God bless you for your terrific reporting, research, teaching. Imperative info for a true history of our world. This knowledge & comprehensive view traces the steps of abomination our "heads of state" in Washington dare to continually force onto the world. Not a wonder we & our horrors perpetrated are now in full view. Thank you, Kit. Yours is a tremendous contribution.
And to think the reporting on the Račak massacre, (which you, Matt Taibbi, and Peter Worthington), have all disputed led to the bombing of Kosovo... Great journalism as always!
If I do say so myself, I think my treatment of Racak is definitive - https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/anatomy-of-a-lie-the-cia-racak-massacre. Although, I didn't mention how the prosecution was mysteriously dropped due to an anonymous witness who lived in the village wanting to testify to KLA atrocities, and how they wanted the massacre to happen.
Absolutely you should cite yourself :) - great article that one too!
I find Helena Ranta's case so interesting as her work was so bigly utilized in all of this. I went to see her presentation about her work in Kosovo, here in Finland maybe in 2007 or smthng like that. I was left sunned that she was so skeptical and even warned between the lines regarding the actors in US foreign politics etc.
I was still entirely clueless about the whole game at the time of course ;)
And yeah; better not to mess with KLA (later TMK/KPC) :) It had very mafia- like hue and manner of operating already in 2000.
I agree- I read Worthington's report first and got some of the pretext, but Kit's article is the definitive story about the events. One of my favorite articles!
Another brilliant piece exposing the myth making of the West when their real desire is destruction.
A quick anecdote.
In late 80’s while doing my Masters work at UCLA linguistics, I listened to a talk by Branka Magaš. A Croat nationalist sent to give talks at US universities and spread lies about Yugoslav suppression and repression of ethnic Croats.
She went so far as to claim that she wasn’t allowed to speak “Croatian “. As a linguist, this perked my ears since the standard Croatian dialect is essentially the very same as Ijekavian sub dialect, of standar Shtokavian that I was raised on in Bosnia. Apart from certain local terms, one cannot tell them apart.
So I asked her the question “ If all peoples of Bosnia and Croatia Serbs, Croats, Muslims etc, spoke the same dialect, how would the authorities possibly be able to stop Croats from speaking it while allowing others”
She sidestepped the question and rattled off more lies about Yugo ( and by default Serb) repression of Croats. I got up on left.
Her son Marko Attila Hoare is an academic somewhere and spews the same bullshit as his mother. Both rewarded for promoting lies and “the official narrative “.
Thank you for this - very interesting. I have said before but it bears repeating, there is 100% an investigation to be done into how ultranationalists consistently view their lack of dominance and/or supremacy in a society as a form of oppression. It's also bitterly ironic - and not at all funny -that what Washington's Croat proxies were advocating was precisely what they claimed to be suffering under. Total erasure of Serbs, Serb language (ie Cyrillic), and their religion, using brute force.
It is as if they all went to the Goebbels’ school of foreign policy.. Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty of.
Croatia was allowed to ethnically cleanse 90% of its Serb population, and with US/NATO/EU help. Kosovo’s new Albanian rulers have had an even greater success and again with US/EU/NATO help. Sarajevo has been almost completely cleansed of its pre war Serb population.
and yet.. it is ‘the Serbs’ that are responsible for all the ethnic cleansing and atrocities. funny how that works..
Same applies to the Ukrainian nationalists. You are correct, one should do a study on a psychological aspects of this phenomenon. I bet there's a psychiatric condition waiting to be discovered.
Funnily enough, we actually have a case study of that specific phenomenon already. In early 2024, the ICJ ruled against Ukraine in a wide-ranging case it brought against Russia, which was supported by all her Western sponsors. A core charge was that Russia discriminated against Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea. Kiev cited NGO investigations and media reporting in support. The ICJ brutally slapped down Ukraine, and the quality of 'evidence' supplied - https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/ukraine-crushingly-defeated-at-icj
If I may suggest, an interesting analysis could be to draw parallels between Srpska Krajina/Srpska and Donbass.
Both wars have one ethnicity outlawed and deconstitutionalised with the pivotal difference that Donbass had its eastern flank protected by an ally which could not be subdued but western pyromaniacs.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch can be thanked for heaping "human rights violations" on the same pile of imperial propaganda phrases as "authoritarian regime" and "democratic opposition." US imperialism couldn't keep disguising its neocolonial aggressions as human-rights protections without the invaluable support of HRW and AI. Thanks for continuing to shed such needed light on the imperial murder of Yugoslavia, which continues to be so relevant to exposing the imperial playbook.
The Balkans has always been a British obsession. They were the ones who denied the Bosniaks arms to defend themselves, then dumped depleted uranium on Belgrade. They also tried to get the US to send ground troops to this shitshow.
It's the Gene Sharp colour revolution cook book, a multifacetted approach in which the statehood and power enforcement capacities of the target entity must be denied and thus progressively eroded. The control of the land, water courses and skies above are denied with no-fly zones, maritime blocades and sanctions. The police and judges ability to implement the law are denied by phony accusations, external and internal, in order to intimidate the public officers and neutralize their capacity to act. Large swaths of the polical and military classes must have been previously compromised. The foreign finance networks of NGOs, mixed enterprises, development programs are used as power houses for revolt. Short circuiting those mecanics is not imposible but a hard stand must be taken, like in Belarus, Georgia or Hungary. Any state wishing to neutralize this 5D warfare technology should study those study cases and above all, have the courage to use their legitimate right to self defence by force. And this is missing, reinforcing the reward for the agressor. Example, Venezuela. Example, Cuba. Example, Iran. The EU ilegally declare the Iranian IRGC a terroist organisation. This is as if The Russian parliament declared the FBI a terrorist organisation, and above all, its an act of war which is always passively taken, leading to more and more pressure and economic siege suffocation until the final demolition of the target state. Maritime siege or trade boycots are acts of war which are never simetrically responded. This can never end well for the targetted entity. Iran should have closed all EU embassies on its soil. Theyre under siege for decades and have little time left. A paradigm shift would be necessary for its decision making centres. Unfortunately, I am not optimistic about it.
The pattern here mirrors what I've seen in broken systems everywhere. When an organization designed to document human rights becomes an instrument for geopolitical engineering, it reveals how even the most noble missions calcify into institutional self-preservation. The deeper question is whether any supranational body can resist being weaponized when power concentrates. What would documentation of human rights violations look like if it emerged from networks rather than hierarchies?
This was yet another fantastic article, Kit, and I could feel the justified passion coming through. These sorts of tragedies, all engineered by the evil that is the American Empire, must be preserved in their truth for posterity - otherwise the people of the future will never learn the appropriate lessons and never let it happen again.
Interestingly Laber's Wiki entry doesn't provide any real biographical details at all - it's little more than sycophancy. These sorts of omissions are always telling.
Although it does mention her membership of the Russian Institute at Columbia University and the NYC Council on Foreign Relations. And "Early in her career, Laber worked as Foreign Editor of The Current Digest of the Soviet Press and then as Publications Director of the Institute for the Study of the USSR." - sounds like an intel agency cutout to me.
I reckon a deep dive into her biography would reveal a lot of juicy agency-related stuff. I'd be very surprised if it didn't.
This is what happens when a group of self-appointed and self-serving "experts", who have never actually spent time outside of their comfortable insular native haunts, decide how to partition a former empire called the Ottoman. Held within is an arrogant disdain for the people and their culture, in which intrinsic tribal parameters have been essentially inviolable due to past feuds, prejudices passed down from generation to generation..much like the Hatfields and McCoys! The result is a chaotic mess that inevitably erupts into armed conflict, which arms manufacturers are eager to supply an endless stream to fatten their bank accounts. Then our hallowed media can comment on how "uncivilized" these countries have always been, since it's their nature. How many times have we seen this scenario unfold, over the decades? Then, parasitic "proxy" organizations devise proven strategies to inflame and capitalize on this situation and then feign "shock and awe" that the designed eventuality actually reaches it ultimate goal. Then other agents swoop in and make hay in the sunshine, unconscious of the misery and bloodletting that ensues upon the innocent and vulnerable. Capitalism's tried and true modus operandi. Hosanna to the Highest, corpses abound.
God bless you for your terrific reporting, research, teaching. Imperative info for a true history of our world. This knowledge & comprehensive view traces the steps of abomination our "heads of state" in Washington dare to continually force onto the world. Not a wonder we & our horrors perpetrated are now in full view. Thank you, Kit. Yours is a tremendous contribution.
And to think the reporting on the Račak massacre, (which you, Matt Taibbi, and Peter Worthington), have all disputed led to the bombing of Kosovo... Great journalism as always!
Good point; went to refresh my memory as I was remembering it was not all clear case from the point of view of chief coroner/ expert either ..
Parts 1(i) [on propaganda use] and 1(l) [access to evidence or lack of it] I found quite interesting
https://balkanwitness.org/RantaStatementToICTY.htm
If I do say so myself, I think my treatment of Racak is definitive - https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/anatomy-of-a-lie-the-cia-racak-massacre. Although, I didn't mention how the prosecution was mysteriously dropped due to an anonymous witness who lived in the village wanting to testify to KLA atrocities, and how they wanted the massacre to happen.
Absolutely you should cite yourself :) - great article that one too!
I find Helena Ranta's case so interesting as her work was so bigly utilized in all of this. I went to see her presentation about her work in Kosovo, here in Finland maybe in 2007 or smthng like that. I was left sunned that she was so skeptical and even warned between the lines regarding the actors in US foreign politics etc.
I was still entirely clueless about the whole game at the time of course ;)
And yeah; better not to mess with KLA (later TMK/KPC) :) It had very mafia- like hue and manner of operating already in 2000.
I agree- I read Worthington's report first and got some of the pretext, but Kit's article is the definitive story about the events. One of my favorite articles!
Thank you!
Another brilliant piece exposing the myth making of the West when their real desire is destruction.
A quick anecdote.
In late 80’s while doing my Masters work at UCLA linguistics, I listened to a talk by Branka Magaš. A Croat nationalist sent to give talks at US universities and spread lies about Yugoslav suppression and repression of ethnic Croats.
She went so far as to claim that she wasn’t allowed to speak “Croatian “. As a linguist, this perked my ears since the standard Croatian dialect is essentially the very same as Ijekavian sub dialect, of standar Shtokavian that I was raised on in Bosnia. Apart from certain local terms, one cannot tell them apart.
So I asked her the question “ If all peoples of Bosnia and Croatia Serbs, Croats, Muslims etc, spoke the same dialect, how would the authorities possibly be able to stop Croats from speaking it while allowing others”
She sidestepped the question and rattled off more lies about Yugo ( and by default Serb) repression of Croats. I got up on left.
Her son Marko Attila Hoare is an academic somewhere and spews the same bullshit as his mother. Both rewarded for promoting lies and “the official narrative “.
Thank you for this - very interesting. I have said before but it bears repeating, there is 100% an investigation to be done into how ultranationalists consistently view their lack of dominance and/or supremacy in a society as a form of oppression. It's also bitterly ironic - and not at all funny -that what Washington's Croat proxies were advocating was precisely what they claimed to be suffering under. Total erasure of Serbs, Serb language (ie Cyrillic), and their religion, using brute force.
It is as if they all went to the Goebbels’ school of foreign policy.. Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty of.
Croatia was allowed to ethnically cleanse 90% of its Serb population, and with US/NATO/EU help. Kosovo’s new Albanian rulers have had an even greater success and again with US/EU/NATO help. Sarajevo has been almost completely cleansed of its pre war Serb population.
and yet.. it is ‘the Serbs’ that are responsible for all the ethnic cleansing and atrocities. funny how that works..
Same applies to the Ukrainian nationalists. You are correct, one should do a study on a psychological aspects of this phenomenon. I bet there's a psychiatric condition waiting to be discovered.
Funnily enough, we actually have a case study of that specific phenomenon already. In early 2024, the ICJ ruled against Ukraine in a wide-ranging case it brought against Russia, which was supported by all her Western sponsors. A core charge was that Russia discriminated against Tatars and Ukrainians in Crimea. Kiev cited NGO investigations and media reporting in support. The ICJ brutally slapped down Ukraine, and the quality of 'evidence' supplied - https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/ukraine-crushingly-defeated-at-icj
If I may suggest, an interesting analysis could be to draw parallels between Srpska Krajina/Srpska and Donbass.
Both wars have one ethnicity outlawed and deconstitutionalised with the pivotal difference that Donbass had its eastern flank protected by an ally which could not be subdued but western pyromaniacs.
Similarities are eeringly similar.
Formerly:Kurvingrad
Very well put.
I hope there's an afterlife, where ignorant, evil charlatans like Jeri Laber will get what they deserve.
With any luck she'll be sizzling alongside Madeleine Albright!
According to Wikipedia, Laber is 94 and still alive!
And totally agree with you about Albright (Not-so-bright). What an evil, pro-war piece of shit.
The good die young...
I've often seen that. It's almost as if the powers in the next life say: This is a great person. Let's bring them to us to hang out with
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch can be thanked for heaping "human rights violations" on the same pile of imperial propaganda phrases as "authoritarian regime" and "democratic opposition." US imperialism couldn't keep disguising its neocolonial aggressions as human-rights protections without the invaluable support of HRW and AI. Thanks for continuing to shed such needed light on the imperial murder of Yugoslavia, which continues to be so relevant to exposing the imperial playbook.
The Balkans has always been a British obsession. They were the ones who denied the Bosniaks arms to defend themselves, then dumped depleted uranium on Belgrade. They also tried to get the US to send ground troops to this shitshow.
Outstanding investigation.
Thank you!
It's the Gene Sharp colour revolution cook book, a multifacetted approach in which the statehood and power enforcement capacities of the target entity must be denied and thus progressively eroded. The control of the land, water courses and skies above are denied with no-fly zones, maritime blocades and sanctions. The police and judges ability to implement the law are denied by phony accusations, external and internal, in order to intimidate the public officers and neutralize their capacity to act. Large swaths of the polical and military classes must have been previously compromised. The foreign finance networks of NGOs, mixed enterprises, development programs are used as power houses for revolt. Short circuiting those mecanics is not imposible but a hard stand must be taken, like in Belarus, Georgia or Hungary. Any state wishing to neutralize this 5D warfare technology should study those study cases and above all, have the courage to use their legitimate right to self defence by force. And this is missing, reinforcing the reward for the agressor. Example, Venezuela. Example, Cuba. Example, Iran. The EU ilegally declare the Iranian IRGC a terroist organisation. This is as if The Russian parliament declared the FBI a terrorist organisation, and above all, its an act of war which is always passively taken, leading to more and more pressure and economic siege suffocation until the final demolition of the target state. Maritime siege or trade boycots are acts of war which are never simetrically responded. This can never end well for the targetted entity. Iran should have closed all EU embassies on its soil. Theyre under siege for decades and have little time left. A paradigm shift would be necessary for its decision making centres. Unfortunately, I am not optimistic about it.
The pattern here mirrors what I've seen in broken systems everywhere. When an organization designed to document human rights becomes an instrument for geopolitical engineering, it reveals how even the most noble missions calcify into institutional self-preservation. The deeper question is whether any supranational body can resist being weaponized when power concentrates. What would documentation of human rights violations look like if it emerged from networks rather than hierarchies?
Thank you for this article. One might think they understand the horrors of ignorance...yet they persist
Thank you for referencing the work of Robert Hayden, who I had not known about, in this article. Even the home page of his website is fascinating.
This was yet another fantastic article, Kit, and I could feel the justified passion coming through. These sorts of tragedies, all engineered by the evil that is the American Empire, must be preserved in their truth for posterity - otherwise the people of the future will never learn the appropriate lessons and never let it happen again.
Thank you for noticing, dear Evelyn!
Cheers Kit. I am, as it happens, a very good noticer indeed…
Interestingly Laber's Wiki entry doesn't provide any real biographical details at all - it's little more than sycophancy. These sorts of omissions are always telling.
Although it does mention her membership of the Russian Institute at Columbia University and the NYC Council on Foreign Relations. And "Early in her career, Laber worked as Foreign Editor of The Current Digest of the Soviet Press and then as Publications Director of the Institute for the Study of the USSR." - sounds like an intel agency cutout to me.
I reckon a deep dive into her biography would reveal a lot of juicy agency-related stuff. I'd be very surprised if it didn't.
She's certainly a bitch, anyhow.
Human Rights Watch also promotes the fake DeepState story about the Chinese oppression of the Uyghurs, even though the West Point counterterrorism center wrote years ago about the Uyghur terrorism and the US put some of them in Guantanamo. See this https://www.thekomisarscoop.com/2023/12/all-static-and-noise-anti-china-propaganda-film-about-uyghurs/
This is what happens when a group of self-appointed and self-serving "experts", who have never actually spent time outside of their comfortable insular native haunts, decide how to partition a former empire called the Ottoman. Held within is an arrogant disdain for the people and their culture, in which intrinsic tribal parameters have been essentially inviolable due to past feuds, prejudices passed down from generation to generation..much like the Hatfields and McCoys! The result is a chaotic mess that inevitably erupts into armed conflict, which arms manufacturers are eager to supply an endless stream to fatten their bank accounts. Then our hallowed media can comment on how "uncivilized" these countries have always been, since it's their nature. How many times have we seen this scenario unfold, over the decades? Then, parasitic "proxy" organizations devise proven strategies to inflame and capitalize on this situation and then feign "shock and awe" that the designed eventuality actually reaches it ultimate goal. Then other agents swoop in and make hay in the sunshine, unconscious of the misery and bloodletting that ensues upon the innocent and vulnerable. Capitalism's tried and true modus operandi. Hosanna to the Highest, corpses abound.
Longfellow couldn’t have put it better!
Great essay….it’s knowledge I wasn’t aware of…thank you so much
I can't read this in the UK due to substack wanting me to verify my age and provide them with ID...
https://substack.com/@kitklarenberg/note/c-208281988?r=hmeu9