A timely reminder of where the NATO regime change playbook seems to have originated: 'Reactivate ethnic/religious/historical enmity - support anyone who can be used to further the West's geostrategic aims - blame the 'evil ones' (in this case the Serbs and Milosevitch) for the resulting disaster - don't give a damn about the mess you leave behind'.
Thanks for this article, Kit - we can only hope that after so many iterations of the tragedy that befell the people of Yugoslavia - Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and now Ukraine - people everywhere will begin to wake up and understand who the 'evil ones' really are.
As we've seen with Iraq, the majority opinion is now that we were lied to and deceived into accepting a criminal adventure that cost a million people their lives and is still undermining the region. The problem, however, is it's difficult for people to come to terms with the reality - that every conflict we've been involved in has been based on lies.
Putin is often misquoted or (intentionally) misunderstood, but when he said the collapse of the Soviet Union was a catastrophe, I think that after 30 years of wars many of us are beginning to understand what he meant.
I worry that within the US democratic party’s “joyful” transition to a younger, more intersectional face there is a pacification of the outrage towards our wars of aggression and regime change. Particularly the empty rhetoric around Gaza that somehow makes do for the voting base. I do hope I’m wrong, but I can’t help thinking there is enough buy in from the media, politicians, and wealthy to support a continued campaign of violence against those who oppose or challenge empire.
If anyone has a different perspective I’d be grateful to hear. Fortunately, journalists like Kit give me some hope and especially the communities that are engaged with this oppositional work let me know I’m not alone in madness!
Administrations change, but with the CIA, the song remains the same. The victims change, but there is always a boogeyman to be created and then hunted down, to ensure that "Americans and 'democracy' are kept 'safe'". Thanks for reminding us that Gaza is just the latest in a long string of US Geopolitical and CIA insanity.
The genocide was entirely intentional, or, rather, NATO is indifferent. NATO knows full well that, were Ukraine to somehow reconquer Donbass or Crimea, a massive and entirely intentional genocide would result.
NATO considers this as best of no consequence, and at worst aa beneficial, to terrorize others who might challenge American Hegemony.
The bombing campaign in the former Yugoslavia was very specifically aimed at wrecking the Eastern block legacy industrial & technical infrastructure, just as important to our ruler's aims as stirring the ethnic violence and fragmenting them politically.
We don't spend our money and organizational efforts on improving our own country, we spend them trying to degrade everyone else's.
As it is ALLWAYS cheaper, easier and faster to wreck stuff and murder people than to build better stuff and educate people, it all makes perfect sense, if you are an intelligent sociopath (or the demographic comprising US State Dept./CIA/RAND Corp. directors- but I repeat myself).
For me as a guy born in 1994 and seeing all this unfold on the television screen of my grandparents. It all starts to make sense now. Thanks for the article and it's really well written, Kit. Not sure how you do it, but kudos.
God bless you, Tom. I saw it unfold too. My memories of tubthumping British media reporting on the bombing of Yugoslavia will endure forever, viscerally. Not least because, fast forward to today, many dear friends of mine my age at the time (10) spent the same 78-day-long period in bombshelters, unsure whether they would have homes to return to, or even were walked out of their homes at KLA gunpoint, while KFOR spectated with indifference. This lived experience can't not stir something within one. At the very least, a sense of duty to those affected, which demands exposing the truth at all costs.
This is also a very good reminder indeed of what an evil <expletive> Tony Blair is/was even before Iraq. And again, this is yet another thing the British people should be told - if we had a decent BBC they would be told and none of these things could happen. But if we had a decent BBC then we're talking a parallel world in which you are the BBC's ubiquitously respected Security Correspondent, and the likes of assets like Starmer, following exposure, would have needed to slink to an understated new life in Canada, maybe. Whether the RCMP would want anything to do with that <same expletive> is a moot point, though.
Sadly, then, Starmer is no different than Blair, and I very much suspect we are about to see that (once the Americans have elected their next gilded puppet - Trump most likely). I also very much suspect, however, that Iran is not only fully aware of this but very prepared for it too. At least, I damn well hope they're prepared...
There was a Biden's notorious "retribution" speech to the KLA fighters. Later, his buddy, leader of the KLA Hasim Tachi, who was president of Kosovo was charged for the war crimes - by the same guy who is after Trump. Jack Smith
The bombing campaign in the former Yugoslavia was very specifically aimed at wrecking the Eastern block legacy industrial & technical infrastructure, just as important to our ruler's aims as stirring the ethnic violence and fragmenting them politically.
We don't spend our money and organizational efforts on improving our own country, we spend them trying to degrade everyone else's.
As it is ALLWAYS cheaper, easier and faster to wreck stuff and murder people than to build better stuff and educate people, it all makes perfect sense, if you are an intelligent sociopath (or the demographic comprising US State Dept./CIA/RAND Corp. directors- but I repeat myself).
“War is a matter not so much of arms as of money.”
― Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides,
460 B.C.E. – 400 B.C.E.
“Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
― Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides is generally regarded as one of the first true historians. Like his predecessor Herodotus, known as "the father of history", Thucydides places a high value on eyewitness testimony and writes about events in which he probably took part.
He also assiduously consulted written documents and interviewed participants about the events that he recorded.
Unlike Herodotus, whose stories often teach that a hubrisinvites the wrath of the gods, Thucydides does not acknowledge divine intervention in human affairs.
dennis hanna
p.s. There is no finer journalist than Kit Klarenberg.
"....Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s cofounder and Osama bin Laden’s deputy has been fingered as “the person who can do the things that happened” on the fateful day. Coincidentally, one KLA unit was led by his brother....:"
Someone has edited the English language Wikipedia page on Srebrenica "into line" with the NY Times version of history since last I looked.
Also, Google is now blind to some interesting articles concerning forensic analysis of the events at Srebrenica and exactly who died, when & how I'd seen a couple of years ago. Analysis that didn't agree with the official version, of course. Someone is tieing up loose ends?
We have entered an era where making hard copies of anything you might want to reference later is mandatory, Google is the usual suspects bitch.
Back then you couldn't report on these pigstyle "nation building". Just like today, these mendacious publications in the US and Europe had followed their narrative. I could add a lot here. The ethnic cleansing began after the war. A quarter of a million non-Albanians were expelled under the eyes of NATO-led KFOR. The UN was compromised by appointing the corrupt and incompetent Bernhard Kouchner as HRSG. As with Akashi in Bosnia, Kofi Banana had been able to give NATO a free hand. Kouchner's bodyguard got a lead tube over his head from an Albanian daddy because he had procured young girls for his boss. Today every "negotiation" are done. Its over. The Stasi state is established and the north will be handed to this illegal state, by Vucic. I wrote about here a while ago.
A timely reminder of where the NATO regime change playbook seems to have originated: 'Reactivate ethnic/religious/historical enmity - support anyone who can be used to further the West's geostrategic aims - blame the 'evil ones' (in this case the Serbs and Milosevitch) for the resulting disaster - don't give a damn about the mess you leave behind'.
Thanks for this article, Kit - we can only hope that after so many iterations of the tragedy that befell the people of Yugoslavia - Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and now Ukraine - people everywhere will begin to wake up and understand who the 'evil ones' really are.
As we've seen with Iraq, the majority opinion is now that we were lied to and deceived into accepting a criminal adventure that cost a million people their lives and is still undermining the region. The problem, however, is it's difficult for people to come to terms with the reality - that every conflict we've been involved in has been based on lies.
Putin is often misquoted or (intentionally) misunderstood, but when he said the collapse of the Soviet Union was a catastrophe, I think that after 30 years of wars many of us are beginning to understand what he meant.
I worry that within the US democratic party’s “joyful” transition to a younger, more intersectional face there is a pacification of the outrage towards our wars of aggression and regime change. Particularly the empty rhetoric around Gaza that somehow makes do for the voting base. I do hope I’m wrong, but I can’t help thinking there is enough buy in from the media, politicians, and wealthy to support a continued campaign of violence against those who oppose or challenge empire.
If anyone has a different perspective I’d be grateful to hear. Fortunately, journalists like Kit give me some hope and especially the communities that are engaged with this oppositional work let me know I’m not alone in madness!
Administrations change, but with the CIA, the song remains the same. The victims change, but there is always a boogeyman to be created and then hunted down, to ensure that "Americans and 'democracy' are kept 'safe'". Thanks for reminding us that Gaza is just the latest in a long string of US Geopolitical and CIA insanity.
The genocide was entirely intentional, or, rather, NATO is indifferent. NATO knows full well that, were Ukraine to somehow reconquer Donbass or Crimea, a massive and entirely intentional genocide would result.
NATO considers this as best of no consequence, and at worst aa beneficial, to terrorize others who might challenge American Hegemony.
You don't have to "challenge American Hegemony".
All you have to do is have a somewhat educated population, a reasonably stable government (especially one in any way oriented towards developing their own economy rather than forever serving as a source of cheap raw materials/cheapest possible labor for multinational corporate exploitation) and an infrastructure that might SOMEDAY be CAPABLE of offering an alternative to "the Indispensable Nation(©)".
The bombing campaign in the former Yugoslavia was very specifically aimed at wrecking the Eastern block legacy industrial & technical infrastructure, just as important to our ruler's aims as stirring the ethnic violence and fragmenting them politically.
We don't spend our money and organizational efforts on improving our own country, we spend them trying to degrade everyone else's.
As it is ALLWAYS cheaper, easier and faster to wreck stuff and murder people than to build better stuff and educate people, it all makes perfect sense, if you are an intelligent sociopath (or the demographic comprising US State Dept./CIA/RAND Corp. directors- but I repeat myself).
I was never in Kosovo thankfully.
I was still of the mind that we were the good guys and there would be good reasons for our presence there and the side we took.
It was only later when I saw some of the atrocities and also saw only one side being punished, that I questioned the story.
I was also a believer in most of the official narrative around 9/11.
Those days are long gone and calling it "The New Pearl Harbour" is apt..
Thank you for writing this, as I would have remained even more ignorant about the role of "Perfidious Albion" and wider NATO in global conflicts.
Chris Hedges was in Kosovo and what he saw affected his outlook ever since. That is why he has such a humanist position.
>we were the good guys
That triggered me enough to recommend you a 2019 movie called “Balkan Line”, though it's actually more of a Balkan Rim in translation.
I will give it a viewing.
Thank you.
For me as a guy born in 1994 and seeing all this unfold on the television screen of my grandparents. It all starts to make sense now. Thanks for the article and it's really well written, Kit. Not sure how you do it, but kudos.
God bless you, Tom. I saw it unfold too. My memories of tubthumping British media reporting on the bombing of Yugoslavia will endure forever, viscerally. Not least because, fast forward to today, many dear friends of mine my age at the time (10) spent the same 78-day-long period in bombshelters, unsure whether they would have homes to return to, or even were walked out of their homes at KLA gunpoint, while KFOR spectated with indifference. This lived experience can't not stir something within one. At the very least, a sense of duty to those affected, which demands exposing the truth at all costs.
Another one for the history file - thanks Kit.
This is also a very good reminder indeed of what an evil <expletive> Tony Blair is/was even before Iraq. And again, this is yet another thing the British people should be told - if we had a decent BBC they would be told and none of these things could happen. But if we had a decent BBC then we're talking a parallel world in which you are the BBC's ubiquitously respected Security Correspondent, and the likes of assets like Starmer, following exposure, would have needed to slink to an understated new life in Canada, maybe. Whether the RCMP would want anything to do with that <same expletive> is a moot point, though.
Sadly, then, Starmer is no different than Blair, and I very much suspect we are about to see that (once the Americans have elected their next gilded puppet - Trump most likely). I also very much suspect, however, that Iran is not only fully aware of this but very prepared for it too. At least, I damn well hope they're prepared...
There was a Biden's notorious "retribution" speech to the KLA fighters. Later, his buddy, leader of the KLA Hasim Tachi, who was president of Kosovo was charged for the war crimes - by the same guy who is after Trump. Jack Smith
Thank you for your clear explanations of various events that have occurred, that we should remember and share to try to change course.
You don't have to "challenge American Hegemony".
All you have to do is have a somewhat educated population, a reasonably stable government (especially one in any way oriented towards developing their own economy rather than forever serving as a source of cheap raw materials/cheapest possible labor for multinational corporate exploitation) and an infrastructure that might SOMEDAY be CAPABLE of offering an alternative to "the Indispensable Nation(©)".
The bombing campaign in the former Yugoslavia was very specifically aimed at wrecking the Eastern block legacy industrial & technical infrastructure, just as important to our ruler's aims as stirring the ethnic violence and fragmenting them politically.
We don't spend our money and organizational efforts on improving our own country, we spend them trying to degrade everyone else's.
As it is ALLWAYS cheaper, easier and faster to wreck stuff and murder people than to build better stuff and educate people, it all makes perfect sense, if you are an intelligent sociopath (or the demographic comprising US State Dept./CIA/RAND Corp. directors- but I repeat myself).
“War is a matter not so much of arms as of money.”
― Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides,
460 B.C.E. – 400 B.C.E.
“Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”
― Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides is generally regarded as one of the first true historians. Like his predecessor Herodotus, known as "the father of history", Thucydides places a high value on eyewitness testimony and writes about events in which he probably took part.
He also assiduously consulted written documents and interviewed participants about the events that he recorded.
Unlike Herodotus, whose stories often teach that a hubrisinvites the wrath of the gods, Thucydides does not acknowledge divine intervention in human affairs.
dennis hanna
p.s. There is no finer journalist than Kit Klarenberg.
"....Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda’s cofounder and Osama bin Laden’s deputy has been fingered as “the person who can do the things that happened” on the fateful day. Coincidentally, one KLA unit was led by his brother....:"
"Operation Cyclone" literally had brothers then!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/04/18/world/arming-afghan-guerrillas-a-huge-effort-led-by-us.html
Thank you Mr.Klarenberg, your courage and objectivity are inspiring.
Fascinating and overlooked aspect of history.
Anything on Srebrenica ??
@Boris Petrov
Someone has edited the English language Wikipedia page on Srebrenica "into line" with the NY Times version of history since last I looked.
Also, Google is now blind to some interesting articles concerning forensic analysis of the events at Srebrenica and exactly who died, when & how I'd seen a couple of years ago. Analysis that didn't agree with the official version, of course. Someone is tieing up loose ends?
We have entered an era where making hard copies of anything you might want to reference later is mandatory, Google is the usual suspects bitch.
Of course — Google is totally CIA controlled on a massive scale - Eric Schmidt the mastermind and CIA operative
Please watch "Architects and Engineers Talk About 9/11." It might still be on YouTube.
It was a false flag done by the Bush administration to give George W. Bush an excuse to start a second war in the Middle East.
Back then you couldn't report on these pigstyle "nation building". Just like today, these mendacious publications in the US and Europe had followed their narrative. I could add a lot here. The ethnic cleansing began after the war. A quarter of a million non-Albanians were expelled under the eyes of NATO-led KFOR. The UN was compromised by appointing the corrupt and incompetent Bernhard Kouchner as HRSG. As with Akashi in Bosnia, Kofi Banana had been able to give NATO a free hand. Kouchner's bodyguard got a lead tube over his head from an Albanian daddy because he had procured young girls for his boss. Today every "negotiation" are done. Its over. The Stasi state is established and the north will be handed to this illegal state, by Vucic. I wrote about here a while ago.