Ukraine III: appropriate handling required

[Horza]

So was that ultimatum fake then?

The first two haven't been observed, no.

Russian TV have arrived at the Belbek standoff, so I'd guess there won't be any shooting.

Putin going on TV any time now, no word what the speech will be about.

[3CityApache]

I'm not sure what's so sinister about Sikorski's warning either. He says:

That was on the morning of Feb 21, after the bloody clashes of Feb 19 and 20 where Ukrainian Interior Ministry troops had used live ammunition the possibility of a full scale assault on Independence Square was very real. The clear preference of western diplomats at that point was for the accord to be signed by the three opposition leaders and Yanukovych, paving the way for de-escalation and elections.

EDIT: Things ended up very differently starting the next morning because Yanukovych's power was crumbling and the protest movement wasn't going to accept the deal, but there is very little to suggest those developments were what the US or the EU wanted.

I second that. Sikorski had no idea things would end up completely different than the agreement stipulated. And all I see here is a genuine concern about the safety of those people.

I find it kinda funny that all Serbians here, traditionally perceived as most pro-Russian nation in Europe, just confirm that stereotype, by justifying actions that simply can not be justified, regardless of our attitude to certain nations or countries.

I was yesterday horrified by the way Russian media "informs" about situation in Crimea and Ukraine in general. Mostly folk songs and people greeting Russian soldiers with flowers. Soviet propaganda all over again (and I do remember how it looked).

[The Marquis de Leech]

International law. A meaningless set of rules that have no enforcement value as long as one Security Council member disagrees with it.

Other than the small fact that national courts (never mind international ones) have no problem enforcing that "set of meaningless rules". Just ask Pinochet, who only escaped being packed off to Spain because he was ill (or threw a sicky, depending on your point of view).

[Shryke]

i'm a bit late to reply to this because i had some forum issues yesterday, but better late than never.

actually, that is not correct.

russia did in fact invade other country under a thinly veiled pretext, pretty much the same as usa did with iraq and nato did with afghanistan and serbia/kosovo.

neither of those was done for some noble reasons that were publicly announced, but rather to advance national and/or corporate interests.

the whole point was not to excuse russia's actions but to point out the inconsistency of condemning russian actions and condoning similar actions from usa and/or nato.

Except the Afghanistan invasion and the Bosnian intervention were not thinly veiled pretexts. And no one actually condones the Iraq invasion (while, only a few idiots at this point).

So your attempt to create an equivalence here doesn't work.

[Dicer]

Here's the Nuland tape, she and Pyatt say the exact opposite, among their quotes being: "the problem is going to be Tiyanbhuk and his guys", "we need to keep the moderate democrats together" and Nuland expressly pushes for Yatseniuk as the candidate. They don't think Klitshko has the experience but want to keep him working with the other leaders - they also mention reaching out to Yanukovych, which is kind of hard to fit into that picture of US pushing for an overthrow.

Well, you neglected to mention the following, also from the leaked tape:

Nuland: I think Yats is the guy who has got the economic experience, the governing experience. What he needs is Klitsch and Tyagnibok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week you know.

Notice how they don't say that Tyagnibok should not be involved in the government at all because he is a right wing, anti-semitic fascist who wants Ukraine to be a nuclear power. Instead Yats should be talking to him four times a week.

This is also the same Tyagnibok who McCain interacted with when he visited Ukraine to interfere in their affairs as usual.

Tyagnibok, the far right leader of the Svoboda party, is famous for making it on the Simon Wiesenthal annual top 10 list of anti-semitic slurs in 2012:

In recent elections the radical right party won 41 seats in the Ukrainian Parliament (12% of the popular vote). Tyagnibok has called for purges of the approximately 400,000 Jews and other minorities living in Ukraine and has demanded that Ukraine be liberated from what he calls, the “Muscovite Jewish Mafia"

As for reaching out to Yanokovich, here's that bit:

Pyatt: The other is some kind of outreach to Yanukovich but we will probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place

A rather opportunistic view of dealing with Yanukovich and they would probably have talked to him if that deal which was signed on Feb 21st was upheld.

Aside from the very clear fact that these two diplomats were discussing 'midwifing' a sovereign nation's government (Proving Russian accusations of the west meddling to be true), 'the moderate democrats' themselves don't have a lot of control or say in things. In that one interview, Yatesenyuk confesses that opposition parties have no control over the mob and that the riot police themselves were no longer taking orders from the government. He seems to be pro-west and pro-IMF and would be a good lapdog which seems to be why the US loves him (as opposed to Klitshko who would be pro German), but how much power does he actually have right now?

[Horza]

I find it kinda funny that all Serbians here, traditionally perceived as most pro-Russian nation in Europe, just confirm that stereotype, by justifying actions that simply can not be justified, regardless of our attitude to certain nations or countries.

I think this is unfair to baxus, who hasn't said anything in favour of Putin or the invasion, just expressed anti-Nato sentiments that aren't all that surprising considering.

[Free Northman Reborn]

So it's all over then? Putin has withdrawn from Ukraine - Crimea excluded?

[broken one]

I think this is unfair to baxus, who hasn't said anything in favour of Putin or the invasion, just expressed anti-Nato sentiments that aren't all that surprising considering.

I second that.

[KAH]

Miodrag;

While the language laws targetting Russian can be described as an "anti-Russian" move, and given the situation I think it was a really stupid move, I do believe it's something of a reach to make out this as a sign of imminent state-sanctioned violence to be rained down on Russians in Ukraine.

In fact, if the new rulers of Kiev had rained down violence on Russian civilians in Ukraine, or, for that matter, failed to protect the Russian civilians from violence done by other armed civilians, I think you would find that most of the board would consider the present Kiev government's legitimacy to be on par with that of Yanukovich, i.e. to have no legitimacy at all. AFAICT, that has not happened, so Putin's pretext is simply not there.

[The Iceman of the North]

What, you don't know that the new regime in Kiev, on their first day in power, brought laws against Russian language? Like, the status of Russian language was downgraded at the very beginning of the new regime? They didn't have more important business to attend to but to downgrade a language?! Did it actually make the news in the West? I'm curious, is all, because I'm surprised you're asking me about it, as if you don't know about the law.

Disregarding that the new law proposal was never signed by the president, and thus never active, I believe most here would agree that this was a bad law. I'm just curious how you infer a physical threath to Russians based on this law? Or are you of the opinion that the proper first response to such a law is armed force rather than other political means?

[broken one]

It just reminds me of something. Russia never invades, it always comes to protect.

In 1771 Russian army came to protect orthodox population of PLC.

On September 17th 1939 red army came to protect brothers in Polish parts of Ukraine and Belarus.

Now they come to protect Russian speaking population of Ukraine.

Really touching. :D

[baxus]

Except the Afghanistan invasion and the Bosnian intervention were not thinly veiled pretexts. And no one actually condones the Iraq invasion (while, only a few idiots at this point).

So your attempt to create an equivalence here doesn't work.

bosnia involvement was definitely called for, with all the crap that went on there and i wish it gave better results.

on the other hand, afghanistan was bombed the shit out of because someone said "oh, they did it" and the evidence to support those claims hardly went beyond "oh, those plane hijackers were muslim".

if you think that's a good enough reason that's ok, just don't expect me to agree.

[Werthead]

If you are Russia, how can you feel happy about virulent anti-Russians gaining control of a neighboring country by coup. And if you feel it's your obligation to protect ethnic Russians in foreign countries, how comfortable are you with that regime ruling over all of the Ukraine. Russia seems totally evil, until you remember that the current Ukrainian government includes fascists.

It doesn't appear that the Ukrainian government is 'virulently anti-Russian', at least not in the majority. Also, whilst there was an uprising, there's also been a commitment to elections before this month is out.

As for protecting Russians in foreign countries, I disagree it is the mother nation's responsibility to do this. If you choose to live in another country where you are in a minority, you choose to do that and that is your own responsibility. If you want the mother country to protect you, go and live in the mother country. Especially in today's globalised world, one nation taking military action whenever its citizens were 'in danger' wherever they were in the world, would be completely unworkable.

I really hope Russia doesn't invade Eastern Ukraine. Poland has a rather large army, and I think they might intervene in that case. And they are in NATO...

Poland would never do that by itself and, as mentioned above, NATO's supporting pacts are only triggered in self-defence, not if a NATO member undertakes a war of aggression on its own responsibility.

Hypothetically, if Russia were to attack the Baltic States does NATO have the deployable conventional military capacity to stop them from being overrun?

Through air power, yes. Ground forces is another matter. Poland and Germany have fairly large military forces and there are still substantial British forces in Germany as well, but Europe as a whole is not in a state of constant military readiness as Russia is. However, the quality of the Russian forces (who are not well-paid or as well-trained, and are essentially conscripts) is highly doubtful. Historically Russia has not done well in foreign adventures.

Russia already has a port on the Baltic sea.

Sochi can only handle ferries and passenger ships. Novorossiysk has been undergoing an upgrade programme to handle large warships because of the Russian expectation that they'd have to hand Sevastopol back in 2017, but after the lease was renewed that's no longer necessary. As far as I can tell, Novorossiysk's upgrades are not yet done, but they're not far off. Sevastopol's more central location on the Black Sea still makes it Russia's preferred choice, however.

In a crazy, unlikely and stupid scenario of Russia launching an attack on the Baltic states, they would take it whole before NATO deploys there.

Not necessarily. They would face a blizzard of air strikes which would slow them down. They'd probably still take them, but they'd pay a heavy cost and would then face a retaliatory invasion by NATO members to drive them out.

Not familiar w/ the Constitution but yes. And sure it started before the formal vote, no? With no coup, you don't have a Russian invasion. I'm not too well read on this, but I was responding to the question as to what was the signal to Russia that ethnic Russians were potentially in danger. Where am I off?

Many of the Russians and Russian-speakers (note: not necessarily the same thing) hated Yanukovych as well and were happy to see him go. They weren't crazy about the make-up of the opposition, but for the most part they were also disgusted by the amount of their money Yanukovych had stolen and spent on luxuries. The authorities in Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine, also gave up the former PM they had imprisoned and halted Yanukovych before he could flee the country (at least briefly), so initially it looked like they were (reluctantly) cooperating with the Kiev authorities ahead of the new elections. Then Russia stepped into Crimea and the situation escalated.

Would it be better off if, instead of legitimate concerns for Russian population and Russian interests, Kremlin stated that they possess undeniable evidence of WMD in Ukraine?

1. Two wrongs do not make a right.

2. Russia helped Ukraine get rid of its nuclear weapons back in the 1990s, so that would be a difficult claim to make.

Like, Soviet Union lost around 24 million lives in the war, and the majority of those were Russians, naturally

About 9 million Ukrainians died in WW2. Combined with the deaths in the Baltic States, Belarus and forces from the Soviet Far East (and what is now Kazakhstan and Central Asia), it actually looks like ethnic Russian causalties account for just over 50% of the casualties. Which is still a lot and the majority, but not overwhelmingly so.

More to the point, Ukraine was 100% occupied during the war (modern Russian territory much less so) and suffered appalling massacres, pogroms and battles. During several battles around Kiev, the Soviets lost more troops killed than the combined civilian and military casualties of the United States and UK in the entire war. Of all of the territories of the former Soviet Union, it was Belarus and Ukraine that took the brunt of the German invasion.

So was that ultimatum fake then?

It doesn't appear so. It was relayed to local forces in Crimea and sent to Kiev as well. However, it appears this was done without the authorisation of Moscow. Probably someone (the head of the Black Sea Fleet or the new Crimean Prime Minister?) overreaching their authority. Russia is denying it was sent at all, of course, presumably to preserve the illusion of a unifed front.

Just ask Pinochet, who only escaped being packed off to Spain because he was ill (or threw a sicky, depending on your point of view).

Or we could just ask Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic right now.

on the other hand, afghanistan was bombed the shit out of because someone said "oh, they did it" and the evidence to support those claims hardly went beyond "oh, those plane hijackers were muslim".

We knew the identities of the hijackers, knew they were al-Qaeda members and could trace them back to the training camps in Afghanistan. Plus Osama bin Laden was caught on video saying, "We did it," though not until later.

It's also worth noting that the analysis of both Russia and Iran, neither of whom exactly had reasons to be American apologists, was also that al-Qaeda was responsible, and both supported the US intervention, Russia materially so (they gave tanks, guns and ammunition to the Northern Alliance, and granted the US permission to use airbases in Central Asia).

If your analysis was correct, the USA and its allies would have attacked Saudi Arabia instead, as that's where almost all of the hijackers were actually from.

[Miodrag]

Here's the Nuland tape, she and Pyatt say the exact opposite... <snip>

While the language laws targetting Russian can be described as an "anti-Russian" move, and given the situation I think it was a really stupid move, I do believe it's something of a reach to make out this as a sign of imminent state-sanctioned violence to be rained down on Russians in Ukraine.

Disregarding that the new law proposal was never signed by the president, and thus never active, I believe most here would agree that this was a bad law. I'm just curious how you infer a physical threath to Russians based on this law? Or are you of the opinion that the proper first response to such a law is armed force rather than other political means?

I find it strange that so many people here and in the West in general, keep downplaying the possible threat those armed and hostile and revolutionary and uncontrollable forces in Kiev actually represent, but at the same time keep panicking almost over Russia's forces that, so far, didn't fire a single bullet. Trigger-happy anti-Russian Nazi-loving murderers from Kiev: not a big deal, nothing to sweat about, they're all gonna go away inevitably, it's not like they killed any Russian civilians as of yet; Russian forces in Crimea: now that's a crime, that's illegitimate, Kremlin is ruining everything now, Putin is the new Hitler...

I mean, what is Russia to do? To wait until some Russians in the area are actually killed, before responding? To give even more time to Western diplomats for completing the coup they orchestrated from the very beginning? To face "anti-missile defense" on it's Ukrainian borders in a year or two?

Is that what any other country would do?! Is that what Western countries would do if say Russia was orchestrating something similar on their doorsteps?! I don't think so.

And all this time, nobody seems bothered by the obvious involvement of Western diplomats in the crisis from day one. Just observe that even in a telephone, unofficial conversation, neither Nuland nor Pyat are showing any intention to essentially distance from Tyagnibok and his fascists. They don't see him as an ideal candidate for future prime minister, God forbid, so he needs to stay "on the outside", but for shooting at legal police forces? Yeah, he's more than OK for that, I guess. Now please tell me how is that not a scandal. How is Nuland's tape not enough to see who's actually violating 'international law' (in terms of diplomacy, it is more strict than in terms of military operations) and who's invoking violence? Two US officials are discussing how future government of another country should look like. Not what they'd like or not, but how it should look like, e.g. who are they going to allow in and in what capacity! It doesn't get more obvious than that. And remember US senators and EU officials openly supporting Tyagnibok and his palls in numerous occasions over the past three months. And it's all happening in 'Russia's backyard', on the Russia's borders, and in the country in which there's a strong Russian minority. And your conclusion is that Russia is out of line?!

Saying that Nuland didn't really embrace Tyagnibok is like saying that Tywin actually was troubled by what Gregor did to Rhaegar's kids, because, after all, he didn't insist on making Gregor the next Hand.

If you want to put all this Ukraine mess in the right perspective, please imagine the following situation: USA and Canada become one country, divided only administratively along the previous borders. Then, some 40 years later, the authorities decide to take the state of Massachusetts from USA region and make it part of Canada region. Then, some decades later, USA/Canada superstate dissolves, only not along the previous border lines, but along the new borders, according to which Massachusetts now belong to Canada. Two more decades pass, and suddenly there's a violent revolution in Canada, in which Russia, from the opposite side of the world, is financing and helping and backing the paramilitary forces that are openly hostile against both the official government and USA. Also, Russian officials are caught orchestrating the coup in Canada. Then, as soon as the bloody revolution is over, the new regime in Canada starts declaring laws against American culture (language). And then Massachusetts decide it had enough and states they want out of Canada, and back to their American roots, because they don't feel safe in Canada any more.

What I described here is a rather high fantasy, I know. Hard to imagine anything like that happening in the North America. But, that looks very much like what is happening to the Russia/Ukraine/Crimea in the last hundred years or thereabouts. So please, try ti picture that situation in your head, however hard it may be. Now, what do you think USA should do in that situation? What any reasonable country would do? Would the White House look like the Third Reich reborn if it took some action to protect it's people in Massachusetts, without waiting for a further escalation?

[Werthead]

I find it strange that so many people here and in the West in general, keep downplaying the possible threat those armed and hostile and revolutionary and uncontrollable forces in Kiev actually represent,

There is certainly a potential threat there, but it has not been realised. The official policy of the Ukrainian interim government (note that the government they have now is temporary, not what the government is going to be going forwards for all time) is to hold elections in late March, elections that might very well end up going against them (they did last time). If the new government had seized power, made appointments by fiat, refused to hold elections and actually started oppressing Russians, the West would be condemning them louder than anyone.

but at the same time keep panicking almost over Russia's forces that, so far, didn't fire a single bullet.

Nevertheless, Russia has illegally occupied the sovereign territory of another nation and made threats to kill Ukrainian soldiers (before swiftly pretending they didn't). That is a breach of international law and of Russia's own agreements with Ukraine.

Trigger-happy anti-Russian Nazi-loving murderers from Kiev: not a big deal, nothing to sweat about, they're all gonna go away inevitably,

That's a gross and rather hyperbolic portrayal of the majority of the protestors. There are right-wing neo-Nazis among the opposition, and it's actually something that has come up a few times in the coverage here of the opposition with concern. However, the opposition only seized weapons and started using them after then-government forces started killing protestors, an inconvenient fact that you seem intent on ignoring.

Russian forces in Crimea: now that's a crime, that's illegitimate, Kremlin is ruining everything now, Putin is the new Hitler...

Yes. Although I don't think anyone things Putin is the new Hitler, more that he fancies himself the new Stalin. That was comically furthered on Newsnight last night when a Russian government official went off on a huge tangent about how criminal and evil Khruschev was for giving Crimea to Ukraine in the first place.

I mean, what is Russia to do? To wait until some Russians in the area are actually killed, before responding? To give even more time to Western diplomats for completing the coup they orchestrated from the very beginning?

To keep its nose out of the internal affairs of a sovereign, independent country until there is actually evidence that the Ukrainians are doing something dangerous to Russia or its citizens?

The key problem of the whole affair is that Russia is treating Ukraine like it's still part of the Soviet Union. It is not. It is an independent nation that can decide its own fate independent of Russia or anyone else. And based on past form, it's doubtful that Ukraine would either move too far away from Russia anyway, and even more doubtful that the 'anti-Russian' (whatever that means) factions would remain in power for very long anyway before imploding. The opposition alliance is rather shakier than it's being presented as and could fall apart like it did after last time without Russia doing anything at all.

To face "anti-missile defense" on it's Ukrainian borders in a year or two?

As far as I know, the anti-missile defence shield isn't even off the drawing board, it's certainly not deployable any time this decade. Obama needs to kill this fantasy anyway, it's stupid to keep trotting it out every 5 minutes as a potential threat because no-one's buying it apart from when they can use it as an excuse about American aggression.

[Free Northman Reborn]

Russia can sit back and watch as its power and influence is gradually eroded by the West as the years roll by, or they can take active steps to try and counteract the West's insidious diplomatic "Anaconda" strategy.

Putin obviously won't just sit back and watch Russia fade into obscurity.

[Horza]

Well, you neglected to mention the following, also from the leaked tape:

Nuland: I think Yats is the guy who has got the economic experience, the governing experience. What he needs is Klitsch and Tyagnibok on the outside. He needs to be talking to them four times a week you know.

Notice how they don't say that Tyagnibok should not be involved in the government at all because he is a right wing, anti-semitic fascist who wants Ukraine to be a nuclear power. Instead Yats should be talking to him four times a week.

Yeah, I wasn't claiming that they weren't working with him, just that it's clear from that tape that he wasn't their preferred candidate and they wanted Yatseniuk and Klitchsko to come out on top.

This is also the same Tyagnibok who McCain interacted with when he visited Ukraine to interfere in their affairs as usual.

John McCain is a thundering irrelevance.

As for reaching out to Yanokovich, here's that bit:

Pyatt: The other is some kind of outreach to Yanukovich but we will probably regroup on that tomorrow as we see how things start to fall into place

A rather opportunistic view of dealing with Yanukovich and they would probably have talked to him if that deal which was signed on Feb 21st was upheld.

No, really? Opportunistic attitudes to Yanukovych in a fast-moving crisis? I am shocked.

Aside from the very clear fact that these two diplomats were discussing 'midwifing' a sovereign nation's government (Proving Russian accusations of the west meddling to be true), 'the moderate democrats' themselves don't have a lot of control or say in things. In that one interview, Yatesenyuk confesses that opposition parties have no control over the mob and that the riot police themselves were no longer taking orders from the government. He seems to be pro-west and pro-IMF and would be a good lapdog which seems to be why the US loves him (as opposed to Klitshko who would be pro German), but how much power does he actually have right now?

Has anyone denied there was US involvement with the protest leaders? Of course not. All this breathless amazement is baffling to me. What do you think Russia, with it's vast array of security agencies and deep contacts with the Ukrainian elite was doing at the time - playing Minecraft? As you say here, neither the US or Klitschko, Yatseniuk and Tyanbokh were actually in control of the protestors in the Maidan. This was for the very basic reason that it was a popular protest movement full of people who had their own ideas about things.

Where things go from here is utterly uncertain, and Ukraine could end up as a shitty neo-fascist rump state, run by the Galician version of Jobbik (or LDPR). What won't change, regardless of outcome was the basic fact that this was a popular, broad uprising against a shitty, kleptocratic government that was desperately short of legitimacy and crumbled from within on the night of Feb 21/22.

I find it strange that so many people here and in the West in general, keep downplaying the possible threat those armed and hostile and revolutionary and uncontrollable forces in Kiev actually represent, but at the same time keep panicking almost over Russia's forces that, so far, didn't fire a single bullet... <snip>

Ah, because they haven't shot anyone yet we shouldn't be concerned about thousands of Russian soldiers landing on Ukrainian territory in well-executed manoeuvres (planned several days in advance) to defend against hypothetical neo-fascist hordes descending on Crimea?

I'd take that argument a lot more seriously if it was backed up by evidence that there was an imminent threat to Russian citizens and Russian-speaking Ukrainians - something the Kremlin's own human rights council doesn't believe.

EDIT: what I find amazing in these discussions is that there are people who can be deeply skeptical about the West but take Russian claims at face value. Why not be skeptical of both?

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Miodrag,

Now please, for the love of god, explain to me how does that situation parallels Stalin situation you keep bringing up.

I'm not equating the Maidan with Russia and the Allies during WWII. I'm analogizing the Allies willingness to ally with Stalin despite their significant ideological differences in order to accomplish the then most important goal of defeating Hitler. The willingness of the Maidan to ally with "Right Sector" no more indicates a willingness to adopt the Right Sectors politics than the Allies willingness to adopt Stalin's politics and methods.

War and Revolution sometimea make for strange bedfellows. That's my point.

[Melphis Amekia]

baxus, I would like to hear some arguments for your sides about the 1991-1995 war(in my opinion, it's Domovinski rat, but anyway), I never had the chance to actually speak to someone 'on the other side' as you could say, so I'd like to hear from you via PM since it's off-topic.

On the actual topic, I found it strange that some think Russia has strong historic ties with Crimea, while they actually conquered Crimea permanently from the Ottomans late 18th start 19th century and until Stalin came along and decided to 'russianize' Crimea by settling Russians there and forcibly 'relocating' the Tatars to I think land between the Volga river and the Urals, it wasn't ethnically Russian, and that happened about 20 years before the communists after Stalin gave Crimea to Ukraine.

Since I don't watch the news all that much, I didn't know much about the West's involvement in the situation in Ukraine. I guess the only actual thing I can say is that both the West and Russia are doing stuff the way those in power use to - disregarding everyone and everything in it's path, including the laws they should abide. I only hope that those March 30th election end up actually legitimate(or, well, at least somewhat).

[Miodrag]

Or we could just ask Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic right now.

I didn't want to open that can of worms, but this Issue keeps being brought up in this discussion, which I find somewhat offensive, because that actually concerns my nation. Like: yeah, the West was lying about Iraq, and previously in Vietnam, and they're caught lying over and over again, most recently in this Ukraine mess, and they have a history of orchestrating a violence across the globe - but hey, there's not a single reason to suspect their Balkans adventures in the 90s, right? Since I have relatives and friends, Serbs, that died or suffered otherwise both in Bosnia and Kosovo&Metohija (which is a full name of the region usually called Kosovo nowadays - it might interest some to find out what it stands for), and since my own country was bombed 15 years ago on a premise that was never proven other than in The Hague Tribunal which is a travesty of law and justice (not only that, for example, Richard Holbrooke openly wrote in one of his books that he was using The Hague Tribunal as an effective political leverage against Balkans leaders, which goes against any principle of a judicial system that doesn't serve political agendas, but also be reminded that no NATO soldier was ever persecuted by that tribunal, even though there were numerous crimes against humanity committed by NATO troops all over the Balkans - crimes like bombing TV stations and refugees - and even though the tribunal has the mandate to persecute crimes committed in the territory of former Yugoslavia, e.g. not restricted to the nations of former Yugoslavia), allow me to mention a book called "Unholy Terror" that deals with what actually happened in Bosnia during the 90s. It was written by John Schindler, a top NSA official for the Balkans during the 90s. Read it, and you'll find how strong was Western propaganda back then, and how different from the mainstream reports were actual developments on the ground.

Also, here's a link to the Norwegian film about Srebrenica and what happened there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUuhSGnLvv8

The narrator is speaking English, and non-English parts are subtitles, so it's easy to understand. Here, I'll just single out one fact that never found it's way into the mainstream media even in the region, let alone in the West: Hakija Meholjic, who was a high ranking Bosnian military official during the war and among the closest allies of Bosnia's then-president Alija Izetbegovic, states that back in the 1995, some time before Srebrenica happened, Izetbegovic himself told in one of the headquarter's meetings that Bill Clinton asked him, Izetbegovic, to orchestrate some massacre with at least 5.000 deaths, in order for NATO to have a reason to intervene in Bosnia.

I know it's not the topic here, but Mladic and Karadzic and Bosnia keep being referred to, so I think it's very appropriate to look at the things from the very neutral point of view: once again, it's the high NSA official sharing the information he gathered while covering Bosnia in the war, and a Norwegian film crew filming a Bosnian war-time commander. Not a bit of 'Serb propaganda' there (not to mention that our EU-worshiping authorities in Serbia secretly blocked the Norwegian film for more than two years, before finally showing it on national television after public demands increased).