This is, to put it mildly, irresponsible reporting by NYT. To treat presence of RUS paramilitaries in #Bosnia, a country in which less than 25 yrs ago 100K were killed by such militants, as a joke is despicable. No one is giggling in BiH -- or #Ukraine. nytimes.com/2018/03/31/wor…
I wrote this for WaPo in Nov. bc I was disturbed by the way US press had begun to normalize far-right extremists domestically, as they had done in the Balkans a quarter century earlier. Infuriating to see them "return to form" in the region. washingtonpost.com/news/democracy…
As @_edinh notes, recall only last time US media told you a reactionary mvmt & their avatar was a joke, who had no chance of upending the world order. And that was in the US, w its centuries-old democratic republic. Bosnia does not have that stability.
Reasonable minds can disagree. Not everyone has to buy my analysis of the Balkans, there's plenty of other scholars, observers. But don't send an American to report on BiH if his commentary will just be smug condescension, to make a joke of our most precious commodity: peace.
The Balkans could be portrayed as an Oriental wilderness, bedeviled by savage, feuding tribes in the 1990s bc so few of us had access to Western media, to tell our own stories, to speak of facts. Not anymore. This is inexcusable, NYT. Not again.
If you actually want to assess the threat #Russia poses to #Bosnia & the #Balkans, @FPRI published an excellent report only days ago. That its findings are not reflected in this txt is telling. I could say worse, but I've said enough; smug drivel. /xx fpri.org/article/2018/0…
