Slovak Pol: Prepare for War with Hungarian "Scoundrels"

Forget about all those anti-Hungarian politicians in Romania and Serbia: this month's leading international anti-Magyar threat comes courtesy of our mountainous neighbor to the north. According to a report on slovensko.com, leading Slovak nationalist Ján Slota is claiming that recent statements by Hungarian politicians in support of "autonomy" for ethnic Magyars in the region are a provocation that needs to be forcefully opposed. We thought Slota was speaking metaphorically, until we saw he was once quoted as saying "Slovakia has good tanks and we can raze Budapest with them." Uh-oh.

Slota, pictured above in what we hope is not a combat airplane, said the true aim of Slovakia's Hungarian Coalition Party and its supporters is "territorial autonomy in southern Slovakia and its subsequent joining to Hungary," a threat Slovakia could best counter by withdrawing its troops from their peacekeeping duties in Kosovo and stationing them on the border with Hungary. He has also previously said that Slovakia must not give up a "single centimeter" of land to the country's half-million ethnic Hungarians, whom he calls "scoundrels."

In case you are tempted to write Slota off as just some random nutter with a website, he is the longtime mayor of the country's third-largest city (Žilina) and the driving force behind the country's most energetic ultra-nationalist party, the Slovak National Party (SNS), which uses the nifty Nazi-like logo pictured left. But he does say enough stupid stuff that it is slightly difficult to take him seriously, in one drunken instance calling former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright a "Czech woman who calls herself an American and even the U.S. Secretary of State, and who wants to teach all Slovaks lessons about what sort of idiots we are."

Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsány downplayed Slota's outburst, calling it "a statement not worthy of comment... it's not to be taken seriously." Though we suspect that Slovakia's ambassador to Budapest will soon get a chance to hone his Hungarian-listening skills thanks to the controversy.

Meanwhile, Slota has been quoted as saying that his comment about razing Budapest to the ground was taken out of context, which makes us feel obliged to apologize in advance for pointing out that Hungary could bomb Bratislava back into the dark ages, had it ever left them.