Over at Teekay’s

The EU never ceases to amaze me, but I don’t mean that as a compliment.

Last week, the Serbian government (via a crappy little TV station in Bosnia’s “Serb Republic”) launched a trial balloon to see whether it could get away with arresting Ratko Mladic. (Speculation, to be sure, but as good as any.) Nothing happened — no unrest, no outcry, no demos, nothing. (There was a small demo in Belgrade that had been scheduled long in advance to mark the third anniversary of Seselj’s departure for The Hague, and where people also called on Mladic to kill himself rather than to surrender.) The government felt it had to act before a crucial meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, or else they might suspend association talks with Serbia. Recent polls indicate that Serbs are cool with the government arresting Mladic but that they wouldn’t like any delay in getting to Europe.

Months of pressure seemed to finally have brought the Kostunica government to the point where it felt it had to act and get rid of the butcher and coward who was holding an entire country hostage. (Warning: rampant editorializing.) The government feared that the ongoing talks on a stabilization and association agreement (SAA) could be suspended, which would set the country back several months, possibly years, and send a bad signal to foreign investors.

While it might not be such a great idea for the Austrians, who currently hold the EU presidency, to present an ultimatum to Belgrade, this was clearlyu the moment for decisive action by the EU. And the EU did act decisively — by fudging the issue. It suggested that the SAA talks could be suspended if Belgrade failed to fully cooperate before the next round, scheduled for 4-5 April, and that Belgrade had until late March to cooperate.

“This is not the moment for an ultimatum,” Germany’s foreign minister told reporters. And Luxembourg’s FM said, “We are not going to give an ultimatum. That is not the right way.”

The logic behind such statements seems to be that pressure needs to be decreased the moment it starts working. Now Kostunica has breathing space again and the authorities will once again slack in their hunt for Mladic. (Karadzic seems to be entirely off the screen these days, as are four others still wanted by the tribunal.)

Technorati: Mladic, Bosnia, Serbia

Bill Murray:

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Vladeta Jankovic:

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Wire services — and now BBC World — are reporting that Bosnian Serb wartime commander Ratko Mladic has been arrested in northeastern Bosnia. The Serbian government is denying these reports.

Update, 06:53PM CET — … and I’ll believe it when it happens.
Update 2, 10:13PM CET — OK, it’s a hoax. Sorry, folks. Something may or may not be going on but I’m not going to waste any more space on this.

I just put my website version 1.4 online. Check it out here. The site is primarily a repository for my articles and other assorted bits and pieces.

My favorite newspaper (whose website, incidentally, stinks) ran this headline today on its English-language section:

Skeleton earns Swiss first gold

The explanation for the oddness is that skeleton, apparently, is some sort of Olympic sport while the mangled syntax is due to “Swiss” being an indirect object rather than an adjective. Whoever wrote this headline last night must have had a lot of fun — as much fun as one can have at this serious, highbrow paper.

One aspect of the cartoon kerfuffle that is receiving more and more attention is the suspicion that the outcry, while certainly reflecting genuine feelings, may be steered. Both Iran and Syria — which are both in the middle of a showdown with the Security Council, over nuclear shenanigans in Iran’s case and over the Hariri investigation in Syria’s — have an obvious interest in trying to discredit any Western action as a crusade, and vilifying Denmark (which is a non-permanent member of the SC for 2005 and 2006) seems as good a course of action as any. The time lag between the publication of the stupid cartoons and this whole outpouring is rather interesting.

It’s perhaps also noteworthy that Europe’s oldest Muslim communities (not counting Turkey, parts of Russia, and parts of the Caucasus) seem rather unruffled by the whole affair, and I believe that’s due to the fact that these are open societies (unlike most in the Middle East) and that Muslims there are not part of a disaffected underclass (unlike in Western Europe) — even though considering three waves of “ethnic cleansing” directed at them in the last three decades, they would certainly have every reason to be bitter.

You can read a somewhat expanded version of this argument — slightly black and white but essentially true, I believe — over at TechCentralStation.

Technorati Tags: Islam, Muslim, Cartoons, Sarajevo, Balkania

The Danish government may have been slow on the uptake, but it’s getting there re: the cartoon controversy. The Prime Minister’s analysis unit has now submitted its findings, and here they are:

Denmark’s Rasmussen Says Cartoons Prompted Crisis
Bloomberg.com Europe

Vladimir Zhirinovsky has told Pravda.ru what’s really behind U.S. foreign policy, and Pravda.ru gracefully chose to share it with us. Money quote:

“Such women are very rough. They are all workaholics, public workaholics. They can be happy only when they are talked and written about everywhere: “Oh, Condoleezza, what a remarkable woman, what a charming Afro-American lady! How well she can play the piano and speak Russian! What a courageous, tough and strong female she is!

This is the only way to satisfy her needs of a female. She derives pleasure from it. If she has no man by her side at her age, he will never appear. Even if she had a whole selection of men to choose from she would stay single because her soul and heart have hardened. Like Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, or Alexander the Great of Macedon Ms. Rice needs to fight and release tough public statements in global scale. She needs to be on top of the world.

Condoleezza Rice needs a company of soldiers. She needs to be taken to barracks where she would be satisfied. On the other hand, she can hardly be satisfied because of her age. This is a complex. She needs to return to her university and teach students there. She could also deal with psychological analysis.

The true reason of Ms. Rice’s attack against Russia is very simple. Condoleezza Rice is a very cruel, offended woman who lacks men’s attention. Releasing such stupid remarks gives her the feeling of being fulfilled. This is the only way for her to attract men’s attention,” Vladimir Zhirinovsky said.

(Thanks to Kurt for bringing this to my attention.)

…or is it just me?

Moshe Katsav:

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Milan Milutinovic:

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Richard Perle:

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Gunmen blocked the EU office in Gaza yesterday to demonstrate against cartoons that in the view of one British Muslim spokesman speaking on BBC World “demonized” Muslims as terrorists.

(Image courtesy of CNN.com)

I’m sure this will do a lot to correct that impression. But more amusingly, it follows the logic behind this article, which appeared in the Onion in 1997:

Crazed Palestinian Gunman Angered By Stereotypes

March 5, 1997 | Issue 31•08

HEBRON, WEST BANK—In an emotionally charged press conference Monday, crazed Palestinian gunman Faisal al Hamad expressed frustration over the stereotyping of his people.

Enlarge ImageCrazed Palestinian Gunman Angered By Stereotypes

Faisal al Hamad, seen here shrieking anti-U.S. slogans, says that “not every crazed Palestinian gunman is exactly alike.”

“As a crazed Palestinian gunman, I feel hurt by the negative portrayal of my people in the media,” said al Hamad, 31, a Hebron-area terrorist maniac. “None of us should have to live with stereotyping and ignorance.”

He then began screaming and firing into a busload of Israeli schoolchildren.

“It hurts that in this supposedly enlightened day and age, people still make assumptions about other people,” al Hamad said. “We should not rely on simple generalizations. Each crazed Palestinian gunman is an individual.”

French would-be visitors to the US are in trouble because they can’t get biometric passports, which means they need a US visa. The union of government printers has blocked the government’s plans to have the new documents printed by private firm.

France is the only one of 27 countries with visa-free travel to the US that has not managed to produce biometric passports in time.

The Trib reports on the fallout, featuring some great quotes.

In the meantime, the union’s secretary, Jacques Floris, tips his hat to his French comrades standing in the cold, waiting their turn for a visa. But the government, he said, has to respect the union’s rights.

That’s small comfort for Xavier Leclerc, who joined the line for visas and passports at 7:30 a.m. and later abandoned his place to get to work on time. In January, he missed a training conference in the United States with his new employer, Google, because he couldn’t obtain a visa. So did another colleague in sales.

“I know that this is happening because of the strike-related problems here,” he said. “But to be honest, French people are a bit proud and it makes me feel a little like I’m coming from a third world country to get a visa. And now I will have to wait again in line in the cold.”

Perhaps he could try the French embassy in Sarajevo to get the genuine experience of coming from a third-world country and being humiliated by arrogant, corrupt staff because you had the absurd idea of visiting their country, or better still any Western embassy in Africa?

Under that awful title, a bunch of worthies from politics and culture gathered in Salzburg last week as part of the Austrian attempt to re-define a European identity, or something like that. The best performance came no doubt from French PM de Villepin, who according to the FT flew in with a dozen French journalists, gave a speech that was almost incomprehensible due to all the name-dropping and way too long to boot, then left the proceedings to attend some cultural thing and flew back to Paris a bit later, without participating in any of the proceedings.

There were good moments of genuine debate, but the whole event just demonstrated how utterly out of touch Europe’s leaders — most of them, anyway, an exception being the Commission’s Barroso — are with the real problems afflicting the continent.

For a more rounded take on things, check out what I wrote on TechCentralStation.

Technorati tag: EU

My pal Kurt Bassuener, of the Democratization Policy Council, has an op-ed in today’s Trib calling for a no-fly zone over Darfur and bemoaning the “appalling policy vacuum on the part of the United States and Europe toward Darfur.” Money quote:

If the West is serious about stopping the mayhem in Darfur and offering real protection to the uprooted civilian population, it needs to summon the fortitude to cease treating Darfur as collateral damage of the Iraq war and other policies that create friction with the Muslim world, and offer the sort of assistance that only it can provide - both in the air, and on the ground.

Technorati Tag: Darfur