Srdja Trifkovic – Everything You Wanted To Know About Putin And Crimea But Were Afraid To Ask, Part I

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript –“If we wanted to look for a parallel with Hitler — and frankly, I’m sick and tired of this Reductio ad Hitlerum.  We seem to be keen on finding the Hitler de jure whenever there’s a crisis, whether it’s Slobodan Milosevic or Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar al-Assad.  The Hitler parallel is invoked.  In the case of Ukraine, we actually have a fairly decent parallel with the boys from western Ukraine who have been the spearhead of violence in Kiev over the past three months…” Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

PLEASE NOTE – THIS IS PT I OF A TWO PART TRANSCRIPT, CHECK BACK TOMORROW FOR PT II!

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  Let’s go to our Dude Maker Hotline.  We will welcome, for the first time, Srdja Trifkovic, who writes at Chronicles Magazine, among other places.  Srdja, welcome to the program.  I didn’t mean to botch the pronunciation of your name.  Did I get it right?

Srdja Trifkovic:  Almost.  The stress is on the first syllable of Trifkovic, otherwise it’s fine.

Mike:  I have been enjoying your writing for years at Chronicles, including your ruminations about our modern demonization of monarchy and how you’re trying to figure out: How did this greatest and oldest form of government get to the station in life where it’s regarded as something that is the equivalent of Satan himself?  I know that’s not our subject today, but I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been reading it with great interest.  Keep writing about it because I find it fascinating.

Also, let’s face it, some of his policies that are very vocally criticized in the Western world, for instance, concerning the legislation of homosexuality, is certainly something that would resonate with many American conservatives.  In other words, he is not persecuting the gays, far from that.  He has introduced legislation that bans propagation of gay lifestyle to minors.  American parents who are faced with what amounts to equalization of homosexual lifestyle with heterosexual one would probably find it highly desirable.

Trifkovic:  Well, some of the most fabled democracies in the world are monarchies, such as Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Spain, Denmark, Sweden, and, of course, Norway.  If you have a head of state, it’s far better to have someone with established credentials that transcends the volatile barometer of daily politics.  Of course, the optimum form would be an absolute monarchy with a benevolent Christian ruler, but we’re a little bit beyond that, I’m afraid.

Mike:  Yes.  That is something that perhaps we can revive.  Let’s talk about the Ukraine for just a moment.  Your latest post at Chronicles is under the headline “Ukraine Bosnified, Putin Hitlerized.”  Do you look at this as Putin being Hitlerized as a case of mistaken identity?

Trifkovic:  Absolutely.  If we wanted to look for a parallel with Hitler — and frankly, I’m sick and tired of this Reductio ad Hitlerum.  We seem to be keen on finding the Hitler de jure whenever there’s a crisis, whether it’s Slobodan Milosevic or Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi or Bashar al-Assad.  The Hitler parallel is invoked.  In the case of Ukraine, we actually have a fairly decent parallel with the boys from western Ukraine who have been the spearhead of violence in Kiev over the past three months, the Svoboda Party of various associated groups, who openly parade the black and red flag of the SS division Galician from 70 years ago, and who are quite unabashedly keen on reviving the tradition of the Ukrainian collaboration from World War II.

It’s funny that when you have similar emanations of extreme right-wing nationalism and racism in Western Europe, they’re demonized by the European Union, whether it’s the Vlaams Belang in Belgium, whether it’s the BNP in England or Marine Le Pen and Front National in France.  Far worse fellows in Kiev, the jackbooted, helmeted peaceful protestors are embraced with open arms.  Even in December we had the inimitable Senator John McCain share the platform with Oleh Tyahnybok, the leader of the Svoboda Party.  It’s entirely a matter of situational morality.  Just as we have our jihadists and bad jihadists — just look at Syria — so it seems to be the case with our fascists in Ukraine and the bad fascists when they raise their heads within the European Union.

Mike:  So Putin — I jokingly refer to him as Vlad the Impaler, harkening back to his Transylvanian namesake.  So Vlad the Impaler is being made out to be the baddest of all bad guys in the history of bad guys, but he seems to at least have a firmer grasp on the history of these events than anyone in our country does, don’t you think?

Trifkovic:  Absolutely.  Also, let’s face it, some of his policies that are very vocally criticized in the Western world, for instance, concerning the legislation of homosexuality, is certainly something that would resonate with many American conservatives.  In other words, he is not persecuting the gays, far from that.  He has introduced legislation that bans propagation of gay lifestyle to minors.  American parents who are faced with what amounts to equalization of homosexual lifestyle with heterosexual one would probably find it highly desirable.  Likewise, in the Western world, which is reverting to some kind of post-Christian Godlessness, to insist on the Christian rooting of one’s identity, as Putin does, and giving the Russian Orthodox Church a special place in society would also resonate with those of us who remember that the founding fathers certainly found in the scriptures the inspiration to such an extent that in fact in the Bill of Rights religious freedom comes before the freedom of speech.

The attempt to legislate human rights in accordance with post-modern criteria of the State is the problem.  That means that if the State, with its highly-volatile principles of what constitutes human rights, steps in, then you have federal judges overturning the majority of citizens of the most conservative states in the union.  What we are witnessing is in fact the denial of human rights for the silent majority of those who subscribe to traditional moral code and traditional lifestyles, in favor of highly-voluntaristic, post-modern concepts that have nothing to do with the human rights traditionally understood.

Mike:  Very well said.  Now, Srdja, where are you calling us from today?

Trifkovic:  From Belgrade.  We arrived from Switzerland last night and I’m leaving for Moscow and then Crimea on Friday, where I will be an observer at the referendum on Sunday.

Mike:  You say you’re going to be an observer.  I am, of course, joking when I say, did the United Nations send you?  Are you going to monitor?

Trifkovic:  Well, in fact, the local government of Crimea has invited me and a number of other foreigners who take an active interest in Ukrainian and Russian and Crimean affairs because, of course, there will be the standard cries of illegality from the United States when it comes to the Crimean referendum, even though they didn’t raise any such heckles when Kosovo separated from Serbia, or for that matter when various Soviet republics separated from the Soviet Union in 1991.  We are looking at the situation which is legally quite clear.  The Ukrainian Parliament acted illegally and unconstitutionally in impeaching Yanukovych.

Yanukovych is, of course, a useless and rather corrupt individual, but nevertheless, if we are talking about the legality of the proceedings, the way in which the government in Kiev acted with this impeachment and then with a whole series of pronouncements, including the abolition of the use of the Russian language in the Russian majority areas, is unconstitutional.  They have effectively suspended the Ukrainian constitution on February 22^nd and 23^rd, and therefore they have very little to complain when the Crimean peninsula, which is overwhelmingly Russian, and which was transferred to Ukraine by the stroke of Nikita Khrushchev’s pen exactly 60 years ago, in February 1954, well, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.  The United States established a very tricky precedent by recognizing self-proclaimed Kosovan independence in 2008.  That same precedent is now being applied in Crimea.  To cry foul and say that it is an entirely different situation simply doesn’t stand the test of either legality of morality.  If the United States proclaimed in 2008 that it is legal and justified for a minority in a state, which constitutes a majority in a province such as Kosovo, to secede, then exactly the same principle applies to Crimea.

Mike:  So the way the American public, especially American conservatives who are decentralizers, ought to look at this is that the Crimean people are basically asserting their ancient and constitutional rights as Crimeans, and they’re choosing to secede, and then they will choose, I assume, to join the Russian Federation.  They’re not on any compulsion to join the Russian Federation, are they?

Trifkovic:  Well, if you look at the reception of the Russian troops in the Crimean peninsula, it is quite obvious that it is exactly the opposite.  If there was any element of compulsion, if there was any form of lingering sentiment to stay part of the Ukraine, it simply would not have been possible for a handful of Russian soldiers to take over all of the key infrastructure in Simferopol or Sevastopol.  It’s quite obvious that self-organized local militia is composed of people who reflect the will of the people of Crimea, just as we witnessed, let me repeat, with Kosovo where the Albanians enthusiastically welcomed independence, which was enthusiastically supported and promptly recognized by the United States.

End Mike Church Show Transcript