Issue #12/67, June 17 - July 1, 1999  

Yapping Chihuahua Medal: Great Britian

While the war's popularity steadily declined after its opening weeks in nearly every single NATO country, Great Britain defied the moral odds by growing increasingly fond of the idea of bombing a nearly defenseless Serbia.

It was as if the British people were collectively saying... well, to paraphrase Austin Powers, "So long as we can slaughter multiple defenseless civilians whilst dropping cluster bombs from outer space in a consequence-free environment, we'll be sound as a pound!"

Not that Great Britain did nearly as much killing as they would have liked to. The Harriers jets and Tornado bombers were little more than swingin' 70s designer machines that, had they faced the Serbs without America, would have been reduced to village playground rubble.

Even without taking risks, one Harrier crashed whilst trying to land on a clear, sunny day in the Adriatic. British pilots were the first to regularly use cluster bombs because England's doomed attempt at making the Great Leap Forward into 90s military technology--that is, laser-guided SMART weaponry--turned out to be as effective as, well, just about everything produced in England since double-yew double-yew two. They just plain didn't work.

NATO created the Yapping Chihuahua Medal as a consolation prize to the member nation that showed the most enthusiasm for war with the least ability to add bite to its bark.

The medal, designed by the famous Swiss-Italian artist Silvo, features a squeeze-activated voice recording of a barking Chihuahua, and is inscribed with a special British-edition motto: "My Other Jet Is Made In America, Piloted By An American, Commanded By An American, And Can Actually Fire SMART Weapons." The first 1,000 medals, which were produced in Leeds, had to be recalled for defects in the wiring. British officials insist that all is fine.

The Flying Ottoman Crescent Medal: NATO

This highly prestigious medal is awarded to the most successful ethnic cleanser. It is named after the great empire from whose ashes modern Turkey--one of the modern world's most successful practitioners of ethnic cleansing--arose. In a century marked by unprecedented brutality, Turkey stands out as a worthy judge and standard not just because of its savage ethnic cleansing of over a million Armenians earlier this century, or even because of its mind-bogglingly successful ethnic cleansing of its 12 million-strong Kurdish population in this decade. The latter campaign is distinguished by the fact that the Turks have killed some 40,000-80,000 Kurds and made refugees of well over a million Kurdish villagers in their attempt to repress the Kurds' attempt to gain autonomy (sound familiar?). They continue to deny not just the Kurdish minority's right to speak and study Kurdish, but even the existence of a Kurdish people or culture as something separate or distinct from the Turkish culture. And--here's the catch, the part that earned them the right to judge and award the Flying Ottoman Crescent Medal--not only does no one in the West raise a peep about it, not only are there no Rambouillets or angry Albrights stomping around Turkey making big demands about respecting Kurdish human rights and returning refugees, but, better yet, the Turks get to be part of the same NATO team that's bombing Serbia on the pretense that so-called ethnic cleansing (a reported 340 killed, according to the UN's War Crimes indictment) is, you know, like, evil.

The Flying Ottoman Crescent medal is not easy to earn. You have to both successfully cleanse a population, and get away with it. Completely. Frankly, we at the eXile thought there was as good a chance as any that the Serbs might be awarded this medal. After all, they'd cleared Kosovo of half of the Albanian population (with the help of NATO bombing), and looked poised to grind down NATO in a war of stamina and nerves... At the least, it seemed like a shaky peace would prevent the Albanians from returning for years, if not forever. But we underestimated NATO. We're fools. Instead, the Serbs were suckered into signing a total surrender by their "friends" the Russians, and now, as their forces are withdrawing, at least 35,000 Serbs, or almost 20% of the pre-war population of Kosovo, has already fled the province. A spokesman for an opposition democratic Yugoslav party put the figure of Serb refugees at 85,000, meaning something close to half of the pre-NATO invasion number.. No one seems upset about it. NATO isn't forcing the feared KLA to disarm, as they promised--a move that would probably convince the Serbs that it would be safe to stay. In other words, NATO is carrying out a clean, smooth ethnic cleansing of Serbs, and no one's raising a peep (hey, who's gonna argue anyway, huh?!) In terms of sheer percentages, NATO is already well ahead of where the Serbs were in terms of forcing out refugees one week after the bombing started.

Here's one example of why. In the German-controlled sector of Kosovo, Albanians openly cheer the German troops--one of the few peoples in the known world to greedily welcome German army units. The reason is that, as they say, the two go way back. Back to World War Two, when the Albanians were part of the fascist Axis. They even contributed a volunteer all-Albanian division to the SS, called the "Skanderbeg", named after an Albanian hero . Their job was to slaughter Kosovo Serbs (an estimated 100,000). According to a June 15th Reuters article, the Kosovars in Prizren are ecstatic about the return of the Nazi-helmeted Aryans.

Here's just one depressing quote from that article: "'The Germans helped us in World War Two and they're helping us again,' explained Hamdi Krasniqi, a pensioner."

The KLA, which under the peace agreement was supposed to be disarmed, is allowed to roam freely through Prizren, setting up checkpoints and staging military parades under respectful Bundeswehr protection. Naturally, the local Serb villagers have mostly fled by now.

Incidentally, under Nazi tutelage, Kosovo and Albania were united into one country. And now, with the Germans back, the old Albanian dream of cleansing the province of Serbs and joining it into a Greater Albania is finally being realized.

With the Albanian population beginning to move back into Kosovo, thereby reversing the Serbian ethnic cleansing, and the Serbs moving out, NATO appears to have pulled off one of the greatest smoke-and-mirrors tricks in ethnic cleansing history.

Elciar Pasvanoglu, a retired Turkish colonel who headed the Flying Ottoman Crescent Medal Committee, cited this in their award: "It was like a flea-flicker or trick play in American football. The world thought that NATO was doing one thing, and the next thing you know--wow!--NATO is the cleanser, and they're getting away with it, scot-free! That's exactly the kind of thing this medal was created to praise and promote: effective, quiet, hassle-free ethnic cleansing."

This isn't the first Flying Ottoman Crescent Medal--a small foot-stool-shaped charm made of human bone--that NATO has won. In 1995, NATO helped to plan, arm, oversee and cover for Croatia's assault on the Krajina Serbs, driving out some 300,000 to 600,000 Serbs, killing some 14,000 refugees as they tried to flee, effectively cleansing their country of its centuries-old Serbian population without earning even the vaguest slap-on-the-wrist from the West. Croatian President Franjo Tudjman shared his Flying Ottoman in 1995 with then-UN representative Madeleine Albright, who was instrumental in formulating America's and NATO's "hardline" anti-Serbian policy in the Balkans. She will be personally awarded a second Flying Ottoman Crescent for her work in Kosovo.

"She's an impressive lady," remarked Pasvanoglu. "You normally don't see one woman getting away with two ethnic cleansings of that scale and still being seen as some kind of defender of minorities. Someday, I'd like to give her a tour of my hometown."

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