoslovakia became an independent country, nearly a million people left the Catholic Church and created the Czechoslovakian Orthodox Church. And our country would have been Orthodox then, had not, as the Russians say, a mess occurred. Essentially, a tragedy: When the Primate of the newly created Orthodox Church, Holy Hieromartry Gorazd, went to America in order to obtain some needed financial means with the help of wealthy Czechs, another pretender to the bishopric, the talented orator Karel Farsky led nearly all the parishioners into his modernist Church, where Jesus Christ was honored not as the Son of God, but as the First Saint, born of marital union. And people believed him… I think that the name of this modernist Church, called Hussite, worked on people’s psychology. Although, Jan Hus himself was not a modernist, but rather went to be burned at the stake for the sake of Original Church of Christ. As years passed, people have figured everything out. That is the answer to why people leave not only the Catholic Church, but also the Hussite Church.

—Czechia is considered to be the most atheist country. It would seem that without faith, all the vices of society should appear. But in fact Czechia is a peaceful country, people are well-wishing, without aggression. One can be out on the streets without fear at any time of the day or night. Everything in Czechia—the construction of houses, the public transportation, the stores, and other places—is designed to be of maximum convenience for people. I remember how amazed I was at the transfer system of the trains… Everywhere, you feel that in everything having to do with relationships to people there is cordiality, warmth, and kind wisdom… Does this mean that it is possible to do without religion, without faith? What is your opinion on this?

—Yes, our citizens’ peace-loving nature and absence, or more precisely, near absence of aggression, you have correctly noticed. That the majority of the population does not number itself amongst any one of the religious confessions is also true. However, the main mass of our people, the Czechs, cannot be called godless. Take, for example, the Church holidays: Christmas, Christ’s Resurrection, and other great feasts. People try to observe the traditions that have taken root in Czechia since long ago, and which were passed down from generation to generation…

Yes, it is very unfortunate that the majority of our citizens do not attend Church services. But does that mean that we can do without the Church entirely? No, of course not. It is precisely thanks to the Church that our people had the happiness of receiving Christianity originally from the very Equal-to-the-Apostles Cyril and Methodius; in place of barbaric cruelty, they began to cultivate such qualities as love of neighbor, gentleness, and readiness to forgive offenses; loyalty and dedication to family and Fatherland, honor of parents, and all the other virtues. It is precisely thanks to the Church, to our great patriots, such as the first president of Czechoslovakia Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, such as the historian and Russophile František Palacký, who were deeply religious men, that our people acquired Christian morals, a Christian view of life. One could say that this very culture instilled by the Church became the Czechs’ second nature. This can also be seen in the mass pilgrimages to holy places and in part through the reverence for Orthodox saints—Martyr Liudmila, Princess of Czechia, and the Holy Passion-Bearer Prince Václav (Wenceslaus).

Thus, in answer to your question, I would again like to repeat that it is precisely due to the Christian religion, the Church, which was Orthodox in our country from the beginning, our people have the traditions of their fathers, and became the people you know, and the whole world knows—hard working and peace-loving, with God in their hearts. And, of course, the Czechs need the Church.

More and more people in Czechia and Slovakia are giving preference to the Orthodox Church. Nevertheless, it is not our task to increase the number of parishioners from for example, former Catholics. Right now it is necessary to unite our efforts to morally strengthen the people, first of all the young people, in order to teach them how to oppose evil, so that, as they say, the sheep would not become goats.

—Will Czechia and Slovakia return to the faith of their fathers, that is, to Orthodoxy? How do you see the future of your Church in the country?

—Return to the original Church of St. Methodius? It is possible. Theoretically. But I don’t normally talk aloud about it. Although I dream of it and pray. I also believe that I am not alone. With the Lord all is possible, and we need to work. After all, the majority of the population is not in the Church. We need to work with them in particular. Our efforts need to be directed against abortions, same sex marriages (although we are against any persecution of such people). We need to explain what the Lord said to us in His commandments: about life, love, friendship, help of neighbor, and about everything good. We need to struggle against evil and violence, against the deception of people…

I am for the one Church of Saints Cyril and Methodius. Then it will be possible to restore moral values, and raise the peoples’ spirituality. And in this was, is, and always will be the strength of the people and the nation.

—Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague died a martyr’s death for Christ’s truth. Their memory lives on not only in Czechia. Your Beatitude, why have they not been canonized as saints?

—Czechs began to venerate Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague as saints immediately after they were burned at the stake. Jerome of Prague was the first to call Jan Hus a saint—at the very Council of Constance, which condemned Jan Hus and which awaited a “statement of repentance” and condemnation from Jerome of Jan Hus. They were venerated for two hundred years. However, after the defeat by the Catholic Leagues at the fatal battle on White Hill in 1620 and the forced Catholicization of the Czech people, the names of Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague were basically outlawed. In 1918, when Czechoslovakia became an independent state, the modernist Church took the name of Jan Hus. The communists called him something of a revolutionary. In fact, he never called for modernism in his sermons, but spoke only about the undistorted, original teaching of Jesus Christ, which was in fact Orthodoxy.

—Does that mean that Jan Hus’s and Jerome’s martyric deaths could be considered martyrdom for Orthodoxy?

—It was precisely of Orthodoxy that they were accused. This was one of the points of accusation of their heresy. However, they considered themselves Catholics and officially were so. Only at the end of the twentieth century did the Primate of the Roman Catholic Church, John Paul II, express his deep regret over their burning at the stake. But he did not go beyond regret. And they both, Jan Hus and Jerome of Prague, died for the undistorted faith, for the pure faith of Christ—that is, for Orthodoxy. Therefore we are completely justified in canonizing them as saints. This has already been confirmed by the Church of Cyprus and the Greek Church. Other Orthodox Churches also support us.

—Your Beatitude, what are the greatest problems facing your Church right now?

—The greatest problem is the lack of space. Did you see what is going on in the Churches? People can barely squeeze in. Many stand outside. We have nowhere to gather, nowhere to receive pilgrims—and they would come to us. Many people would come from Russia, to the relics of St. Liudmila and St. Wenceslaus; they would come to the place where the first Slavic desert dweller, St. John of Czechia, lived.

—It seems you also had a problem with the Sunday school, and with your office? Were you able to resolve them?

—Yes, there were problems. Big ones. We have a very good Sunday school for children. It is attended by several tens of students. But do you know what the children, parents, and we experienced? The owners of the building (the Czech military offices) refused to extend the lease of the building the school occupied. This is after we, the clergy, and the children’s parents had spent so much time and energy fixing up a building that was given to us in a far from optimal condition. We had even set up a house church for the children, which was beautiful, and the children loved it. They didn’t even let us finish the school year…

We had to finish the Sunday school sessions in the Metropolitan’s office. And it is not so easy to get there…

—Is that your office, Vladyka?

—Yes, it was once, and not only mine. Since 1950 this building served as the Metropolitan’s office of all of my predecessors, the Primates of the our Orthodox Church. However, soon after the refusal to extend the lease of the Sunday school, the owner of the building where the Metropolitan’s office is located also refused to extend the lease. The two refusals coincided like that… So during the new school year, the children had to go from place to place. In part, they used the building of a pre-school.

—And you yourself remained, as they say, without a roof?

—Yes. It was a difficult situation. I am grateful to the Russian Orthodox Church, and in part to His Holiness, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, and also to Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the Department of External Church Relations, and the representative of the Russian Orthodox Church here, Archpriest Nicholai Lischeniuk—they helped us very much. Our Sunday school received a non-terminating lease of the building that housed an exhibition complex. True, only part of it; the rest will come in two years. But the Sunday school is already active there. And do you know what is remarkable? The Sunday school is, by God’s will, very near the new Metropolitan’s office.

—So, that means that the problem with your office was also resolved? Are you also renting?

—We received it as our own property. We purchased it. Again I thank the Russian Orthodox Church, and Patriarch Kirill for his material assistance and support.

—Your Beatitude, how is it going with the parcel of land that the government of Prague promised to give you for the construction of such a needed Orthodox Church of the Czech lands and Slovakia, and a Cathedral church?

—They have been promising for a long time now, ten years. They are always on the verge of placing the last dot. We have already prepared the blueprints for the building. The last time, they asked us to wait for the elections. The mayor’s election has passed… But nothing went forward. They are completely silent. They don’t even promise, but they don’t refuse. We will make it happen. It is a pity—because of insufficient space we are losing potential parishioners. Especially young people, who often out of their ignorance end up in sects. Our space is overfilled, while they (the sectarians) have all they need. So the young, inexperienced people think that God is there, in the sect. But have only an appearance, only talk. Sects in Czechia are strong right now. They have money, buildings…

—Tell us, please, about your prospects for the future. About the most important thing.

—Our prospects are the young people—they are what is most important. Look at the children in the Sunday school, what bright faces they have. What will they become? Engineers, doctors, teachers, and perhaps priests? We do not know. But undoubtedly they will be people who are able to tell right from wrong, to become citizens who live according to the laws of God. And that is the most important thing.

—Finally, one last question concerning the interdependence of Czechs and Russians. You, Your Beatitude, well know what true friendship there was between our peoples. Czechs and Russians have considered each other brothers for many centuries. We loved each other. You also know the reasons for the abrupt cooling, even phobia of the Czechs toward Russians, which, alas, still go on. I know that you for your part try very hard to renew the former friendship. Tell us, please, what specifically do you do in this regard, and what, in your opinion, do Russians need to do in order to make this renewal happen?

—Yes, truly, the friendship between Czechs and Russians continued many centuries. [One testimony of this are the huge number of Liudmilas and Viacheslavs (Wenceslaus) found in Russia. —OC.] The events of August 1968 were especially a blow—the Russian invasion in tanks was taken as a crude disregard for our country’s independence. Czechs are particularly sensitive to that.

A friends’ betrayal is the bitterest betrayal there can be. Czechs were dumbfounded, and “forgot” the Russian language. I remember myself at that time, and I was only fifteen. It was very bitter to recognize that our very best friends, the Russians, had betrayed us.

In August, 1968, on vacation in Hungary, I was arrested for the first time: I had written in Hungarian, “Long live Dubček”. The young Hungarians who told me how to write it in Hungarian gave me away. They were strict about that. They held me and then released me, saying that had I been an adult and Hungarian, I would be sitting in prison for twenty-five years.

—Your Beatitude, you said, “the first time.” Was there a second?

—There was a second time, and a third… The second time was in 1969, after a hockey match between Czechs and Russians, that is the Czechoslovakian team and the Soviet Union’s team. We won, and our boyish heads were spinning. I don’t remember what we did, but we found ourselves in a prison cell. We were again released because we were underage. The third time was when I was twenty-seven. I was getting ready to go to Greece for study. They arrested me due to slander that I wanted to flee the country! In those days, they gave five years for that. Vladyka Dorotheus saved me from prison; he quickly collected the documents and sent me to a monastery in Greece… There I learned Greek and graduated from the university. The slander, of course, was unfair—I never wanted to leave, for I love my country very much…

Well, and as for the “Russian occupation”, I quickly understood that the Russians had nothing to do with it. They did not send Russians to us in tanks, but Soviet Kazakhs, Ukrainians, Uzbeks… And there were also Germans, Hungarians, Poles… Some Russians, too. But I saw the faces of those Russian boys, “invaders”, and they looked the most miserable. From that time on I always said, and still say that the Russians are just like us—sufferers, and Russia, like Czechia, was under oppression, enslaved…

Now many understand this and relations with Russians have changed for the better. I and the Orthodox priests never tire of repeating that the Russians were and are our brothers. I have been consecrating more and more Russian (Ukrainian)-Czech marriages and baptizing the offspring of these unions—infants born from these bonds of love, and bearing within themselves love for both of our peoples and nations.

Source

Translation by OrthoChristian.com

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Read more: Jan Hus, Jerome of Prague and Orthodoxy in Czechia & Slovakia : Journey To Orthodoxy | The Orthodox Christian ‘Welcome Home’ Network for Converts

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How much longer will we remain free to celebrate Christmas?

It’s Christmas In America

Click here to view the embedded video.

Uploaded by thehermancain on Dec 12, 2011

Take a moment and watch our Christmas video message, from myself, my family, supporters, and friends across this great nation of ours. As we experience the joys of Christmas this year, let us not forget the birth of Christ and what it means to mankind. I urge you to seek out and offer help and kindness to family, friends and those around us who are less fortunate, perhaps hungry and struggling through these harsh economic times. And a special prayer goes out to our brave soldiers, some far away from home this holiday season, and our hopes they return safely to their families. It is their sacrifice which has ensured all Americans the gift of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and we could not be more in debt, nor appreciative of their service. This is our family’s favorite time of year and we wish you and your loved ones all the best in this lovely, forgiving and peaceful season. Have a great holiday and fantastic New Year. Sincerely, Herman Cain

Modern Tokyo Times has the story:

By Vojin Joksimovich, Ph.D.

On September the 16th NATO forces, overstepping their UN Security Council (UNSC) mandates, amid tensions on the administrative border between Serbia and the self-proclaimed Republic of Kosovo, have fired the first shots at bare-handed Kosovo Serbs in the village of Zupce. The Kosovo Serbs have erected barricades, in a life or death situation, to defend themselves against the Muslim Albanian onslaughts which desire to forcefully incorporate northern Kosovo into the US/EU created Republic of Kosovo, an amputated province from the Republic of Serbia. The Albanian police, aided and assisted by NATO’s KFOR, have taken over two border crossings: Jarinje and Brnjak. The Albanian customs officers, aided and abetted by EU’s EULEX mission in Kosovo, have established their control over the border crossings.

UNSC Emergency Session

After debating for hours behind closed doors the UNSC decided to bury its head in the sand. It came out with a timid call for “restraint” by all parties. Russia’s UN ambassador Vitaly Churkin informed the journalists that Russia proposed a brief to-the-point statement that called on “Belgrade, Pristina and all other sides involved to resolve all outstanding problems through dialogue.” Even this benign statement was unacceptable to the Western powers of the US, GB and France despite escalating tensions. Churkin expressed concern that the international peacekeepers appear to be siding with the Albanians. Serbian foreign minister Vuk Jeremic made it clear that the entire EU proposition playing the mediating role in the dialogue between Pristina and Belgrade may be put in question. “So this sudden departure from the path of dialogue at the moment when it was beginning to show some promise, in our view, is completely unjustified, unwarranted and very dangerous.”

NATO Statement

NATO’s Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen called the situation “a big setback,” and urged all sides to stay within the framework of dialogue. “Let me be very clear: there can be no turning back. NATO has spent 12 years ensuring stability and security. We will not allow that achievement to be put at risk.” This is a text-book example of Western hypocrisy. NATO has been siding with the Albanians since day 1 in Kosovo in violation of the UNSC Resolution #1244. The so called international community wants Kosovo sovereignty on all of its territory despite the fact that Kosovo Serbs in the north are de-facto already broken away from Albanian-run Kosovo due to parallel institutions and absolute determination not to be harassed by the Albanian criminal gangs in Pristina.

Serbian Kosovo Mayor

On September 16 deputy mayor of Zvecan, Miodrag Acic, visited the UNMIK office in Zvecan to discuss the present crisis. Acic stated that Serbs have clearly defined who they are, born in the Serbian Province of Kosovo and Metohija, not so called Kosovars, with a rich identity of more than 1500 years old and who have a love of their culture, language and traditions. Serbs have survived all of the invasions and occupations which befell them in the last 1500 years. Serbian culture and heritage is all over Kosovo despite the fact that Albanians are trying to destroy it. He pointed out to a lack of toponyms, whose origins could be found in the Albanian language. There are, however, Islamic and Turkish toponyms due to the 500 year occupation. Now the Kosovo Albanians with help from US/NATO, with disproportional use of force, are trying to steal our history, our toponyms, our land, our language and are making the last try to expel of us. Acic pointed out and named international officers who side with the Albanians and disregard international law and use instead the Kanun of Leke Dukagjini, set of traditional Albanian codes.

Acic went on: “The situation of our Serbian brothers in the south is difficult, they are being harassed by the Albanian Police, when they go to the Public institutions the Albanians disregard them, ignore them and insult them, there is no Serbian curriculum in their schools, there are no returns because there is an ongoing intimidation campaign against the Serbs, they are surrounded by Albanians who cut their electricity, the water, the services to make them accepting Kosovo Albanian institutions, under the eyes of NATO, international NGOs that are supposed to defend the human rights as they say, they all were compliances and even worst implementers of the Albanian racist policies.” Indeed who cares about the plight of not yet ethnically cleansed 100,000 plus Kosovo Serbs? Do they care in Washington, Brussels or even Belgrade?

Belgrade (Vichy Serbia) and Kosovo Serbs

In my June 13 Modern Tokyo Times article Vichy Serbia Sends War Hero to his Death, I have explained the term Vichy Serbia I have been using. It stands for the current Serbian government which follows the Vichy France model. They have become vassals or quislings supported by mentors in Washington and Brussels. They desperately want their capital to be Brussels rather than Belgrade. President Tadic has for years been brainwashing the Serbs to believe that Serbia has no alternative but to join the EU even if Serbia has to wait until 2019 or 2021. In a recent speech he corrected himself somewhat that Serbia has no “better” alternative. I have been arguing for years now that a “better” alternative is an association with the BRIC countries. South Africa has done it this year.

In order not to jeopardize the EU membership aspirations, the Vichy Serbia is gradually abandoning 100,000 plus Kosovo Serbs. Of course they have to be careful as 2012 is the election year. Hence, they are hoping to obtain the EU candidate status this year without recognizing Kosovo but are fully aware that they would have to do it in order to become members. The Belgrade political elite sees themselves as Europeans, not Serbs, as illustrated at a September 14-16 security conference called Balkan and Global Security in Belgrade which was opened by president Tadic and sponsored by the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence, Belgrade Center for Security Policy and the European Movement in Serbia.

Russian Ambassador: “Are there any Serbs in this Room”

Russian ambassador to Belgrade Aleksandar Konuzin asked for permission to speak at the above mentioned security conference after the Russian Federation was characterized as a destabilizing factor in the Balkans, which defends Serbia by pursuing own interests. This factor was edited out by 90% of the Belgrade regime media, which characterized the ambassador as a scandal-master.

Ambassador Konuzin said he was puzzled that at this moment, when KFOR/EULEX were transporting the Albanian police and customs officers in violation of the UNSC Resolution #1244 and November 1998 decision, not a single question addressed that issue. “Are there any Serbs in this room? Do you care about the destiny of your compatriots? Russia will defend your national interests together with your foreign minister, while NATO and EU countries will be opposing your national interests. You couldn’t care less for what is happening in your country. Not a single question.” Konuzin said that Russia has interests but who doesn’t but then he recalled that Russian volunteers came to defend Serbia in 1999 without the approval of the Russian government.

In Belgrade the phones were ringing off the hook to praise the ambassador after the patriotic Serbs figured out what transpired at the conference. The internet pages of the Serbian media were inundated with comments praising the ambassador. On Facebook I thanked the ambassador and asked Russia to continue protecting the Kosovo Serbs as the Vichy government in Belgrade will not.

Second Kristallnacht in Kosovo?

In many of my writings, including the book Kosovo is Serbia, I have quoted Mary Walsh’s book Hiding Genocide in Kosovo: A Crime against God and Humanity. Is another genocide or ethnic cleansing of Kosovo Serbs in the making? According to the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung the Bundeswehr is sending two armored vehicles with a water gun to follow in order to remove the Serbian barricades. Serbian political analyst Milovan Drecun claims, perhaps alarmingly, that Albanian ROSU special forces are being deployed and that the American Apache helicopters are being ready for action. Eye-witnesses have localized 80 mercenaries from Albania and Macedonia. These sounds like the second round of the Kosovo Kristallnacht, the first took place in March of 2004?

Vojin Joksimovich is the author of three books and some 100 articles on the Balkans.

The Revenge of the Prophet by Dr. Vojin Joksimovich is another classic book which gives great insight and knowledge about the Balkans, radical Islam, US foreign policy and other important areas. If you would like to buy the book then please email vjoksimovich215@gmail.com and forward your details.

Dr. Vojin Joksimovich wrote an in depth book called Kosovo is Serbia and please check this at http://www.gmbooks.com/product/Kosovo-GM.html – it is a must read if you want deep knowledge about this complex topic.

Please check and buy these books if you care deeply about the Balkans and the plight of Serbs in Bosnia, Kosovo and throughout the former Yugoslavia.

Please email vjoksimovich215@gmail.com for more information about buying either book or both books.

Also see:

• Modern Tokyo Times: Orthodox Christian Ghettoization and Anti-Serb Clampdown in Kosovo
• Modern Tokyo Times: Vichy Serbs Prevent Real Serbs from Entering Kosovo

This says it all – what they really think of Obama and the Clintons! Is this the “Change” Obama talked about?

These floats were part of the annual Carnival Parade in Germany watched by an estimated 3 million people in 3 German cities including Dusseldorf. With our controlled press, it is interesting to see that German citizens seem to know more about the U.S. political system and environment than the majority of citizens on the streets of America.

Also see:

• Kölner Karneval
• Political Satire at German Carnival 2011
• Cologne Carnival 2010 Floats
• Cologne Carnival 2010 Begins

• Zilla’s First Blogiversary – Stop by and congratulate her!
• Marvin Olasky discusses the differences between Islam and Christianity. Too many Christians have only a perfunctory understanding of their own faith. Islam vs. liberty: Is a rule-obsessed religion that denies original sin and the need for grace compatible with freedom?
• No Taxation Without Representation is also a Canadian principle. TEA Party Movement Spreads to British Columbia: Blazing Cat Fur has the story.
• An over-the-top disgusting individual: Meet Mark Ames, the ‘eXile’ Who Created the (False) Koch Brothers Conspiracy Theory
• Disgraceful whitewash from the mainstream media, once again pushing the tranzi-progressive/pro-jihadi agenda: Bare Naked Islam: AP Story about 9/11: Hardship and Patriotism for ‘MUSLIMS’ in America?
• It’s about time: House Republicans plan two-pronged assault on UN
• From Citizen Warrior: What Muslim Leaders Say About Islam Dispels the Myth that Jihadists are a “Fringe” Element

It’s that day again…

The 1389 Blog team, myself included, has been putting up some grim fare on the blog lately, on the topic of man’s inhumanity to man. Some of it is too over-the-top horrifying to re-post on Blogmocracy. It has to be fully documented with photos, videos and eyewitness narratives, because nobody would believe it otherwise.

Suffice it to say that this effort has not put me into much of a mindset to do the usual Caturday post. I know what kind of nightmares I can expect to have tonight. I was tempted to claim that the dog ate my homework, and just let Caturday go for the week, but thought better of it on the grounds that we really need to lighten things up a bit.

At least I did tear myself away from the computer long enough to feed El Gato and La Gata. No, unlike the white cat gracefully rolling off the table, they don’t come running at the sound of an electric can opener, mainly because we live in a motorhome and have no room for such things. I don’t see the point of spending money on bulky motorized tools for tasks I can perform just as easily by hand. And nearly all cat food cans these days have pull-tab tops anyway.

This animated .gif shows flagrant misuse of office supplies to torment an unfortunate kitty. This kitty may start looking for ways to make the human’s office supplies disappear.

Just sayin’.

 
In this B&W .gif, the dog pounces on the cat, and the cat chases him down the road. It’s just some harmless play-fighting; good exercise for feline and canine friends. This is a mother dog who is feeding a nest of puppies somewhere; maybe she needs a break!
 

 
From a Russian site:

Watch this fluffy orange cat run on his hind legs!
 

Have you ever changed your bed linens, only to find that your cat has gotten between your mattress and your fitted sheet? This is how it looks like from the cat’s perspective!

Excellent piece by Erick Stakelbeck on Islam in the USA and Denmark.

On this week’s edition of Stakelbeck on Terror: CBN News shows Islam’s advance in the West and beyond…

Watch it here at the Dailymotion.

Stakelbeck on Terror: August 9, 2011 – CBN.com by cbnonline

Muslim Brotherhood in Chicago and NYC, Muslim infiltration in Denmark, sell land to a Jew in Ramallah and lose your life, Muslims threatening to invade Russian churches, and much more.

Russia Profile Weekly Experts Panel: A War With Libya?

Introduction by Vladimir Frolov 03/25/2011

The UN Security Council (UNSC) passed Resolution 1973 on March 17, authorizing “all necessary measures” against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and the establishment of a no-fly zone, which includes the possible use of military force, against pro-Gaddafi forces. Ten UNSC members voted for the resolution, including the United States, Great Britain and France, while Russia, China, Germany, Brazil and India abstained. Is Russia right in tacitly accepting the use of force by not exercising its veto power in the UNSC? What does Russia gain by taking a position that opens the door for intervention without fully pledging its support for the West?

Here is the contribution by James George Jatras:

James George Jatras
Director, American Council for Kosovo,
Deputy Director, American Institute in Ukraine,
Washington, DC:

From an American perspective, almost as dismaying as the fact that president Obama has now mimicked his predecessors and blundered into his very own ill-advised foreign intervention, is puzzlement about the decision of Russia (and of China, which presumably followed the Russian lead) not to veto the Security Council resolution authoring force in Libya.

To address the Russian question first: it didn’t take a “Kristol ball” to guess that the Western powers would immediately exceed the UNSC’s mandate, in effect treating Resolution 1973 as a carte blanche to intervene in the Libyan civil war. Perhaps president Medvedev didn’t want to disappoint his “reset” partner, president Obama. Or perhaps Moscow was applying some geopolitical judo in facilitating America’s tumble into yet another sand-trap, and then criticizing us for it. (For all of Paris’ and London’s grandstanding and Riyadh’s and Abu Dhabi’s prodding, accusing fingers again will be pointed at the United States for lots of dead Muslims served up for Al-Jazeera’s cameras).

Evident disarray at the top militates against the likelihood that the Russian move was calculated. Prime Minister Putin castigated the Western campaign as reminiscent of a “medieval crusade” –an inapt characterization, first because the Libyan operation (as will be seen below), far from being anti-Islamic, instead is furthering the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood, al-Qaeda, Hizb-ut-Tahrir, and their ilk.

Secondly, Putin should appreciate that as a historical matter, the real Crusades were a legitimate if flawed Christian counterattack against centuries of jihad aggression, not an episode to be used as a term of opprobrium. Then, to further tangle things, Medvedev criticized him just for uttering the word “crusade,” the mere sound of which offends delicate Muslim ears and aggravates the “clash of civilizations.” In short, what the Russians really have in mind is not at all clear.

But the muddle in Moscow pales beside the latest outbreak of imbecility along the Potomac. The report is that Samantha Power, National Security Council special advisor to Obama on human rights and one of Obama’s campaign advisors on foreign affairs, was primarily responsible for convincing her dithering boss to proceed, with support from U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and, of course, from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. (Power became an obsessive advocate of “humanitarian intervention” during her stint as a journalist in Bosnia and advocates a philosophy called “responsibility to protect” (RTP), with military intervention ostensibly to protect human rights raised to a cardinal principle of American foreign policy. She outlined RTP in her 2003 book “A Problem From Hell: America in the Age of Genocide,” that Richard Holbrooke of Balkan infamy commanded his underlings to read. Power’s militarism is boundless. For instance, at the height of the Second Intifada in 2002, she advocated military action against Israel to create and protect a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. On the other hand, nobody’s holding his breath waiting for Power to demand we bomb Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates over Saudi and Emirati abuses against Bahraini Shia protesters).

In any case, the Power-Clinton-Rice triumfeminate was sufficiently potent to squelch cautionary advice from Defense Secretary Robert Gates, National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, and Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough.

The U.S.-led action follows calls by the international Islamic party Hizb-ut-Tahrir, whose members have long been suppressed and killed in Libya, for Gaddafi to be overthrown by the Egyptian army, and for his assassination by a leading figure of the Muslim Brotherhood active in the successful Egyptian revolt. As an indication of the likely beneficiaries of Western help in overthrowing Gaddafi, a 2008 West Point analysis of a cache of al-Qaeda records discovered that nearly 20 percent of foreign fighters (actually, mainly suicide bombers) in Iraq were Libyans, and that on a per-capita basis Libya was nearly double Saudi Arabia as the jihadis’ top country of origin. Almost all of them were from the eastern region of Cyrenaica (Benghazi, and especially Derna), a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaeda and, not coincidentally, of the anti-Gaddafi insurgency.

While the spectacle of the Western powers and Islamic militants, including al-Qaeda, acting effectively as allies, may come as a surprise to some, it shouldn’t to observers of U.S.-led interventions since America supported Afghan mujahidin against the Soviet Union. Not only did Washington help create al-Qaeda itself during the anti-Soviet war, the pattern was set for subsequent “pro-Muslim” interventions: in Iraq (twice, under George H.W. Bush in 1991 and George W. Bush in 2003), in Afghanistan (Bush in 2001), Bosnia (Bill Clinton in 1995), and Kosovo (Clinton in 1999). In each case, an armed intervention justified as “rescuing” or “liberating” Muslims paradoxically resulted in greater Islamic rage against the United States. In each case, the hoped-for “democracy” – at least recognizable to Western eyes – eluded us. And in each case the resulting social order was more oppressively Islamic, as measured by treatment of women and non-Muslims.

For example, in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, Islamic militancy was suppressed (along with other opposition forces) and women went unveiled. Now, courtesy of U.S. taxpayers, half of Iraq’s Christian population has fled in terror from Muslim militants and women had better cover up if they know what’s good for them. Similar patterns can be discerned in the venues of other interventions, notably the near-eradication of Orthodox Christian Serbs in areas of Kosovo under the control of Muslim Albanian drug, slave, and organ-traffickers. Already in post-Mubarak Egypt constitutional “reforms” favored by the Muslim Brotherhood have been approved by referendum, and fears are rising for the future of Coptic Christians – the largest remaining Christian population in the Middle East. Aside from the serendipitous fact that Libya has few Christians to persecute, prospects for a post-Gaddafi “democracy” in that country are decidedly slim.

However, in Western thinking, the repeated failure of a policy evidently is considered insufficient grounds to abandon it. With respect to Libya, perhaps policy-makers in Washington, London, and Paris calculate that this time for sure the Muslims will love us, no matter how many of them get killed along the way. This time for sure, when Gaddafi is gone, Islamic “democracy” will look a lot like Switzerland. (Just as it has in Gaza, where “democracy” has empowered Hamas, or in purple-fingered Lebanon, now under a Hizballah-led coalition). Each time we are surprised and disappointed, but we never learn. When the Muslim Brotherhood takes power in Egypt – and in Libya, in Yemen – Power and company will also be very surprised and disappointed.

http://russiaprofile.org/experts_panel/34077.html

News Real Blog: New Hope for Freedom Fighters: “Jewish Al-Jazeera” to Combat Big Lies and Blood Libels

by Phyllis Chesler
Posted on April 8 2011 4:30 pm

I have finally lived long enough to see some dreams come true.

A Russian billionaire, Alexander Mashkevich, has just announced that he will fund a pro-Israel, pro-truth television news channel, a “Jewish Al-Jazeera.” God bless him! I have been calling for something like this for seven years. I hope that Mr. Mashkevich and his advisors understand that this new channel must be far better than Al-Jazeera, not only in terms of truth-telling but in other ways as well. Al-Jazeera broadcasts only in Arabic and English, and is only now preparing to broadcast in Turkish and Urdu. The “Jewish Al-Jazeera” must appear in many more languages simultaneously: Arabic, Turkish, Persian, Kurdish, Urdu, Punjabi, Sindhi, Bengali, Pashto, the Indonesian and Malaysian languages, as well as in all the European, East European, and former Soviet languages.

Why? Because all the Big Lies and blood libels about Israel and the Jews are being told 24/7 in every language on earth…

Read it all.

The above image is Saint Nicholas of Myra Saves Three Innocents from Execution by the famed Ukrainian artist Ilya Repin. Another work by Ilya Repin is featured here.

Saint Nicholas a hero? Who knew?

The “Santa Claus” celebrated in Western pop culture is a myth that has been built up around a real historical figure, namely Saint Nikola of Myra, known and loved by the Serbs as Sveti Nikola.

Why are we telling children to wait for “Santa Claus” to arrive on Christmas Eve in a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer, when the truth is far more inspiring?

Instead, we should be teaching children and adults to follow the real “Saint Nick” as a role model. Not only did the good Saint spend the entire fortune that he had inherited on helping the poor, but he also was a brave man who fearlessly fought for truth and justice.

From the website of the Greek Orthodox Church of Saint George in Des Moines, Iowa:

One story about Nicholas tells us that, while visiting a remote area, the saint received news that the ruler of Myra, Eustathius, had condemned three innocent men to death. Nicholas rushed home and arrived in time to physically intervene in the execution by grasping the executioner’s sword and throwing it to the ground. He ordered the condemned men freed from their bonds. Approximately 1500 years later, in the 19th century, a controversy arose over capital punishment in Russia. Russian artist Ilya Repin studied ancient icons of Nicholas grasping the blade with his bare hand and used the images to make his own painting (in a realistic style instead of an iconographic style) depicting the incident and making his own comment about the controversy through art.

Such was the reputation of the good Bishop of Myra that the executioners immediately set free the three condemned men. Later, when Eustathius had repented of his wrongdoing and had performed a suitable penance, Saint Nicholas forgave him.

Below is one of the traditional Russian icons of the type that Ilya Repin studied for his own art:

Patron Saint

Saint Nicholas is the patron saint of Russia, of Greece, and of many other cities, regions, occupations, and circumstances of life. Most famously, he is the patron saint of children, of boatmen, watermen, mariners, and sailors, of travellers and pilgrims, and of students and scholars. He is also the patron saint of judges, of repentant thieves, and of those victimized by injustice.

Look closely at this masterpiece by the Ukrainian artist Ilya Repin.

It is worth clicking the image to see a larger view.

Barge Haulers on the Volga

This is what life was like for too many people in a pre-industrial society.

Read the Wikipedia article. Some of the people pulling the barge had once been part of what passed for the middle class in that place and time. Once they lost their footing in the middle class, this was their fate. As far as I know, none were convicts – they were just people down on their luck and desperate to make some sort of a living. Their only option was to hire themselves out for toil too arduous even for a beast of burden.

Barge Haulers is inspired by scenes witnessed by the artist while holidaying on the Volga in 1870. He made a number of preparatory studies, mostly in oil, while staying in Shiriaev Buerak, near Stavropol. The sketches include landscapes, and views of the Volga and barge haulers.

The characters depicted are based on actual people whom the artist came to know while preparing the work. He had had difficulty finding subjects to pose for him, even for a fee, because of a folklorish belief that a subject’s soul would leave his possession once his image was put down on paper. The subjects include a former soldier, a former priest, and a painter. Although Repin depicted eleven men, women also performed the work and there were normally many more people in a barge-hauling gang; Repin selected these figures as representative of a broad swathe of the working classes of Russian society. That some had once held relatively high social positions dismayed the young artist, who had initially planned to produce a far more superficial work contrasting exuberant day-trippers (which he himself had been) with the careworn burlaks. Repin found a particular empathy with Kanin, the defrocked priest, who is portrayed as the lead hauler and looks outwards towards the viewer.
[...]
Barge Haulers on the Volga shows a row of eleven male burlaks dragging a barge on the Volga River that must be pulled upstream against the current. The men are dressed in rags and bound with leather harnesses. They are rendered as mostly stoical, although in obvious physical discomfort, with their bodies bowed in toil. The scene is rendered in a white, silvery light which has been described as “almost Venetian”. In earlier studies, it was dominated by blue tones.

The men appear to be unsupervised and form the focus of the picture, with the barge relegated to a minor role at the rear of the frame. Further in the distance is a tiny steam-powered boat, perhaps a suggestion that the back-breaking labour of the barge haulers is no longer necessary in the industrial age. Also worthy of note is the inverted Russian flag flying from the main mast of the barge suggesting adding to the sense that something is not quite right. Repin echoes the stop-go rhythm of the labour in the undulating line of the workers’ heads. In the preparatory studies, many of the figures were positioned differently; for example the second man was shown wearing a cap with his head bowed into his chest.

There is a general sense of mounting exhaustion and despair moving from left to right amongst the group; the last hauler seems oblivious to his surroundings and drifts from the line out towards the viewer. The exception is a fair-haired boy in the centre of the group. Set brightly against the uniform muted tones of his companions, his head is raised looking into the distance, while he pulls against his straps as if determined to free himself from his task…

Russian and Ukrainian society at that time had too little infrastructure to support much of a middle class. It was not simply a matter of income inequality…there was too little wealth to go around, because too little wealth was being produced. Industrialization was still in its infancy. Fossil fuels were in very limited use.

Sound familiar?

This is what the leftist/green/pro-jihadi convergence wants – not for themselves, of course – but for us.

Be thankful that it is not OUR faces staring out of that bleak canvas.

Not yet, anyway.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Leonid Kharitonov & Red Army Choir – Song of the Volga Boatmen (Live) (h/t: The Osprey)

Click here to view the embedded video.

Feodor Chaliapin – Song of Volga Boatmen (1936)

This video confirms the point I made above:

Kim’s Picks: A Digital View of the World (h/t: Scott Madsen)

http://www.washingtontimes.com/advertising/open-letter/
(Washington Times, 11/23/10, p. A3)

OPEN LETTER TO SENATOR JON KYL

November 23, 2010
Hon. Senator Jon Kyl
730 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear Jon,

We regret to make this letter public, but time is of the essence, and we were afraid that otherwise it wouldn’t be brought to your attention before the quickly approaching end of the “lame duck” Congress.

In a curious departure from regular Senate procedure (one Senator, one voice) your voice can count for more than one and in fact decide the outcome of an issue crucial to U.S. security and U.S. – Russia relations. Several Republican senators have indicated that they will be guided by you in voting on START ratification, thus putting all burden of responsibility for making a historical decision on you.

While this is within your procedural prerogatives as a Senator — and a measure of your colleagues’ respect for your judgment — we respectfully suggest you reconsider using your considerable influence in this matter.

If you recall, it was the late Paul Weyrich and us who helped organize your trip to Moscow about twenty years ago, as the Soviet Union collapsed. We also helped bring other prominent Republicans to Moscow, like Vice-President Dan Quayle, Senator Phil Graham, Congressman Henry Hyde, and many others. At that time we all had great expectations for Russia, liberated from communism, to evolve into one of America’s strongest and most reliable allies. So the purpose of those trips was to see the situation on the ground and generate some ideas for the success of that vision.

Well, twenty years on our goals are far from being realized, much to our regret. If you believe many of our fellow Republicans the main fault for this spectacular failure lies with the Clinton administration, as was clear by about the year 2000.

At that time, the Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert formed the Advisory Group on Russia chaired by Christopher Cox, Chairman of the House Policy Committee. The membership of that committee read like a Who’s Who of the Republican Party in Congress, including heads of the most important committees.

The report of that group, titled “Russia’s Road to Corruption,” was a devastating analysis of the work of Clinton and his top advisors on Russia policy – Al Gore, Strobe Talbott, and Laurence Summers, the men who had squandered away a historic opportunity to bring Russia on our side.

The 100+-page-long report is fascinating reading; it is readily available on the Internet at http://www.fas.org/news/russia/2000/russia/index.html though for some reason it mysteriously disappeared from the original site, http://policy.house.gov/russia

We wish we could indeed put all the blame on the Democrats, but have eight years of George Bush brought us closer to our original vision? Unfortunately, in those years US – Russia relations reached their lowest point since the end of communism. Now, after 9/11 there was a real chance to repair the damage done in the nineties. At that time Putin did everything Bush was asking for in his attempt to defeat the Taliban. Naturally, Moscow expected some kind of positive gesture from Washington in return. Instead, it got NATO Eastern expansion, the US unilateral withdrawal from the ABM treaty, “color revolutions” in countries along Russia’s borders clearly instigated from the outside, a democracy promotion crusade, a pipeline policy intended to sap Russia’s energy revenues, arming Georgia to the teeth, and worst of all, a push for former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.

As we all know, Bush policies did not bring too many dividends to America. We have an astronomical national debt, close to ten percent unemployment, two endless and pretty hopeless wars, the rise of militant Islam, and many other problems including, quite unnecessarily, ever worsening U.S. – Russian relations.

We should admit that Obama’s administration “Reset” policy with Russia started to turn things around, and the ratification of START treaty would be a logical step in this direction. It will also help reduce the two countries’ nuclear stockpiles thus enhancing U.S. national security, as stated by practically all current and living former U.S. Defense and State secretaries, Pentagon and NATO top brass, and the expert community. Over and above this, it may offer yet another chance for U.S. to engage Russia, still a nuclear superpower despite all the setbacks it has suffered, and clearly the biggest, most populous and arguably most powerful country in Europe.

Twenty years ago the Russian government’s stated objective was a formal alliance with the United States and NATO. Russia pursued a strongly pro-American foreign policy, while the United States enjoyed unprecedented affection and admiration among masses of ordinary Russians. Today, U.S. – Russia relations have been practically shattered but, as the recent NATO summit in Lisbon shows, there is a thrust to move towards achieving the same goal that many of us dreamed of after the collapse of communism.

It just happens that the fate of this treaty is in your hands. Knowing you we are sure you will look at this matter not from a narrow partisan view but as a statesman with a great vision for the welfare and security of the United States and mankind. Do what’s right for America: Ratify the treaty.

Warm regards and Happy Thanksgiving,

Edward Lozansky
President
American University in Moscow

James George Jatras
Former Foreign Policy Analyist, U.S. Senate Republican Policy Comittee
Former U.S. Foreign Service Officer

• The reality is, despite what anybody says, I as secretary of defense and the entire uniformed leadership of the American military believe that this treaty is in our national security interest.
Robert Gates, Secretary of Defense

• So, I believe, and the rest of the military leadership in this country believes, that this treaty is essential to our future security. I believe it enhances and ensures that security. And I hope the Senate will ratify it quickly.
Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff

• Today marks a fresh start in NATO-Russia relations. For the first time in history, NATO countries and Russia will be cooperating to defend themselves. Our security is indivisible. We share important interests and face the same threats to our common security.
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO Secretary-General at the November 2010 NATO Summit in Lisbon

• The fact that we are talking to Russia about common threats and the chance to cooperate with Russia on missile defense is an extremely important step. That could be proof that the Cold War has finally come to an end.
Angela Merkel, Chancellor of Germany

From Wikipedia:

The Siberian is a domestic cat breed from Russia. The cat, that has similarities with breeds Maine Coon and Norwegian Forest Cat, is a natural breed and the national cat of Russia.

It is said to be hypoallergenic and produces less Fel d1 than other cat breeds…

Siberian Cats come in many color varieties, among them tabbies, calicos, bicolors, black, “blue” (actually grey), and orange. A Siberian Cat has a heavy, semi-long-haired coat, a strong, robust body, and a medium head shape (neither “pointy” like a Siamese, nor “flattened” like a Persian). An adult Siberian Cat will have a long and very fluffy tail.

Here are a few examples from Siberian Cat World; click the thumbnail images to see more:

The Siberian Cat, a trooper…in our opinion one of the best cat breeds in the world.

The Siberian Cat originates in Russia. It is a semi long-haired cat, appreciated over the years for its sweet and affectionate temperament. The registrations of the Siberian Cat started in 1987 by the Kotofei Cat Club in St. Petersburg. It was soon followed by The Fauna Club in Moscow.

The exact origin of the Siberian Cat is impossible to confirm due to lack of documentation. It’s a Russian house cat breed. Just, like any stray cat, if given some food and a warm place to stay, it will gradually become more or less domesticated. Cats are good rodent hunters and were therefore imported to cities like Leningrad ( St. Petersburg) to keep the rats under control sometimes at the end of the 1940’s or the beginning of the 1950’s.

A stray cat has mostly low status in any country, especially after the World War II when Europe and former USSR were recovering from the long war.

The modern breeding started from these cats, taken to homes from the streets of Leningrad and Moscow.In the 1960´s the breeding was in small scale, but during the second Russian “revolution” when political system was reformed, the breeding started in larger scale. Export started as well, in the end of 1980’s. The breeders used different cats as foundations; they took them often from the streets. There were also importations from Northern Asia, this started in 1999…

Dorofei, Russia’s First Cat

Dorofei belongs to a breed called Neva Masquerade, which is a descendent of the Siberian Cat breeding stock, but with blue eyes and Siamese “points” (darker fur on muzzle, ears, paws, and tail).

From Wikipedia:

Dorofei (Russian: Дорофей) is a rare Neva Masquerade (Siberian breed) cat belonging to incumbent Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and his wife Svetlana Medvedeva. Dorofei took over the title of First Pet from Vladimir Putin‘s black labrador Koni, when Medvedev was inaugurated on 7 May 2008.[1]

Dorofei was born in 2004. The Neva Masquerade breed comes from Saint Petersburg, however Dorofei was bred by the Great Hunter breeding company in Moscow. Svetlana Medvedeva bought Dorofei from the breeders as a kitten, and took him back to Saint Petersburg.[2] Neva Masquerades with a good pedigree can cost up to twenty thousand Russian rubles.[1]…

Kremlin pets: Cat follows dog

On May 7, when Putin hands over to Medvedev the symbol of presidential power — a golden chain of the Order of St Andrew – Medvedev’s cat Dorofei (Dorotheus in English) will take over the title of First Pet from Connie.

…According to Trud daily, the four-year-old Dorofei belongs to a rare Neva Masquerade breed, revealing Medvedev’s love of St Petersburg – his and Putin’s home town on the Neva River.

Putin has brought many of his St Petersburg aquaintances to top government jobs in Moscow. St Petersburg friends form a considerable part of Medvedev’s entourage as well.

“One more guy from St Petersburg,” wrote Trud, referring to the cat.

In fact Medvedev’s wife Svetlana bought D0rofei in Moscow.

“When Svetlana came to pick up the kitten, she was not the first lady yet, just a simple and very nice woman,” Izvestia quoted the owner of a breeding company Great Hunter, Irina Ilminskaya, as saying. “She played a bit with the kittens and said they always kept cats in their home.”…

Originally published on 2.0: The Blogmocracy

Obama Nuclear Agenda Faces Post-START Obstacles

Friday, June 25, 2010
By Tom Risen
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Vocal objections from Republican lawmakers to the Obama administration’s nuclear-weapon policy moves to date could signal danger for the president’s future ambitions, experts said (see GSN, June 17).

In a highly touted April 2009 speech in Prague, President Barack Obama said his government would pursue a global nuclear disarmament strategy that included reducing the importance of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security, seeking U.S. ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and establishment of a pact banning production of fissile material for weapons.

The Defense Department one year later issued its latest Nuclear Posture Review. The document reflected the president’s viewpoint — highlighting the administration’s disarmament aspirations but pledging that the United States would maintain a reliable deterrent as long as one was necessary. The document ruled out development of new nuclear weapons and restricted the circumstances in which the U.S. strategic arsenal would be used.

That same month, Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the “New START” pact, which would obligate each nation to cut its deployed strategic nuclear forces to 1,550 warheads — down from a maximum of 2,200 ordered under a 2002 deal — and 700 delivery vehicles.

Both documents have faced opposition from GOP members on Capitol Hill.

“While the administration pursues deep cuts in our nuclear forces in the hopes that others will follow, Iran and North Korea’s nuclear programs continue unabated,” said Representative Michael Turner (R-Ohio), ranking member of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee.

Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member John McCain (R-Ariz.) and other conservatives have criticized provisions in the posture review, concerned they could limit the “spectrum of options” to maintain and use the nuclear deterrent.

The review pledged that Washington would not use its strategic arsenal against non-nuclear weapon states that have joined the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and meet their commitments under that regime. It also indicated that a nation would be likely to face a “devastating conventional military response” rather than a nuclear strike for using biological or chemical weapons against the United States or allied nations.

“One reason that we got rid of chemical and biological weapons is that we were told that we would always have the nuclear deterrent available,” McCain said with fellow Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl in an April 6 statement criticizing the Pentagon report. “The Obama administration must clarify that we will take no option off the table to deter attacks against the American people and our allies.”

Read the rest.

When a deterrent is no longer a deterrent

To put it mildly, I am no fan of John McCain. But on this occasion, with the utmost reluctance, even I must give the devil his due and admit that he is correct.

I am also no fan of disarmament, nuclear or otherwise. We don’t live on the Good Ship Lollipop and the sooner we stop pretending we do, the better.

The problem is that Obama is trying to take our nuclear and thermonuclear deterrents off the table. He didn’t bother to ask the rest of us what we thought of that, and I for one don’t like it one bit.

No, we don’t have the Soviet Union threatening us any more. Our thermonuclear deterrent worked very well in holding the Soviet Union at bay, and we never had to use it. But now, instead of the totalitarian, expansionist Communist Bloc, we are faced with a different enemy, the equally totalitarian and even more expansionist threat of Islam. And yes, Islam is at war with everything that is not Islam, and its leaders have issued fatwas against us that comprise both an explicit declaration of war and a mobilization order for enemy forces.

By taking a hard line from the very beginning, we could have prevented the 9-11 attack. The nuclear deterrent is a vital part of any defensive strategy. Had we made it clear that we are likely to uncork some Oak Ridge vintage bottled sunshine on any country that harbors, aids and abets, or exports jihadis who attack the US, even if the culprit has been pretending to be our ally, nobody would have dared attack us. That’s why they call it a deterrent! If your enemies know you WILL use that weaponry if need be, and not necessarily as the very last resort, then it is exceedingly unlikely that you will ever NEED to use it.

On the other hand, if you assure your enemies that you won’t use that deterrent, no matter how much damage they do you by other means, then your deterrent is a deterrent no longer. Once you make that mistake, as Obama did, there will most assuredly come a time when you run out of other options.

Other than surrendering the US to expansionist Islam and creeping shari’a, of course.

But then, weakening the US to the point of surrender was probably the intention of Obama and his handlers all along.

How Bill Clinton forever discredited nuclear nonproliferation

Every country, friendly or otherwise, that watched the US bomb the Serbs in 1999 immediately figured out that such an onslaught will someday happen to them if they don’t have their own nuclear deterrent. Clinton let the genie out of the bottle over a decade ago, and there is no putting it back in.

As a result, nuclear nonproliferation agreements have become the equivalent of gun control writ large: these days, they protect only evildoers who ignore the constraints that others take pains to follow.

Originally posted on 2.0: The Blogmocracy

This post on Jihad Watch describes an attack that could easily have gone much worse:

Afghanistan: Jihadists in U.S. Army uniforms attack NATO base

Quoth Muhammad: War is deceit.” “Insurgents attack 2 bases in east Afghanistan,” by Rahim Faiez for the Associated Press, August 28:

KABUL, Afghanistan – Insurgents wearing U.S. Army uniforms launched pre-dawn attacks Saturday on a major NATO base in eastern Afghanistan and a nearby camp where seven CIA employees were killed last year in a suicide bombing. NATO said there were no coalition casualties and the attacks were repelled.
…
Afghan police said about 50 insurgents attacked using rifles, heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons, but had been repelled.

After being driven away from the bases, the insurgents approached the nearby offices of the governor and provincial police headquarters but were driven off, said Khost provincial police Chief Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai.

“Given the size of the enemy’s force, this could have been a major catastrophe for Khost. Luckily we prevented it,” he said.

Small arms fire continued through the morning, while NATO helicopters patrolled overhead.

NATO said two insurgents had managed to breach Salerno’s perimeter, but were observed cutting the fence and killed immediately.

Dead insurgents were seen wearing camouflage jackets and pants seemingly identical to those warn by U.S. Army soldiers….

Read the rest.

It always happens whenever we trust Muslims

The following is an excerpt from a 1999 article about another false-flag operation carried out by the narcoterrorist/Islamist KLA, who, under various names and guises, were then, and still are, the local branch of al Qaeda in Kosovo.

This, of course, took place during the aftermath of the Kosovo War. For those not old enough to remember, Bill Clinton arm-twisted NATO into going along with him in his unprovoked war against the Christian Serbs, on behalf of the Muslim KLA.

The KLA obligingly helped him out by masquerading as Serb soldiers to commit acts of violence against civilians, so as to give Clinton some halfway-credible pretext to bolster his shaky rationale for committing the US and NATO militaries to make war on the Serbs.

Masks!

On December 3, 1999, Agence France Presse (AFP) reported that UN police and KFOR [that is, NATO] troops found illegal weapons, KLA uniforms, and Serb police uniforms in a house “inhabited by members of the future Kosovo Protection Corps” [the successor to the supposedly-disbanded Kosovo Liberation Army or KLA].

Would someone please tell us: what are KLA operatives doing with Serbian police uniforms?

Remember all of those news stories about various war crimes and atrocities that were supposedly committed by Serbian police, often wearing masks, during the NATO bombing and before?

The stories completely contradicted other reports, such as official documents from the German Courts, which ruled that there was no persecution of ethnic Albanians in Kosovo. [See note #2 at the end]

Of course, the stories did not offer any hard evidence that the culprits were actually Serbian police.

But these stories certainly were convenient for the NATO sales team, and the mass media, in terms of selling the war against the Serbs. What an effective way to turn public opinion against the Yugoslav nation and the entire Serbian people!

One thought we had at the time: ANYBODY can put on a stolen police uniform. And the KLA wouldn’t have to steal the uniforms either; they could simply manufacture identical uniforms in any clothing factory.

This is all especially eerie because we read a Reuters story dated December 4, 1999 about the fighting going on in Chechnya, in Russia. According to the story the “US-sponsored Radio Liberty” reported that “masked Russian troops had opened fire at close range on the column of refugees.”

“Masked Russian troops”? Again, why the masks? IF they were trying to disguise who they were, why wear Russian uniforms? Unless of course they really anti-Russian troops trying to provide negative media coverage to be played in the West, where the governments (especially the Clinton administration) are supporting the Chechnya rebels behind the scenes because they want to see Russia broken up into edible pieces.

Here is the first half of the AFP story about the uniforms:

Illegal arms cache found in homes of Kosovo Corps members

PRISTINA, Yugoslavia, Dec 3 (AFP) – A stash of weapons was found in a house in southern Kosovo inhabited by members of the future Kosovo Protection Corps, UN police said Friday. UN police officers and members of the NATO-led forces in Kosovo (KFOR) searched two houses in Stimje, where they said they found “anti-tank rockets, anti-personnel land mines, sub-machine guns, thousands of bullets, as well as Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) and Serb police uniforms.” They arrested two members of the Kosovo Protection Corps, who police said would be charged with “illegal possession of military armaments.” Police did not specify the number of weapons found, only indicating that the number was “substantial.”

Read the rest.

The take-home lesson

Never fight on behalf of Muslims, and be exceedingly wary of Muslims as enemies. Muslims can never be counted on to follow the ‘normal’ (i.e.,customary European) rules of warfare, though Muslims are always the first ones to complain whenever they can find a way to make it look as though we are not following our own rules.