Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia

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Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Printable Version

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Printable Version

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Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Guest - 03-01-2007

(For the magic number of '10,000 number of Albanians killed by Serbs, see 2nd article pasted further down in this post.)

Can't prove genocide, so how to still tar the Serbs? Can't guess? Ask the Hague Tribunals and their sycophants in the media:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/category/story.c...jectid=10426003
QUOTESerbia cleared of genocide, but failed to stop killings
Tuesday February 27, 2007
By Alexandra Hudson

Photo caption: Women from Srebrenica react to TV coverage from The International Court of Justice. Photo / Reuters
(In this image: the women have walls plastered with photos of missing/dead people in the background already. So this was not just some random women who have been affected, but obviously women of an organisation chosen in preparation for relaying this story.)

THE HAGUE - The highest UN court cleared the Serbian state today of direct responsibility for genocide in Bosnia during the 1992-95 war, but said it had violated its responsibility to prevent genocide.

Bosnia had asked the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to rule on whether Serbia committed genocide through the killing, rape and ethnic cleansing that ravaged Bosnia during the war, in one of the court's biggest cases in its 60-year history.

It was the first time a state had been tried for genocide, outlawed in a UN convention in 1948 after the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews. A judgment in Bosnia's favor could have allowed it to seek billions of dollars of compensation from Serbia.

ICJ President Judge Rosalyn Higgins said the court concluded that the Srebrenica massacre did constitute genocide, but that other mass killings of Bosnian Muslims did not.

But she said the court ruled that the Serbian state could not be held directly responsible for genocide, so paying reparations to Bosnia would be inappropriate even though Serbia had failed to prevent genocide and punish the perpetrators.

"The court finds by 13 votes to 2 that Serbia has not committed genocide," she said. "The court finds that Serbia has violated the obligation to prevent genocide ... in respect of the genocide that occurred in Srebrenica."

Some 8,000 Muslims from Srebrenica and surrounding villages in eastern Bosnia were killed in July 1995. The bodies of about half of them have been found in more than 80 mass graves nearby.
(What mass graves? See post 4 and further down.)

Bosnian Serb wartime leader Radovan Karadzic and his military commander Ratko Mladic, both accused of genocide over Srebrenica, are still on the run.

Earlier in the ruling, Higgins said the court found it established that Serbia "was making its considerable military and financial support available" to the Bosnian Serbs but that it had not known they had genocidal intent.

Individuals guilty of genocide

Serbia had said a ruling against it would be an unjust and lasting stigma on the state, which overthrew its wartime leader Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.

Milosevic died last year, just months before a verdict in his trial on 66 counts of genocide and war crimes was due.

The UN war crimes tribunal in The Hague has already found individuals guilty of genocide at Srebrenica. Bosnia used evidence from trials there for its case against Serbia.

In Bosnia, now split between a Muslim-Croat federation and a Serb Republic, sentiment is split along ethnic lines, with Muslims hoping the court would brand Serbia an aggressor.

About 50 people demonstrated outside the court on Monday in favor of a genocide verdict.

"A ruling that Serbia committed genocide in Bosnia means everything to me," said 34-year-old Hedija Krdzic who lost her husband, father and grandfather at Srebrenica. "Without such a ruling I fear that one day the massacre will be forgotten."

It is almost 14 years since Bosnia first sued the rump Yugoslav state from which it seceded in 1992, but the case has been repeatedly held up by arguments over jurisdiction.

Bosnia's Muslims and Croats followed Slovenia and Croatia in breaking away from Yugoslavia in April 1992, against the wishes of Bosnian Serbs, who were left as a one-third minority in what had previously been a Yugoslav republic ruled from Belgrade.

This triggered a war in which at least 100,000 people were killed.

Backed by the Yugoslav army, the Serbs captured two-thirds of Bosnia and besieged Sarajevo. Tens of thousands of non-Serbs were killed and hundreds of thousands forced from their homes.

- REUTERS
http://www.michaelparenti.org/MediaAtrocities.html
"The Media and their Atrocities" by Parenti (mentioned in material pasted in Post 5)
Pasting a large section here because it is worth reading:
QUOTESerbian attacks on KLA strongholds or the forced expulsion of Albanian villagers were described as "genocide. " But experts in surveillance photography and wartime propaganda charged NATO with running a "propaganda campaign" on Kosovo that lacked any supporting evidence. State Department reports of mass graves and of 100, 000 to 500, 000 missing Albanian men "are just ludicrous, " according to these independent critics. 11 Their findings were ignored by the major networks and other national media.QUOTE11. Charles Radin and Louise Palmer, "Experts Voice Doubts on Claims of Genocide: Little Evidence for NATO Assertions, " San Francisco Chronicle, April 22, 1999. 
QUOTEThe Disappearing "Mass Graves"
After NATO forces occupied Kosovo, the stories about mass atrocities continued fortissimo. The Washington Post reported that 350 ethnic Albanians "might be buried in mass graves" around a mountain village in western Kosovo. They "might be" or they might not be. These estimates were based on sources that NATO officials refused to identify. Getting down to specifics, the article mentions "four decomposing bodies" discyovered near a large ash heap. 15

It was repeatedly announced in the first days of the NATO occupation that 10, 000 Albanians had been killed (down from the 100, 000 and even 500, 000 Albanian men supposedly executed during the war). No evidence was ever offered to support the 10, 000 figure, nor even to explain how it was arrived at so swiftly and surely while NATO troops were still moving into place and did not occupy but small portions of the province.
(The random 10,000 is the number the media has settled on at present -Â see for instance posts 11, 13 and 15 which are recent news articles - media still faithfully doing Uncle Sam's bidding unquestioningly and towing the anti-Serb line. They think 10,000 is large enough to scream 'genocide', and small enough not to have to prove that it took place.)

Likewise, repeatedly unsubstantiated references to "mass graves, " each purportedly filled with hundreds or even thousands of Albanian victims also failed to materialize. Through the summer of 1999, the media hype about mass graves devolved into an occasional unspecified reference. The few sites actually unearthed offered up as many as a dozen bodies or sometimes twice that number, but with no certain evidence regarding causes of death or even the nationality of victims. In some cases there was reason to believe the victims were Serbs. 16

On April 19, 1999, while the NATO bombings of Yugoslavia were going on, the State Department announced that up to 500, 000 Kosovo Albanians were missing and feared dead. On May 16, U.S. Secretary of Defense William Cohen, a former Republican senator from Maine now serving in President Clinton'sDemocratic Administration, stated that 100, 000 military-aged ethnic Albanian men had vanished and might have been killed by the Serbs. 17 Such widely varying but horrendous figures from official sources went unchallenged by the media and by the many liberals who supported NATO's "humanitarian rescue operation. " Among these latter were some supposedly progressive members of Congress who seemed to believe they were witnessing another Nazi Holocaust.

On June 17, just before the end of the war, British Foreign Office Minister Geoff Hoon said that "in more than 100 massacres" some 10, 000 ethnic Albanians had been killed (down from the 500, 000 and 100, 000 bandied about by U.S. officials). "18 A day or two after the bombings stopped, the Associate Press and other news agency, echoing Hoon, reported that 10, 000 Albanians had been killed by the Serbs. 19 No explanation was given as to how this figure was arrived at, especially since not a single war site had yet been investigated and NATO forces had barely begun to move into Kosovo. On August 2, Bernard Kouchner, the United Nations' chief administrator in Kosovo (and organizer of Doctors Without Borders), asserted that about 11, 000 bodies had been found in common graves throughout Kosovo. He cited as his source the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Republic of Yugoslavia (ICTY). But the ICTY denied providing any such information. To this day, it is not clear how Kouchner came up with his estimate. 20

As with the Croatian and Bosnian conflicts, the image of mass killings was hyped once again. Repeatedly unsubstantiated references to "mass graves, " each purportedly filled with hundreds or even thousands of Albanian victims were publicized in daily media reports. In September 1999, Jared Israel did an internet search for newspaper articles, appearing over the previous three months including the words "Kosovo" and "mass grave. " The report came back: "More than 1000 â too many to list. " Limiting his search to articles in the New York Times, he came up with eighty, nearly one a day. Yet when it came down to hard evidence, the mass graves seemed to disappear.

Thus, in mid-June, the FBI sent a team to investigate two of the sites listed in the war-crimes indictment against Slobodan Milosevic, one purportedly containing six victims and the other twenty. The team lugged 107, 000 pounds of equipmentinto Kosovo to handle what was called the "largest crime scene in the FBI's forensic history, " but it came up with no reports about mass graves. Not long after, on July 1, the FBI team returned home, oddly with not a word to say about their investigation. 21

Forensic experts from other NATO countries had similar experiences. A Spanish forensic team, for instance, was told to prepare for at least 2, 000 autopsies, but found only 187 bodies, usually buried in individual graves, and showing no signs of massacre or torture. Most seemed to have been killed by mortar shells and firearms. One Spanish forensic expert, Emilio Perez Puhola, acknowledged that his team did not find one mass grave. He dismissed the widely publicized references about mass graves as being part of the "machinery of war propaganda." 22

The Washington Postreported that 350 ethnic Albanians "might be buried in mass graves" around a mountain village in western Kosovo. Or they might not. Such speculations were based on sources that NATO officials refused to identify. Getting down to specifics, the article mentions "four decomposing bodies" discovered near a large ash heap, with no details as to who they might be or how they died. 23

In late August1999, the Los Angeles Timestried to salvage the genocide theme with a story about how the wells of Kosovo might be "mass graves in their own right. " The Times claimed that "many corpses have been dumped into wells in Kosovo ... Serbian forces apparently stuffed... many bodies of ethnic Albanians into wells during their campaign of terror. "24 Apparently? Whenever the story got down to specifics, it dwelled on only one village and only one well â in which one body of a 39-year-old male was found, along with three dead cows and a dog. Neither his nationality nor cause of death was given. Nor was it clear who owned the well. "No other human remains were discovered, " the Timeslamely concluded. As far as I know, neither the Los Angeles Timesnor any other media outlet ran any more stories of wells stuffed with victims.

In one grave site after another, bodies were failing to materialize in any substantial numbers â or any numbers at all. In July 1999, a mass grave in Ljubenic, near Pec (an area of concerted fighting), believed to be holding some 350 corpses, produced only seven after the exhumation. In Djacovica, town officials claimed that one hundred ethnic Albanians had been murdered, but there were no bodies because the Serbs had returned in the middle of the night, dug them up, and carted them away, the officials seemed to believe. In Pusto Selo, villagers claimed that 106 men were captured and killed by Serbs at the end of March, but again no remains were discovered. Villagers once more suggested that Serb forces must have come back and removed them. How they accomplished this without being detected was not explained. In Izbica, refugees reported that 150 ethnic Albanians were executed in March. But their bodies were nowhere to be found. In Kraljan, 82 men were supposedly killed, but investigators found not a single cadaver. 25

The worst incident of mass atrocities ascribed to Yugoslavian leader Slobodan Milosevic allegedly occurred at the Trepca mine. As reported by U.S. and NATO officials, the Serbs threw a thousand or more bodies down the shafts or disposed of them in the mine's vats of hydrochloric acid. In October 1999, the ICTY released the findings of Western forensic teams investigating Trepca. Not one body was found in the mine shafts, nor was there any evidence that the vats had ever been used in an attempt to dissolve human remains. 26

By late autumn of 1999, the media hype about mass graves had fizzled noticeably. The many sites unearthed, considered to be the most notorious, offered up a few hundred bodies altogether, not the thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands previously trumpeted, and with no evidence of torture or mass execution. In many cases, there was no certain evidence regarding the nationality of victims. 27 No mass killings means that the Hague War Crimes Tribunal indictment of Milosevic "becomes highly questionable, " notes Richard Gwyn. "Even more questionable is the West's continued punishment of the Serbs." 28

No doubt there were graves in Kosovo that contained two or more persons (which is NATO's definition of a "mass grave"). People were killed by bombs and by the extensive land war that went on between Yugoslav and KLA forces. Some of the dead, as even the New York Times allowed, "are fighters of the Kosovo Liberation Army or may have died ordinary deaths" â as would happen in any large population over time. 29 And no doubt there were grudge killings and summary executions as in any war, but not on a scale that would warrant the label of genocide and justify the massive death and destruction and the continuing misery inflicted upon Yugoslavia by the western powers.

We should remember that the propaganda campaign waged by NATO officials and the major media never claimed merely that atrocities (murders and rapes) occurred. Such crimes occur in every war, indeed, in manycommunities during peacetime. What the media propaganda campaign against Yugoslavia charged was that mass atrocities and mass rapes and mass murders had been perpetrated, that is, genocide, as evidenced by mass graves.

In contrast to its public assertions, the German Foreign Office privately denied there was any evidence that genocide or ethnic cleansing was ever a component of Yugoslav policy: "Even in Kosovo, an explicit political persecution linked to Albanian ethnicity is not verifiable... The actions of the [Yugoslav] security forces [were] not directed against the Kosovo-Albanians as an ethnically defined group, but against the military opponent and its actual or alleged supporters." 30

Still, Milosevic was indicted as a war criminal, charged with the forced expulsion of Kosovar Albanians, and with summary executions of a hundred or so individuals, again, alleged crimes that occurred after the NATO bombing had started, yet were used as justification for the bombing. The biggest warcriminal of all is NATO and the political leaders who orchestrated the aerial campaign of death and destruction. But here is how the White House and the U.S. media reasoned at the time: Since the aerial attacks do not intend to kill civilians, then presumably there is no liability and no accountability, only an occasional apology for the regrettable mistakes â as if only the intent of an action counted and not its ineluctable effects. In fact, a perpetratorcan be judged guilty of willful murder without explicitly intending the death of a particular victim â as when the death results from an unlawful act that the perpetrator knew would likely cause death. George Kenney, a former State Department official under the Bush Administration, put it well: "Dropping cluster bombs on highly populated urban areas doesn't result in accidental fatalities. It is purposeful terror bombing." 31

In sum, through a process of monopoly control and distribution, repetition and image escalation, the media achieve self-confirmation, that is, they find confirmation for the images they fabricate in the images they have already fabricated. Hyperbolic labeling takes the place of evidence: "genocide, " "mass atrocities," "systematic rapes" and even "rape camps" â camps which no one has ever located. Through this process, evidence is not only absent, it becomes irrelevant.

So the U.S. major media (and much of the minor media) are not free and independent, as they claim, they are not the watchdog of democracy but the lapdog of the national security state. They help reverse the roles of victims and victimizers, warmongers and peacekeepers, reactionaries and reformers. The first atrocity, the first war crime committed in any war of aggression by the aggressors is against the truth.QUOTE16. See for instance, Carlotta Gall, "Belgrade Sees Grave Site as Proof NATO Fails to Protect Serbs, " New York Times, August 27, 1999.
17. Both the State Department and Cohen's figures are reported in the New York Times, November 11, 1999.
18. New York Times, November 11, 1999.
19. Associate Press release, June 18, 1999. Reuters (July 12, 1999) reported that NATO forces had catalogued more than one hundred sites containing the bodies of massacred ethnic Albanians.
20. Stratfor. com, Global Intelligence Update, "Where Are Kosovo's Killing Fields? " Weekly Analysis, October 18, 1999.
21. Reed Irvine and Cliff Kincaid, "Playing the Numbers Game" (www. aim. org/mm/1999/08/03. htm).
22. London Sunday Times, October 31, 1999.
23. Washington Post, July 10, 1999.
24. Los Angeles Times, August 28, 1999.
25. Stratfor. com, Global Intelligence Update, "Where Are Kosovo's Killing Fields? " Weekly Analysis, October 18, 1999.
26. Richard Gwyn in the Toronto Star, November 3, 1999.
27. See for instance, Carlotta Gall, "Belgrade Sees Grave Site as Proof NATO Fails to Protect Serbs, " New York Times, August 27, 1999.
28. Richard Gwyn in the Toronto Star, November 3, 1999.
29. New York Times, November 11, 1999.
30. Intelligence reports from the German Foreign Office, January 12, 1999 and October 29, 1998 to the German Administrative Courts, translated by Eric Canepa, Brecht Forum, New York, April 20, 1999.
31. Teach-in, Leo Baeck Temple, Los Angeles, May 23, 1999.

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Guest - 03-02-2007

In my opinion ,the bigest mistake was made by EU-NATO ,which admited a single Bosnia.If Bosnia was separate betwin serbs,croats and muslims every one was happy more or less.Because EU accept it an omogen Bosnia,serbs boicote the referendum and this lead to war.

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Guest - 07-17-2007

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070717/ap_on_...5xGS.kARiNH2ocA
QUOTERussia rejects U.N. proposal on Kosovo
By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer

Russia rejected the latest U.N. draft resolution on Kosovo's future Monday, calling it a hidden attempt to achieve independence for the Serbian province despite vehement opposition from its Serb minority.

The sponsors of the resolution â the United States and European Union nations â called the draft circulated last week the "final attempt" to reach an agreement on core issues with Moscow, which has strong cultural ties to Serbia.

Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin all but said Moscow would veto the resolution if the sponsors call for a vote, saying the chances of its adoption "are zero."

France's U.N. Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere said the sponsors would consult with officials in their capitals on the next steps. Options include dropping the resolution, revising it again to try to address Russia's concerns or calling for a vote.

There is widespread concern in the Security Council and the region that Kosovo's ethnic Albanian majority, which comprises 90 percent of its 2 million population, could declare independence unilaterally if the council does not approve a path to independence.
(In other words: if the Security Council does not approve it officially, the terrorists will take it by force anyway. The right description for this is 'appeasement of terrorism by giving the terrorists what they demand'.
When Londonistanis - and other islamis in the west - ask for/terrorise for independence, must remember to point the UK and US and EU to the precedent they set here.
Russia need have no qualms about refraining from objecting at that future date. Besides, Serbia is a loyal friend of Russia, but the west never was.)

While Kosovo remains a province of Serbia, it has been under U.N. and NATO administration since a 78-day NATO-led air war that halted a Serb crackdown on ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999.
('Separatists' makes it sound like these were wronged people. These are terrorists.
Media is always particular about terminology in such cases - it's part of how they plead for the chosen side/tell us how to vote:
- they use 'separatists' for where the west supports the terrorist side,
- 'militants' where they can't avoid admitting to the violence when readers are already aware of it. 'Militants' you see is rather ambivalent, with which the media tries to imply that 'Yes, they're violent - but perhaps they have a reason'.
- and 'terrorists' is used when the west itself is the victim, so that we know when we're supposed to hiss at their enemies.)

In April, U.N. envoy Martti Ahtisaari recommended that Kosovo be granted internationally supervised independence â a proposal strongly supported by the province's ethnic Albanians, the U.S. and EU, but opposed by Serbia and Russia.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who backs the Ahtisaari proposal, warned that any unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo's ethnic Albanians would "really complicate the already complex problems" of the region.
(So to prevent 'complicating complex problems' -Â that is, more islamoterrorism - the west decides to give what is not theirs to islamists. Aren't they generous? Because we all know it's hardest to give to others what is not yours in the first place.)

"I would hope that Kosovo will not take any unilateral action. This is what exactly I've been stressing publicly and privately to the leadership of Kosovo," Ban told a news conference Monday.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said Friday that a Russian veto "will not stop the situation from moving forward in Kosovo, but it will be outside the Security Council framework, which is not what we want, and it's not the desirable way to go forward."
(Sounds like a threat. US is gunning for their usual 'with or without you all, we'll get done what we want'. Next to that their little pals the 'ethnic Albanian' islamoterrorists are impatiently clammering for their long-promised reward. If they don't get it, then they could turn on the US sooner rather than the inevitable 'eventually'.)

But he also said: "We are determined to move forward either within the council or otherwise."

The latest draft calls for four months of intensive negotiations between the two sides, but dropped a path to independence if talks fail. Instead, it affirms the council's "readiness to review the situation further in light of those negotiations."

The U.N. would hand over administration of Kosovo to the EU 120 days after the resolution is adopted, and the EU representative in the province would become the international civilian representative. NATO-led troops would remain to help ensure security.

Churkin said the latest draft has too many "gray areas."

"The consequences of this resolution, if it were able to be passed by the Security Council â and the chances of that are zero â would be that 120 days from now we'd be walking around and saying, 'Well we don't even know what we did four months before.' This of course is not unacceptable," he said.

Churkin said the Security Council cannot pass a resolution which does not state clearly the council's future role and a requirement for future progress on the return of minorities forced to flee their homes in Kosovo. He also said it needs to address what happens to the resolution that established U.N. administration of Kosovo.
(Serbs forced to flee their homeland because of islam. Oh, where else in the world have we seen something like this....)

"Almost the entire text and maybe particularly the annexes are permeated with the concept of the independence of Kosovo, and it's kind of a hidden automaticity of the Ahtisaari plan," he said.

A meeting of top diplomats from the so-called Contact Group on Kosovo â consisting of the U.S., Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Russia â is expected to take place on July 25 in Berlin, according to Security Council diplomats.S., Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Russia â is expected to take place on July 25 in Berlin, according to Security Council diplomats.

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Hauma Hamiddha - 07-17-2007

Husky- are familiar with Franz Baron von Nopsca?
A brilliant scientist, but sadly the closest you get to a cross between a Nazi and an Islamist.

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Guest - 07-17-2007

QUOTE(Hauma Hamiddha @ Jul 17 2007, 08:44 AM)Husky- are familiar with Franz Baron von Nopsca?
A brilliant scientist, but sadly the closest you get to a cross between a Nazi and an Islamist.[right][snapback]71268[/snapback][/right]Thankfully no.
But the one you mention can't have been the only nazi islamist. There were quite a number of islamic fascists (nazis) during WWII - 'handschar' they were called. Fanatical. Eager in the uptake of anti-semitism and general hatred.

As for 'scientist' nazis, they're the scariest kind of all: scientists ought to be sensible people; but when they're the kind of people who rationalise, to themselves and then others, such things as the superiority of one people over another and genocide, you know you're dealing with madmen instead. <!--emo& Sad

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' />

Had to watch many European films about WWII and nazis in high school (history class). Scarred for life. Actors enacting real nazi 'scientists' galore in practically all of them. Shudder. Shudder. Shudder. History is often scarier than any horror book.

The one you mention - did he have something to do with Yugoslavia?

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Guest - 07-17-2007

QUOTEHad to watch many European films about WWII and nazis in high school (history class). Scarred for life.
West propaganda.
Nazi were no different than current Chini or any western power.

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Guest - 07-18-2007

QUOTE(Mudy @ Jul 17 2007, 07:45 PM)<div class='quotetop'>QUOTEHad to watch many European films about WWII and nazis in high school (history class). Scarred for life.West propaganda.
Nazi were no different than current Chini or any western power.[right][snapback]71270[/snapback][/right]</div>It wasn't propaganda Mudy. The doco-films were based on factual records. (Some Nazi scientists' horrible experiments being well-known - well, what part of these that they could rediscover anyway.) The other films were based on biographies of Jewish prisoners who escaped and, of course, of one who just didn't make it but left behind her diary.

However, in history class they were not comparing nazism's situation to communist China or the present west. This is to be expected. One can write the individual histories of islamic jihadism or christian history/terrorism (like the Inquisition) or of nazism or of Russia's communism without needing to compare any of them to communist china or present western imperialism or TSP's mass genocide of Bangladeshis or the Rwandan genocide. The cases can be dealt with separately.
Atrocities committed by all of these can at times come close to or be equally horrible to or exceed each other, but to show documentaries about the one is not to diminish the terror and genocide that the others caused.

The chapters they dealt with in class was on WWII. When discussing that, Maoist China or Nato-intervention in early 1990s Yugoslavia is not really relevant. Next to that, to their situation, WWII was more geographically significant as it related directly to their history; whereas the crisis in Yugoslavia was just going on (not yet 'history') and China's situation - China being a distant land - wasn't really relevant to them (at that time).

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - dhu - 07-20-2007

Due to a late start in the process of world colonization, the Nazis were forced to colonize the european interior and thus paid a steep price in demonization. Both British and Mughals started out with equal ferocity as the Nazis but had to eventually tone it down for Looting purposes. The Nazis did manage to start the process of decolonization and that is why it is so important to encourage Arab interests in Europe and Hispanic interests in America.

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Hauma Hamiddha - 07-20-2007

Some points to note:
--Genocides have been a part of world history since the earliest times. Illiterate non-Abrahamic tribes of similar racial composition have carried it out. An example is the famous genocide of Moriori by Maori (both fellow Austronesians) that was narrated by leftist scientist Jared Diamond.
--The Anglosphere tries to claim moral superiority by citing Christianity and the "Enlightenment" as causes. Nothing can be farther from the truth. Christianity like Islam actually abolished any innate humanity people might have had and allowed them to commit genocides with full justification and "divine" sanction. European nations were amongst the greatest purveyors of genocide even as the so called "Enlightenment" was under way in their lands.
--Historically, genocides was considered the most effective solution to any human conflict so no military leader really even found a need to justify it.
--Along with the Jewish genocide, there were many genocides in the great upheavals of of the 1800-1900s. E.g.:
Gypsy genocide- Nazis;
Hindu genocides- British;
Genocides of various nations- Russian Stalinists;
Japanese genocide- Americans;
Chinese genocide- Japanese;
Armenian genocide- Turks;
Chinese/Tibetan genocide- Chinese Maoists;
Cambodian genocide- Cambodian socialists;
Bangali Hindu genocide- Pakistani Muslims;
AND many many African genocides in all sizes by Africans themselves on other Africans.

-Now most of these genocides were of comparable sizes and I personally feel one cannot be considered a lesser crime than another. Yet we must remember the following: 1) Victors write history and demonize the defeated 2) The world media is essential under Anglospheric control and does not really care of non-whites.

-The Nazis were losers so the victors (Anglosphere+Russia) got a chance to simultaneously write history and divert attention from their own killings by highlighting the Nazi murders.

-Anti-Jewish and Anti-gypsy sentiment has been very common Europe throughout the middle ages and the so called "Enlightenment" did not make it go away one bit. Now the Nazis merely made the move of translating this ambient sentiment to actual genocide of Jews and gypsies.

-Since the French revolution the Jews started gaining enormous financial ascendancy in Europe. Their financial ascendancy allowed them to form powerful alliances with English and American elites. Their tasting financial success also resulted in a great revolution in Jewish society where they started devoting their innate high intelligence to secular areas like science, literature and political thought. It is no understatement that this Jewish intellectual revolution more or less "made" the modern Euro-American world - from Karl Marx to Einstein to Rosalind Franklin -- it was as or more important than the Renaissance for the West. Hence, in the choosing the Jews in the midst of their intellectual revolution as a target the Nazis made their biggest mistake-- they were actually hitting at the real intellectual and financial under-girding of the Euro-American world and trying to take it over. They bit much more than they could chew and the result was their end. Given this unique position of the Jews in the Euro-American world, they could leverage enormous public coverage to their genocide -- so every one knows of it.

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Guest - 07-20-2007

QUOTE-The Nazis were losers so the victors (Anglosphere+Russia) got a chance to simultaneously write history and divert attention from their own killings by highlighting the Nazi murders.In the movie 'Enigma' (yes, the Enigma machine that recently some famous American - can't imagine anyone but Bush to blunder so recklessly - decided that the Americans had deciphered - Mwahahahaha; in reality it appears to have been the Brits with Polish help) they showed how a genocide of Poles (Katyn massacre?) by Russia's communists was discovered by the Brits but hidden away from the public during WWII.
Not until war was declared against communism later on did the Brits decide they should make it public. How handy, being able to produce that sensationalist news of a massacre - though decades old by now - during the cold war time.

What always amazes me is the extent to which nations/peoples that committed genocide go to hide their crime sometime after the event, when during the same they took great and vocal pride in effecting it.
You can see islamic hysterians (Irfan Habib was it?) trying to explain that madevil islamic historians were exaggerating about the large-scale massacres of Dharmic kafirs in their historic records. You can see ustashe-apologists and communistics try to reduce the number of Serbians massacred from btw 1 and 2 mill down to a 30,000. They were unable to reduce this further.
The Armenian genocide is denied by the perpetrators. That's as expected, since islamists of this age (who feel they have to live up to the public expectation of conscience and so don't want to gloat about it in public anymore) aren't known to tell the truth. But at least christians elsewhere choose to mention the Armenian genocide.

Rwanda can be admitted to after the fact. Sudan will come to light in its full measure after the fact. Congo too.

The Kurdish genocides and persecutions by Iraqis, Turks, Iranians,... is ignored; because no one appears to care either way about that unfortunate people.

But what bothers me no end is how barely no one (barring the Hindu, who won't count for listing his own misery) recognises or acknowledges the 3 million Bangladeshis who were murdered in a ghastly ghastly manner in 1971. Of which 80% were Hindu and the majority of the remaining 20% were Buddhist. But is TSP getting any flack for it? Oh no. Because TSP is America's best pet, America will not recognise the genocide of Bangladeshi Dharmics. Because America gave moral support (and more? - there definitely was some US ship sent out symbolically to encourage their paki team) to TSP in carrying out the genocide, they will never recognise it.

But I think the reasons for the continued non-acknowledgement are more sinister than that. When the powers that be finally acknowledge a genocide, it will be when they have no more reason to go after the victim population/no more reason to hide it. However, in the Hindu case, the situation is left open. This can only be on purpose.

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - dhu - 07-20-2007

Probably, we should make a distiction between the genocides propagated by Nazism, Christism, Islamism, et al versus every Hatfield-McCoy phenomenon that we come across. Otherwise we are falling for the equal-equal psyops.

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Guest - 07-22-2007

QUOTE(dhu @ Jul 20 2007, 07:52 PM)Probably, we should make a distiction between the genocides propagated by Nazism, Christism, Islamism, et al versus every Hatfield-McCoy phenomenon that we come across. Otherwise we are falling for the equal-equal psyops.
[right][snapback]71366[/snapback][/right]The distinction is already there naturally, we need not make it as it's quite obvious.
All earlier mass-murder, wars or conquest were merely for resources; later on they were also for power and the expansion thereof (Greek, Roman, Persian conquests). As stated however, the very early ones were merely about competition for resources. We're animals after all. And closest to chimpanzees to boot - the most advanced species when it comes to deception. Hey, not knocking our pedigree here. We (humans) have vastly improved on (surpassed) their lying capabilities. We're in a league of our own now.

But with christonazislamicommunism, ideology became a main thrust of conquering, colonizing, genociding others. How unique. Yes, search for more resources (stated in terms of riches, land, wealth, power, expansion) was always still there; but add to it the unique objective of stealing from, oppressing, enslaving or massacring unsaved people precisely for their heatheness.

No person who glances through history and the therein recorded reasoning for atrocities committed, could fail to see the difference between early historical atrocities and those particularly committed for the sake of enforcing/propagating christonazislamicommunistic ideology. Annihilation-at-all-costs is a uniquely christonazislamicommunistic bequest to humanity. I mean, christos killed native Americans who fed and looked after them, and were ready to share everything with them; only because they were heathen! Hard time imagining any empire-seeking Roman, Greek (even Alexander) or the like doing that.

Finally. Found it again. About 1800s warfare in Africa, Congo:
http://freetruth.50webs.org/A4b.htm#Congo
QUOTEBefore 1874 the Congo basin was a well-populated district, inhabited by a number of uncivilised [the 2nd to last paragraph here will contrast this with 'civilisation'] tribes. These tribes were engaged more or less in tribal wars, which were largely a result of contact with the whites, since they were generated and perpetuated chiefly on account of slave raids.
[...]
-- Christianity, Slavery and Labour, by Chapman Cohen (1931)Ah, the blessings of christocolonialism.

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Husky - 02-28-2008

Many would have come across this news already, though what was heard on the news may only have focused on the 'US embassy being aflame in Belgrado'.

The inevitable bad day had come. They managed to rip the Kosovo limb from its natural Serbian body.

Putting this here for continuity and archival purposes.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/080224/15/15xtl.html
QUOTEMonday February 25, 04:15 AM
Serbia back on Kosovo offensive, with Russian help

BELGRADE (Reuters) - Serbia was back on the offensive over Kosovo's independence on Sunday, blaming the United States for crisis in the Balkans while its ally Russia accused the Americans of destroying "world order."
Three days after young rioters in Belgrade embarrassed the country by attacking Western embassies and looting shops, Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica said it is Washington that is threatening peace and stability.
(News' wording makes it sound like Serbia and Russia are unreasonable and hysterical. Facts are entirely different.)

In a strongly worded statement from Moscow, Russia also accused Washington of trampling on international law.

"The United States must annul the decision to recognize a false state on the territory of Serbia," Kostunica said. "It must reaffirm U.N. Security Council resolution 1244, which guarantees Serbia's sovereignty and territorial integrity."

"Continuation of the policy of force will deepen the crisis that undermines the foundations of world order and threatens peace and stability in the Balkans," he said.

Serbia has expressed official regret for riots last Thursday during which the U.S. embassy was attacked and set on fire. The mission sent dependents and support staff to Croatia for safety.

This week, Serbia is getting high-level support from Moscow. Kostunica is due to host Russian President Vladimir Putin's likely successor, Dmitry Medvedev, on Monday.

The Russian foreign ministry, in a statement, again demanded a "compromise" on Kosovo, which diplomats believe is headed for partition, although Serbia has never formally proposed it.

"Do support for the Kosovo Albanian side alone, contempt for law for the sake of so-called 'political expediency', and indifference to the fate of a hundred thousand Serbs who... are effectively being driven into a ghetto not amount to flagrant cynicism?" it said.
(Yikes. Scary future for these Serbs there. They're now in the hands of islamic nazis who are supported by the US <!--emo& Sad

--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /> The nazis will torment them, while the US will get the media to ignore such events or otherwise turn news reports around to make the islamics the victims. As they have so often done.)

"Is it not cynical that the Serb people is being openly humiliated while Belgrade is being promised a Euro-Atlantic future if it agrees to the carve-up of Serbia?"
(Grand-scale experiment US is performing on unfortunate Serbia and Serbians.)

The foreign ministry statement recalled that Russia had a peacekeeping contingent in Kosovo from 1999 to 2004, under the aegis of the NATO-led KFOR force which has 17,000 troops there.

"It was withdrawn due to our fundamental disagreement with bias favoring one side in Kosovo matters..." the ministry said.

Instead of supporting Kosovo Albanian independence and other actions "destroying world order," there must be a "a decision based on law and compromise between Belgrade and Pristina," the ministry statement said.

It did not say what compromise Russia has in mind. But on the ground in Kosovo, ethnic Serbs in the north are making steady efforts to resist the authority of the new state and its Western backers, with the support of Serbia and Russia.

Russia has not yet openly proposed a return of Russian troops to Kosovo. But is U.N. ambassador Vitaly Churkin has warned that it will not stand by and allow Kosovo Serbs to be forced to accept the rule of the new republic.At least Russia is loyal. Hopefully Serbia may yet get their Kosovo back, ideally with no losses on any side.

http://au.news.yahoo.com//080227/15/15z6s.html
QUOTEThursday February 28, 02:18 AM
Kosovo Serbs call for return of Russian troops
PRISTINA (Reuters) - Serbs in Kosovo called on Wednesday for the return of Russian peacekeepers to the country after the ethnic Albanian majority's declaration of independence from Serbia this month.
The call was made by the Serb National Council, a grouping of Kosovo Serb leaders in the Serb stronghold of northern Mitrovica.

"The Serb National Council calls on Russia to return its KFOR contingent, to stabilize the situation in areas where Serbs are in the majority," Council leader Milan Ivanovic said.

Russia withdrew its troops from the NATO-led Kosovo Force, KFOR, in mid-2003, four years after being deployed with 45,000 others after an 11-week NATO air war to save Kosovo Albanians from ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces fighting guerrillas.
(Oh, no, the "ethnic cleansing" refrain again. Repeat a lie a million times and it turns into the 'truth' for western media. After all, must manufacture consent for creation of independent Kosovo. And nothing like shocking claims of 'ethnic cleansing' to sway the gullible public.
What, they haven't mentioned 'mass graves'. It's a miracle. Or maybe it's just that they don't want to be caught with too many obvious lies in one article...)

The international force is now down to 16,000 soldiers.

Kosovo's 120,000 remaining Serbs, almost half of whom live in a thin slice of land in the north adjacent to Serbia, have rejected the February 17 secession, which was backed by the West but condemned by Serbia and Russia.
(US will decide what will happen to other countries, how dare Serbia - or even historical ally, nearby Russia - say anything at all about Kosovo; it so obviously doesn't even concern them. Confused

arcasm
Maybe Kosovo's Albanians want to move to the US now, since the US has been so generous with others' land it will be even more generous with its own. No?)

In a statement on Sunday, the Russian foreign ministry demanded a compromise solution on Kosovo -- something the West has assessed as impossible after almost two years of inconclusive negotiations.

The ministry recalled that Russia had previously had a peacekeeping contingent in Kosovo -- possibly pointing to plans to propose a return of Russian troops to the territory, in ethnic Serb areas that resist Albanian rule.

In a new sign of the deepening ethnic divide, dozens of Serb officers in the Kosovo police service failed to report for duty on Wednesday in the eastern Gnjilane region.

"The majority of Kosovo Serb police officers in the Gnjilane region have not shown up for work this morning," said regional police spokesman Ismet Hashani. He did not give a reason.

Senior police sources have told Reuters that Serb officers in the Kosovo police no longer receive orders from Pristina headquarters, but coordinate activities with the U.N. police and mayors in Serb areas.

A minister in Belgrade said the developments were all part of Serbia's plan to isolate Kosovo and strengthen Belgrade's grip on Serb areas, which some analysts fear could try to split from the new republic.

"We are planning to have our local police in Serb towns in Kosovo," Infrastructure Minister Velimir Ilic said on Belgrade's independent Radio B92. "It is part of the action plan."

(Additional reporting by Fatos Bytyci; writing by Matt Robinson; editing by Andrew Roche)NATO really has the Fatal Touch. Wherever they go they create division and permanent problems. Why can't they keep their divisive tactics to themselves.
Hopefully, with any luck, the islamoterrorist Albanian KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army or whatever) may move their target-practise onto NATO rather than Serbians.

Western christianity really hates Orthodox christianity - the way they didn't let the Greeks retrieve their Turkish-occupied land (now Turkey) after the war; the way they have been ruthlessly meddling in Orthodox countries.

Hopefully Serbia will learn from India and TSP split. If they ever decide that the split is final, they have to make a 100% population transfer. Never ever let a single other religion (catholicism, protestantism, islamism) infest what land remains to Serbians again. Never let a (foreign) tyrant of other religion - specifically catholicism, protestantism, islam - take power. Never let US/other western missionaries, such as the Baptists, in. Never let communists write their histories; in fact, send communists into islamic Albania instead - make it part of the population transfer. Never let western countries own/infiltrate media houses in Serbian lands. The rest of their future will take care of itself then: no more strife or conflict, and that will mean development.

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Husky - 03-01-2008

Must remember that the ethnic albanians in today's Kosovo invaded the region in extremely recent times, and their numerical presence there inflated after the 90s war when more islamoterrorist Albanians came to settle and swell their presence. NATO would have the world think that the region now belongs to these incomers and have therefore worked hard (employing lies, violence, threats and more lies) to give it to them. Perhaps the islamoterrorist albanians may show NATO the love they are famous for in return.

Following is a Koenraad Elst article over two parts. It's a summary of all of Yugoslavia's current situation, with lots of information - quite a bit previously unknown to me, though others here may already know.

Thoroughly recommended read - every single paragraph. Some unexpected scary similarities with India's situation.
(The second quoteblock below contains mad highlighting/colouring again - but really, it's all worth reading.)

http://users.pandora.be/lieven.kenis/Nucle...ef/main0603.htm
and http://users.pandora.be/lieven.kenis/Nucle...ef/main0903.htm
QUOTEThe Milosevic Show Trial
The University of Louvain has sometimes been criticised for the people it selects for the award of an honorary degree. This was the case when it chose Prince Philip of Belgium. And yet, with less criticised personalities, the University can make much more serious mistakes. Last year, one of the laureates besides Prince Philip, was Carla Del Ponte, public prosecutor in a show trial against alleged Yugoslavian war criminals - firstly against the ex-president of Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic. This socialist politician is by no means our best friend, but that does not justify the travesty of justice performed by Del Ponte and company in The Hague.

The tribunal was the first international example created to prosecute war crimes, after the tribunals of Nuremberg and Tokyo in 1946. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was set up by resolution 827 of the UN Security Council in May 1993. All UN members have to co-operate with it. This tribunal is qualified to prosecute individuals accused of war crimes in the former Yugoslavia from 1991 onwards, including: serious violation of the Geneva Convention of 1949, infringement of the laws of war, genocide, and crimes against humanity. The tribunal cannot judge suspects in their absence and cannot pronounce the death penalty - lifelong detention being the maximum sentence. The tribunal aims to prosecute the people ultimately accountable, rather than the small fry who executed the dirty work. One sentence that could have far reaching consequences concerns the formal assessment of rape as a war crime. Rather Kafkaian are the provisions that accusations can be made openly or under seal, that the suspects can be arrested on the basis of secret accusations and that the identity of witnesses can be kept a secret.

Chief prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, a Swiss lawyer, already the third to hold the post after Louise Arbor (Canada) and Richard Goldstone (South Africa), collects evidence with her team to enable her to formulate accusations and start prosecutions. The tribunal works according to the following principle: âNobody is above the law or out of reach of international justice. The international community demonstrates its determination that victims will not be forgotten and that their story shall be toldâ. The tribunal sends important research teams in the field, but for making arrests it has to rely upon the co-operation of the police in the states of former Yugoslavia or of the international âpeace forcesâ, S-For and K-For respectively, in Bosnia and Kosovo. The tribunal has more than a thousand employees and a yearly budget of around 100 million dollars.

False pretences
The mock tribunal in The Hague is clearly an example of justice by the victors. Against the wishes of the Serbs, the tribunal refuses to summon Bill Clinton, former US President, Madeleine Albright, former US secretary of State, and other NATO executives. This, despite the fact that the NATO interventions in Bosnia in 1995 and in Serbia and Kosovo in 1999, undoubtedly constituted violations of international law and made thousands of civilian victims. Additionally it must be said that bombings are not justified by the fact that the victims are soldiers, when basically it is nothing more than pure aggression. It may be recalled that the intervention in 1999 was given legal justification from the fact that what remained of Yugoslavia, refused to accept the Rambouillet agreements. Certainly a sovereign state has the right to accept or reject a treaty, in this case all the more so as these agreements included the unlimited right for NATO to station troops on Yugoslavian soil, a clause which no sovereign state would consider acceptable. This was purely the arrogance of power, comparable to the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia in 1914 and Hitlerâs ultimatum to Poland in 1939.

Furthermore, the immediate causes for the intervention were false. The US holds a long record of false justifications for initiating a war: the alleged Spanish assault of the warship Maine, which was the reason for invading Cuba and the Philippines in 1898; the provocation of the shelling of the Lusitania (a passenger ship used for weapons transport) by Germany in 1915; the so-called Tonkin Golf incident in 1964; the story of premature babies being killed with bayonets in Kuwait in 1990, which determined a majority of US members of Congress to vote in favour of an attack upon Iraq; the untraceable weapons of mass destruction which were meant to justify the recent conquest of Iraq. On this last point, I accept in principle that perhaps, in the future, somewhere, somehow, a pocket nuclear bomb could be discovered. But as far as the NATO interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo are concerned, there is no longer a shred of doubt that they were initiated on false pretences.

The Bosnian government and its cool Islamic leader Ali Izetbegovic had correctly assessed the international forces and in particular the importance of public relations working upon the sentiments of American leaders. He hired, amongst others, the French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy (who, with his carefully studied haircut and his largely open shirt looked more like a pimp) and a New York advertising firm. They, just like him, thoroughly understood how stories about âcrueltiesâ can do wonders in influencing opinion. Observe how the situation was turned around regarding Kuwait after the invented stories about Iraqis and the premature babies. The Serbs, boozers as they were, trusted in their brutal force and neglected public relations. Sometimes they even offered themselves to their enemies as excellent propaganda material.

On the military front the Islamic, Bosnian public relations coup was decisive, because as a result NATO decided to take action. Indeed there was a lot of shooting around Sarajevo, but the Serbs certainly did not behave as senseless barbarians. For example, they agreed to evacuate the strategic Mount Igman and make it a demilitarised zone, with the result that the Moslems took the mountain and started shooting from there. For all their brutality, the Serbs gave in from time to time; the Moslems never did. In any case, the Serbs were branded as barbarian bombers of civil targets within besieged Sarajevo. Crucial incidents, neatly filmed by cameras, which were there as if by chance, included: the shooting of a queue waiting outside a bakery in Vase Miskina Street (16 deaths, May 1992) and the shootings in the Markale market place (68 deaths, February 1994 and 38 deaths, August 1995). Respectively these incidents led to an embargo against the remains of Yugoslavia; to the official announcement of NATO interference in Bosnia and to the bombing of the Bosnian Serbs, in co-ordination with an offensive by Croatian ground troops.

However, ballistic analysis and other information soon indicated that the murderous attacks had not been the work of Serbian besiegers but of the Bosnian government itself. Perhaps these sorts of dirty tricks can be excused in wartime. What is sure is that these cases of successful deception were revealed by Western journalists and confirmed by Western officers on the spot, so that they were well known for what they were by the US and NATO authorities. Perhaps they were even planned with the help of the CIA. The governments of NATO countries cheated their parliaments and population, and started the war on false information about alleged Serbian cruelties. In Nuremberg this would have been described as âcrimes against peaceâ and at that time Clinton would probably have been condemned to spend some years in Spandau prison.

Srebrenica
Another brilliant propaganda coup was the capture of Srebrenica. It is taken for granted that the Serbian troops of Ratko Mladic, after they had taken Srebrenica on 11th July 1995, raised hell amongst the Moslem population. This gave sufficient ground to the propaganda machinery of the other side to significantly embroider the basic truth. Eight thousand deaths were mentioned, but all subsequent exhumations did not come near that figure, by a long way. The figure â8,000â reported by the New York Times and all other media afterwards as the death toll, was in fact the addition of two figures mentioned in the preliminary report by the Red Cross dated 13th September 1995: 3,000 âwho according to eye-witnesses had been arrested by the Serbian troopsâ, and 5,000 âwho escaped Srebrenica and arrived, most of them, in Central Bosniaâ. The Times of London had already reported on 2nd August 1995 that 3 to 4,000 of the âmissingâ male Moslems had safely fled out of Srebrenica.

Among them were 2,000 Moslems who had arrived in the Tuzla region, having come from Srebrenica, and who were described by the Times as âBosnian governmental troopsâ. Instead of ârefugeesâ coming from a town attacked by Serbs, it appeared that they were just soldiers who had obeyed an order for strategic retreat, with the result that the Serbs could easily take Srebrenica. When the Serbs subsequently took Zepa, hundreds of defenders of this enclave appeared to be members of the âmissingâ Srebrenica Moslems. The fleeing Moslem soldiers abandoned their wounded comrades, and the Serbs evacuated them to Sarajevo. Witnesses attested that at no time were they ill-treated by the Serbs. It has to be remarked that the Moslem fighters had no problem in leaving behind wounded soldiers and, in Srebrenica, also women and children. It must have been that they did not believe in stories about bloodthirsty Serbs. Generally the media did not mention that the Moslems in Srebrenica were not at all the helpless and hunted population that, as a minority, needed UN protection. Just as in the âsafe zoneâ of Goradze they were active warriors who used Srebrenica as a base from which they organized regular attacks against neighbouring Serbian positions. The Bosnian-Serbian President Radovan Karadzic counted 1260 Serbian deaths in the region during the previous months as a result of Moslem attacks organized from Srebrenica.

Even the 3,000 who were arrested were probably not all executed. On 17th January 1996, The Guardian reported the arrival in Dublin of 24 Bosnian Moslem prisoners of war, who had been transported from Srebrenica to the prisoners camp of Sljivovica in Serbia, where they had been held for some months. Nicholas Burns of the State Department declared that 800 prisoners coming from Srebrenica were kept in prison camps in Serbia and that 214 of them were granted asylum in the US. Certainly, blood would have been shed during the taking of Srebrenica, but just as with the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the 8,000 dead from Srebrenica have not been found. Not even with the 460 corpses exhumed near Srebrenica in 1996 is there enough evidence to be sure that they have been victims of âtheâ mass murder. Of course Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has tried to explain the lack of evidence by telling tall stories about the Serbs making corpses disappear by chemical treatments. It is amazing how these Serbs, suffocated by a longstanding embargo, would have been able to use technological devices to mislead the omnipresent American inspectors, not to mention the satellites.

However, the image of âgenocideâ inflicted upon a helpless Moslem community became an indestructible feature of international perception and had consequences, especially in the diplomatic field. Because the Bosnian-Serb leaders Mladic and Karadzic had been branded as genocidal criminals, they were not acceptable as spokesmen for their people at the Dayton peace negotiations. As a replacement the Bosnian Serbs were represented by Slobodan Milosevic, head of a state that was, according to all non-Serb participants, an alien state, distinct from the newly founded Bosnia. The situation was really absurd: according to the Americans, the Bosnian Serbs had nothing to do anymore with what remained of Yugoslavia, but nevertheless their interests were represented in Dayton by the Head of State of this foreign country. At that time Milosevic was still âour villain in ex-Yugoslaviaâ (in line with the principle used by the US in Latin America for its dictators: âOK, he is a villain, but he is OUR villainâ). Milosevic was very malleable, being hard pressed himself. He had other interests to look after than those of his fellow Serbs who now belonged to the new state of Bosnia.

Here we open a parenthesis on masochistic tendencies, which appear when someone is in a situation of complete powerlessness. The Bosnian-Serb President Biljana Plavsic is an example of this. Once she was the dignified defender of the Serbian interests against the nasty efforts of Albright to obtain more concessions than already agreed upon, always demanded in the name of the âspirit of Dayton (âWe do not believe in ghostsâ, replied Plavsic). On an impulse of psychological despair, she gave herself up to the tribunal in The Hague. She offered a pathetic self-accusation and was promised a mild treatment in return for incriminating testimonials against other leading figures.

This sort of masochism has been caused also by the Srebrenica crisis, even in places far from the Yugoslavian borders, more specifically in The Netherlands, whose troops were supposed to guarantee the safety of the Moslems within the enclave. During the Spring of 2002 the Dutch government âKOK IIâ was compelled to hand in its resignation in the aftermath of the Srebrenica affair. In November 1995, the public prosecutor Goldstone begged the US government to obtain the promised evidence of the mass murders and said that the evidence he had already received was âdisappointingâ. The Dutch government refused to deduce from this that, logically, the crime and henceforth the Dutch involvement was most probably not as important as might have been feared. While the disappearance of the bodies should have been encouraging the Dutch in that direction, Defence minister Joris Voorhoeve, on the authority of âintelligence servicesâ, declared that the Serbs had disposed of the evidence of mass murders. In any case, at that time other NATO troops had taken over from the Dutch and could have found out if indeed the evidence had been tampered with.

Disintegration
When analysing the debates held in The Hague, one can observe that the judgement on guilt or innocence regarding the Yugoslavian wars, depends entirely on a correct understanding of the basic political facts. NATO stated that a Serbian âoccupation armyâ remained illegally in the territory of the âsovereign state Bosniaâ. It is, of course, common knowledge that the situation was different. The province of Bosnia declared its independence with the support of the West, after a referendum that was boycotted by the Serbs. This made the result of the referendum illegal: fundamental changes to the Constitution (including of course a declaration of independence) needed a majority within each ethnic group. Yugoslavia, a member of the UN, was confronted with the same situation as Spain with Baskia, as Indonesia with Aceh, as India with Kashmir, etc. The world community accepts the right of these states to repress armed separatist movements. Yugoslavia, weak as it was, withdrew its army from Bosnia under pressure (discreetly leaving its weapons in the hands of anti-separatist Serbian militia) and accepted the partition. Probably, a refusal on principle to yield to international pressure would have obtained a better result than this useless effort to accepting a fundamental change, imposed by a disloyal âinternational communityâ.

Be that as it may be, the attitude of the governments of Yugoslavia and of the Republic of Serbia in the years 1990-1992 cannot by all means be considered as a factor of war, as the ICTY is affirming in its indictment against Milosevic. First it must be stressed that at that time the Serbs, and certainly Milosevic, did not have the principal power, contrary to the declaration of the ICTY that he âde facto controlled the federal governmentâ. At the time that he tried to control the emerging separatism, key positions within the collective leadership of the then unified Yugoslavia were held, until the end of 1991, by loyal Croats, such as Prime Minister AntÃ© Marcovic and Foreign minister Budimir Loncar. Inevitably the ethnic Serbs were in a weaker position once the non-Serbian ethnic groups split into federalist and separatist factions, as the Serbs had no separatist option of their own. What remained of Yugoslavia became more and more synonymous with the Serbian regions only, and from then onwards the hostile media hatefully called it âGreater Serbiaâ.

The indictment consistently speaks in abstract and impersonal terms of events that have harmed the Yugoslav Federation, the Serbian State or the Serbian people. It declares that in 1991 the Federation âdisintegratedâ (not mentioning the responsibility of separatists and of their supporters in Bonn and Washington) and further says that the declaration of independence issued by Slovenia on 25th June 1991 âled to war breaking outâ. The said declaration was, under the Yugoslav Constitution, illegal and the Yugoslav army was deployed in order to regain the border crossings which had been taken over by Slovenian militia. This militia prevailed over the Yugoslav army, and so the war started.

After the successful separation of Slovenia and Croatia, recognized by Belgrade in January 1992, everybody foresaw the more dramatic crisis, which would hit the much more ethnically mixed Bosnia. The Yugoslavian leadership was prepared to agree to the lesser evil, namely the division of Bosnia into ethnic districts, as was worked out at the Lisbon conference on 19th March 1992. Representatives of the Croats, Moslems and Serbs in Bosnia approved the plan. The man who opposed this last-ditch peace plan carries an enormous responsibility and should deservedly be brought before the Court in The Hague. His name is, however, not Slobodan Milosevic, but Warren Zimmerman, the then US ambassador in Yugoslavia, who assured the Moslem leader Alija Izetbegovic that he would be granted American support in favour of an undivided Moslem-dominated Bosnia if he withdrew from the Lisbon agreement. Later, in his book âOrigins of a Catastropheâ, Zimmerman conceded that the Lisbon plan âwas not so badâ and that âhe probably had been wrongâ.

But the events continued. On 14th April, Izetbegovic ordered his âgreen beretsâ militia to attack the Yugoslav army. Two weeks later the âinternational communityâ demanded the withdrawal of the Yugoslav army from Bosnia. In the course of its withdrawal the army lost more than two hundred soldiers in ambushes. One of these ambushes occurred right before the eyes of Izetbegovic and the UN commander Louis McKenzie. Later on, negotiator Lord Carrington declared (Intervju, Belgrade, 20th October 1995) that Izetbegovic âin a way had been put under pressure to declare independenceâ.

A war does not start spontaneously. A legal framework exists and conflicting interests look for a solution in or outside that framework. If it were to remain faithful to its principle of punishing the people bearing the top responsibility rather than the guys in the field, the ICTY should have indicted the people who were politically responsible for the disintegration of Yugoslavia. These were not only Yugoslavian politicians like Izetbegovic, but Western leaders and diplomats. After tens of thousands of deaths, a schemer like Zimmerman candidly admitted that he had been wrong. Did that give him the right to be absolved without punishment?

(to be continued)
Koenraad ElstQUOTEThe Milosevic show trial
Part 2

In the first part of our consideration of the Yugoslavia tribunal in The Hague, we observed its blatant partiality. We also mentioned the fact that NATOâs intervention in Bosnia was justified by false allegations regarding cruelties perpetrated by the Serbs. The political basis for the case has been presented incorrectly and in a particularly biased way by the media as well as in the declarations by NATO and in the indictment by the tribunal.

All basic political concepts have systematically been twisted. âDemocratâ is now the name used for âanti-nationalistâ, although successive elections in Bosnia have time and again proved that the democratically expressed popular vote prefers the nationalists. âNationalist politicians are, contrary to what is proclaimed by some theorists of the Holy Grail of civil society, not an obstacle to democracy in Bosnia; they are indeed the very expression of it (â¦). In 1997, 91% of Bosnian Serbs and 84% of Bosnian Croats voted against the idea of a so called Bosnian state, while 98% of the Bosnian Moslems were in favourâ. (Mark Mazower, When A Modern War is Won, Times Literary Supplement, 14-02-2003).
(Language misuse)

The opinion makers of the liberal left will immediately say: âThere you are, Moslems are not narrow-minded! Their choice is for a multicultural state! They are much less blinkered than catholic or orthodox people! They are oh so non-nationalistic!â

In fact, these percentages reflect the same motivation by all three populations. All are nationalist, as Mazower states, because all three of them pursue their own ethnic interests by choice. The dominant group, knowing its demographic superiority, will be able slowly to pester the minorities until they leave, and has an interest in keeping Bosnia as vast as possible. To the frightened minorities, on the other hand, a split offers the best guarantee of a future for them within Bosnia, if only within part of it. If we look at it from that perspective, the Croats are the least nationalistic or narrow-minded: 16% of them do not think primarily of the interests of their own group, whereas only 2% of the Moslems do the same.

Propaganda about cruelty
For Kosovo the consequences of manipulating political concepts, considering the difficulties in hand, are even more striking. The media always spoke of âSerbia and Kosovoâ and of the âSerbian invasion or occupation of Kosovoâ, while Kosovo is (was) part of Serbia. They spoke of âKosovarsâ when they meant âKosovar Albaniansâ. Politicians and journalists competed with estimates of death figures, ten thousand, fifty thousand, etc. Was it not indeed urgent, so was the message, to stop by any possible means these monstrous Serbs who would not relent?
(Again, controlled, calculated use of language.)

Cees van Zweeden accurately said (War against Serbia sold with lies, Gazet van Antwerpen, 23-06-2003): âTony Blair branded the policy of Milosevic in Kosovo as âracial genocideâ. He said: âThousands of Albanians have been murdered, hundreds of thousands are missing.â An American document produced by the government even gave the figure of 400,000 victims. The reality was somewhat different. Four years after the war, less than three thousand deaths have been counted, including Serbian as well as Albanian victims. The United Nations estimated the number of missing persons at around 3,500. Many of them have quietly emigrated to neighbouring countries or to the West.â

What is more: âDuring the war the British disclosed the existence of a camp in Djakovica, where Serbs systematically raped Albanian women. After the war it appeared that this camp had only existed in Blairâs imagination.â (idem) This was no longer of any importance. Indeed, the stories had served their purpose, which was to justify the NATO bombings on what remained of Yugoslavia.

Public prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, who accuses Milosevic of genocide, had no problem with the modest figures of victims. As George Szamuely reported (Numbers Games, American Conservative, 24-02-2003): âAfter months and months of continuous digging, Carla del Ponte announced that NATO had unearthed 2,108 bodies. This was very much beneath the official estimate. Ms Del Ponte could not even tell whose bodies they were, to what ethnic group they belonged or how and when they died. âGenocide is not a numbers gameâ, the tribunal replied dismissivelyâ.
(It's all so very Romilla Thapar-esque of Ms Del Ponte. Give her a Klown.. I mean Kluge Chair too for services rendered in defense of communazism.)

Apart from this cheap rabble-rousing, the NATO governments also concealed the real reason for the NATO attack against Yugoslavia. The official reason was that Milosevic had refused to sign the Rambouillet-agreement, although he had previously showed his readiness to accept the demands of the West: autonomy for Kosovo, with peace forces stationed there. But âConfronted with the perspective that the Serbs would accept the peace plan, a new condition was added at the eleventh hour. As the complete text of the peace plan was kept a secret, it was not clear why the Serbs had refused to sign.â

âIt was only on 18th April 1999, when the war was already in full operation, that Le Monde Diplomatique revealed the complete text. Appendix B of Chapter 7 of the document demanded âunlimited accessâ for NATO troops to the whole of Yugoslavia. In other words, Milosevic had to agree that his country would become occupied territory. The Americans and the British had added this condition for the explicit purpose of making the acceptance of the document impossible.â (idem) Many of us have a really very short memory. Only a few years later they again believed the American-British stories supposed to justify the invasion of Iraq.
(Shades of the Indo-US nuclear con-deal between the US and its puppet government in India which is similarly famous for taking place behind-closed-doors.)

Unhistoric
On 22nd May 1999, two months after the NATO attack against Yugoslavia had begun, prosecutor Louise Arbour entered an indictment at the ICTY against the Yugoslavs Slobodan Milosevic, Milan Milutinovic, Nikola Sainovic, Dragoljub Ojdanic and Vlajko Stojiljkovic. They were accused of crimes against humanity and violation of the laws of war. Paragraph 24 of the indictment named Milosevic and Milutinovic as the elected presidents of the Yugoslav federation and Serbia respectively. Milosevic had been elected President of Serbia in 1990 and 1992, each time with a large majority and in 1997 he had been elected President of Yugoslavia. Nevertheless the media always spoke of the âdictatorâ Milosevic, which was the new name for a head of state, pursuing national interests against the New World Order.
(Reminiscent of Indian psecular communist media who can't accept democratically accepted leaders either, but always have cheers for genocidal maniacs )

The first indictment against Milosevic concerned the most recent case, namely Kosovo. Paragraph 4 of the indictment was presented as if Kosovo was essentially Albanian territory, oppressed by Serb nationalists. It said: âIn 1981, the last census was carried out. On a total population of around 1,585,000, Kosovo counted 77% Albanians, 13% Serbs. (â¦) The actual population of Kosovo is estimated at between 1,800,000 and 2,100,000, of whom 85-90% are Kosovo-Albanians and 5-10% Serbs.â This was given as an argument for the fact that the Albanians, being the great majority, were entitled to claim power over Kosovo.

The total absence of historical perspective is striking in this instance. One has not arrived spontaneously with these proportions. Refusal to take into account the historical dimension suited the left-liberal vision of a one-dimensional human being, confining him to a present that can be manipulated. If the percentage of Serbs has been cut in half between 1981 and 1999 the explanation is that the Albanians have driven them out of the region.

History shows that in 1455, 1.900 families lived in the central region of Drenica, of whom 1.873 were Serbian and 10 Albanian. Prizren, a town in Kosovo, was once the capital of Serbia. The censuses held in 1921 and 1931 still showed no Albanian majority in that region. The Albanian character of Kosovo, as stressed by the indictment, is the result of a policy over different periods of forced Islamizing (under Turkish occupation) and forced Albanisation. During the Italian occupation, many Albanians were imported and Serbs chased away.

Under Tito, the return of the hounded Serbs was made impossible and the Albanians received political privileges de facto, allowing the provincial rulers to continue making life difficult for the remaining Serbs and persuading them to emigrate. The gradual expulsion of Serbs started in the late sixties. An estimated 200.000 Serbs were expelled between 1965 and 1981. After that, the pressure on them increased further. The New York Times reported at the time (12-07-1982: Exodus of Serbs stirs province in Yugoslavia): â âThe [Albanian] nationalists have a two-point programâ, said Becir Hoti, an executive secretary of the Communist Party of Kosovo, âfirst to establish an ethnically pure Albanian republic and secondly to reunite it with Albania and found the Greater Albania.â The large Albanian majority is therefore not a result of demographic differences, but mainly of ethnic cleansing.â
(Note how liars, such as communists, are always harping everywhere that people should 'forget history' and 'focus on the present' - a present unnaturally cut off from historical context - so that they can twist the situation to their purposes and keep victim populations victimised forever. Nice try, but the rest of the world does not want to be afflicted with such a convenient case of selective amnesia, thanks.)

Albanian separatism
Paragraph 6 of the indictment points the finger at Milosevic: âIn April 1987 Slobodan Milosevic, re-elected in 1986 as chairman of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist party of Serbia, travelled to Kosovo. He met there with Serbian leaders and addressed a large gathering of Serbs, giving his support to a Serb-nationalist agenda. By doing this, he broke with the policy of party and government who had both forbidden all expressions of nationalism in Yugoslavia, since it was founded by Josip Broz Tito after WWII.â

Carla del Ponte does not give credence to the idea that the harassment of non-Albanians by Albanians could be a shameful expression of nationalism. Neither does she see anything wrong in the fact that the state tolerated all sorts of pro-Albanian and anti-Serbian discrimination. In fact this shows that she is in fact a Soviet agent and that the New World Order is a continuation of the Bolshevik agenda, through other means. Look at it, she says with sanctimonious indignation, this bad Milosevic has deviated from the good old communist party line dictated by the good old anti-nationalist Tito!
(Communiterrorists are the same everywhere: compulsive liars who are always willing to descend to the nethermost gutters to achieve their communist tyrannopia.)

In 1990, 114 of the 123 Albanian members of the parliament of Kosovo adopted an unofficial resolution that proclaimed Kosovo as an independent Yugoslav republic apart from Serbia. Later that year the same politicians proclaimed a âConstitution for the republic of Kosovoâ. In September 1991 they organized an unofficial referendum whereby a large majority of Albanians in Kosovo voted for independence. On 24th May 1992 they held unofficial elections for a parliament and a president of the âRepublic of Kosovoâ. Meanwhile the official institutions were boycotted, including the school system. A few years later the established parallel schools delivered most of the fighters of the Ushtria lirimtare e Kosovs (UCK), also known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA).

The UCK came to the forefront in December 1994 when it killed a police inspector and claimed responsibility. At the same time it claimed responsibility for earlier murders perpetrated on âoccupants and traitorsâ. From 1996 onwards, open armed attacks against the Yugoslav police followed. In 1982 this UCK had had a predecessor in the National Movement for the Republic of Kosovo (NPRK). This was founded by a group of Albanian emigrants in Germany and by four local groups: the Movement for the Albanian Socialist Republic in Yugoslavia (PASRJ), the Marxist-Leninist Organization of Kosovo (OMLK), the Communist-Leninist Party of Yugoslav Albanians (PKMLSHJ) and the Red Popular Front (FKB). This proves that the Albanian separatism (anti-Serbian, although not yet anti-Yugoslavian) dated from before Milosevic and his âSerbian nationalismâ. NPRK-militias were active from 1990 onwards. In the discussion of âwho started the gameâ it can at least be established that it was not the Serbs.
(Note, communist parties=islamist parties.)

From 1996 onwards, Albanian separatist fighters and Yugoslav police (I do not call them âSerbianâ, because this was a multiethnic body, including Romanies and even Albanians) clashed regularly. There were of course victims on both sides, being part of the perhaps 3,000 victims of the Kosovo crisis in what remained of Yugoslavia. The others were victims of UCK-terror, Serbs as well as Albanians, branded as âtraitorsâ and âcollaboratorsâ. Certainly, Kosovo Albanians were killed, but not all of them by Yugoslav forces who had deployed far fewer resources than the Macedonian army had against its Albanian militia.

Islamic terror networks sustained the UCK. Among them, at that time, the not so well known Osama bin Laden. For that reason Israeli experts advised against an anti-Serbian and pro-UCK intervention. Washington did not listen and established something resembling diplomatic relations with the UCK, swiftly followed by Berlin. The German foreign minister Klaus Kinkel advised all European countries that they should follow the American example and contact the UCK.

These contacts resulted in the Americans taking sides with the terrorists. Early in 1999, NATO decided to expel the Serbian troops from Kosovo and to offer air support to the UCK. This was the famous âhumanitarian interventionâ justified by the brand new âright to interveneâ. Over 78 days the bombings would kill at least 6,000 people. Because of its âhumanitarian characterâ the operation was code-named Merciful Angel. For that matter, the American Congress had not ratified the attack upon the rest - Yugoslavia - under the War Powers Act, so it was also illegal according to American law.

Since NATO stationed occupation forces in Kosovo, more than half of the remaining Serbs and the vast majority of Romanies have fled. With the exception of the northern province, the region is now almost completely Albanian. While I was finishing this article, a friend just back from there told me that Albanian fighters had killed six Serbian children. Propaganda for making us weep or a nice example of the alliance between NATO and Jihad?

âEvidenceâ at The Hague
It is typical that the whole procedure at The Hague only makes minuscule use of material evidence. It has an overwhelming faith in eyewitness reports. This is of course the least reliable form of evidence. It can be manipulated, through rewards or threats. It is well known that even confessions are often the product of all sorts of calculations, of irrational feelings, of horse trading with the interrogators, of attempts to protect others or to escape the vengeance from the real culprits. History shows innumerable examples of convictions made on the basis of testimonies and confessions that were afterwards devastatingly refuted by new material evidence. And yet, in a trial presumptuously presented as having an historic exemplary function, one trusts almost entirely upon declarations of the people involved, instead of real evidence.

George Pumphrey (www.emperors-clothes.com) tells us the story of a crown witness on Srebrenica, Drazen Erdemovic. In March 1996 he contacted an ABC News team in Serbia, asking to be brought to The Hague. He had an ethnically mixed background and had first fought with the Croatian militia but had later joined the Bosnian-Serb troops of Ratko Mladic. After a row with his commander, he decided to take his revenge by telling his story. He declared he had participated in the shooting and burying of 1.200 Moslems near Srebrenica. According to Pumphrey the tribunal had not even bothered to verify if the bullets present in the mass grave indicated by Erdemovic, matched the details he had given them. Indeed the grave contained only some 150 bodies, not 1.200.

After his testimony, which the tribunal could of course use against his superiors, Erdemovic was himself accused for participating in the crimes he had described. If he wanted a lenient sentence, he had to comply with what was demanded of him: produce sketchy stories charging Serbian leaders. He needed to be condemned as well, bearing in mind the possible later condemnation of his ultimate commander, the fugitive general Mladic, but he was given credit for all his accusations against his chiefs. He was jailed for five years, a mild sentence according to the judges, and a result of his âhonestyâ attested by his âconfessionâ and his âcontinuous admission of guiltâ. On the other hand those who maintained their innocence would be considered as dishonest.

The bias of the tribunal has some sort of hierarchy. The Western leaders who ordered bombings that caused thousands of victims, may not even be mentioned and no NATO politician or soldier has been indicted. No doubt about it: this is justice on the terms of the victor. When Milosevic says so in The Hague, the tribunal simply switches off his microphone. The stronger party thereby makes no attempts to conceal that double standards prevail, nor that coercion is used to bring the losers to the desired confessions.
(Justice of the 'civilised' west.)

The local âcriminalsâ are treated differently. Serbs are indicted and sentenced up to the highest level. Croats are taken on up to a reasonable level (the Americans started to put on pressure for the indictment of President Franjo Tudjman, but this was halted by his death). With the Moslems, only small fry were symbolically sacrificed. Amongst them there were some instructive cases.

Take the Moslem commander in Srebrenica, Naser Oric. He was arrested in April 2003. His story informs us that the Muslims in Srebrenica were not after all pitiful victims. âAccording to the indictment, Oric and his troops tortured and ill-treated Serbian prisoners at the police station of Srebrenica, between June 1992 and March 1993. Several of them were beaten to death. Moreover, fifteen villages with mainly Serbian inhabitants were pillaged, under the command of Oricâ (De Standaard, 12-04-2003). It looks as if the exclusive demonizing of the Serbs can be somewhat slowed down now, its purpose having been achieved.

In this case the procedures of the tribunal are also interesting. âA spokesperson for the Yugoslavia tribunal, Florence Hartmann, declared that the accusation against Oric had been kept secret in order to facilitate his arrest.â Dirty tricks were the order of the day here. A Serbian suspect, Milan Kovacevic, was arrested by British soldiers in the uniform of the Red Cross, blatantly in opposition to the internationally recognized statute of this neutral aid organization. Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic extradited Milosevic himself and did this under economical pressure from the US (no extradition of Milosevic, meant no US economic help). This happened illegally, against a legal sentence and against the democratically supported refusal by President Vojislav Kostunica. By the way, the promised American help has still not arrived.

The Djindjic case
Zoran Djindjic is a typical example of the policy promoted by the New World Order within the former East block. The New York Times has praised this âexâ-communist and former student of the extreme-left philosopher, JÃ¶rgen Habermas, as a âpragmatistâ. He enjoyed financial support in the US for his election campaign, which brought him into the government. On 1st April 2001, he tried to force Milosevicâ arrest (later it was done by the book) through a shoot-out between the soldiers protecting Milosevicâs residence and masked policemen who had been ordered to arrest him. Several of them were wounded and only an intervention by President Kostunica prevented a massacre.

Nevertheless, Djindjic is presented in our media as a white knight. De Standaard (22-08-203) describes him as a âreformistâ, the usual laudatory term for the politicians of Eastern Europe preferred by the left-liberal establishment of the West. They have to be anti-communist and anti-nationalist (qualities which made Milosevic the chosen partner of the US in 1995, as he was willing to let 100,000 Serbs be chased out of Croatia). And moreover âDjindjic was said to have plans of taking on the Mafiaâ. For that reason, it appears, he was murdered in March 2003.

Really? According to John Laughland (âWhy bombs donât make democraciesâ, American Conservative, 2-06-2003) Djindjic was up to his neck in Mafia business. Around 1990 he started by smuggling cigarettes and trading in false trade name clothing. For that information Laughland quotes a Serbian newspaper that was closed down when Djindjic became Prime Minister. He subsequently became one of the richest men in the country. For that reason the Americans thought him a suitable contact: âA man only interested in personal profit and not giving a damn about his country.â Laughland points out that the US had also fostered the political ambitions of the Mafia in Albania, Kosovo and Macedonia.

As far as the murder is concerned, it is very unlikely that the Mafia would fear Djindjic. If so, the usual tactic would have been to kill one of his lieutenants, to put pressure upon the top man (indeed, eliminating the chief, creates more difficulty for doing business). If one follows the lead âwho profitsâ by the murder, then ideally one should investigate Djindjicâs supporters and collaborators. Not that there were no Mafiosi in his entourage, but the motive would in this case have been more ambitious than just protecting sordid Mafia business.

After the murder, a state of emergency was proclaimed. Laughland points out: âMaking use of special powers, which the West had condemned as dictatorial when Milosevic decided them in 1992 (he in fact never used them), they arrested 8,000 people for interrogation. Of them 2,000 were kept in prison, without any contact with their families or lawyers and without any formal accusation. (â¦) Politicians of Milosevicâ Socialist Party and of former President Kostunicaâs Democratic Party were prominently present amongst the arrested, as were journalists âwho had inspired the murder by criticizing Djindjicâ. (â¦) This use of the state apparatus for the elimination of the opposition was warmly welcomed by Western governments.â

The Serbian-American columnist Srdja Trifkovic (âSerbia after Djindjic: the plot thickensâ, Chronicles, 22-03-2003) names amongst others the people under threat who explain Western enthusiasm by: âThe atmosphere of fear and of physical and legal uncertainty is now worse than during the darkest days under Milosevic. (â¦) There are no longer strikes, while the trade-union bosses, in view of the emergency laws, do not dare to organize meetings and to criticize the government. Two popular newspapers have been closed down and most editors in chief work in a suffocating climate of self-censorship.â Trifkovic also mentions plans ascribed to Djindjicâs successor, Zoran Zivkovic, of outlawing the two nationalist parties as âsources of inspiration for the murderâ. At the same time the tribunals will be âcleansedâ and filled with the faithful of the new regime.

Laughland places this in a larger context: âThere has been much talk about the sudden conversion of so-called communists to the virtues of capitalism. But the simultaneous and opposite trend has scarcely been remarked upon: the acceptance by Western politicians of the key principles of the discredited communist belief. The most important of these is the myth of revolution. From Bucharest to Belgrade and as far as Baghdad, completely artificial events are presented as spontaneous actions from âthe peopleâ (â¦) In compliance with this new revolutionary doctrine, the West encourages chaos and crime, to get rid of the old order and to make that the population, plunged into daily material worries, offer no political resistance.â

Laughland gives a few other parallels between the rest -Yugoslavia and Iraq: they have both been suffering under longstanding sanctions, they are both exposed to the stranglehold of the Mafia; Djindjic is matched in Iraq by the servant of the US, Ahmed Chalabi, condemned to 20 years in jail for bank fraud. Iraq has still no electricity after five months; Kosovo has none after four years. There seems to be some logic behind the enigmatic destructive policy of the West. The logic that creates a system wherein Zoran Djindjic, a Mafioso and organizer of a new dictatorship, could become Washingtonâs man and the supplier of top suspects to the Yugoslavia tribunal.

A travesty
Gary J. Bass, lecturer of international policy at Princeton and a staunch supporter of the ICTY, calls it a success that âthe prosecutors have succeeded in removing Milosevic permanently from the Balkan politicsâ (Milosevic in The Hague, Foreign Affairs, May 2003). But surely it is not the mission of a tribunal to influence the future of a politician, certainly not under the painfully developed system of separation of powers. Bassâ declaration is in fact just a brutal confirmation of Milosevicâs own thesis that this is a political process, not a proper judicial procedure but a continuation of American politics behind a legal facade.

As for Carla del Ponte she is not ashamed over her mockery of normal legal procedures. âThe prosecutors at the Yugoslavia tribunal have placed all their hopes in deals with other suspects, so that they can prove that Milosevic is guilty of a genocide in Bosnia. (â¦) Only if accused politicians and officers are prepared to testify against Milosevic in exchange for milder sentences, thinks Del Ponte, will she be able to prove that Milosevic was involved in the massacre in Srebrenica and in the siege of Sarajevo.â (De Standaard, 17-07-2003). This means that prisoners already held for some time in The Hague, whose positions are well known, and of whom it is common knowledge that they have no declarations to offer against Milosevic, will be forced, by using the stick and the carrot, to switch their honest recollection of what happened for a version which pleases the prosecutors.

George Pumphrey sums up all this mockery and sighs: âIf this is to become the norm in international legal proceedings, no national legal system, however excellent it may be, will be able to resist such a totalitarian legal system. If this sort of procedure becomes legally enforced on the international level, this will also determine the national legal standards. From a legal point of view mankind will return to the norms used at the time of the Inquisition.â

Â
Koenraad Elst

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Bodhi - 03-04-2008

Enslaved by freedom

Sandhya Jain

Kosovo's scandalous 'independence' has driven another nail in the coffin of a deeply discredited United Nations and proved its complicity in the return of naked 18th century colonialism. Nations with oil, gas, or other prized commodity may gear up for 'free trade' exclusively with Western corporates; Western military presence to protect freedom as in Iraq; or, self-determination of the kind that carved Christian East Timor out of Muslim Indonesia to become a virtual colony of Australian oil majors.

Muslim Kosovo, wrenched out of Christian Serbia, has both oil and gas. Further, Catholic-Protestant imperialists have triumphed over Eastern Orthodox nations that once took to Communism; hence also Moscow's anger. China has shown its displeasure by rebuking Taiwan for recognising Kosovo; India's shameful silence is explicable only by the dominance of UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi over the present regime. This will nullify Congress's efforts to woo the Muslim community for, as former envoy MK Bhadrakumar says, only three of the 60-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference have recognised Kosovo.

The Islamic world is becoming conscious of its continuing humiliation and exploitation by Western imperialism, which has an unmistakable racist edge. None of the non-White peoples who converted to Christianity to the extent of becoming Christian nations (The Philippines, South Africa, East Timor, to name only a few) enjoy genuine sovereignty or status in the international community.

Kosovo is a link in a 737-strong chain of American military bases in 130 countries. Journalist Pepe Escobar says, in an Asian Times article, Kosovo's tragedy has its genesis in the trans-Balkan AMBO pipeline and Camp Bondsteel, the largest American base in Europe after the Vietnam War. It exposes how ugly corporates ensure compliance with their interests across successive administrations.

It was Democrat President Bill Clinton who falsely demonised the Serbs and used NATO to get over the lack of a UN mandate, just as Republican President George W Bush later leapfrogged over the UN to colonise Iraq. The Euro-Americans moved to fragment Yugoslavia with the fall of the Soviet Union in the early-1990s. During the 1991 bombing of Iraq, Mr Clinton sponsored separatist movements in Croatia, Slovenia and Bosnia; imposed crippling economic sanctions on Yugoslavia; and, pushed NATO forces into the region.

The US also armed the Right-wing UCK (Kosovo Liberation Army), though Kosovo was not a Yugoslav republic, but part of Serbia. Washington's 'free' Press carried grim (fairy) tales of Serbian genocide against Albanian Muslims (remnants of the Ottoman Empire). The UCK controlled the opium and heroin trade from Afghanistan-Pakistan through the Balkans to Western Europe, earning over $ 1.1 billion for weapons. There is also a rich trade in prostitution. British intelligence trained the UCK in northern Albania, while Turkish and Afghan instructors taught them guerrilla tactics. Al Qaeda, too, had links with the UCK and Osama bin Laden visited Albania in 1994.

As nationalist Yugoslavia resisted Western pressures, America unleashed 78 days of intensive bombing, including the use of depleted-uranium bombs. On June 3, 1999, NATO occupied Kosovo. President Slobodan Milosevic was kidnapped and taken for trial to The Hague, where he died in March 2006, apparently of a heart attack. Meanwhile, Ms Carla Del Ponte, chief prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, assisted by forensic experts of 17 NATO countries, discovered that there was no genocide, no mass graves, only 2,108 bodies belonging to all nationalities and mostly victims of NATO bombing!

Unashamed, Serbia's tormentors placed Kosovo under a UN mission in 1999, through Security Council Resolution 1244. Real power vested with the mission of the European Union -- NATO was security guarantor; it slept over the hideous ethnic cleansing of 250,000 Serbs and Romas (gypsies). The regions' rich industrial resources were forcibly privatised and sold to giant Western multinationals. Halliburton took over the strategic oil and transportation lines of the entire region along with the security of Camp Bondsteel, the American military base.

Ms Sara Flounders, co-director, International Action Center, says the UN played a shameful role in Kosovo. In June 2005, then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed ex-Finnish President Marti Ahtisaari as special envoy to negotiate Kosovo's final status. He was also chairman emeritus of the International Crisis Group, a private body funded by multi-billionaire George Soros, who sponsored the 'coloured' revolutions in former Soviet Baltic Republics. The ICG favours NATO intervention and open markets for the US and the EU; its board included two key US officials complicit in bombing Kosovo: Mr Zbigniew Brzezinski and Gen Wesley Clark, then NATO supreme commander and now military adviser to Ms Hillary Clinton.

The Ahtisaari report submitted to new UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in March 2007 was understandably a command performance. It proposed an International Civilian Representative (read viceroy) appointed by US-EU to oversee Kosovo, with power to overrule any actions or annul any laws by local authorities. The Representative would control customs, taxation, treasury and banking. The EU would set up a European security and defence policy mission and NATO an international military presence, which would control foreign policy, security, police, judiciary, all courts and prisons. Mr Bhadrakumar says the deployment of NATO forces without a UN mandate is equivalent to projecting NATO as a global political organisation. It is pertinent that Security Council Resolution 1244 kept Kosovo within Serbia.

But Kosovo is ultimately about the $1.1 billion Albanian Macedonian Bulgarian Oil Corp pipeline, to be completed by 2011. Registered in the US, the firm will get oil brought from the Caspian Sea to a terminal in Georgia and then by tankers through the Black Sea to the Bulgarian port of Burgas, and relay it through Macedonia to the Albanian port of Vlora. Mr Clinton's NATO war was to secure Vlora's strategic location.

The oil is to be shipped to Rotterdam in The Netherlands and refineries on the US west coast, avoiding the congested Bosphorus Strait and Aegean and Mediterranean seas. The AMBO project conforms to US Vice-President Dick Cheney's American energy security grid. Halliburton via subsidiary Kellogg, Brown and Root, built Camp Bondsteel near the Macedonian border in southern Kosovo. It is also a place where prisoners can be held indefinitely without formal charges or lawyers.

As things now stand, Yugoslavia is destroyed; Iraq seems headed the same way. Sectarian religious violence is endemic, and Turkey is playing along with the US for a share of Kurd oil (Kirkuk).

http://dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_...t&counter_img=3

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Husky - 03-08-2008

QUOTE(Husky @ Feb 28 2008, 06:22 PM)Many would have come across this news already, though what was heard on the news may only have focused on the 'US embassy being aflame in Belgrado'.
[right][snapback]79083[/snapback][/right]IF-ers had long discussed the matter and its repercussions/what it may bode: Geopolitics thread, starting with Mudy's post 89, until (at least) #95.

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Husky - 05-31-2009

Cross-posting excerpt
QUOTE(Husky @ May 31 2009, 11:06 AM)http://www.srpska-mreza.com/library/facts/...ace.html#powers <- Always a great page. Recommended reading, IMO.
<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE"THE BIG POWERS" & THE CIVIL WARS IN EX-YUGOSLAVIA:

In 1990 American and German politicians push Yugoslavia off the cliff.
Yugoslavia, member state and one of the founding states of the U.N. is derecognized in record time. This was done in disregard of ALL international laws. The multinational state is butchered into 5 (five) different countries. The masterminds of the Balkan tragedy reside in America and Germany.

Hitler called it: "New World Order"
The basic methods remain the same. <- must read page.

NATO attacks Yugoslavia
The self-proclaimed World Policeman shows his true face.

Western mass media and "morality"
The obedient media gets to do its role in the New World Order: The journalists get the job of twisting the truth. Big PR firms help them in the art of lying. The corporate owned media publish the lies as presented to them by PR firms. Anyone willing to join the lynch mob is welcome.

Mass murder for the camera
MASS MURDER FOR THE CAMERA was done for the sake of American media and their PR war against the Serbs. In KEY events in Bosnia it was used three times.
Some of the articles linked to from the above srpska-mreza page 'Hitler called it: "New World Order"':
QUOTEBalkans Politics Of US-German New World Order:
New World Order (Again!)
Hitler called it "New World Order". And nothing have changed...

"YUGOSLAVIA - ONE OF CIA's GREATEST HITS"
by Mark Zepezauer

"THE WAR AGAINST THE SERBS AND THE NEW AMERICAN FASCISM"
by Barry Lituchy, CUNY, NY

"The New Rome & The New Religious Wars"
By Gregory R. Copley, Editor "Defense and Foreign Affairs" - global information, collection, processing and analysis system which for over 25 years has satisfied the strategic intelligence needs of policy-level clients in governments worldwide. The author claims that USA, as Global Empire, follows in the footsteps of the Roman Empire.

"The New World Order and Yugoslavia"
a book by Gerard Baudson. In the preface the author says: "The New World Order is American hegemony: control over the world economy through GATT, IMF, NAFTA, control over United Nations Security Council for purpose of interference and embargo, control of Europe through NATO... control over petroleum reserves through Gulf War, control over minds through media disinformation."

The Capitalist Power Pyramid
Who rules this planet? Ukrainian Canadian, Mr. William Dascavich explains how the Pyramid of Power functions.
Yugoslavia was not only in the way of America's plans in the region, Yugoslavia was also considered 'Unfinished Business' for the nazi west. Croatia's supporters in the 90s Balkan war were Germany and America: Germany speaks for itself, as for why America is also obvious, can refer to http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJu...Americans.html
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American-NATO 'intervention' for the purposes of 'saving the minorities from the Serbs' (but forgetting the 'obviously forgettable' converted East-Timorese since they were no longer important, just 'Useful Idiots' for having converted and therefore having obliged when they needed to) reminded me of the following statement made by Hilda Raja recently:
http://www.vijayvaani.com/FrmPublicDisplay...cle.aspx?id=573
QUOTEUSCIRF â will it visit convents where nuns are raped? - By Hilda Raja

The UPA government's unprecedented step of inviting the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) to visit Gujarat and Orissa is not only disturbing, but also portents greater harm to the harmony and unity of the country.

It exposes India to international policing which has ramifications on the integrity and sovereignty of the nation. Today it can be a Commission; why not later an army for the purpose of protecting minorities? The basic premise is the same.Should actually never let christowest like AmeriKKKan govt, christoBrit govt on Hindu soil. Their vice-like grip, once it takes hold, takes several Wars of Independence to remove.

According to wackypedia, 98% of E Timorese are Catholic (2005). East-Timor, having christianised and hence become a minion for whenever it served, could be butchered by islamaniac Indonesians for all the west cared:
www.michaeldvd.com.au/Reviews/Reviews.asp?ID=5492
QUOTEIn Chomsky's propaganda model, a small concentration of corporations (the "Elites") determine, shape, and control the flow of information to the public. These organizations also set national and international agendum, indoctrinating us into neutral, positive, and negative blood baths. For example, as Chomsky observes, during the late 1970s two genocides were occurring: One led by Pol Pot in Cambodia, the other by the Indonesian Government in East Timor. Pol Pot was a communist, but the Indonesians were US allies (and also held vast oil reserves). During 1975-1978, the NY Times devoted only 70 inches of column space to East Timor, yet devoted a whopping 1,175 inches of column space to Cambodia. While the concept of US supported/covered-up atrocities is not new, the presentation of the plight of the East Timorese in this film is deeply moving.
The genocidal Indian christos who have been ethnically cleansing the NE and S Indian coast of Hindus should take E Timor into account for when the jihad comes for them. After all, history has its little ironies and evening-outs. The fate of the conveniently-ignored christian East-Timorese vis-a-vis the islamaniac Indonesians will in all certainty become the fate of any christianised India vis-a-vis the inevitable jihad that would come upon them. Of course, during the recent islamics vs christos attacks in Cheriyathura, Tiruvanathapuram in Kerala, the Indian christomedia carefully ignored the matter even though their own christos were involved in the jihad-and-counter-crusade operation, rather like how the international christomedia ignored E Timor, even though 'their own' christos were involved.
For now though, the christomedia is still Indian christos' friend.

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Husky - 08-07-2011

Nothing to do with Yugoslavia, but sounded to me like the following may have a bearing on certain other aspects of this thread.

1. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/amnesty-questions-claim-that-gaddafi-ordered-rape-as-weapon-of-war-2302037.html

Amnesty questions claim that Gaddafi ordered rape as weapon of war

By Patrick Cockburn - Friday, 24 June 2011

2. http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/patrick-cockburn-lies-damn-lies-and-reports-of-battlefield-atrocities-2299701.html

Lies, damn lies, and reports of battlefield atrocities

World View: Gaddafi is feeding his troops Viagra and ordering them to rape the womenfolk of the rebels ... well, maybe. Or is truth, as usual, the first casualty in this war?

Patrick Cockburn - Sunday, 19 June 2011

People can make up their own minds. On this next bit though, from the 2nd item above:

Quote:[...]

In the first Gulf conflict of 1990-91 two notorious pieces of propaganda and misinformation greatly helped to rally support for the war by seeming to demonstrate the savagery and duplicity of the Iraqi government. The first was the appearance of a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl before a US congressional committee to testify how, as a volunteer hospital nurse, she had seen Iraqi soldiers tip babies out of incubators and leave them to die on the floor. Her account was greeted with outrage until, some time later, it was revealed that the girl was the well-coached daughter of Kuwait's ambassador in Washington who had never left the US during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

(For some reason that last sentence recalls to mind that Irish catholic director who'd never been to India until he went there to make the anti-Hindu christo-propaganda movie "You SlumDogs, Me Millionaire" - or whatever it was called. Oscar nominations for the absurd OTT film were for no other reason than to peddle the dawaganda underlying the fictional plot among as many people across the globe as possible. After all, it's not only the media that's set up to demonise and to manufacture consent.)

The second story took place a few months later, during the bombing and missile strikes on Baghdad. CNN's Peter Arnett reported that the US had destroyed a baby milk factory on the western outskirts of Baghdad, while the Pentagon furiously maintained the facility was making biological weapons. I visited the ruins of the plant on the same day as Arnett and I remember reading through letters about the baby milk business I found in smashed up desks in the factory office. Many were about abortive efforts to save the factory from bankruptcy, convincing evidence that the Iraqi authorities could scarcely have concocted overnight.

[...]

Lessons From Media Involvement In Yugoslavia - Husky - 06-17-2017

What ails the world? Why - besides christoislamania - it's that land where escaped nazis and their ideals still flourish, of course. You know, the US.

---------

On the war between Ukraine and Russia (and who's really behind the downing of that Malaysian plane and the death of all its unfortunate passengers).

Interview with Putin, where one gets to hear the other side. The side every western media outlet, not to mention major search engine algorithms, are working hard to prevent people from hearing. I.o.w., more likely the truth is closer to 'the other side' than to what the western media has been attempting to peddle.

(Interview conducted by Oliver Stone who I think is the guy who made movies such as on the assassination of JFK, but also Alexander 'the Great' etc. Nowadays, I think he's into politically themed documentaries (?))

Further below, the extracts from the comments section at the link will make explicit why this post belongs in this thread.

consortiumnews.com/2017/06/13/putin-ukraine-and-what-americans-know/

(ConsortiumNews belongs to Robert Parry, a former AP journalist, who seems to have woken up.

Better to read the article at the link, as there are numerous links in the body of the text leading to supporting info.)

Quote:Putin, Ukraine and What Americans Know

June 13, 2017

Exclusive: In an interview with Oliver Stone, Russian President Putin explained his take on the Ukraine crisis, one that contrasts with what the U.S. mainstream media has allowed the American people to hear, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

A prime example of how todayÃ¢â¬â¢s mainstream media paradigm works in the U.S. is the case of Ukraine, where Americans have been shielded from evidence that the 2014 ouster of democratically elected President Viktor Yanukovych was a U.S.-supported coup dÃ¢â¬â¢etat spearheaded by violent neo-Nazi extremists.

Russian President Vladimir Putin in ShowtimeÃ¢â¬â¢s Ã¢â¬ÅThe Putin InterviewsÃ¢â¬Â

As The New York Times has instructed us, there was no coup in Ukraine; there was no U.S. interference; and there werenÃ¢â¬â¢t even that many neo-Nazis. And, the ensuing civil conflict wasnÃ¢â¬â¢t a resistance among YanukovychÃ¢â¬â¢s supporters to his illegal ouster; no, it was Ã¢â¬ÅRussian aggressionÃ¢â¬Â or a Ã¢â¬ÅRussian invasion.Ã¢â¬Â

If you deviate from this groupthink Ã¢â¬â if you point out how U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland talked about the U.S. spending $5 billion on Ukraine; if you mention her pre-coup intercepted phone call with U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey Pyatt discussing who the new leaders would be and how Ã¢â¬Åto glueÃ¢â¬Â or how Ã¢â¬Åto Ã¢â¬Åmidwife this thingÃ¢â¬Â; if you note how Nuland and Sen. John McCain urged on the violent anti-Yanukovych protesters; if you recognize that snipers firing from far-right-controlled buildings killed both police and protesters to provoke the climactic ouster of Yanukovych; and if you think all that indeed looks like a coup Ã¢â¬â you obviously are the victim of Ã¢â¬ÅRussian propaganda and disinformation.Ã¢â¬Â

But most Americans probably havenÃ¢â¬â¢t heard any of that evidence revealing a coup, thanks to the mainstream U.S. media, which has essentially banned those deviant facts from the public discourse. If they are mentioned at all, they are lumped together with Ã¢â¬Åfake newsÃ¢â¬Â amid the reassuring hope that soon there will be algorithms to purge such troublesome information from the Internet. [links to: consortiumnews.com/2017/05/02/nyt-cheers-the-rise-of-censorship-algorithms/ ]

So, if Americans tune in to Part Three of Oliver StoneÃ¢â¬â¢s Ã¢â¬ÅThe Putin InterviewsÃ¢â¬Â on Ã¢â¬ÅShowtimeÃ¢â¬Â and hear Russian President Vladimir Putin explain his perspective on the Ukraine crisis, they may become alarmed that Putin, leader of a nuclear-armed country, is delusional.

A Nuanced Perspective

In reality, PutinÃ¢â¬â¢s account of the Ukraine crisis is fairly nuanced. He notes that there was genuine popular anger over the corruption that came to dominate Ukraine after the Soviet UnionÃ¢â¬â¢s collapse in 1991 and the selling off of the nationÃ¢â¬â¢s assets to well-connected Ã¢â¬Åoligarchs.Ã¢â¬Â

Screen shot of the fatal fire in Odessa, Ukraine, on May 2, 2014, set by right-wing Ukrainian nationalists killing scores of ethnic Russians. (From RT video)

Putin recognizes that many Ukrainians felt that an association with the European Union could help solve their problems. But that created a problem for Russia because of the absence of tariffs between Russia and Ukraine and concerns about the future of bilateral trade that is especially important to Ukraine, which stood to lose some $160 billion.

When Yanukovych decided to postpone the E.U. agreement so he could iron out that problem, protests erupted, Putin said. But Ã¢â¬â from that point on Ã¢â¬â PutinÃ¢â¬â¢s narrative deviates from what the U.S. government and mainstream media tell the American people.

Ã¢â¬ÅOur European and American partners managed to mount this horse of discontent of the people and instead of trying to find out what was really happening, they decided to support the coup dÃ¢â¬â¢etat,Ã¢â¬Â Putin said.

Contrary to the U.S. claims blaming Yanukovych for the violence in the Maidan protests, Putin said, Ã¢â¬ÅYanukovych didnÃ¢â¬â¢t give an order to use weapons against civilians. And incidentally, our Western partners, including the United States, asked us to influence him so that he did not give any orders to use weapons. They told us, Ã¢â¬ËWe ask you to prevent President Yanukovych from using the armed forces.Ã¢â¬â¢ And they promised Ã¢â¬Â¦ they were going to do everything for the opposition to clear the squares and the administrative buildings.

Ã¢â¬ÅWe said, Ã¢â¬ËVery well, that is a good proposal. We are going to work on it.Ã¢â¬â¢ And, as you know, President Yanukovych didnÃ¢â¬â¢t resort to using the Armed Forces. And President Yanukovych said that he couldnÃ¢â¬â¢t imagine any other way of dealing with this situation. He couldnÃ¢â¬â¢t sign an order on the use of weapons.Ã¢â¬Â

Though Putin did not specifically finger blame for the sniper fire on Feb. 20, 2014, which killed more than a dozen police and scores of protesters, he said, Ã¢â¬ÅWell, who could have placed these snipers? Interested parties, parties who wanted to escalate the situation. Ã¢â¬Â¦ We have information available to us that armed groups were trained in the western parts of Ukraine itself, in Poland, and in a number of other places.Ã¢â¬Â

After the bloodshed of Feb. 20, Yanukovych and opposition leaders on Feb. 21 signed an accord, brokered and guaranteed by three European governments, for early elections and, in the meantime, a reduction of YanukovychÃ¢â¬â¢s powers.

Ignoring a Political Deal

But the opposition, led by neo-Nazi and other extreme nationalist street fighters, brushed aside the agreement and escalated their seizing of government buildings, although The New York Times and other U.S. accounts would have the American people believe that Yanukovych simply abandoned his office.

Nazi symbols on helmets worn by members of UkraineÃ¢â¬â¢s Azov battalion. (As filmed by a Norwegian film crew and shown on German TV)

Ã¢â¬ÅThatÃ¢â¬â¢s the version used to justify the support granted to the coup,Ã¢â¬Â Putin said. Ã¢â¬ÅOnce the President left for Kharkov, the second largest city in the country to attend an internal political event, armed men seized the Presidential Residence. Imagine something like that in the U.S., if the White House was seized, what would you call that? A coup dÃ¢â¬â¢etat? Or say that they just came to sweep the floors?

Ã¢â¬ÅThe Prosecutor General was shot at, one of the security officers was wounded. And the motorcade of President Yanukovych himself was shot at. So itÃ¢â¬â¢s nothing short of an armed seizure of power. Moreover, one day afterwards he used our support and relocated to Crimea (where he stayed for more than a week) thinking that there was still a chance that those who put their signatures on the (Feb. 21) agreement with the opposition would make an attempt to settle this conflict by civilized democratic legal means. But that never happened and it became clear that if he were taken he would be killed.

Ã¢â¬ÅEverything can be perverted and distorted, millions of people can be deceived, if you use the monopoly of the media. But in the end, I believe that for an impartial spectator it is clear what has happened Ã¢â¬â a coup dÃ¢â¬â¢etat had taken place.Ã¢â¬Â

Putin noted how the new regime in Kiev immediately sought to limit use of the Russian language and allowed extreme nationalist elements to move against eastern provinces known as the Donbass where ethnic Russians were the vast majority of the population.

Putin continued, Ã¢â¬ÅFirst, there were attempts at arresting them [ethnic Russians] using the police, but the police defected to their side quite quickly. Then the central authorities started to use Special Forces and in the night, people were snatched and taken to prison. Certainly, people in Donbass, after that, they took up arms.

Ã¢â¬ÅBut once this happened, hostilities started so instead of engaging in dialogue with people in the southeast part of Ukraine, they [Ukraine government officials] used Special Forces, and started to use weapons directly Ã¢â¬â tanks and even military aircraft. There were strikes from multiple rocket launchers against residential neighborhoods. Ã¢â¬Â¦ We repeatedly appealed to this new leadership asking them to abstain from extreme actions.Ã¢â¬Â

However, the civil conflict only grew worse with thousands of people killed in some of the worst violence that Europe has seen since World War II. In the U.S. mainstream media, however, the crisis was blamed entirely on Putin and Russia.

The Crimea Case

As for the so-called Ã¢â¬ÅannexationÃ¢â¬Â of Crimea, a peninsula in the Black Sea that was historically part of Russia and that even after the Soviet break-up hosted a major Russian naval base at Sevastopol, PutinÃ¢â¬â¢s account also deviated sharply from what Americans have been told.

....

I was just thinking it'd been too long since the last world war: surely the trigger happy types must have grown restless before now. So the Great Game is afoot again, or at least things are further stirring. And the shadow puppeteers in the US are all for stoking said impending WWIII if they can't have their way by any other means.

The comments section is also insightful, as it's clear that the knowledgeable Americans gather in places like this, far from their madding crowd.

Some of the comments:

Quote:Abe

June 13, 2017 at 10:51 pm

LetÃ¢â¬â¢s review what actually happened in Ukraine in mid-February 2014:

A period of relative calm in the Maidan anti-government demonstrations ended abruptly on 18 February 2014, when protesters and police clashed.

Some 20,000 Euromaidan protesters in Kiev advanced on UkraineÃ¢â¬â¢s parliament in support of restoring the Constitution of Ukraine to its 2004 form, which had been repealed by the Constitutional Court of Ukraine shortly after Viktor Yanukovych was elected president in 2010. Police blocked their path. The confrontation turned violent. Political commentators suggested that Ukraine was on the brink of a civil war. Some areas, including Lviv Oblast, declared themselves politically independent from the central government.

On 19 February, the authorities instituted police checkpoints, restrictions on public transportation and school closures in Kiev, which media referred to as a de facto state of emergency. One member of parliament said in an interview that a state of emergency was de facto implemented nationwide as transportation to the capital was paralyzed.

The 18-19 February violence included numerous sniper shootings which left 28 dead, 10 of whom were police and Berkut troops.

On 20 February, Minister of Internal Affairs Vitaliy Zakharchenko announced he had signed a decree authorizing the use of live ammunition against protesters. Armed assailants were visible among the largely unarmed protesters. Central Kiev saw the worst violence yet, and the death toll in 48 hours of clashes rose to at least 77.

The Ukrainian far-right group Right Sector, then occupying the Hotel Ukraine, co-ordinated the 18-20 February sniper attacks on Instytutska Street, but the deaths were blamed on Yanukovich.

21 February was the most pivotal day in the conflict. It ended with an armed coup dÃ¢â¬â¢etat.

In response to the mounting deaths and injuries, Chairman of the Ukrainian Parliament Volodymyr Rybak announced that he had signed a parliamentary decree, condemning the use of force and urging all institutions (Ministry of Internal Affairs, Cabinet of Ministers, etc.) to cease immediately all military actions against protesters. The Ukrainian parliament also suspended Zakharchenko from his duties.

Yanukovych signed a compromise deal with opposition leaders which would implement constitutional changes to hand powers back to parliament and early elections, to be held by December.

While Yanukovich was attending the negotiations, an impeachment bill was introduced in Ukrainian Parliament, but no details were provided and the Ukrainian parliament did not vote to impeach Yanukovich according to the legal procedure.

In addition, the Ukrainian Parliament voted for the release of Yulia Tymoshenko in a 310-54 veto-proof vote. The leader of the All-Ukrainian Union Ã¢â¬ÅFatherlandÃ¢â¬Â political party, Tymoshenko had been convicted in 2011 of embezzlement and abuse of power, sentenced to seven years in prison and ordered to pay the state $188 million. Her prosecution and conviction were viewed by the European Union as politically biased. The EU, and Germany in particular, had repeatedly called for her release as the primary condition for signing the EU Association Agreement.

To release Tymoshenko, the members of the Ukrainian Parliament decriminalized the Article on which she was charged and brought it into compliance with Article 19 of the UN Convention against corruption. That could enable immediate release of Tymoshenko through the corresponding court ruling. However, Yanukovych did not have the opportunity to sign the bill into the law.

During the night of 21 February 2014, Yanukovich left Kiev for Kharkiv to attend a summit of south-eastern regions. Yanukovych claimed that his car was shot at by automatic rifles as he traveled to meet with representatives of local parties in Kharkiv, and that he was forced to move around Ukraine amid fears for the safety of himself and his family.

Protesters, many of whom were armed, took full control of the government district in central Kiev, including the Parliament, the PresidentÃ¢â¬â¢s administration quarters, the cabinet, and the Interior Ministry.

On 22 February, the Ukrainian parliament voted to remove Yanukovych from his post, on the grounds that he was unable to fulfill his duties, although the legislative removal lacked the number of votes required by UkraineÃ¢â¬â¢s then-current constitution. Parliament set 25 May as the date for the special election to select his replacement and, two days later, issued a warrant for his arrest, accusing him of Ã¢â¬Åmass killing of civilians.Ã¢â¬Â

Also on 22 February 2014, the Ukrainian Parliament with 322 votes adopted a decree based on the decision of the European Court of Human Rights and corresponding decision of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe.

On February 23, 2014, while in a parliamentary session, a deputy from TymoschenkoÃ¢â¬â¢s Ã¢â¬ÅFatherlandÃ¢â¬Â party, Vyacheslav Kyrylenko, moved to include in the agenda a bill to repeal the 2012 law Ã¢â¬ÅOn the principles of the state language policyÃ¢â¬Â. The motion was carried with 86% of the votes in favorÃ¢â¬â232 deputies in favor vs 37 opposed against the required minimum of 226 of 334 votes. The bill was included in the agenda, immediately put to a vote with no debate and approved with the same 232 voting in favor. The bill would have made Ukrainian the sole state language at all levels.

This attempt to repeal the 2012 law on state language policy was met with great disdain in Crimea and Southern and Eastern Ukraine, provoking waves of protests against the Maidan installed government ultimately culminating with the Crimean crisis.

Passage of the repeal bill was met with regret by the Secretary-General of the Council of Europe. The OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities expressed concern over possible further unrest. The bill was also criticized by the Ambassador for Human Rights of the Russian foreign ministry. The Hungarian foreign ministry expressed serious concerns, noting that the decision Ã¢â¬Åcould question the commitment of the new Ukrainian administration towards democracyÃ¢â¬Â.

After urgently ordering a working group to draft a replacement law on February 27, acting President Oleksandr Turchynov vetoed the repeal bill on 28 February. But the intended political damage was done.

The stage was set for the US/EU armed assault on RussiaÃ¢â¬â¢s near abroad to be depicted by the mainstream media as a Ukrainian Ã¢â¬Åcivil war.Ã¢â¬Â

MerkelÃ¢â¬â¢s darling, Tymoshenko gathered military and defense experts in March. She suggested launching a special headquarters that would elaborate responses to threats coming from Russia.

In a leaked phone conversation with Nestor Shufrych, former deputy secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Tymoshenko said in reference to the reunification of Crimea with Russia: Ã¢â¬ÅItÃ¢â¬â¢s about time we grab our guns and go kill those damn Russians together with their leader; and nuke 8 million Russians who are now exiles in Ukraine.Ã¢â¬Â

https: // www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXooBkkCMP0

(It's like the US supported revived Ustashe-Nazi Croatians and their agenda against the Serbs all over again. And all because of the nazism AmeriKKKa absorbed, and the Unfinished Business that they had with Yugoslavia and with Russia.)

In April, Ukrainian security forces launched an Ã¢â¬Åanti-terrorist operationÃ¢â¬Â directed at anti-Kiev forces in eastern Ukraine.

However, EU-favorite Tymoshenko came a distant second behind US-favorite Petro Poroshenko in the 25 May Presidential election in Ukraine. That was when Europe really started getting Ã¢â¬ÅwobblyÃ¢â¬Â about Ukraine.

Much to WashingtonÃ¢â¬â¢s delight, Poroshenko immediately intensified the military operations in eastern Ukraine. That didnÃ¢â¬â¢t go so well.

Malaysian Air Flight 17 Ã¢â¬ÅhappenedÃ¢â¬Â on 17 July, just in time to goad the Ã¢â¬ÅwobblyÃ¢â¬Â EU endorse the third round of sanctions against sectors of RussiaÃ¢â¬â¢s economy.

p

Kiza

June 14, 2017 at 10:30 am

It was clear from the start that US would make a mess in Ukraine and then leave it to EU to pay to clean it up.

Bill Bodden

June 14, 2017 at 12:01 am

> US media sucks in general, but at least itÃ¢â¬â¢s not state-controlled and the bias often exhibited is based on other motives than the writers being paid media puppets.

The mainstream media are controlled by the plutocrats and oligarchs that run the nation with the Israel lobby adding to censorship. Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post and has a contract with the CIA. If the media are controlled, it makes little difference which force does the controlling if the product is predominantly lies.

Lee Francis

June 14, 2017 at 7:47 am

Whether or not the media is Ã¢â¬ËstateÃ¢â¬â¢-controlled is not necessarily the litmus test of a free-press. The British Broadcasting Corporation is a state funded media. Does it purvey propaganda? maybe, maybe not. And BTW it is a complete non-squitur to suggest that private ownership in and of itself necessarily endows media freedom. Much of western state propaganda has simply been outsourced to the private sector who have apparently taken up their brief with considerable alacrity. The private sector media in the Anglosphere speaks with one voice and brooks no dissent. Inconvenient facts and competing narratives are simply shut out. Not that there is any conspiratorial process at work. Ã¢â¬ËItÃ¢â¬â¢s justÃ¢â¬â¢, as the late Gore Vidal once opined, Ã¢â¬Ëthat they all think the same.Ã¢â¬â¢ A British political theorist, one Ralph Miliband, father of the two less intelligent sons, once descrbied the British press as Ã¢â¬Ëranging from a spectrum of soundly conservative to uttlerly reactionary.Ã¢â¬â¢ Who needs state censorship when in TrotskyÃ¢â¬â¢s words, Ã¢â¬ÂEvery bourgeois journalist has a gendarme in his head so that the external one is unnecessary.Ã¢â¬â¢

Oh, and BTW the Moscow Times and St.Petersburg Times Ã¢â¬â both foreign owned Ã¢â¬â are journals which represent the non-systemic opposition to Putin involving the Oligarchs and the rest of the Euro-integrationists, whereas anti-systemic opposition to Putin includes the Communists, led by Zyuganov (Daily publication Ã¢â¬â Pravda) and RussiaÃ¢â¬â¢s own Donald Trump, Vladimir Zhirinovsky.

Incidentally all the American publications and broadcasts are available in the Russian Federation. Since they are basicilly illiterate and non-credible they make an excellent propaganda tool for Putin.

Mark

June 15, 2017 at 1:02 am

Ã¢â¬ÅUS media sucks in general, but at least itÃ¢â¬â¢s not state-controlled and the bias often exhibited is based on other motives than the writers being paid media puppets.Ã¢â¬Â

Poor innocent. No, US media is not so much state-controlled as it is corporate-controlled, and six corporations control 90% of the American media Ã¢â¬â television, radio, movies, you name it.

http: // www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6

So the bias exhibited is based on what is likely to work out to the most profit for shareholders. Bet you feel a lot better about it now.

Realist

June 14, 2017 at 3:21 am

As Putin himself said, Russia basically uses American product for all its IT requirements, both hardware and software. The country does not have a corporation within the top 100 in the field. And, of course, it is outspent at least 10-to-1 by the U.S. alone on the military, including R&D. Then there were the revelations from Vault 7 indicating that most of the malware floating around out there was designed by the NSA and CIA. OccamÃ¢â¬â¢s Razor tells me that if the U.S. election was hacked, it was done by Americans who didnÃ¢â¬â¢t even do a credible job of trying to shift the blame to the Russians. Shit, American cheaters donÃ¢â¬â¢t even have to hack anything to steal elections, as theyÃ¢â¬â¢ve been doing it since the late 18th century.

backwardsevolution

June 14, 2017 at 3:01 am

Paul Craig Roberts:

Ã¢â¬ÅIt must be wonderful being Vladimir Putin and being the most powerful person on earth. And not even have to say so yourself. The US Democratic Party is saying it for Putin along with the entirety of the Western presstitute media and the CIA and FBI also. The Russian media doesnÃ¢â¬â¢t have to brag about PutinÃ¢â¬â¢s power. Megyn Kelly, the Western presstitutes, and Western leaders are doing it for them: Putin is so powerful that he is able to place in office his choice for the President of the United States.

I mean, Wow! What power! Americans are simply out of the game. Americans, despite a massive intelligence budget and 16 separate intelligence services plus those of its NATO vassals, are no match whatsoever for Vladimir Putin.

I mean, really! What is the CIA for? What is the NSA for? What are the rest of them for? Americans would do better to close down these incompetent, but expensive, Ã¢â¬Åintelligence servicesÃ¢â¬Â and pay the money to Putin as a bribe not to select our president. Maybe the CIA should get down on its knees and beg Putin to stop electing the President of the United States. I mean, how humiliating. I can hardly stand it. I thought we are the Ã¢â¬ÅworldÃ¢â¬â¢s sole superpower, the uni-power, the exceptional, indispensable people.Ã¢â¬Â It turns out that we are a nothing people, ruled by the President of Russia.Ã¢â¬Â

[Well, I wouldn't completely write off Russian intelligence and capabilities. Nor are the US intelligence services all that bright or able, I mean, let's face it, they're no Mossad.

And even if it ever does turn out that Putin had chipped in to help get Trump elected - don't know why AmriKKKan politicians act all indignant and speak in terms of "this means war", when they've been meddling in Indian elections every single time - anything has got to be better than that Hillary.)

Realist

June 14, 2017 at 3:12 am

And still the warmongers in Washington steadily escalate the tensions with Russia, not only over Ukraine but Syria and Ã¢â¬ÅRussiaÃ¢â¬â¢s stealing of the presidential election for Donald Trump.Ã¢â¬Â As reported on Tuesday in RT, a whole new round of very robust sanctions against Russia were initiated in the Senate by a veto-proof majority. The bill will then go on to the House where it is said another veto-proof majority intends to rubber stamp it. After that they expect Trump to sign it, and probably get impeached if he refuses. The warmongers are pushing hard for an Armageddon to avenge Hillary. Pretty soon the only move left to these idiots will be to actually push the button and start WWIII.

Sec. State Tillerson reportedly opposes this nonsense, claiming that AmericaÃ¢â¬â¢s Ã¢â¬ÅalliesÃ¢â¬Â think itÃ¢â¬â¢s just more bad policy emanating from Washington.

An excerpt from RT: Ã¢â¬ÅUS senators, both Republicans and Democrats among them, agreed on new restrictive measures against Russia on Tuesday. Citing alleged RussiaÃ¢â¬â¢s Ã¢â¬ÅinterferenceÃ¢â¬Â in the 2016 presidential election in the US, as well as the situations in Crimea and in Syria, the senators say they want new sanctions imposed on Moscow. The vote is reportedly set to take place Thursday.Ã¢â¬Â

(Then a troll appears, of the kind Indians would be familiar with, and people catch him out soon enough. But someone else - one Sanford - moreover noticed a pattern with the troll, that it was of the usual suspects playacting by the book

Joe Bodia (= the troll)

June 14, 2017 at 6:51 am

I live in Ukraine and was at the Maidan as well as the Odessa treason, and have lived here for five years, as well as Eastern Europe (Prague, Budapest, Sarajevo) since the early 90s. I have worked in media as a researcher and a publisher, am married to an ethnically Russian Ukrainian in Odessa. I speak Russian on a daily basis and have first hand experience with what happened here before and after Putin ordered Yanukovych to scrap the EU trade association agreement.

I just want to point out that this article is 100% polished Kremlin propaganda.

There are so many spins and twists of reality here, that it would take several pages to demonstrate this orchestration of lies. I would simply advise anyone curious about the situation, to look more into it and not on Kremlin propaganda sites like this. For example, the Ã¢â¬Å$5 millionÃ¢â¬Â referenced as having been given to Ukraine Ã¢â¬Åfor the coupÃ¢â¬Â was actually US aide programs over many, many years, and seeing as Russia recieved even more from these same aid programs, does the author think that means there was a coup in Russia too? See the twisty lies they have employed?

I will close with the simple fact, that the US didnÃ¢â¬â¢t Ã¢â¬Åtake Ukraine from RussiaÃ¢â¬Â because Ukraine is a sovereign nation, it simply does not belong to Russia, no matter how many centuries they have spent trying to colonize it (which is why there are so many Russian speakers in the east).

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Sam F

June 14, 2017 at 8:19 am

1. No one has to be in Ukraine to see the issues; you appear to be of West Ukraine sympathies only.

2. If you see polished Kremlin propaganda you can generate polished US or West Ukraine propaganda.

3. Your use of Ã¢â¬ÅtreasonÃ¢â¬Â to describe the Odessa dissent shows that you see only one side of the issues.

4. It was $5 billion not million, and the article nowhere says that it was all Ã¢â¬Åfor the coup.Ã¢â¬Â

5. Cuba was a sovereign nation in the 1962 missile crisis, and the US embargoed and demanded removal of USSR missiles, so why should the US be allowed to interfere on the borders of unoffending Russia?

6. The march of an aggressive NATO to the borders of Russia is plain enough; do you dispute that?

7. So what brought your career to follow that march, if you are not part of western mass media?

8. This site has shown balance in considering views in opposition to western mass media.

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Sam F

June 14, 2017 at 8:41 am

9. As you are a journalist familiar with Russia and associated with Ukraine, perhaps you can explain the new Russian technology of massive invasions with invisible armored divisions. This has been fascinating, that our propaganda-free western mass media cannot see even one instance of what was so often photographed with very simple cameras even in the early twentieth century.

10. Also please explain why the 80% ethnic Russian East Ukraine should not be allowed independence to associate with Russia, and why one faction of Ukraine should dominate over the other, when the factions have been unable to find peace since WWII or earlier?

11. Many here would also like to know why flight MH17 was diverted over the war zone, why West Ukraine was trying to shoot down PutinÃ¢â¬â¢s plane, why only the ATC records for that area were Ã¢â¬ÅlostÃ¢â¬Â that day, and why West Ukraine maintains that the missiles involved were controlled by East Ukraine despite lack of evidence, a predominance of such missiles under West Ukraine control, lack of a motive of East Ukraine, and apparent origin in territory controlled by West Ukraine?

F. G. Sanford

June 14, 2017 at 9:22 am

I think it was E. Howard Hunt who worked in South America as a Ã¢â¬ÅjournalistÃ¢â¬Â and Ã¢â¬ÅauthorÃ¢â¬Â. He claimed to speak Spanish fluently on a daily basis, and may have been romantically involved with a a local national. Somebody wrote a book about HuntÃ¢â¬â¢s version of Ã¢â¬ÅjournalismÃ¢â¬Â. It explained how to subvert a foreign government on ten thousand dollars or less Ã¢â¬â I think it was called Ã¢â¬ÅConfessions of an Economic Hit ManÃ¢â¬Â. That five billion dollars went Ã¢â¬â NOT to charity Ã¢â¬â but instead to NGOs or Ã¢â¬ÅNon-Governmental OrganizationsÃ¢â¬Â. These so-called Ã¢â¬ÅcharitableÃ¢â¬Â organizations emerged after the Church Committee hearings when the CIA had to create front groups like National Endowment for Democracy Ã¢â¬â headed since about 1983 by prominent Neocon Carl Gershman. The primary activity of these organizations is the creation of political opposition for the purpose of destabilizing governments who resist economic exploitation by Western governments.

The resume you provide Ã¢â¬â along with your spurious objections Ã¢â¬â sounds very similar to Mr. HuntÃ¢â¬â¢s career path. The Ã¢â¬ÅEthnic Outreach ProgramÃ¢â¬Â and Ã¢â¬ÅCrusade for FreedomÃ¢â¬Â programs which reached their pinnacle under the Reagan administration were also thought of as Ã¢â¬ÅbenevolentÃ¢â¬Â initiatives. They were operations which aided particularly the recruitment of Ukrainian and other Eastern European Nazi factions for the purpose of cold war operations against the Soviet Union. The Allan Dulles CFF was responsible for enabling the immigration to the United States of Nazi notables such as Otto von Bolschwing, Adolf EichmannÃ¢â¬â¢s immediate supervisor. BolschwingÃ¢â¬â¢s protege, Helene von Damm, was even given a job in ReaganÃ¢â¬â¢s personnel management office.

The bottom line is, youÃ¢â¬â¢re a troll, and it would be pretty hard to find one more Ã¢â¬Åhighly polishedÃ¢â¬Â or transparently packaged. I guarantee that no matter how hard they try, no Consortium News reader will be able to find your by-line on a legitimate publication. Even if they do, it isnÃ¢â¬â¢t your real name. But, itÃ¢â¬â¢s a great cover story for a Ã¢â¬Åsecret agentÃ¢â¬Â. You ought to try writing spy novels. As UkraineÃ¢â¬â¢s economy continues to implode thanks to the disaster your handlers created, the only paying jobs left will be smuggling contraband cigarettes and prostitution. I hope youÃ¢â¬â¢re proud of yourselves.

Kiza

June 14, 2017 at 9:36 am

I like your polished Kiev propaganda Ã¢â¬â Ukraine and Russia receiving aid from the same fund, lol. Yes, except that it is not Russia as a country and Ukraine as a country receiving this kind of aid then the anti-government NGOs which the West finances in those countries. You are absolutely right that $5B aid was spent on those NGOs in Ukraine over many years, it actually paid also for the previous Ã¢â¬Åcolour revolutionÃ¢â¬Â organised in Ukraine before Maidan. Apparently, the US State Department spent more on Russian NGOs than on Ukrainian NGOs before Maidan, I have seen a figure of around $1B per year spent on Ã¢â¬Ådemocracy developmentÃ¢â¬Â in Russia. What Yanukovytch did not do and Putin did do was to introduce a law that such NGOs receiving money (to organise revolutions) have to register as foreign agents, that is Putin copied a very similar foreign agent registration law from US. PutinÃ¢â¬â¢s high popularity in Russia, plus the Russian memory of YeltsinÃ¢â¬â¢s years, plus this law have successfuly castrated color revolutions in Russia, so much so that they are desperately holding on to Navalny now in the hope that he could, by some miracle, pull a revolution off.

(I've not been following Modi/BJP's doings to know - but hopefully they've also enacted laws to force the countless alien demon NGOs in Bharatam to register as foreign agents.)

I heard from a friend that during Maidan there were improvised stalls around the square where you could walk up and get paid anything between $50 and $200 for your effort to bring democracy to Ukraine. Therefore, it was not only the cookies which were distributed. My friend told me that they did not discriminate based on language, speaking Ukrainian or Russian, you still got paid if you could prove that you are taking part. The US tax payers should know that this is how those $5B of their money Ã¢â¬ÅaidedÃ¢â¬Â Ukraine, although an additional part of the money also came from Soros and the related private do-gooders.

I do believe you that you are a journalist just based on your quick, easy and natural manipulation of the truth, creation of straw men (who claimed that Ukraine was taken from Russia?) and so on. You really picked a wrong place to distribute manipulated reality which we living in the West get daily from our own MSM.

Kiza

June 14, 2017 at 10:04 am

Thanks Skip, I forgot to mention that they did not even bother converting Ã¢â¬ÅaidÃ¢â¬Â into hrivna, then they were paying the democratisation fee out in straight greenbacks,

Realist

June 14, 2017 at 9:58 am

Ukraine was never an independent country before the break-up of the Soviet Union, and it was never unified. The entire Southeastern part from Karkhov to Odessa, including the Donbass, was part of Russia and populated by Russians. If you want to say that region called Novorussiya was colonised by Russia, the lands were acquired from the Ottoman Empire (the Turks) by Catherine the Great. The Western regions around Lwow were part of Poland and populated by Poles until they were exterminated by the Banderite Ukies in WWII. The Southwest was part of Austria-Hungary. Only the Northcentral region centered on Kiev was ethnically Ã¢â¬ÅUkrainianÃ¢â¬Â but always ruled by Russia or the Soviet Union.

Since you live in the area, why donÃ¢â¬â¢t you consult some actual history books written by educated European scholars rather than simply consuming the revisionist propaganda dispensed by Right Sektor and that lot of fascists who seem more interested in repressing ethnic Russians than advancing the political and economic prospects of Ukrainians. Ask yourself: Do you have more money, opportunity, human rights and domestic tranquility under Poroshenko than you did under Yanukovich? Did Yanukovich burn dissidents alive and send armed militias into ethnic enclaves to smother resistance to a coup? Who has been slaughtered in the fighting? Mostly ethnic Ukrainians or ethnic Russians? Have residents of the Donbass been invading Kiev-held lands? Or just the opposite with Kiev incessantly shelling Donbass interspersed by sporadic but futile forays of troops and militia into the Donbass?

And, since you will insist that it has been many tank divisions of regular Russian troops that have invaded and occupied Ukraine, why can proponents of that mythology never produce any evidence, not a single satellite image or smartphone photograph? Why has the evidence in UkraineÃ¢â¬â¢s possession relevant to the Malaysian airliner shoot-down been withheld by its government rather than triumphantly released to support its claims of Russian responsibility? The United States has technology that can read a license plate from outer space plus they are known to monitor every square inch of that conflict zone 24/7, why will UkraineÃ¢â¬â¢s NATO advisors not share any of this data with the investigators, or with the public? Just like the Odessa incident that stinks of a Ukrainian cover-up of its own sins. For someone who claims to work in media as a Ã¢â¬Åresearcher and publisherÃ¢â¬Â you seem to miss or purposely avoid a major component of reality.

F. G. Sanford

June 14, 2017 at 11:45 am

Svoboda and Pravy Sector have actually established a branch of government to Ã¢â¬ÅreviseÃ¢â¬Â Ukrainian history to remove anything derogatory about the Banderist Nazis. He canÃ¢â¬â¢t refer to any books by legitimate Ukrainian historians because those books have been banned or burned. People keep referring to them as Ã¢â¬ÅneoÃ¢â¬Â Nazis. In actual fact, they are ideological descendents of actual Wehrmacht Galician Division Nazi units, and proud of it.

Dave P.

June 14, 2017 at 10:12 am

Joe, as an impartial observer, reading the History by the Western authors it tells me that there was never a country called Ukraine, except for a brief period during World War I, when Germans created that rouge state called Ukraine in the area which is now Western Ukraine. After Germans lost the War, Bolsheviks attached, I think ten Oblasts of Eastern and Southern Ukraine to the Western Ukraine in 1922 for political reasons. I do not want to go in detail into earlier history. Russia won the territory, which is now Eastern and Southern Ukraine back from the Turks during seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

I hope you watch Peter Hitchens Ã¢â¬â that famous Conservative Tory Journalist and writer, speaking at a University in U.K. in November, 2015. He discusses the Ukraine Issue in detail in his presentation and question answer session. Here is the link:

https: // www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CNeDtZmpjU

What happened in Odessa, when that neo-nazi mob burned the fifty or so peaceful protesters was there on TV in the countries Ã¢â¬â beyond The Western Nations Ã¢â¬â to see. It is time for The Nationalist Ukrainians who have created all this hostility, hatred, and war to come to their senses. During the last three years, those neo-nazi Azov battalions have killed more than 10,000 East Ukrainians in the middle of so called Civilized Europe. Also a correction in your comments: it is not Ã¢â¬Å$5 millionsÃ¢â¬Â as you wrote. It is Ã¢â¬Å$5 billionsÃ¢â¬Â

Realist

June 14, 2017 at 6:16 pm

That was an excellent history lesson, packed with facts, highly nuanced with only enough verbiage to concisely make the point. If I were a history professor and you were a student, I would assign you high marks for that essay.

Kiza

June 14, 2017 at 8:25 pm

Dave, thanks for this brief and to-the-point summary.

It is fascinating that the borders established by the German Reich in Europe around 1941 have now returned by virtue of US, not only in the area of the former Soviet Union then also in the area of the former Yugoslavia. It is even more fascinating that it is not Germany (at least not yet) which imposed those new borders then US. It makes me wonder if all the Nazis that US sucked in at the end of the WW2 (or their children) have not attained some pretty influential positions in the US administration, to be re-arranging the East European borders according to their old schemes. You may be familiar or not that it was common after WW2 for the Nazis and Fascists to re-package themselves as anti-Nazis and anti-Fascists and vie for the positions of power.

Dave P.

June 15, 2017 at 1:57 am

Kiza, you are right on the borders . I think Germans are also actively involved behind the scenes in rearranging borders. In Yugoslavia, they started rearranging it with making Croatia first. Germans are back in the game. I read, in Der Spiegel article a few years ago (during Crimean crisis), Madam Chancellor Merkel has portrait of Russian German Empress Catherine The GreatÃ¢â¬â¢ on the wall in her office. We can expect more to come. She has not given up on Crimea yet. I have read somewhere about Nazis and Fascists re-packaging themselves Ã¢â¬â of course with the help of their friends here.

Michael Keppler

June 14, 2017 at 8:21 pm

Dear Joe Bodia,

I am afraid that your comments cannot be trusted, even given your experience in living in Eastern European countries for more than 20 years. The reason is simple. You lack certain mathematical requirements. Victoria Newland acknowledged that she put 5 billion USD into the Ukraine to Ã¢â¬ÅÃ¢â¬Â¦ tear Ukraine away from its historic relationship with Russia and into the US sphere of interest (via Ã¢â¬ÅEuropeÃ¢â¬Â).

Had Rex Tillerson or Jeff Immelt put 5 million USD into the Ukraine to further their companiesÃ¢â¬â¢ business, they would have landed in jail for bribery. For Newland the hurdle seems to be higher by a factor of more than 1,000, since she still runs around freely.

To give you an example on the difference between a million and a billion, here is the story of the estranged wife of a rich person. When she asked her husband for one million dollars to spend 1,000 a day, he gave it to her Ã¢â¬Â¦ and she did not come back for more than three years, when she asked her husband for more money. Then her husband gave her a billion. After that she did not come back for more than three thousand years.

How can we possibly trust your probability calculation of Ã¢â¬Å100% polished Kremlin propagandaÃ¢â¬Â if you donÃ¢â¬â¢t know your arithmetic? I suggest, you come back after 3,000 years or get a better education in math.

Dave P.

June 14, 2017 at 8:27 pm

Joe Bodia: You said you were at the Maidan, and then you were in Odessa at the time when those fifty innocent People were burned alive. Are you one of those neo-nazis?

Adrian Engler

June 14, 2017 at 10:07 am

It wondered why the US supported a coup in Ukraine (at least, Victoria Nuland talked about Ã¢â¬ÅmidwifingÃ¢â¬Â it). After all, Yanukovich was really very unpopular in the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014 (as Poroshenko is unpopular now, in Ukraine, presidents quickly become unpopular because fundamental economic and political problems are not resolved). He was ready to make lots of concessions as far as power sharing and early elections were concerned (this was also supported by EU countries and Russia), and it seems likely that the next elections would have been won by the opposition. So, it seems rather odd why a coup was needed when at a later time, elections would probably have brought a similar result. Was it really the feeling of urgency that the Ukrainian presidency had to change immediately?

But I think discussions about the Ã¢â¬Ådeep stateÃ¢â¬Â in other countries can help understanding this question. A coup is not the same as a change of government after elections. If the opposition had won the next elections, the changes would not have been that fundamental. But after the coup, many judges and other people on important positions were dismissed, and Russian media were banned. It it had been attempted to ban media and to purge the administration in such a way after normal elections instead of a coup, this would have led to internal resistance, and in other European countries, questions about UkraineÃ¢â¬â¢s turn towards authoritarianism would have been raised. Therefore, probably, a coup was much more convenient for the interests of US neocons than a negotiated compromise until the next elections that would probably have been won by the opposition.

This seems to be a wider part of the strategy of Ã¢â¬Åcontrolled chaosÃ¢â¬Â which the US prefers to elections for exerting power in other parts of the world, as well (I mainly think about the Middle East), and in other cases, this chaos is even more deadly than in Ukraine.

Dave P.

June 14, 2017 at 11:41 am

I watched the second segment of Oliver StoneÃ¢â¬â¢s interview last night. From watching PutinÃ¢â¬â¢s many speeches and other interviews as well, I find that he has an astounding grasp of not only of the Western Countries but of all other major Nations as well Ã¢â¬â really a very capable leader. Responding to Oliver StoneÃ¢â¬â¢s questions regarding the threat of Nuclear Weapons and related issues, he seemed a little sad. I could understand it. With U.S. and NATO pushing ever closer to the Russian Borders, with their declared policy of First Strike Doctrine, there is a danger of real catastrophe. He, as the leader of the Nation has that push button close to him. He seemed pained inside thinking about such a possibility.

And watching here, the leaders in U.S. are totally oblivious of what can happen. They seem to be exulting in their First Strike capabilities.

Dave P.

June 14, 2017 at 11:41 am

I watched the second segment of Oliver StoneÃ¢â¬â¢s interview last night. From watching PutinÃ¢â¬â¢s many speeches and other interviews as well, I find that he has an astounding grasp of not only of the Western Countries but of all other major Nations as well Ã¢â¬â really a very capable leader. Responding to Oliver StoneÃ¢â¬â¢s questions regarding the threat of Nuclear Weapons and related issues, he seemed a little sad. I could understand it. With U.S. and NATO pushing ever closer to the Russian Borders, with their declared policy of First Strike Doctrine, there is a danger of real catastrophe. He, as the leader of the Nation has that push button close to him. He seemed pained inside thinking about such a possibility.

And watching here, the leaders in U.S. are totally oblivious of what can happen. They seem to be exulting in their First Strike capabilities.

mike k

June 14, 2017 at 11:46 am

Ã¢â¬ÅItÃ¢â¬â¢s all about Russia. Trump wanted to Ã¢â¬ÅnormalizeÃ¢â¬Â relations with Moscow which pitted him against the powerful US foreign policy establishment. Now Trump has to be taught a lesson. He must be crushed, humiliated and exiled. And thatÃ¢â¬â¢s probably the way this will end.Ã¢â¬Â

This is the last paragraph of Mike WhitneyÃ¢â¬â¢s article linked below. I want to say that it does not have to end that way if Trump decides to go all in to fight his accusers. DonÃ¢â¬â¢t know if he will do that, but I hope he does, because those trying to take Trump down are more dangerous to our world by far than Trump himself. Politics does indeed make strange bedfellows Ã¢â¬â I never thought I would be bundling with The Donald!

https: // www.counterpunch.org/2017/06/14/comeys-lies-of-omission/

Realist

June 14, 2017 at 6:09 pm

Ã¢â¬ÅPolitics does indeed make strange bedfellows Ã¢â¬â I never thought I would be bundling with The Donald!Ã¢â¬Â

Nor did I. Obama didnÃ¢â¬â¢t just move around some game pieces when he very deliberately and forcefully reignited the Cold War, he overturned the board and started a new game which saw Hillary become so bellicose towards Russia that many thinking liberals (not the knee-jerk variety) saw Trump as the best bet for precluding nuclear annihilation. Both parties need to offer some drastically new talent of the sane variety, then we can go back to our typical domestic liberal-conservative dialectic without tripping Armageddon. The rest of the world and our children will thank us if we can get past the current madness. The alternative is no one will be left if this keeps escalating.

agues or

June 14, 2017 at 12:18 pm

And Mister Putin still have the guts to call Americans: friends, colleagues and partners. Wake up Mister President; those criminals who have made troubles all over the World for the past 70 years, are your enemies; they wish your death (and almost got it). Ask Mc Cain ! Have you not yet realized that they only respect power. It is impossible to deal intelligently with such crazy idiots or buy anything from them?. Boycott everything made in America. This should be your priority. Nothing elseÃ¢â¬Â¦To avoid the ultimate apocalypse, it is the only peacefull way to use with what has become (in spite of its own people) the new nazi empire of this planetÃ¢â¬Â¦

Gregory Herr

June 15, 2017 at 12:02 am

Mr. Putin is an internationalist. He understands Ã¢â¬ÅdiplomacyÃ¢â¬Â and his terminology reflects that approach and is also a testament to his manners. He is not under any illusions about geopolitical realities and threats to Russian and/or human interests. I donÃ¢â¬â¢t know that there is a more fully awake statesman on the planet.

Dave P.

June 14, 2017 at 2:26 pm

You are right Jessica. I think the Western Governments are in panic. They are unleashing Media War, Cyber War, just about throwing everything at Russia. I am beginning to believe that Masters who rule in U.S., and other Western Countries, along with the Media , and other collaborators are insane. Anything can happen now Ã¢â¬â for the worst.

(And then some people actually bring up India into the discussion. Though why Urdu/Banta poodoo needs to be brought up, I don't know...)

Realist

June 15, 2017 at 11:41 am

Well, it wasnÃ¢â¬â¢t for nothing that Belarus was always called Ã¢â¬ÅWhite RussiaÃ¢â¬Â and the Ukraine was always called Ã¢â¬ÅLittle RussiaÃ¢â¬Â when I was growing up as a kid in Chicago. The neighboring Lithuanians, Poles and Hungarians always saw the close affiliation between those peoples. The whole of Eastern Europe has succumbed to an American plan to divide and conquer, especially in the old Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, ever since the Cold War ended.

JRGJRG

June 14, 2017 at 2:12 pm

His references to the Donald Cook were interesting. It was reported that a Russian plane buzzed the destroyer and the entire ship became disabled and helpless. Putin praises the captain for his restraint in not shooting down the jet. All the onboard electronics were destroyed including the missile control system on the Cook. This is the Ã¢â¬Åspecial missile systemsÃ¢â¬Â Putin is disclosing, probably an advanced EMP directed energy weapon. It was widely reported the entire crew was so buzzed by what happened, when the ship was towed back to port, 40 of the crew either resigned or requested to be relieved of duty.

This is good news for anyone wanting to avoid conflict by NATO provocation and de-escalate tensions, promoting peace in the area, avoiding nuclear weapons, avoiding a first-strike capability forcing a pre-emptive strike. RussiaÃ¢â¬â¢s weaponry is second to none and designed for peacemaking.

Skip Scott

June 15, 2017 at 7:42 am

I wonder if this is the same weapon used in response to TrumpÃ¢â¬â¢s tomahawk tweet?

Martin - Swedish citizen

June 14, 2017 at 5:59 pm

Just read the BBC: US senate votes 97 Ã¢â¬â 2 to introduce new sanctions on Russia over alleged interference in the 2016 elections.

Mob lynching before trial or even evidence.

Joe L.

June 15, 2017 at 12:06 am

I have to say that I have been glad to see Oliver StoneÃ¢â¬â¢s interviews with Mr. Putin. So far I have watched 3 episodes and I found PutinÃ¢â¬â¢s answers intelligent. I am glad to hear from Putin himself rather than filtered through the MSM and I have had a great respect for Oliver Stone who made the same kind of courageous documentary about the demonized leaders in South America entitled Ã¢â¬ÅSouth of the BorderÃ¢â¬Â. Now there were a few things that I do disagree with Putin on such as the Gay Propaganda Law, though Perez Hilton did point out that I believe 11 US states have almost identical laws, and also the newer law to spy on the Russian people (though the west also has similar laws that I disagree with). The Russian hysteria in insanity in my mind especially when the Doomsday Clock is closer to midnight than it has been since, I believe, 1953.

Reply

jaycee

June 15, 2017 at 2:14 am

The coup in Ukraine was also the moment the Western media became fully uniform and propagandistic.

An Anglo alliance of the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada hastily recognized the Ukraine coup government as Ã¢â¬ÅlegitimateÃ¢â¬Â and so rejected the European mediation agreed the previous day. EuropeÃ¢â¬â¢s diplomacy thereafter would rely on NATO.

RussiaÃ¢â¬â¢s response to the ensuing instability was predictable as it had been articulated to their Ã¢â¬ÅpartnersÃ¢â¬Â previously. Yet NATO and the media reacted hysterically anyway, and to events which had been deliberately stoked. The continuing outrage directed at Russia is obviously based in bad faith, but has authority as the agreed script, certainly in the Anglo countries.

Joe L.

June 15, 2017 at 10:41 am

jayceeÃ¢â¬Â¦ I actually think it started near the beginning of the Sochi Olympics. I was watching CBC News and instead of it beings about the world coming together in friendly competition it became about Pussy Riot, dogÃ¢â¬â¢s in the streets and everything negative they could dig up on Russia. Even our leaders were absent (maybe some were too busy planning the coup in Ukraine).

(Standard Operating Procedure of US towards India, and any other countries that US/West has a foreign policy agenda against.)

Bill Goldman

June 15, 2017 at 11:49 am

As I commented to James CardenÃ¢â¬â¢s article on the same subject, the Ukraine coup executed by the Bandera brotherhood was sponsored by the US CIA. Bandera was the Hitler loving Ukrainian who was responsible for much of the holocaust Jew slaughter in that nation during WW 2. As Nuland and McCain ranted against the legally elected government, they were also aiding in the arming and financing of the coup plotters. As proof of their collusion, how many are aware of the removal of 40 plus metric tones of physical gold from Kiev to the US Treasury vaults as the coup was succeeding.

...

There were other interesting comments at the link too.