US Senator Chris Murphy, Enemy of the Macedonian State
Op-ed by MHRMI President Bill Nicholov (with the title US Politicians Don’t Have the Right to Dictate Macedonia’s Future) published in Truthout, an influential US nonprofit news organization:
In May, Senator Chris Murphy tapped into the endless flow of U.S. taxpayer dollars to fly to the Western Balkans, with a stop in the Republic of Macedonia to implore (read: threaten) Macedonians to adopt a “simple constitutional amendment” in order to “stay on the path to join the European Union.” But why does a senator from Connecticut care if Macedonia joins the EU?
As a member of the interventionist U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, it is Sen. Murphy’s job to ensure that the prospective member-state remains under the West’s control, specifically, U.S. control. But all U.S. politicians, not just those like Murphy specifically tasked to do so, seemingly take an oath to pledge allegiance to U.S. foreign interventionism.
Sen. Murphy is the epitome of everything that is wrong with United States foreign policy. He is also the epitome of the (supposedly rare) bipartisanship between Democrats and Republicans, which happens much more frequently when an opportunity to victimize another country is presented.
In his statement, Sen. Murphy purposely omitted that the “simple constitutional amendment” he is pushing Macedonia to adopt would see it succumb to demands from neighboring Bulgaria, a country whose main foreign policy objective is to eradicate the existence of Macedonians. Bulgaria already secured EU-backing in its anti-Macedonian campaigns, as the EU specifically made the abandonment of Macedonians’ identity, culture, language and history a prerequisite for “joining the European Union family.”
Specifically, Bulgaria’s demands include renouncing the existence of the Macedonian minority in Bulgaria; renouncing the Macedonian identity, language, nation, history and culture as a whole; adoption of official Bulgarian policy that everyone and everything Macedonian is “really Bulgarian” (ironic, considering Bulgaria’s appropriation of Macedonian history, culture, language and identity when forging its own identity); the revision of Macedonian history to deny that Bulgaria was an ally of Nazi Germany during World War II, that it occupied Macedonia and committed heinous war crimes against Macedonians, including the expulsion of over 7,000 Macedonian Jews to the Treblinka death camp in Poland; and that Bulgaria be referred to as a “liberator” instead of an occupier of Macedonia.
Would you want to join this “family”?
Following total U.S. support for Greece’s anti-Macedonian demands in forcefully changing Macedonia’s name into the highly derogatory “North Macedonia” (designed to negate Macedonians’ existence, identity, culture and history) in exchange for Greece lifting its veto of Macedonia’s (U.S.-imposed) North Atlantic Treaty Organization membership bid, the U.S. is now fully backing Bulgaria. What follows is lifted straight out of the U.S. playbook — the parading of politician after politician on overseas “diplomatic” missions in order to secure U.S. hegemony.
U.S. taxpayers, your politicians thank you, Senator Murphy especially. Where else would he get the chance to go on “whirlwind” (his word) tours, offend an entire group of people, enable human rights abuses against them, then film a video before boarding his jet, repeating his offensive statement, saying that he knows it’s controversial, but then, in typical U.S. political fashion, doubling down by claiming that it shouldn’t be.
Senator Murphy has joined many U.S. political predecessors in truly becoming an enemy of the Macedonian state. His constituents in Connecticut should be wondering if he had to spend so much of their money to do so. A simple statement from his home base would’ve done the trick.
We all see the billions of dollars flying out of the U.S. on high-profile interventionist missions, but do U.S. taxpayers know how much of their money is spent on interventionism that doesn’t garner as many headlines?
In a ramp-up of its preparation for the forced name change, the U.S. spent more than $45 million from 2012-2017 on the Republic of Macedonia, and more than $1 billion since Macedonia’s independence in 1991, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, which also acknowledges that not all funding is reported. One can only imagine the true number.
U.S. taxpayers should wonder, if that much is spent on a country of 2 million, how much does their government spend worldwide?
What was the Macedonia money used for? To “support democracy activities” such as overthrowing a government to install a U.S. puppet regime in the form of Zoran Zaev’s dictatorship and funding its lavish spending; creating and funding U.S. foreign policy organizations (also known as “civil society organizations”) like the so-called “Youth Educational Forum”; funding of U.S.-controlled media like 360 Degrees; brutally suppressing Macedonians’ human rights by funding riot-police attacks against civilians and incarceration of dissenters, such as a mass round-up of opponents of the forced name change.
The report itself was issued almost three years after the reporting period ended and almost eight years since it began, apparently in the hope that the public would “forget” about the U.S.’s destructive interventionism. One can only imagine the amount of wasted U.S. taxpayer dollars in the next report.
Speaking of forgetting, U.S. politicians should forget swearing an oath to “support and defend the Constitution,” just as U.S. politicians want Macedonians to forget our Constitution.
Bill Nicholov, President
Macedonian Human Rights Movement International
twitter.com/billnicholov