Archives for March 27th, 2006

Conspiracies abound on VeÄ?er’s editorial pages.

Anyone who has spent time in Europe knows that a healthy strain of anti-Americanism flourishes here, especially in the media. Unlike in the U.S., where the left traditionally supports Europe’s social-democratic ways and the right makes incessant fun of the French, here both sides of the political spectrum (right and left) hate Uncle Sam equally.

In Germany, serious conservative papers like the FAZ will just as gleefully take shots at the U.S. as everyone else. In that respect, Slovenia isn’t much different. A case in point: A recent editorial by Vojislav Bercko, foreign affairs correspondent for the Maribor-based newspaper VeÄ?er. The piece was called "Ko okupatorji uživajo." (When occupiers delight)

The subject of the editorial is the bombing of the Al Askari Mosque in Samarra, Iraq. Bercko’s take on it: The Americans are lovin’ it, because now Iraqis will fight each other and have manj Ä?asa in energije za napade na koalicijske vojake ("less time and energy to attack coalition forces") In other words, American forces will apparently benefit from being stuck in the middle of an out-of-control civil war, and even enjoy(?!) the ensuing bloodshed.

Keep in mind that right after the bombing, public support for the Iraq war dropped to an all-time low. As Juan Cole noted, "Bush now finds himself in the worst of all possible worlds… With Americans increasingly fed up with the Iraq debacle, he needs to start drawing down troops soon, but he can’t do it while the country teeters on the brink of civil war."

In other words, all hell breaking loose would be a flat-out disaster. U.S. forces would have to choose in a lose-lose situation: either a shameful withdrawl, or the extremely uncomfortable prospect of keeping two warring sides apart, possibly in perpetuo. My guess: the military wants chaos to break out there about as much as they’d like to see multiple earthquakes erupt there. I also don’t think that all the frantic diplomacy is just a clever ruse.

But of course, once you accept the proposition that America is a force of evil, everything is possible. Later on Bercko brings it up a notch: NemogoÄ?e je biti povsem pošten, ko ugibaš, kdo je v torek razstrelil kupolo šiitske mošeje v iraški Samari. Lahko so bili na delu sunitski skrajneži, lahko pa tudi ameriški ali drugi specialci, ki bi želeli v imenu svoje vlade povzroÄ?iti kaos. (It’s impossible to be sure when speculating about who blew up the dome of the mosque in Samarra on Tuesday. It could have been Sunnis, or then again Americans or other specialists wanting to cause chaos in the name of their government.) (Emphasis is mine)

I laughed out loud when I read this part. But to be fair, he’s not the only one who suspected a devious American hand here: Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah also immediately implicated the Great Satan of being involved. I don’t know what their evidence is, but Bercko has rock-solid proof: the sumljiv in zgovoren… molk mednarodne skupnosti. (The suspicious and revealing silence of the international community) He singles out Condoleezza Rice especially, before wrapping up with: Saj ji tega tudi treba ni bilo; ameriški administraciji oÄ?itno ustreza, da se IraÄ?ani pobijajo med seboj. (It [saying something] wasn’t necessary; it obviously suits the American administration for Iraqis to fight each other.)

First of all, American officials did say something; Bush even promised to help rebuild the thing — on the same day as the bombing. The next day he called it an "evil act" while Rice commented that speculation about civil war was harmful. The U.N. Security Council and secretary general also condemned the attacks. Is that what qualifies as "suspicious" silence?

In conclusion, I guess one can only speculate about why Bercko wrote such an editorial. Perhaps he just wrote it under time pressure, or perhaps he’s being paid by the Iranian government to publish anti-American articles. The fact that he never says that he’s in the pay of Iran is pretty revealing, though. Either way, the Iranian administration clearly benefits from VeÄ?er’s editorials.